First Foray into Personal Finance

This is going to be my first post about Personal Finance. I have been meaning to do this for quite some time actually. Why??? Well, I was never really short of money, even through my undergraduate life. The Scholarships more than made up for my tuition, leaving all the Student Loans that I got completely at my disposal -- which was a horrible idea since I was so irresponsible. By the time I graduated, I realized my total cash balance dropped to under $300 dollars -- when it was once higher than $10,000 when I was in 2nd year. To put that in perspective, I have, to date, NEVER been able to accumulate so much cash(and I've been working for three years now). Ever since that debacle, I used to keep track of my daily purchases in various places, such as my daily agenda. For the coming many years, I never really did anything with that information. Since I've recently made an effort to take hold of my financial situation, I have decided to track my spending for a month, to see exactly how much I spend on monthly/daily basis -- What I found out was quite shocking at first glance :S!

Here is a summary of all my purchases/expenses for the month of March 2009. The entries in light blue are shopping expenses. The entries in red are gas charges for my car. Along the bottom, I've summed up all my Sunday purchases, Monday purchases etc. And along the right, I've summed up all my purchases for that particular week of the month. (Btw, this doesn't include utilities and other monthly expenses -- I've kept them in another list -- these are just my daily spending lists):

March 2009 Expenses

WOW!! I spent around $2100 in one month -- and I'm just a single guy. And this doesn't even include my monthly utilies (gas, electricity, HOA Fees, Cable/Internet/Phone, and Mortgage!!!!!!). My whole family together doesn't even spend half that much! At first glance, this totally shocked me, and I finally began to realize why my credit card debts were never going down. Here's a breakdown of my expenses:

March 2009 Breakdown of Expenses:

Shopping:

I've spent a total of $218.66 on shopping this month. I've basically bought a couple of XBOX 360 games, and an XBOX 360 joystick worth around $120. I needed the joystick to have 4 controllers, so we could play some Halo 3 Multiplayer maps with 4 people. The rest of that amount was spent at a clearance sale at Sport Chalet. I think the games/joysticks were worth it. The clothes??? Probably not, since I have a huge collection of clothes anyway -- and just because there was a huge clearance sale just reinforces the fact that advertising works :P!! My goal next month is to reduce the amount of money I spend shopping!

Tax Fees:
HECK!! 260 bucks for preparing the tax return at H&R Block. That includes a $30 something charge for the 'Peace of Mind' Return where H&R block will pay all the penalties if any, and look after me in case of an IRS audit. But still, 260 bucks??? I thought they were kidding at first -- but then I came around to accepting it. I only decided to go through H&R block this year because of me being a first time home buyer. I'm definitely doing my own taxes next year, and avoiding these fees.

Gas Bill:
$175 for fuel sounds about right for me. I get around 32 to 35 miles per gallon on my Honda Civic, so I can't really complain too much about that. I'll keep an eye on this in the future.

Auto Repairs:
My radiator shaft cracked, and hence required a total replacement. Obviously this wasn't planned, contributed to my huge monthly expense bill for March 2009.

Airline:
I made a trip to good ol' Toronto near the end of March -- So that cost my $330 bucks. I had a week off work, so thats why I made the trip down. Actually, the week off work was unpaid, so not only am I not getting paid for the last week of March, I spend a further $330 bucks on a trip to Toronto!! I think its ok though: a trip to Toronto is always good for me.

Weeds:
I bought some DIY weed products. It will pay off in the long run I believe.

Food:
Another $500 for food. Actually, this one was a pleasant surprise. I eat out almost 2-3 times a day, and with rising food prices, I expected to be paying between $600 to $700 for food per month. So relatively, $500 a month is good -- but I think I can improve that figure.

Summary:

Well, I'm glad to have summarized my monthly expenses for March. At least it gave me a quantified view of where my money 'disappears' off to every month. I need to create a budget for my future months. The Auto Repair and Toronto Flight kind of made this month an expensive month. All the other expenses were on par with what I expected at the back of my head. I need to figure out what my net worth is now, and budget for my future known expenses, and try to liberate myself financially! More on this soon..... 

Badminton Racket Grip Size

For a long time, I was a little unsure as to what grip size I should use for badminton. I've seen a lot of top players use pretty thick grips. Initially I thought these players were much more taller/bigger than I am, and hence, required their grips to be bigger as well. However, as I went in and researched it a bit more, I've realized that wasn't really the reason.

After many years, I finally realized what a lot of people have tried telling me along the way before. The best grip size really REALLY depends on what is most comfortable to you. I never believed that. I always thought there's a best way to doing everything, and it is I who have to adjust to it.

