Category: Manage Your Finances

Penny wise and pound foolish examples are everywhere. The term comes from an old English proverb that is sometimes used in the United States & Canada as well. Penny and pound refer to English currency. Those that are penny wise and pound foolish make decisions that appear to be financially beneficial, but actually cost you more money in the long run.

If they pay a penie or two pence more for the reddinesse of them .. let them looke to that, a foole and his money is soone parted. – ye olde English proverb

If you’re on a personal finance journey right now then you most likely know all about the ‘big stuff’ – spending less than you earn, investing, avoiding debt, not paying for coffee at Starbucks. 🙂

But after you’ve picked all the “low hanging fruit” from your budget then your next steps are to look for other ways to be efficient in your life.  This is where penny wise & pound foolish can come into play, because you might actually think you’re making the right move, when in fact you’re putting roadblocks on your own path.  That’s no good.

I love the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.  I also love that the Boy Scouts have a personal finance merit badge.

The official Boy Scout motto traces back to a book published in 1908 titled Scouting for Boys.  The author was Baden Powell, who also founded the Boy Scouts Association in England that same year.  A short two years later the Boy Scouts of America were established and quickly grew to become the largest youth organization in America.

When Powell was later asked exactly what one should “Be Prepared” for, his answer was ‘Why, for any old thing.‘  He wasn’t kidding.

By Greg Magnuson of The Money Vikings

After years of investing and talking with many self-made wealthy people, I am convinced that we all get about 3-4 big financial opportunities to make quantum leaps in building our net worth. In order to reach F.I.R.E. we need to leverage each one of these opportunities. I am an optimist, so perhaps we live a long time and get a couple more, but not many more.

The sooner you catch them when they come, the faster you can achieve F.I.R.E. The bad news is that once these opportunities are gone, they are lost to the sands of time. The good news is that another one is always brewing around the corner. Are you preparing now to be able to jump on the next opportunity?

This isn’t a heavy or depressing post. Honestly I never thought I’d write my own obituary wasn’t something I’d planned on doing but a few weeks ago I walked into work and got some sobering news that a co-worker had unexpectedly passed away over the weekend.  She was young (early 30’s) and seemingly healthy.  Her passing was a total shock to everyone, and it has scared the hell out of me. Inevitably I thought about my own mortality.

I thought about how my obituary would read if I was the one that had unexpectedly died. Wrapping up someone’s life into a few lines of text always saddens me, but this time it got me thinking about how I’d like mine to read. So I decided to write my own obituary and figured it would be an interesting experience, and possibly fun as well.

I hope* mine reads something like this …