Money Attract Money.

Back in the 1980's growing up in Chicago I remember a late night radio show called the Big Bill Collins Show.

The show played Blues and had many late night commercials. While I doubt by the commercials that I was the target market for his advertisers I remember one ad in particular for "The Brother John Money Orb".

The tagline for the Brother John Money Orb was "Money attract money".

While I can find links to excerpts from the show and the history of Big Bill and the show I haven't been able to find anything about the Money Orb.

The premise was if you bought this plastic orb with a shredded large denomination of money you would have the start of a large amount of money that attracts more money. Real money supposedly.

The premise that money attracts money is actually pretty accurate. Just not fake money or an orb with shredded money. Only people with very little money believe that fake money will bring them wealth. If it worked that way every person with a Monopoly Game would be rich.

But, money in a 401k or in a Real Estate Investment among other things will actually "attract" more money.

People I know with large net worths or successful businesses are almost always being called with deals or offers to make them more money. If someone is asking you for 20, 30 or even 10,000 dollars, the odds are good that the only person whose going to make money is the person asking.

There is a reason that there are more folks in their 50's with money than people in their 20's. It takes most people a long time to accumulate assets. It takes being able to see that instead of spending $50 on beer a week that if you don't you will accumulate enough to put a down payment on a house. That if you put $20 a week into a 401k that it might be worth a couple hundred thousand dollars in 20 years.

Do you really need that new car, iPhone or 500 channels of satellite TV?

UBER Wants passengers as well.

If you are not familiar with UBER you should be. Uber matches drivers with passengers is almost every major metropolitan city in the U.S. and around the world.

If you have ever wanted a cab but been unable to get one because it's rush hour or you weren't near the city center now you can. No phone numbers to remember. You don't even need to know your address.

Uber uses your smartphone as a way to get a ride and at prices of up to 50% less than most taxi's.

To get you to try Uber they are offering up to $20 off on your first ride.

All it takes to try it is follow this link. https://www.lyft.com/drivers/BILL429421

That will take you to everything you need to learn about using Uber.

Don't need a ride now. That's OK  Just have the App ready to go on your phone for when you do.

No need to wait out in the rain. The App tells you how many minutes the car is from you and it also tells you when it arrives.

Don't know where your going. Don't worry. The driver inputs your destination and the app tells her how to get there.

Need a car that holds 7 people. No problem. The smallest car hold up to 4 passengers.

Don't risk that DUI. Just going down the street. UberX has such low minimum pricing you'd be crazy risking your license. Even a 20 mile ride can be as low as $20 in many cities.

Want to find out how much before you commit. The app does that too.

Uber wants You. Really Bad actually.

Uber is trying to crush the competition. So much so that if you have never applied to Uber before they are willing to pay you $100. They are also willing to pay me $100 for sending you their way.

The catch is that you use my referral code. That's right, if you apply on your own, no $100 bonus, for you or me. If you apply on your own they won't give you more because you saved them money. They figure that you didn't know about the bonus. I didn't. So I didn't get the $100 and neither did anybody else.

So here's the link you need for both of us to get that money.

https://partners.uber.com/drive/?invite_code+z4jri

They want drivers that have worked for the competition so bad that they are willing to pay $500

Drive for Uber and start making cash ASAP

$500 FOR REFERRING
A RIDESHARE DRIVER

SHARE THIS LINK WITH RIDESHARE DRIVERS

1

Find friends who were already driving for other ridesharing services before 1/8/15

2

Share your special referral link with as many people as you want

3

Get $500 after they take their first trip!

https://get.uber.com/cl/rideshare500?invite_code=z4jri

My New 2015 Mazda 6

I love my new Mazda6. This car rocks. I was all set to buy a Nissan Leaf when I drove it for a night and got range anxiety. I still want to own an electric car and think that once they either get the range up, the price down and or the charging infrastructure built out Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) will be the only cars built in the future.

Anyway, what is it I love about my Mazda6.

For the cars in its's class you get far more car for the buck. The competition according to the competition are the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Ford Focus and Nissan Altima among the Big 4.

Apparently even Car and Driver recognized the Mazda 6 as the best in class. Link to their review here.

When I walked into the Mazda Dealer, I was looking for a quote on my Mazda Miata to use as a bargaining chip with the Nissan Dealer. Since I doubted that they would give me the best quote knowing that I was going to use it elsewhere as leverage I asked to look at one of their cars. Well, actually I asked Gary Potter at More Mazda in Tempe, AZ, the salesman and dealer where I bought my Miata, 3 years before to look at the Mazda 3, a car about the same size as the Leaf.


He told me that with the current promotion that the Mazda 6 was the same price as a 3. He was right. Not the stripped 6 or 3 but I didn't want the stripped car.