So in short, it comes down to what your style of play is, and what is more comfortable to you. Here is what I think what difference it makes when you go larger/smaller on badminton grip sizes:

Having a Larger Grip:
To me, the larger I go from the default grip size, the more comfortable it is with me. And I tend to have more power. This is generally true. You can hold on more tightly to the racket grip as you smash/clear. However, this is only true if you tend to use a lot of your biceps/shoulders to generate your power. Unless your wrists are miraculously strong, you will be using the biceps/shoulders to some extent. If all your power's generated from your wrists, then the grip size doesn't really matter, since your racket swing is not affected by the grip size as you rotate your wrists. So having a larger grip allows you to:
- generate more power
- provide a feeling of 'balance' in your shots, and add some control (a racket with a larger grip will move less in your hands than a racket with a smaller grip)

The main disadvantage is that you can't change grips as easily as you can if the grips were smaller. This doesn't affect you that much in singles, but can make a big difference in doubles play.


Having a Smaller Grip:
The advantage of a smaller grip is that the racket becomes more maneuverable, meaning that it is easier to change the grip of your racket(which is essential in the doubles form of the game). You can change grips a lot faster in between shots, and this gives you a huge advantage in doubles, especially if you tend to be aggressive.

The downside is that of course, you tend to generate less power than with a larger grip, but if your technique is proper, power usually isn't too much of a concern for you. I think a more annoying problem with smaller grips is the development of callous on your palms. To see why this is so, lets say, while using a thinner grip, you just smashed/cleared when you were a little out of position(or the racket grip is a little wet due to sweat), the racket may move slightly in your hand as you hit the shuttlecock, and over time, it rubs against the points of contact of your palms and racket. This is why callouses form on your palms, and sometimes, it can be quite painful. If you keep doing it continuously, the callouses become hard and you get used to it, and it will not bother you again. However, if you take a small break from badminton(maybe a week), the callous tends to heal, and it will form again if you start playing again.

Debt Free (Almost)

I finally got back my tax return money today. After itemizing my deductions this year, I got back a sizable return this year. So what did I do with my tax return??? I resisted the urge to spend this extra money to buy stuff(or worse yet, finance more purchases), I ended up paying off all my US credit card debts. So now, all my credit card accounts have zero balances (at least in the US). 

My short term goals this year was to become debt-free by my birthday this July. I'm not just quite there yet. I still have some student loan debt from Canada, and now, my next goal is to aggressively pursue that and eliminate it off my account! 

For some reason, my credit card balances were never getting any lower, although I kept paying sizable payments every month (between 500 to 1000 dollars a month). After seeing my credit balances being racked up higher and higher, I finally decided to look more closely into it and try to reduce the debt that I owe. I made up a plan last November, and according to that, I would have been debt free by this July. I exceeded that target day by three months, and got to that state by the end of March. This means that more of the money I earn on a biweekly basis will be available to me for other activities (no - not shopping :P). I'll have more leftover to invest in both short and long term trading, after obviously, finalizing an investment strategy. 

About that investment strategy, I emailed a Financial Planner from Ameriprise Financial. I got his email from the Employee Network Discount site from my workplace. Lets see what he has to offer, as a financial planner, and I have to check out whether the Employee Discount will give me a definitely advantage or not. 

I have to be careful now, to not let the euphoria of a 'zero' balance let me get carried away and start racking up debt knowing that I can pay it off :P. Knowing me, I think thats highly possible, and so I have to be careful!! 

I haven't been blogging for a while now, I was just a little busy over the last few weeks. Hopefully, I can resume my blogging career now :P. I need to post some more info on badminton!! 

Friday the 13th Problem Solution

Friday the 13th Solution

Ok, I admit I'm a little late, and everyone's probably completely over the fact that there was Friday the 13th this month(Thats assuming they actually thought it was a semi-big deal in the first place!!). Well, since it occurred in the month of February which has 28 days this year, we're going to have another Friday the 13th in the month of March! 

Going back to the problem I posed, my high school teacher had a very simple solution to it. It made me feel pretty stupid trying to figure out some super fancy trick to find a solution to this answer. I ended up answering the question as (0,2) -- Meaning that the lowest number possible in a year is zero Friday the 13ths, and the maximum number was 2. Well, the right answer is actually (1,3) -- which caught me totally surprised!!! What it meant was that every year, we are guaranteed to have at least one Friday the 13th. I always used to think it was such a rare occurrence, but I guess it just seemed like it! 

