DaveWitwicki.com

I stopped by the bank yesterday to get some US money for my wife. She went to Minneapolis for the weekend to attend the Women of Faith conference. I rarely go into the bank as I do everything over internet banking or at an ATM. When I got into line, there was three tellers and each one had a customer. The teller in the business line was free so she called me over. That alone counts as good service. Anyway, when she punched in the transaction, the exchange rate came up as exactly even. The teller was friendly and commented on how she’d never seen it exactly even. She said that lately its been a few cents either way and joked that I should win a prize. She went off to get my US bills and when she came back she brought a free pen as my “prize”. For the most part, she was just doing her job, but the extra little touches like calling me over and giving me a pen really impressed me. That’s the kind of customer service I like. I’ve been a customer at most of the major Canadian banks and, so far, TD Canada Trust has given me the best service. Its not even a specific branch, they all seem to be good. Good enough that I had to write about it.

- Dave

I’ve done nothing in the past couple weeks in working towards building wealth. Well, that’s not quite true, I’m in the process of opening an index fund account, but that’s not what I mean when I talk about building wealth. I went down the path of Internet Marketing for a while when I stumbled across Ridiculous Income Goals and its reports for only $7.20. Usually internet marketing reports cost a heck of a lot more so I decided to spend the $7.20 and see what this was all about. I can honestly say that the stuff I received was easily worth $7.20 and I haven’t even finished reading them all yet.

This made me seriously consider getting into the whole internet marketing game. However, after thinking about it some more, I started wondering where the true value was. I have no doubt I could make money at it (and may still give it a shot), but where is the value to the customer? It seems to me that most of the customers will be other people like myself looking to build wealth (aka MAKE MONEY!). That just doesn’t sit right with me. My original concept of providing video tutorials and (hopefully) generating revenue from ads was based on the idea of first providing valuable content then monetizing it. At this point, I just don’t see any value in internet marketing beyond gathering money from others who are looking to do the same.

That’s not to say that “gathering money” is not valuable, I just don’t feel that’s what I want to be all about. I suppose if I was using internet marketing as my primary income then I might feel differently. My day job is all about using technology to provide value to my customers (being other internal employees) and I really enjoy that. It feels good to make someones life a little easier and I think I want to do that with my other wealth activities. Unfortunately, that has left me blowing in the wind a bit these last couple weeks and I still don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I like the training/tutorial idea, but I just don’t have the motivation to work on that right now. Taking a page from the internet marketing book, I think I could work on reports of my own with content about more than just making money but again, I’m not motivated to work on that right now. Heh, maybe I need to read more of these reports and see where it takes me. I don’t know, I’m really not sure what to do. I guess I’ll have to let it sit for awhile longer…

- Dave

Today I received a special invitation to The Trump Way to Wealth Introductory Seminar. I thought to myself, “Hey! Great! I’d like to check out a seminar and it’s free!”. I’ve been thinking lately that maybe a seminar or two would be good to get me inspired to move forward. Unfortunately, the seminar was last weekend so I missed it already.

The invitation was actually for my dad, but he wouldn’t have used it anyway (since he passed away a few years ago). What’s even worse is that, not only was the seminar free, but it included a free copy of Trump’s latest book. I’ll have to check the reviews and maybe buy a copy.

- Dave

Yesterday, as I was taking my daughter to a birthday party, I started thinking about the value of an hour. What is an hour of your time worth? When I was younger, I considered my time to be worth $25/hr. Eventually, I started making more than that at my day job so I bumped it up to $50/hr. Recently I discovered that the going rate for a Web Programmer is $65/hr so I raised it to that.

However, my thoughts turned to what I am really trying to describe with putting a value on my time. Is that what I charge to do extra work? Is that my goal for passive income? Is my time only worth money while I’m awake? What about entertainment, should I be adding my hourly rate on to that? How come I accept that my employer doesn’t pay me that?

Naturally, my thoughts continued on to lofty goals and I started thinking about the value of an hour for a millionaire. What would the hourly rate be if I made a million+ a year? I discovered that the numbers weren’t nearly as high as I thought. Maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe I’m finally cultivating the wealth mentality. So, how many hours are we talking about in a year?