He also told me that for the money the top of the line was over priced for what you got. He was right. For Fog Lights, Real Leather and Adaptive Cruise Control it would be over $3000 dollars more. I do wish I had the ADC but the fake leather this car is really nice. There are a few other things but not important at all.

Out the door without my trade the car was $25k.

This car get an average 30MPG. That's real world. The way I drive it. Even pure city driving I get 24 MPG. On the highway I've seen 40 plus MPG.

While the engine is small, only a 2.5L and slow if you compare it to an the BMW 3.5 Turbo engine, twice it as fast, it does a respectable 0-60 in 8.8 seconds. For half the price.

That's plenty of power for your average person and still fun to drive if your not Danicka Patrick.




If your looking for a Midsize Family Sedan then drive this car before you buy another brand. If you live near Phoenix, AZ see Garry Potter at More Mazda and tell him I told you how great it is. Gary beat the Truecar deal by a lot.

You won't regret your Mazda 6 Purchase like my best friend who leased a Honda Accord 3 weeks before I bought it. Actually he's glad he leased his Accord. If he had it to do over again he would have bought the Mazda. Mine has far more options for the same price and it's more fun to drive. In three years he will have another chance.

Just so you don't think I have something against Honda's. Gary lost a deal to Honda from me last summer. We tried the Honda CX-9 and bought the Honda Pilot instead. While the CX-9 is a great car as well, the Honda worked better for us. But I have to say the MPG on the Honda is terrible. The way we drive it the thing only gets about 18 MPG.

I like the Mazda 6 more than I like the BMW 325i. Really, you can buy two Mazda's for the price of one BMW and if you drive the BMW like most people use their cars you will like the Mazda better as well. If you can't pay cash for the BMW you can't really afford it. And just wait till it's out of warranty. BMW maintenance is outrageous.

New update on Feb 26-2015

Edmunds.com has just named the Mazda 6 Best Midsize Car with the lowest 5 year ownership cost.

New update on Mar 17-2015

I decided I really wanted Adaptive Cruise Control and Back Up Sensors.

The car has Blind Spot Sensors and these are great. Just the other day I was changing lanes to my right on a 3 lane roadway. I looked right and it was clear. I put on my right turn signal and started to change lanes when halfway over the warning sounded. I stopped my movement to the right and looked to see the person that was in the far right lane about to run into me. I immediately went back into my lane while she stopped her movement to the center and then retreated to her lane and then sped up and then changed lanes. Since I was already doing the speed limit she must have been in a big hurry.

From the looks of he car (The whole left side was dented and the side mirror was hanging down) I would guess that the last time this happened to her she wasn't as lucky or the other car didn't have the technology I had.

So, I made an appointment to have the A.D.C. and Back Up Sensors installed. It is in the shop having them installed now and Gary made sure I had a loaner car. A Mazda CX-5. It's taking 2 days since they had to paint the sensors to match my car.

While the back up camera is very good it's not enough. You can't always be looking at the screen while backing up. Every once in a while you have to look out in front of the car to make sure you don't hit something or someone when you swing the front around backing up.

At my sons school they want you to back into the parking spots. It's amazing how people just walk around a moving car thinking you will see them and stop.

One other great feature the car came with, cross traffic alert. I am always parking at strip malls where for some reason the people driving by never have the courtesy to let a person backing out of a space go first. They just zoom by like you can see them coming. The sensors have tipped me off to approaching idiots many times.

So why is the adaptive cruise so great? I find myself driving in traffic all the time where there is too much traffic to keep a set speed without correcting often. ADC corrects speed as needed to keep a set distance from the car ahead of you.

Cost to install the two items. $648  Not much more than my collision deductible.

Keep Moving Forward.

What do I mean by keep moving forward.

Every once in a while opportunity knocks but most of the time you have to go looking for it.

PawnStars wouldn't be Pawn Stars if Rick hadn't kept trying to convince someone it would be a hit for years. He would just be a bald guy buying and selling gold. And Chumlee? There's a guy who was in the right place at the right time. I'm sure you can think of a few people who's success depends on yours.

How many burrito shops are there in your town. How did Chipotle hit the jackpot? It wasn't by stopping at one store.

If your happy being where you are then more power to you. If your not then keep moving.

At my last job I was surrounded by lots of folks just like myself. All doing the same job but all looking to move up. One day I got a job offer at a better company. Many of the folks around me asked how I got so lucky. I asked them if they were trying to get hired by the company I got hired by. They weren't.

Talk to people. Meet more people. Do more things. Even things that are totally unrelated to what you think you want.