Mr. Baker, my high school math teacher who supervised that contest sitting, starting out by assuming 'What if January 1st started on a Sunday????. This would mean that January 13th would actually fall on a Saturday. Since January has 31 days, February 13th would fall on a Tuesday. Again, on  a non-leap year, February has 28 days, and so March 13th would also fall on a Tuesday. Following that through, we get the following:

If January 1st was a Sunday then:

Saturday: January, October

Sunday: May

Monday: August

Tuesday:  February, March, November

Wednesday: June

Thursday: September, December

Friday: April, July

The above table tells us which days the 13th of that month falls on, assuming that January 1st was a Sunday. So, that year, April 13th and July 13th would fall on a Friday. However, January 1st could have occurred on any one of the 7 days, and we see that no matter which day it fell on, we will always have at least one Friday the 13th occurring each year, and at most, we'll have 3 Friday the 13ths occuring (that is when Feb/Mar/Nov 13 fall on a Friday) -- which will actually happen this year in fact!! We already had Feb 13th fall on a Friday. March 13 will follow soon, and so will Nov. 13th!!

So here you go -- I thought this answer was pretty simple -- The trick I guess is to approach every problem properly, and you can turn a hard problem into a fairly easy one!!! 

Broken Strings and Torn Shoes

Broken String:
So the other day -- and by that I mean yesterday of course -- I tore the string on my Apacs Nano 9600 Racket. It was about to tear for quite some time -- you can see one section of the main strings being cut through by the cross strings. So then I had to go back to my Yonex CAB30. After playing with it for a while, I've decided to return to it as my first choice racket now :). All of a sudden, my drop shots were much more improved, and I believe that is so due to the stiffness of the CAB30 racket. I guess I've improved enough over the last year to generate enough power even on that stiff racket! Once you tear a string, I've seen people cut up the rest of the strings with scissors!! The reasoning behind that is that once you tear a string, the tensions become unbalanced around the racket, and apparently, that *may* deform the racket -- but very minutely of course.

Torn Shoes as well:
Well, not only did I tear a string yesterday, but my 2 and half month old badminton shoes kinda started to come apart pretty bad -- so much that I can't use them anymore. They were from Asics (The Asics Gel Rocket IV shoe). The gum rubber sole was started to come off under my right heal, and it was starting to tear away. It really sucked!! I mean, I've only had the shoes for two and a half months. And I haven't played even played for a month around christmas time!! This wasn't really damage due to 'wear and tear' since I've never worn out a shoe that quickly. It must have been a product defect! So what I did today was I checked the Asics website to see what sort of warranty they have. Luckily, it mentioned that the shoes are warranted by the retail store that I bought it from. So I went back to the store, Sport Chalet, and guess what?? They took it back and exchanged the shoe to a brand new pair!!!! No questions asked!! Now thats a commitment to their customer. I like Sport Chalet a lot (www.sportchalet.com). And I guess after today, I'll make every effort to shop from their store whenever I can.

Friday the 13th

Since its Friday the 13th next Friday, I thought I'd post something dorky about it. When I was in high school, we used to have contest questions every now and then during the Math Club. One of those questions was actually about Friday the 13th. So here's the question:

In a given calendar year (leap years included), what is the maximum number and minimum number of Friday the 13th's that can occur???

This is an interesting problem, with a pretty sleek solution to it. Here's a clue to start you off: Actually, I'll tell you how I started it when I had to do it in the Math Club. I assumed that Friday the 13th's don't really occur all that often.. which seemed pretty reasonable at the time, and so said that 'zero' is the minimum number of Friday the 13ths that can occur in a year, and then proceeded from there. So now you're thinking, thats not a clue!! Its actually half the answer!! Well, the clue is: I was wrong :). Enjoy.

My Badminton Racquet History

The First One: Yonex Carbonex 8
The first racquet I ever used was a Yonex -- more specifically, a Yonex Carbonex 8. It was a hand-me-down, after my dad decided to get a new(better?) one in the form of a Yonex Carbonex 15. He later switched to the popular Carbonex 21. Me, on the other hand, spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with my Carbonex 8 -- something I'd thought would last forever. I don't remember too much of it right now, except that it was dark brown in colour, and I always made sure they were strung using black strings to add to the cool factor. It was a two-piece racquet -- meaning the shaft and head were attached through a T-Joint. It had the classic oval shape. Here's a picture from the Yonex website:

The Venerable Yonex Carbonex 8

I've used this racquet probably from Grades 8-12. I was on the Junior Varsity Badminton team during Grade 9 back in my old high school, and then again on the high school badminton team in Grades 11/12. This racquet lasted midway through Grade 12. I ended up cracking the frame sometime, but it was still intact -- until of course till the next time I tore the strings, and the racquet buckled under the stringing machine!!! The new Carbonex 8's are mostly 2U, so I'm guessing that's what mine was, but I have no clue as to what tension it was strung at. Just in case you don't know what the U's mean: the number preceding the U denotes the weight of the racquet. For example, 2U means that the racquet ranges from 90-94 grams. The two other common weights are 3U and 4U:
2U: 90-94 grams
3U: 85-89 grams
4U: 80-84 grams

My Second Racquet: ProKennex
My brother had this really REALLY lightweight Kennex Racquet, and I have no clue as to what its specs were. Apparently, Nafees still has the racquet, and it was loaned to our very Turjo Bhaiya, and has suffered the ol' DVD fate -- Its basically been borrowed indefinitely :)!

My Third Racquet: Yang Yang Dream 10

Yang Yang Dream 10 Racket

The moment I broke my racquet, I did what every other mature kid would do -- I went crying to my dad to buy me a new racquet from good ol' Abu Dhabi. It would arrive a month later, and soon enough, it arrived!! I was so excited, and I showed it off to everyone else in the badminton team. It was very light -- much much lighter than the free Carlton's the school's gym supplies had. I promised to treat it very carefully, so that it doesn't meet the same gruesome end as my first one, and I'm proud to say that I still have this racquet!! I finished off my Grade 12 year with this racquet, and then it went into hibernation for the next 6 years - thats partially the reason its still alive - other than the occasional badminton rush which occurred once every two or three years back then. Currently, its my third-choice backup racquet -- just in case my two other racquets miraculously become un-usable, which sounds totally plausible given my luck sometimes. I keep it strung at around 21 lbs of tension. I'll take a picture of it, and post it up sometime.

My Fourth Racquet: Yonex Carbonex 30 MS

Yonex Carbonex 30 MS Racket

Finally, after a horrendous injury-plagued 2007, I decided to get back into sports with style. After finding some places to play badminton in Arizona, I decided to invest in a new racquet. Actually, 'invest' isn't the right word! I believe 'splurge' does it more justice. In the back of my head, I've always trusted the Carbonex Series due to its popularity in Abu Dhabi, and decided to get the top-o-the-line one. And boy oh boy, am I sure glad I got it. Its an amazing racquet -- a little head heavy -- but still, it fit my play very nicely. Here are the specs:
Weight: 2U (Decided to get a heavier racquet, since its easier to transition from heavy to light than the other way round)
Flex: Stiff
Tension: 22lbs
String: BG-65 (Heck -- its cheap and durable :) )

My Fifth Racquet: Apacs Nano 9600 Tour

Apacs Nano 9600 Tour Racket

Compared the CAB30, the Yang Yang racquet wasn't really that great. So the first time I tore the strings on my CAB30, I had to use the Yang Yang one, and I wasn't too pleased. I decided to 'invest' (and yes, this time, I was able to control the splurging urge) in a good, durable backup racquet. After looking around a little on the web, I came across the Apacs line of racquets. There's a canadian dealership in that line, and its based in Toronto -- Markham to be exact. Their website is www.apacscanada.com. Basically, they make racquets which have the same specs as the expensive Yonex racquets (these are known as one of the many 'Yonex' clones), and sell them for much cheaper. Yonex racquets are darn expensive, mostly because they're....well...Yonex!!! With these other 'clones', not only do you get more or less the same racquet, but you get it a lot cheaper. BUT, to be fair to Apacs, they do make originals too which are specific just to Apacs, but I can't comment on them since I've never tried them. They have cool innovations though, such as a hard casing for the badminton racquet. I think that's absolutely brilliant :) in terms of trying to protecting a piece of equipment that can sometimes cost 200+ bucks! Anyways, so yeah, I got one of the Apacs racquets from Toronto, and after using it, I think its just as good as the Yonex ones, but at like a quarter of the price (50 bucks as opposed to 200 bucks!!). However, I think Apacs realized that they're doing well, and obviously jacked up the prices by 15-20% sometime last November, but they're still cheap though. I'm happy with this racquet, and in fact, it has now become my first choice racquet. More so because its a little lighter, and its not as stiff as the CAB30, and so helps my doubles play. I'd still probably use the CAB30 during tournaments though and singles play. The specs for this racquet are:
Weight: 3U
Flex: Medium
Tension: Main 26lbs, Cross 24lbs