Stats Canada seems to list two primary average income totals. Economic Families, two or more people at $78,400 in 2005, and Unattached Individuals at $32,300 in 2005. That translates into:

So, what do these numbers actually say? To me, they say that the average person doesn’t place much value on their time. It also made me realize that earning a million dollars a year really shouldn’t be that hard. These numbers seem realistic to me. Of course, I’m sure if we could find some way to measure actual productivity in hours spent on value producing activities, a completely different picture would be painted. That leads to the question, what is value? I think that question deserves an entire post to itself, but in summary, in addition to whatever someone is willing to pay me for, I see value in spending time with my family, in personal development, and in entertainment. Basically, anything that makes my life better. Granted, this will vary widely between people, but my point is, that you should think about it.

Based on the numbers, it seems my value thinking is on track. During my original driving/thinking session, I randomly picked a value of $1000 per hour since it didn’t seem that outrageous. Having calculated the numbers now, I see that it actually takes substantially less. Now I have something to shoot for. It’s good to have specific numbers in mind to compare your results against. I still have a long way to go, but every journey proceeds one step at a time.

- Dave

I’ve been thinking about home schooling my children lately. This is an option I’ve always considered possible because I have a fairly low opinion of the public school system. I will admit that the public school system has exceeded my expectations but that’s not saying much because my expectations are so low. This belief was justified this past week when my son was a bit agitated over not getting his homework done and having it sent home. After calming him down, I asked him to explain to me what happened. Basically, he was given half the assignment on Monday which he promptly completed in class. Then, on Wednesday, he was given the other half. He didn’t hear the entire assignment and, therefore, only did the part he thought was due. I had him do the part he was supposed to have finished which he completed effortlessly in a couple minutes. After he finished, I took a look through the work he’s doing and, quite honestly, was surprised at the low level of it. Now, I have to wonder if my memory is playing tricks on me, but I recall doing much more advanced work when I was in grade four. Of course, I also remember getting actual grades (I was quite proud of getting 100% in social studies). Nowadays, the “performance report” consists of a list of areas with an M or a D rating which basically translates to “does well” or “does not so well”. Even my work evaluation has more levels than that! I could go off on quite a rant at this point, but I won’t. Those of you who know me have heard this one many times before.

Anyway, there are two things that really have me considering home schooling now. One of the major benefits I see to public schools is the social opportunities provided. The kids get a chance to interact with other children and that’s important. I was talking with my wife about home schooling and she mentioned that she heard of someone who was home schooling but had their children go to a public school for gym class. I had never considered the possibility of something like that. I had always figured it was an all or nothing situation. The opportunity to have the social interaction AND a quality education is looking more doable.

The other thing that has held me back from home schooling is, of course, finances. My wife and I both work and the way we currently have our finances structured, neither of us can stop working for an extended period. We’ve recently adjusted our expense structure and budget and should have a lot more freedom within a few years but that’s a long time to wait. As I’ve mentioned previously, I am actively working towards wealth now. This situation emphasizes for me that wealth is about more than just money. Wealth is about freedom and the ability to make choices. I saved an affirmation from somewhere (I don’t recall where I first heard it) that really sums it up for me:

I never want to have to make a bad decision because of money.

I honestly believe that keeping my kids in public school is a bad decision when compared against the benefits of home schooling. There are plenty of resources available to assist in home schooling. In fact, I was quite surprised by the level of support provided by the provincial government. They appear to have a department and personnel committed to supporting the home school initiative and offer plenty of material. Their website has good information. There’s also a variety of local support groups.

So now I have even more incentive to build wealth. In the past I considered wealth not really important. My dad was very focused on building wealth and my childhood suffered for it. Unfortunately, he also wasn’t very good at it so not only was he too busy working to spend time with me, but he left no legacy to justify it. Things changed while I was still a kid but, the point is, I’ve never considered wealth to be a priority. Obviously that attitude is changing and opportunities, like home schooling, really help. I’ve been slacking lately but I should be back on track shortly. I’ll post about that a little later.

- Dave

Sometime last night, after 2:30am, somebody went on a crime spree down our back lane. They smashed at least three car windows and tossed a fourth car. They rummaged through all the compartments in our car, but, since this isn’t the first time, we keep nothing of any real value in the car. Therefore, nothing was stolen.