If all you do is watch TV or surf the internet the odds are pretty good your only opportunities are spending your money. When was the last time you saw a commercial that wasn't trying to sell you something. When was the last time you saw an internet add that wasn't trying to sell you something.

All those late night TV adds promising to make you rich. How many of you bought what they were selling and are now better off because of it. I took the bait more than once. So far not one of them has made me a dime.

I now understand that in order to get something you actually have to do some work or invest real money. Not a hundred bucks or two.

About 10 years ago I met a guy who was selling dog food at a home show. It turns out he wasn't really selling dog food but looking for someone to sell his food in my town. Out of the 100 plus people who showed interest I was the only one willing to invest the 10K and do the work to build the business. Today he has 40 plus people around the Country that sell his food directly to customers deliver to their homes and businesses and I have bought two properties because of it. One that houses the business and another that a customer sold to me and now rents. That and the business, while not making me rich has supported itself for many years.

And the two properties, they have appreciated more than many people make in a few years.

There is one other common denominator in this scenario. Saving money instead of spending it so when opportunity knocks you can take advantage.

If you spend all your hard earned cash on things you think you need (want) instead of on things that you really need you will never have the money to take advantage of the few opportunities that will come along in your life.

If you are 18 or if your kid is 18 and you buy them a new car they won't learn how to work for it. If they work and buy big wheels or monster shocks and a big stereo they might never have the opportunity to invest that money in a business instead of a job. I always tell my son that he needs to learn how to produce instead of learning what the TV tells him. Being a consumer and getting something on sale that you don't needs not a good idea.

The other day he asked me if he could save his money and buy Real Estate with it. He's only 11 and he only had $50 but he's starting to get the idea. Maybe it's because he has so many Lego's now that he doesn't even open the box if he gets them for a gift.

Anyway, here is a link to a guy who explains it far better than I do.

http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-royal-scam-revisited.html

Why would I work for $7 an hour. Or, why you should love or hate Uber.

Uber Partner Signup

Well, why would I work for $7 an hour? I could also ask, why should I make the owners of Uber so wealthy for so little in return?

If after you read this post you want to be an Uber driver go to my Facebook Page  or Click Here to go directly to Uber and sign Up.

When you join I will send you an invitation to drive for Uber.

After you get approved and start driving plus a couple other qualification that you should easily be able to make you get $100 and I get $100. If you join without the invitation they won't give you the extra $100 so you not only don't get the $100 but they save $200 and don't pass any of that on to you.

For those of you that don't know what Uber is. It is a car service that is way cheaper than cabs. Uber operates in most large U.S. Metro areas. For a clean car with a nice driver the cost per mile is on average almost 30-50% less than a cab.

Most of the drivers are not what you would consider a professional driver. Most do not do it full time or as their main source of income. Many are Teachers, Housewives and College Students. Professional Drivers and Cab Companies should be very worried. More on that in another post.

The bar to entry for an Uber Partner as they call them is pretty low. You need a 2005 or newer car that seats 5, meaning the driver, front seat passenger and 3 seat belts in the back. There are some

restrictions. If you are interested enough to find out what they are contact me first. Once you go to their website they will probably suck you in and both you and I will lose out on $100 if you sign up before you get my link.

Now am I really only making $6 an hour. Well yes and no. Unlike most Uber drivers I am including maintenance and depreciation.

Many of the driver I've talked to, since they are only working part time only look at how much they earn an hour. Uber guarantees that you will make $16-$26 an hour. Many driver are making far more than that once they learn how to maximize their time and paid miles.


But, and it's a big but. So far doing this for 3 days my average earnings are $7.62 per hour. Why?

Well, Uber gets 20% of your take. You pay for your own gas and maintenance. But what most people don't account for is that every mile you put on you car reduces the value of your car. I figure that cost is 25cents per mile. And that is every mile I drive whether I'm making money or not.


You drive to the store for milk. You can add 25 cents for every mile you drive there and back. Going out for dinner. The drive can cost as much as the tip depending on where you eat. While Uber is paying me 90 cents  or more per mile I am not getting paid for every mile I drive. So far I have only been paid for 44% of the miles I have driven. I'm sure given more experience I can raise that to at least 50% or more.

But just like when you drive to work, odds are really good your not getting paid for the drive time or the miles. The IRS won't even let you deduct that as an expense against your income.

Which by the way is a great segway into why I am driving for $7 per hour.

My car is now a business expense. I have turned it from a liability or cost into an asset or a way to generate income. Much of the cost of my car is now deductible. I'm not giving tax advice here. For that you need to see a tax professional.

So now that $25k car that I drive to my (day) job produces the money to pay for itself.  Yes I have to drive it but instead of costing about $500 a month it now makes that $500 and is now tax deductible.

