BCAFA Blog

My son is one of the biggest fans of the UFC that I have ever met.  You see, even at a young age, he was obsessed about learning all types of martial arts, and I think that he has black belts in three different styles.

He dreams of becoming a mixed martial arts fighter some day, and we are helping him in whatever ways that we can so that he can realize his dream.  He takes martial arts lessons three times per week, practices on the weekends, and even has his own Tapout clothing, so that he can look just like the fighters on the television.

Though he is a few years from being able to fight in the UFC, he hopes to be able to compete as soon as he is old enough.  Sure, we had dreamed that he would become a lawyer, but if this is what he wants, we support him all the way.

It seems that when you’re in a relationship, a sort of tug-of-war occurs.  On one hand, you want to buy your significant other gifts to let them know how you feel about them.  On the other hand, you don’t want to drain all your financial resources because of the gifts and outings that you find yourself participating in.  I would argue that you almost need to find some sort of balance to make things work.

So what I have done over the past few years, is try to figure out the best way to give the most good quality gifts without looking cheap.  This hasn’t been very easy, but I think I might’ve finally found the solution.

I decided that this year I will be buying all the gifts for my wife from a wholesale lingerie distributor that has agreed to give me a discount provided I order enough product over the year.  Not only will the this allow me to give her more gifts, but I won’t spend quite as much money that could be used for other, more practical things.

Most of my investing experience revolves around investing in mutual funds and GICs.  I know some of you out there would not consider these as “investments”, but that is as far as I have gone so far.

But things are about to change.

For the past couple months, I’ve been part of a virtual commodities market that follows along with the real world markets.  I’ve been playing around in this virtual world to get as much practice as I can in terms of trading commodities.

With the success of my virtual portfolio has had, I finally decided that it is time to invest on my own money on the commodities markets in an attempt to duplicate how well I’ve done with virtual money.  I’m only going to start out with a small investment and see how much it can grow.  If things go as well as I think they will, I will be putting more my portfolio into the commodities markets in the near future.

Ever since we purchased vinyl replacement windows for our home, things have been much better.  You see, we used to have windows that were older than me that used to leak air.  Needless to say, both the cold, rain, and bugs made it into our home, and quite frankly, it was a disaster.

We were so busy that we didn’t have time to get replacement windows and install them ourselves, so we did nothing about it for a long time.  It wasn’t until there was a flyer in the mail from an Illinois window company, that we made the choice to finally get them done.

Really, we should have done it sooner, but now, we are enjoying the spring without many bugs in the house.  I can’t wait until winter to see how much we will save on our heating bill, but until then, I think that we will enjoy our new windows - especially the view, looking over the lake, through clean windows.

Ever tried to go through a doorway the same time as an Australian Kelpie? If so, beware.

A friend has one, a reddish-brown-coated beauty who has blossomed since moving to the country. When they first got her as a one-year-old, she had been so neglected, she didn’t even know her name. Now her vocabulary consists of her name and her “brother’s,” plus “sit, gently, out, come, stick, eat, water, walk, biscuit,  ride, puppies in, puppies out,” and several more.

Her instincts for herding, however, were not impaired by the earlier neglect. She “herded me” through a doorway, hitting my injured knee to move me out of her way.

When I flew to Anaheim for a seminar the next day, I had to do an Internet search for hip and knee pain in Orange County.. By the time I found someone nearby, my seminar was over. After many trips to the chiropractor and several hundred dollars later, I’ve learned my lesson. I let the Kelpie go through first.

Ever since we have had children, it seems that it requires a lot of effort for my wife and I to get out of the house.  We need to get a babysitter, and plan a short night out - but it is worth it.  Every parent needs a break, and so do we, so even though it is a lot of work, we make the effort to get out of the house whenever we can.

I have decided that tonight I would take my wife out for a night on the town.  I reserved a Philadelphia limo, as well as booked us a table at a classy restaurant.  She has been working very long hours at work, and I thought that the night out on the town would just make her day.

There are still a couple of hours before she gets home from work, and I hope that she will be as excited as I am to go out on a date - for us, it has been a long time.

After leaving my RV at my home only to have some damage, I decided that I shouldn’t leave it outside over the winter.  Not only is it at risk for getting vandalized, but I believe that the weather will cause my RV to rust before it should.

With that in mind, I decided that I would find some RV Storage Philadelphia close to my house, to keep it safe over the winter.  But, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t pay an arm and a leg over the season that I wasn’t going to be using it.

Thankfully, I was able to negotiate a deal at one of the local storage facilities in town, and I am happy to say that it made it through the winter in one piece.  Sure, there will be a little dust that I will have to wash off before we make the first trip of the year, but I will happily store it again next winter.

A number of years ago, I attended a seminar on real estate investing.  At the time, I had a little bit of money socked away, so I used it as my down payment on my first property.  Though the experience did have its’ ups and downs, I have continued to invest in real estate over the years to increase my passive income.

While some people would do their property investment on their own, I have a team of people that help me out.  This includes my realtor, lawyer, and accountant as well as my investing partner.

I rely on my team to help me get enough deals to look at as well as help make decisions when it comes to what properties I should invest in.  But in the end, it comes down to my decision as to which ones we purchase, and so far, I have made good choices.

In fact, today, we are going to look at a couple of properties that haven’t even been listed at, and we might pick one up.

I know it seems to be that we don’t really receive catalogues in the mail, but I was pleasantly surprised to get one in the mail today.  Sure, the catalogue was for work, specifically a catalogue of corporate gifts and other promotional items.

Our company has been looking for a long time to find some new ways to drum up business.  We are tired of traditional advertising avenues, and have been looking for a new frontier of sorts to help get our business rolling.

Some of the promotional products that we are considering purchasing include pens, flash drives, and some coffee mugs.  It will have to go before a committee before we decide which ones we will buy for our fall and summer promotions.

We will also have a system in place to measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaign so that we can adjust our marketing appropriately.

I must admit that I am a bit weird.  You see, unlike most people that wear suits to work, I like to take a little more leisure approach.  Perhaps it is due to my years working in a warehouse discount store where we were expected to wear more casual wear, or it could just be that I have my own business so I can decide what I can wear.  But, whatever the "real" reason is, I love to wear golf shirts.

In fact, my wife looked through my closet the other day, and she remarked that I didn’t even own one shirt that wasn’t a gold shirt.  If you ask me, why would I bother owning clothing that I just wouldn’t normally wear?  It would be a waste of space.

So, there you have it, I am a golf shirt kind of guy.  I know that my life wouldn’t be the same without them.