"Float" through your financial life. It's a game and an art. Enjoy.

I am not a financial consultant.  I am not even a real samurai.  So any advice you get here is solely my personal experience and not necessarily a guide to general action.

The true warrior learns to fight so she does not have to fight.   The financial warrior learns about money so they become less wrapped up in how money controls their lives.

Credit cards are a convenience but if not mastered they will master you.  (Master You Card.)  After years of credit card debt, I have gone for years paying the balance in full.  I have come to see paying credit card interest as voluntary servitude, so I don’t do it.

Now that I have incorporated the habit of paying the balance in full every month, I’ve played with it a little bit by incorporating “the float.”   For me, the float is the time between when you make a charge and when the credit card bill is due.

Here is how it works:

1. When I make a credit card purchase, by the end of the day, I put the exact amount of money into my “Bills” savings account at ingdirect.com.   (There may be plenty of other great internet banking options but I’ve kind of grown financially with ING, especially by creating different savings accounts and creating nicknames for each account.)  If I don’t have the money, I don’t charge.    This way, when the bill comes, the money is in my “Bills”  account already.  It also earns interest.
2. When the bill comes, I check the due date and schedule a payment two days before the due date.  (I pay my credit card bills online, even though I’m starting to feel sorry for the post office.)
3. The money is already in my special savings account, so I schedule a transfer from my “Bills” account to the checking account the bill will be paid from two days before the scheduled pay date.   This prolongs the amount of time that your money will be earning interest.

Really, the most important step is #1.  Always have the money in an account to pay your credit card bills.   Let’s say the credit card company charges 20% interest.  If you always leave $1000 unpaid throughout the year, even though you make payments, you will be paying an extra $200 or more and get nothing in return.

Steps #2 and #3 are more like financial Farmville, except that they train your brain to think like a financially independent person.   By keeping my money in a “Bills” account I earned a whopping $6.17 in 2011.  I waste that much on coffee in a 48 hour period. (I will focus on this in a future article.)   But these steps, if you decide to take them on, are just one way to tell your samurai mind that, “My money works for me.”   (You may spend $10 on a book, but the lessons in that book may have the power to change your life.)

Learn more about money so that you do money and money doesn’t “do” you.   Have fun!

How to Use an iPhone to Leverage Your Brain and Uplift Humanity

When I finally gave up my Palm Pilot phone after five or six years of use, a colleague asked, “Are you going to donate that to the Smithsonian Museum?”   It was a  matter of pride for me.   I had held on to what used to be considered a cutting edge smartphone, proud of myself for not adding to the landfill of abandoned electronics.    Most programs had stopped working on the phone and at one point the phone mysteriously erased all data.   A good tax refund sealed the deal and I became yet another iPhone owner.

Though I was annoyed by how small the phone was and was frustrated by its navigation system (where are all the buttons?), I have settled into having an iPhone.   Having an iPhone (I guess one of ’em Robots, er androids might be good, too) has allowed me to fill in little cracks of time with studying opportunities. Continue reading »

２０歳であれ、８０歳であれ、誰でも學ぶことをやめてしまえば老人になる。學ぶことをやめなければいつでも若さを保てる。人生で最も重要なことは心を若く保つことだ。
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest (lit: most important) thing in life is to keep your mind young.

This quotation keeps popping up on my SRS (Spaced Repetition System) and it feels so true.   Five or so years ago my life and my brain seemed to be in stasis.   Then I made a decision to learn Japanese and stumbled upon approaches to learning that reignited my sense of the possible in so many areas beside Japanese. Continue reading »

Occupy Life

According to some sources, using the term “Occupy” has become a tired cliche.  Tired? Cliche?  I’m all over that like white on rice.   :).   Samuraimindonline.com is all about “Learning Tools for Health, Wealth, and the Earth.”  Occupy Samurai encourages you to do the following:

• occupy your bank account and financial life and become solvent and prosperous
• occupy your health
• occupy your mind and learn as much as you can about what moves you
• occupy your creativity and create something new that pleases you
• occupy your ability to read between the lines and think about what’s going on in the world without losing hope
• occupy your relationships and break isolation whenever you can
• occupy your ability to organize in whatever small way

I read the news today.  Oh boy.  Actually, it was an editorial by Paul Krugman.  It’s about the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative think tank organization that writes legislation for many controversial laws including laws similar to the Stand Your Ground Law, which allows people to shoot someone that they consider threatening. (Say, what!?)  According to Krugman, here’s some of the fun stuff this well-funded, and highly connected organization is behind:

Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization — that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization.