My cell phone. Same thing. Now it's a deductible business expense. Many of those things you use every day now become deductible business expenses. That's why even you should consider working for $7 an hour.

Now you might earn $50 an hour and think your time is worth more than that. Well if you can work as many hours as you want for that then maybe you are right. Maybe not though.

As an example I get paid $227 per hour. That's right. It's not a typo and I didn't add an extra number on there. Just so you know I didn't enter that wrong once again it's $227 per hour.

There is only one problem with that number. I am limited in the number of hours I can earn that much money per hour. I do a job that limits me to the number of hours I can work each month. And since I work for a company very little of my income is tax deductible. Probably just like like you. Now days most employers limit your hours to part time. That way they don't have to pay benefits or provide insurance.  Yet they demand you be available when they want you. They might even tell you that we might need you Thursday but we are not sure yet. So how do you work another job that has the same demands.

Well, this is where Uber is great. Last Saturday I had the day off from my (day) job and my wife and son were out of town. I could have stayed home, watched some TV, surfed the internet and done nothing but waste time. Instead I opened the Uber App on my iPhone and started taking people for rides.

For the first 20 minutes I never even left my house. For the next 8 hours a took assorted people from place to place. You can turn the App on or off anytime at will. You are your own boss, you decide when you want to work or if you want to work.

I you are a teacher then just drive weekends or during the summer. If like me you are on call 4 days a week, either work on your days of or while you are on call. Just the other day I had to take my sister to the airport at 10AM. When I dropped her off I opened my Uber App and told them I was ready to work. For the next 5 hours I picked up $65 and quite when I had to pick up my son from school.

I also got a call from work that they needed me to come to work that night at 7PM. So now while I write this I am sitting in a hotel room getting paid close to 3k for 3 days of work. I could just be watching TV and surfing the internet but instead I am writing this. If just one person reads this and decides to be an Uber driver and allows me to invite them I will get $100. Or, maybe I just wrote it for myself.

But there is one thing I know for sure. If you want to get ahead in this world you have to keep moving. And the best way to keep moving is to do it with other people. My day job keeps people moving, my side job keeps people moving and if you join me we can move forward together.

Don't just lean forward as they say on MSNBC or yearn for the past as they do on FOX News.

Keep moving ahead.

No that you have read this post it's read this post it's time to sign up as an Uber Partner. Go to my Facebook Page  or Click Here to go directly to Uber and sign Up.

Carmax or Craigslist, where should I sell my car?

For those of you who are following my posts on car buying here is one on selling a car outright without purchasing another one from a car dealer.

If you don't like dealing with all the people who will call you and don't like negotiating or hassle Carmax, hands down.  They pay off your loan if you have one that is less than your car is worth and cut you a check for the difference. If you don't owe anything they just cut you a check for the price they offer. Easy peeza.

Now we have Craigslist. or Cars.com or any other website. Actually Cars.com is actually better for cars with less than 100k miles or less than 5 years old, but Craigslist gets more local views.

On both sites you will not only get seriously people but you will also get independent car wholesalers and even worse curbside car dealers who will want you to leave the title open so they can sell it to the next guy pretending to be something they are not.

When you sell a car to anybody get a copy of their drivers license and fill the title out with their name on it. Do not leave it blank. Once again in case you weren't listening, DO NOT LEAVE IT BLANK.

If the car you are selling is for less than $2000 get cash. If you are selling an expensive car go to their bank and have their bank cut you a check. It's even better if their bank is your bank. Do the deal at a bank. Normal people aren't afraid of banks.

The person buying the car should have a drivers license that matches an insurance card that matches another piece of ID.

My Astro Van was a cash Craigslist Deal. The guy wanted me to leave the title open. I told him no way. He said he wanted to put it in his mothers name. He did not want it in his name. In the end we put it in his fathers name who came with him. I gave him a bill of sale. You can get one off the internet. Make sure it says AS IS, No Warranty Express or Implied. I told him the defects known to me. I also put them in my add along with AS IS. He got the car and the title and I got cash. $1200 more than Carmax.

In the past I also sold a $5000 car to a private party. It was to a mother and daughter. I had clear title which is always best. That way you can just go to their bank and the teller hands you money and you give them the title and get it notorized on the spot.

The laws in your state maybe different from mine. The laws in my state might be different from what I have posted here as well. I am not giving legal advice. Before you do anything get legal advice. My advice is really just my opinion. I have found that honesty is really the best policy.

Buying or selling a used car is always a gamble. Know that going in. Minimize your risks. Buying or Selling.

Most of the time buying or selling a used car is best done between private parties. Just do your research and take your time. Maybe watch an episode or two of Judge Judy.