| Duane’s Real Estate Video September 8 “It’s a great day to be in real estate! Duane Beisner here… sales manager and a sales representative for ERA real estate. | ||
| Duane’s Quote of the Day "There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that's your own self." | |
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Duane’s Joke of the Day
Two roofers, Larry and Joe were on the roof laying tile, when a sudden wind gust came and knocked down their ladder. “I have an idea” said Larry. “We’ll throw you down, and then you can pick up the ladder.” What, do you thing, I’m stupid? “I have and idea” said Joe. “I’ll shine my flashlight, and you can climb down on the beam of light.” What, do you think I’m stupid? “You’ll just turn off the flashlight when I’m halfway there.”
Duane’s Business Tip of the Day
Have you ever noticed that people who are unsuccessful tend to get sick a lot and miss work whereas the opposite is true for successful people?
Think about it.
Darwin Award of the Day
27 June 2009, New York) A severe storm damaged power lines and left 17,000 homes without electricity. M. Mil, 64, was one of the affected parties. His power line serviced only 17 homes and therefore was one of the last to be repaired. Seven hours after the line fell, Mil finally lost his patience.
The old man had been shooed away repeatedly by firefighters who were guarding the power line. "Police and firefighters literally chased him away. We did everything we could," said Dick Martinkovic, commissioner of public safety in Sullivan County. But they were not prepared for the homeowner's sudden bold move.
Frustrated with waiting, Mil emerged from his home shortly after midnight with an industrial power saw in his hand and plastic bags on his feet. He stood in a puddle of water and attempted to saw through a 4800-volt feeder line that was dangling off the pole. He fell and became tangled in the hissing and buzzing live wire. While emergency responders waited for utility workers to shut down the power, Mil was busy being killed by continuous electrocution.
The story says it all. He was repeatedly shooed away from the power line, but insisted on cutting it while standing in a puddle, and now is safely out of the gene pool.
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Duane’s Social Commentary
Here is some great information! 6 Spending Tips from Frugal Billionaires
Carlos Slim Helu (Carlos Slim), a telecom tycoon and billionaire with well-known frugal tendencies, has a net worth of $60.6 billion, according to Forbes. Assuming no changes in his net worth, he could spend $1,150 a minute for the next 100 years before he ran out of money. To put this in perspective, he could spend in 13 minutes what a minimum-wage earner brings home after an entire year of the daily grind.
Granted, the world's billionaires (all 1,011 of them) are in the debatably enviable position of having, quite literally, more money than they can possibly spend, yet some are still living well below their means, and save money in surprising places. Even non-billionaires (currently 6,864,605,142 of us) can partake in these seven spending tips from frugal billionaires:
1. Keep Your Home Simple
Billionaires can afford to live in the most exclusive mansions imaginable -- and many do, including Bill Gates' sprawling 66,000 square foot, $147.5 million dollar mansion in Medina, Wash. -- yet frugal billionaires like Warren Buffett choose to keep it simple. Buffett still lives in the five-bedroom house in Omaha that he purchased in 1957 for $31,500. Likewise, Carlos Slim has lived in the same house for more than 40 years.
2. Use Self-Powered or Public Transportation
Thrifty billionaires including John Caudwell, David Cheriton and Chuck Feeney prefer to walk, bike or use public transportation when getting around town. Certainly these wealthy individuals could afford to take a helicopter to their lunch meetings, or ride in chauffeur-driven Bentleys, but they choose to get a little exercise and take advantage of public transportation instead. Good for the bank account and great for the environment.
3. Buy Your Clothes off the Rack
While some people, regardless of their net value, place a huge emphasis on wearing designer clothes and shoes, some frugal billionaires decide it's simply not worth the effort, or expense. You can find David Cheriton, the Stanford professor who matched Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to the venture capitalists at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (resulting in a large reward of Google stock), wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of the furniture company IKEA, avoids wearing suits, and John Caudwell, mobile phone mogul, buys his clothes off the rack instead of spending his wealth on designer clothes.
4. Keep your Scissors Sharp
The average haircut costs about $45, but people can and do spend up to $800 per cut and style. Multiply that by 8.6 (to account for a cut every six weeks) and it adds up to $7,200 per year, not including tips. These billionaires can certainly afford the most stylish haircuts, buy many cannot be bothered by the time it takes or the high price tag for the posh salons. Billionaires like John Caudwell and David Cheriton opt for cutting their own hair at home.
5. Drive a Regular Car
While billionaires like Larry Ellison (co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation) enjoy spending millions on cars, boats and planes, others remain low key with their vehicles of choice. Jim Walton (of the Wal-Mart clan) drives a 15-year-old pickup truck. Azim Premji, an Indian business tycoon, reportedly drives a Toyota Corolla. And Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA drives a 10-year-old Volvo. The idea is to buy a dependable car, and drive it into the ground. No need for a different car each day of the week for these frugal billionaires.
6. Skip Luxury Items
It may surprise some of us, but the world's wealthiest person, Carlos Slim (the one who could spend more than a thousand dollars a minute and not run out of money for one hundred years) does not own a yacht or a plane. (Reducing the amount you spend is the easiest way to make your money grow.)
Many other billionaires have chosen to skip these luxury items. Warren Buffett also avoids these lavish material items, stating, "Most toys are just a pain in the neck."
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Duane’s Real Estate News I thought this looked like fun! The idea of owning your own island is probably a remote fantasy these days, especially after three years of economic carnage to your bank account, savings, and retirement portfolio. But come on. It's summer. Maybe you're on budget vacation, at the beach, or at a bay front or lakefront rental. So who hasn't gazed out at an island from the shore, and wondered what it would be like to own your own kingdom, tethered to civilization only by water or air?
Place: Machias Bay, Maine, 50 miles east of Bar Harbor One tree, a few sheep, a 20 by 20 foot platform for pitching a tent, and a mooring in the cove. The rest is grass, rocks, and 360-degree views of the ocean and bay.
Where: Near Marathon, in the Florida Keys The turquoise-colored roofs you see in the picture are open-air sitting areas with decks, chairs, and a campfire cooking area. But the island also comes with a 38-foot houseboat, not pictured here, that sleeps 4-5 people. Great reefs nearby for snorkeling. All the seafood you can eat.
Where: On Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada A two-hour drive from Toronto, this island features a two-bedroom, two-bath cottage with a glassed-in porch overlooking the water, a separate guest cabin with bathroom, hot tub built into the rock outcropping, and a boathouse with deep water mooring. Running water, electric, a septic field.
Place: St. Lawrence Seaway, near Clayton, NY There are 1,400 islands in the Thousand Island region of upstate New York. But few of them come with a 6,500-square-foot mansion -- ten bedrooms, four bathrooms, plus a boat house and dock. About an hour-and-a-half drive from either Syracuse or Montreal.
Little Hog CayPlace: Near Abacos, Northern Bahamas Notice the lagoon that separates the west side of the island from the east. On the west side sits a studio home and a guest cabana with an electric generator. The east side is undeveloped. Marina and airstrip are a 15-minute boat ride away, on the main island of Abacos.
Place: Howe Sound, British Columbia, between Whistler and Vancouver A 30-minute boat ride from the city of Vancouver, this island is up for sale to developers, with an approved subdivision plan.
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This is Duane signing off. Happy Trails to you! As always, I am proud to be an American.
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