For some reason, this editorial caught me and I suddenly felt powerless, defeated, the wind beaten out of my sails.   I think we live at a time (actually we’ve always lived at a time) when powerful forces are trying to reinvent new forms of feudalism, trying to people into mere sources of profit and production.  Serfs up, dude! Continue reading »

All wisdom can be found by repeatedly watching Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.   One thing I really admire about Cruise’s Captain Nathan Algren is his ability to play with the children of the samurai, ask questions, and learn the language.  Apparently, during the Indian wars, he had mastered some of the Native American languages.   (It really saved the movie from too many subtitles.  I want to watch a movie not read subtitles.  If I wanted to read I would buy a copy of the Enquirer. 🙂

Limit Over!--Inspirational Sign from Japanese Classroom

What Algren may not have known, is that his ability to speak more than one language may have long-term cognitive benefits.   According to a recent New York Times Article on the Benefits of Bilingualism, “Why Bilinguals Are Smarter”, there are several advantages to cross-training your brain with a foreign language:

Breakthrough--Most Japanese Schools Have Inspirational Slogans--This one is in English

• improved cognitive skills
• potential protection from dementia
• better functioning of the brain’s “executive function” or command systems
• heightened ability to monitor the environment
• the ability to make a samurai wife forgive you for killing her husband Continue reading »

Getting tired of the whole samurai riff?  Well let’s change cliches.  You can call me Notebook Kid, the rootenest, tootenest, notebook slinging samurai thar is.   I always walk around with two notebooks:   one cocked and ready for a new thoughts and the other in my holster (um, manbag) ready for review.   (I could also use a samurai metaphor.   You know samurai traveled around with two swords, a long one and a short one for close combat and hari-kiri.  But I still have a day job.  I can’t quite stretch that metaphor right now.)

Okay, well, the long and short of it  (Oh yes, I managed to mangle the samurai metaphor!  Samurai–I just can’t quit you!) is that you need to keep stretching but also reminding yourself of where you’ve been.

I got two katanas and an old notebook!

Some guidelines for a Samurai Notebook:

• try to keep entries positive or neutral ….you can have a different notebook for complaining etc
• review regularly and have fun with it–if it feels like a chore either change your mind state or do something else. Review is good, but when you tire of it move on to something fun.  You can review it and you can change your thoughts about review.  Maybe what’s in it isn’t so interesting.  So what are you doing with a notebook that isn’t so interesting?
• put dates on entries–it helps if you are going to do schedule reviews
• fun, fun, fun–this is your place to play–find new ways to expand

What a samurai notebook does for you:

• reminds you of your dreams, hopes, and actions
• works on the subconscious level by constantly reminding you of important thoughts you want to have
• reminds you that you are important
• helps you to be an artist with your life
• keeps important thoughts at the tip of your tongue

There is a preciousness and non-preciousness to my notebooks.  I just finished one notebook.  It looks beaten up and yet it reminds me of some fun and important stuff.