However, there is the horror of waking up to that, the mess that needs to be cleaned up, the cost in time and money to get the car fixed, the inconvenience of driving with a broken driver’s side window. It has left us feeling violated. To think that someone damaged our personal property and then went through our stuff is horrible. There is always a human cost to crime, and one that I’m sure most criminals do not consider.

To make matters worse, I was outside at 230am and I purposefully checked the car to ensure it was locked because there was a lot of noise from people milling about after a social at the nearby community centre. I like having a park, community centre and school just out my back door, but I have to wonder now about the side effects. Normally, socials at the community centre are held by local people. It seems that wasn’t the case this time. I can only assume that these crimes occurred because of the secluded nature of our back lane and the fact that because there’s only one row of houses, nobody can see what you’re doing on the other side of the cars. You’d think someone might have heard something, but I know first-hand that all the houses are soundproof enough that you hear nothing.

Honestly, I’m at a loss as to what to do about this. How could I have prevented this? What if I had happened to be outside while this was going on? Maybe that would have made things worse. I’m by no means a small person, but even one reasonably tough thug could likely best me. If there had been more, I’d be in real physical danger. It seems nowadays that criminals are a lot more bold.

At the beginning of summer, I bought a new bike and it was stolen within six days. At that time, I bought the parts to put a motion sensitive security light on the back of the house and the back of the garage. I’ve installed the one on the back of the house, but I need to do some wiring and stuff to get the one on the back of the garage. I guess that will be my project for the day.

This makes me wonder, though, how far do I have to go to protect my property? What’s next, a patrolling security guard for the neighbourhood? I don’t know the answer. I wish I did. What I do know is that I’ll be sleeping a little less soundly for the next while. Looking out the window more often. Keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. And eventually, these feelings of insecurity will fade and things will go back to normal. Until the next time…

- Dave

After stating that I want to be wealthy, I thought it would be a good idea to define what exactly I mean by “wealth”. Well, I’ve been mulling this over in my head for quite some time but I haven’t been able to put it into words in a succinct manner. Lo and behold, Meg over at The World of Wealth has summarized the wealth-building process and has a definition that I really like:

Wealth: the generation of enough income to comfortably exceed your expenses, while simultaneously providing you flexibility, security, independence, and freedom.

She goes on to explain this in more detail and then gives some simple steps for becoming wealthy. Go on over and check it out, it’s good stuff!

- Dave

Here’s a pic of me in the Evil Mastermind shirt from Eric Sink of SourceGear. The deal here is that he sent me a free shirt and in return, I post a pic of me wearing the shirt and allow him to use it. Not only is that a great marketing idea, but its fun looking through all the pics. Alas, I wasn’t brave enough to do the Evil Mastermind pose.

- Dave

Somewhere along the way I decided that I want to be wealthy. I get paid decently by my employer but, in reading various personal finance books, I realized that its going to take me a long time to get wealthy if I rely solely on my employment income. In the books I’ve read, there seems to be three ways to generate wealth outside of regular employment: real estate, investments and business. Some sources separate internet from business, but I feel that this distinction is not necessary since the internet is so pervasive in our lives these days. It would be hard to run a business of any sort without using the internet in some capacity.

Since I work in IT, it seems natural to first consider business and, specifically, some sort of internet-enabled business. I’ve spent a long time trying to think of the “next big thing” and I finally realized that even if I had the perfect idea, I don’t have the necessary skills to make it happen in a timely matter. This realization has caused me to go ahead and just do something to get started and gain the skills. As part of that something, I had to learn about hosting and how it works and I felt this was a good opportunity to start blogging again, so here I am.

In the coming weeks, I will be creating a video tutorial site for non-technical users. There are a few such sites out there, some require subscriptions, some allow donations and some have ads. My plan is to provide the tutorials for free and have ads to generate income. Will this work? I don’t know, my general feeling is that people don’t click on ads but there seems to be evidence to the contrary all over the place. I am targeting non-technical users because I suspect that its only technical users who don’t click ads. I recently came across an article by Des Traynor which came to the same conclusion (and he said it much better than I ever could). Whether it works or not, this will be a good learning experience and the cost to try is low. I’ll attempt to chronicle the more interesting points of this journey here (along with all my other ramblings).

- Dave

Welcome to my place on the web.

- Dave