Everybody Wants to Be Rich

Hello My Peoples and others,

With this year drawing to a close, Frugal Frank OTBS just wanted to drop a note. As my mother used to say, "Everybody wants to get rich, but we settle for a black man's heaven". We spend too much time projecting wealth rather than having it. During my years talking to people about investing money and planning for their financial future, I found that many people that I talked to wanted to project more wealth than they really had. I would visit people living in $500,000 homes and a driveway full of high end vehicles with no savings and very little retirement. Even though they were educationally at the top of their professions, they were financially ignorant. I would get the same spills, "I see myself doubling my salary in five-ten years and I am not in a position to do more investing yet." or "I already have this great annuity through my bank." Others would present me with some great investment they saw on television or heard at the barber shop like Silver Eagle coins, Bitcoin,  or Pyramid church schemes.

Now, I know that this blog is not palatable to all that read it. It's not meant to be. One of the reasons I got into investments was to help my people, but then I found out that a lot of them didn't have enough money to support me, so I had to turn to the man. Yes, the man. The truth is that the real "man" sees colors in green. If you are credentialed and smart they will write a check without blinking because if you have old or conservative money you know how to make more. They are not new to the game and so they know about investing and growing wealth. Now for some hard truth. Our people are behind the eight ball on financial awareness. We depend too much on banks and investment advisors to educate us.

If you have less than than a million, you are not generating enough income for your advisor, investor or counselor to make a living on. (Yes, they make money off of you) They will either try to put you in high commission products or sell you a plan or multiple products. With a little education you can invest and get pretty good returns yourself. And you should monitor your investments every 2-3 months.

Another hard truth is that if you haven't accumulated $100,000 in retirement by age 30, you should find you a job you love and keep working. Retirement with no money looks like a Walmart greeter.

So, with this knowledge do the following for Christmas:
1. Buy yourself some books on investments,if they suggest annuities skip them
2. Have a family meeting and review your finances
3. Figure out how to increase your retirement savings to 15%
4. Get yourself some insurance

Peace out,
Frugal Frank OTBS

Frugal Frank OTBS where have you been?

Hello my Peoples,

Frugal Frank on the black side back for 2017. What a year, Dow at 22000. So, for those of you who listened to my previous blogs and stayed in the market you should be closer to that million or two. I am in the liberal land of New England with high minimum wages and good health insurance plus excellent public schools. In this blog, I will share a few things I learned over the first half of this year.

First GEICO is now my favorite car insurance company. I dropped my independent agent with the M-F 8-5 hours and got 24hr quick response service. My last add on vehicle  was done at 3am in the morning and was approved in less than 1 hour with the policy emailed to me. No lie, I saved $2000 a year for 3 vehicles with a teenage driver.

2nd lesson learned for 2017;  I have gone back to car dealerships to service my vehicles. Because dealerships are really going after the auto maintenance and repair business, dealerships have lowered repair prices and increased quality and customer service. With the new technology in todays cars, old repair shops can't keep pace on diagnostics and tend to waste your dollars fishing for solutions. I have to give credit to my wife, after a few repairs from our previous mechanic where the Honda was returned with grease smudges and high cost, she checked Yelp for a dealer. After months of reviewing repairs and comparing bills for similar work, we switched all vehicles and are very pleased. The plus is that the dealers are linked into the same systems, so if you need a repair in another state your records are accessible.

3rd lesson; Hisense  makes a better and cheaper flat screen than Vizio. I paid $398 for my 50 inch and after 3 years it is still showing a great picture. So for those of you who are still waiting to buy that flat screen, go ahead and take that plunge.  If you are nervous about reliability, buy it at Costco(they add a 1 year additional warranty), buy it with a credit card(add another 1year additional warranty). (Amex and Visa for sure).

4th lesson; Cut your cable and stop watching all that news babble talk. You can get a balance from PBS Newshour and you can spend the rest of your time reading, biking or playing tennis and golf. Some summer reading books I suggest: The Black Count, The Capitol Men, Hidden Figures and the Miseducation of the Negro.

Well my time is up but I promise to stay connected this time.
Stay Frugal my friend

Frugal Frank OTBS