Some of the things that were in my last Samurai Notebook:

1. A list of things I want to make happen in my life.
2. The lyrics to “We Will Rock You”
3. Quotes from Steve Chandler’s book, 50 Ways to Create Great Relationships.    He quotes David Viscott:  “If you cannot risk, you cannot grow.  If you cannot grow, you cannot become your best.  If you cannot become your best, you cannot be happy.  And if you cannot be happy, what else matters?”  (I don’t agree with every quote, but it’s good to have things that challenge your mind keep popping up regularly.)
4. Copycat sprints from Japanese self-help books.  I copy out sections of Japanese books as a way to learn.
5. Quick future brainstorming circles.   Draw four circles and project what you want in your life: always, one year from now, one month from now, and today.   Another Steve Chandler technique.
6. Notes on things that were important to me during staff meetings.
7. “The real secret of success is enthusiasm.  Yest, more than enthusiasm.  I would say excitement.  I like to see people get excited . . .when they get excited, they make a success of their lives.”  Walter Chrysler
8. “As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood, disasters in the sun . . .”  Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
9. Notes (in Japanese and English) from my participation at the Financial Success Academy
10. “Everything in the universe is within you.  Ask all from yourself.”  Rumi
11. Quick brainstorms on how to best help my students.
12. “We possess such immense resources of power that pessimism is a laughable absurdity.”   Colin Wilson.

Just scouring through my notebook to make the list has given me a lift.   (That and the hot cup of java!)  The notebook itself is a little beaten up.   Part of the binding is separated from the rest of the book.   Samurai notebooks are like battered signposts, weathering the elements, pointing you back to yourself and your samurai journey.

What’s in your Samurai Notebook?

I was walking to the writer’s room this morning and in the midst of my samurai shuffle (listening to an iPod with random Japanese music and books on tape), Furuichi-san came on and talked about the importance of studying in the morning.  Now mind you, as far as the Japanese language is concerned I’m as dangerous as a novice wielding a samurai sword.   I’m more likely to hurt myself as anything else.   Take all translations with a dash of soy.

You don't have to be a Buddha to develop a morning practice

According to Furuichi, morning has several advantages.   There are fewer distractions in the morning:  interesting television programs, phone calls, social invitations, etc.  Furthermore, from his personal experience Furichi-san claims that studying in the morning is more effective than in the evening.  He suggests that you experiment by studying in the morning and in the evening for two hours and noting your results.

I have become a creature of the morning.  During the weekdays, I am a high school teacher and it seems every second is taken with teaching, planning, copying, or dealing with many situation.  On Sundays, I am busy planning and grading.  When I get home, my daughters want to play and then need to be bathed, fed, and storied.  (Love it.)  By the time, 9:30 rolls around, I’m pretty much exhausted and moving towards bed.

I wake up in the morning around 5 a.m.  I like to wake up before the 5:30 alarm and turn it off because waking up to an alarm is not how I want to start off the day.  I guess the “I Can” book is rubbing off a little on me, because if I wake up complaining I try to right my thinking for a little bit and concentrate on the positive–little corrections to keep my ship straight.  If I’ve woken myself early enough I do some exercise, usually nei kung, a Chinese strengthening and alignment series of exercises.

Afterwards I walk towards the Writer’s Room.   It’s sometimes the only chance I get for cardio exercise and offers a chance to be in the sun and the cityscape.  When I get to the writer’s room before going to work and I make the decision to just make one hour of the day my time.  I  split it between writing a book proposal, working on the blog,  studying Japanese, and spending a little time on success literature or history that moves my mind.

For me, studying means anything I want to expand in my life.  I’ve moved forward with my book proposal, I’ve learned a little more Japanese, and more importantly I am having more fun.  Sometimes ideas don’t come but sometimes they do, and I leave the writer’s room with a little bit of an inner glow.   It’s nice to start the morning with a “win” all before eight o’clock.

Consider the mornings.  Like Toni Morrison, I kind of plugged myself into the mornings because of the small children in my life:

I was involved in writing Beloved at that time—this was in 1983—and eventually I realized that I was clearer-headed, more confident and generally more intelligent in the morning. The habit of getting up early, which I had formed when the children were young, now became my choice. I am not very bright or very witty or very inventive after the sun goes down.  Paris Review

 

Well, I’m no Toni Morrison.  I’m better.  I can personally guarantee you that when I write my novel it will have more car chases and zippy one liners than Beloved ever hoped to have.  Way more. 🙂  I will rise with the sun and make it my mission.

I wish you all many good mornings.