So this has been on my mind for awhile. Recently I was at at dinner with my girlfriend, her friend aka Mary, and Mary’s date aka John. The “others” in the title applies to John, haha.

The food was enjoyable, conversation was flowing, and we were having a decent time. The bill came and we split it evenly by 4 while I paid for my girlfriend and myself. No awkward moment on the spot, but there is a minor hiccup…

My girlfriend and I thought and discussed about it later. Neither of us is into drinking a lot of alcohol so we each had one drink for the night. Well, the minor hiccup is that Mary and John each had 3 or 4 drinks for the night.

Our biggest gripe is that neither of them think of to offer to pay a little bit more for the bill. How inconsiderate! At least make the simple gesture, right?

I don’t want anxiety for dinner bill…

I have no rules and I generally don’t fuzz about a few extra dollars. In this case, the difference is quite a bit more because of the disproportion between the pairs. I let it pass on the spot because I know this is an occasional outing. At the same time, my GF and I now know to be mindful about going out with Mary and a date, lol. Perhaps say something about it before the bill comes next time? Perhaps…

The good thing for me is that the close group of friends I keep are always great about when splitting the bill, none of us care about paying a bit extra while at the same time, we all offer to pay more when clearly we’ve consumed more. Love my friends :)

If I end up dining with a group of new people, I set no expectation and am ready to pay the extra if necessary.

Back to the story… The other point from our discussion is that, this John guy is obviously not that great of a date after all because it obviously didn’t cross his mind that their extra drinking had really tip the bill. This suggests a lack of attention and sensitivity.

I think it’s generally very hard to have rules set-in-stone to deal with these social situation. What do you think? How do you deal with splitting the bill in general?

Came across this survey on CreditDonkey.com – Scary: Americans Saving Less Than $100 a Month. It’s always interesting to see where ourselves stand compared to others.

Although the sample size is relatively small at just over 1100 respondents, the figures still tell of trends.

A good amount of people has a difficult time to save any each month. Although for the topic of saving, the trend is going in a good direction with more people being able to save more than $100.

While the life we live include many needs, it remains that with determination, discipline and clarity, there are actions we can take to trim expense by figuring out what’s really needed and save more. I understand it is just very difficult for people in certain situation…

Well, that makes it not surprising that it says 38% “do not have at least $100 cash on hand” in the 2nd part of CreditDonkey’s post. I cannot imagine how nerve wrecking it would be. My anxiety level would go through the roof.

Another thing shown is that it remains difficult for many to save a significant amount of money monthly as people who can or plan to save more than $500 for both years do not extend 20%.

In the end, it boils down to what we want in life. Given, you have sit down and really figure it out. I fall into the saving $1000+ category for the simple reason that I desire to reach financial independence sooner than “retirement age.” That is a purpose I’ve had. I want it bad enough.

Saving. It’s a choice. A decision that each of us has to arrives at on our own.

So, it is ok to spend more now and save less if you’re ok to continue [and be restricted] to keep a job or you really plan to succeed in a career.

But because of my said purpose, beyond the need for short-term financial security, beyond the always discussed need of emergency saving, I’m saving above and beyond with a sense of urgency — which makes me quite the minority I believe — though I really have no idea how much my peers save. I always wonder…

So perhaps you can help me out readers… How much do you save? And for what reason?

First of all, the title is NOT true. But if I am to become rich, I would undoubtedly be travelling the world, eating fine cuisines, drinking fine wine, accompanied by world-class beauties. Money, woman, food, and wine. Everything a man wants. By now, you are probably thinking what a superificial douchebag or this materialistic son of a #@$%!. I hope you didn’t take me seriously.

The truth remains, that I am not filthy rich like that… yet. Most unfortunately. So here I am trying rigorously to get there like many people, ever so diligently, with so much discipline, day after day. Though I can probably be a much cheaper person than I am now, so cheap that I can save such a high percentage NOW and by the power of compounding along with brilliant investment, become multi-billionaires with a “B” someday. Then I’ll finally be able to do what I want… perhaps some of the stuff I mentioned at the beginning :)

So I will spend all the coming years chasing and chasing after this destiny. Who knows how long it will take for me to save and invest? Probably will take awhile. But I will finally be able to do all the things I wanted!

Come to think of it more though… by that time, I’ll likely be in lesser health. And likely with less enthusiasm. I may even have saggy, flappy skin (amongst other saggy things). Yikes! Then I’d realize I’ve wasted all those years not living at all, being a cheapass, which defeats the purpose of all the effort on making money and saving so much. This makes me think of the ambitious fellas out there relentlessly accumulating money solely for that purpose, meanwhile forgetting family, friends, and ultimately themselves. Besides, there are also those who consistently work ungodly amount of hours each week for whatever reasons. I feel kinda bad for them. Those poor things.

In the end, we need to strike a balance. I like to keep a well rounded perspective.

I admit these balance-striking thoughts sometimes make me wonder why the heck do I work so hard and then I may feel like giving up. Those are brief moments. It is still more important for me to maintain a balance in life and stay sane in this crazy world (on the other hand, I could be the insane one here). I would say that my entire wealth accumulation process best serves to eliminate money as an issue to give me freedom to do other things.

As such, the following story is what strikes a chord in me to write the above.

An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long it took you to catch them?” The American asked.

“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked.

“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.

“But,” The American then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

“Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

Since Janary, the stock market has been on a non-stop bullish trend. While there are a lot of articles that argue stocks will reach new high this year (even though it already has) and much money’s flowing back into stocks from retail investors, there are enough nay sayers that speak of a coming market correction. This realy keeps us on our toes.

An Yahoo article tday that argues the coming of a correction predicated by a surge of inisider selling.

There have been more than nine insider sales for every one buy over the past week among NYSE stocks, according to Vickers. The last time executives sold their company’s stock this aggressively was in early 2012, just before the S&P 500 (^GSPC) went on to correct by 10 percent to its low for the year.

I know the sound investment strategy of buy-and-hold once you’ve picked your choice of investment but I wonder how everyone’s feeling? Do you think a market correction is coming? (Note a correctio is as least 5% and up to 20% price drop).

Will you sell portions to collect the gains now or just hold steady? What will you do?