Joining a Gym, or Leaving?

It seems really obvious that joining a gym and then not going every day isn’t really a financially sound practice, but I got so used to belonging to the gym that I basically stopped thinking about physical activity anywhere else.

It’s sort of like the dishwasher breaking and panicking that there are no clean dishes without remembering that you can hand wash dishes by hand. I just stopped thinking about physical exercise outside of the gym.

This article definitely broke it down into actual money I can save. So before terminating my gym membership which is actually cheaper than the $125 fee mentioned in the article, it costs $80 a month so it’s actually less than three dollars a day, I figured I’d try exercising outside of the gym, just to make sure.

Walking: The first thing that’s weird about walking rather than going to the gym is that there’s no machine telling me how fast I’m going or how long I’ve been at it or whether my heart rate has reached some optimal level. All that stuff is easy to readjust to for a few days just by committing to an amount of time you’re going to walk.

Taking a Walk, (c) 2012 TaipeiCityGuide.com, on Flickr, used with permission.

The second thing that took some adjustment was creating a walking route. For some reason it’s easier for me if I have a planned route. So I started with the whole around the block thing which didn’t take up the 45 minutes I know I should be spending walking. The simple solution for me was walking to some nature trails that are about three blocks away from my home.

The third thing I discovered is that I’d come to rely on the TV at the gym. Suddenly I was looking at my surroundings instead of watching TV. Trying to pick up some speed is a sure cure for the TV withdrawal. Paying attention to the ground also takes more focus than moving on a gym machine so I’m missing the TV less.

But I’m not an all-weather walker yet. If it’s raining, I’m not out there. Maybe I will at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet. When I start getting annoyed with myself on days I don’t go outside because of the weather, I think about the days I didn’t go to the gym either! Those were not a few, I can tell you!

Doing some exercises inside can fill the gap but I haven’t incorporated a great routine into my bad weather workouts yet. Also I found out my gym needs thirty days notice for me to terminate so if you’re thinking of doing this, you might want to find out the kind of notice your gym requires. And watch for any penalties that you may get, those contract clauses can come back to bite you!

Lunch Time

As far as the eating smart and saving money advice in the article, I liked the idea of purchasing gourmet meals from the grocery store. Still, I have to admit I like going out for dinner sometimes. There are some pretty reasonable places to eat in my area so instead of going to the most expensive places I can go to one of the less expensive places.

But if food variety is the issue for you, those gourmet meals in the food store sound like a great alternative to try. I do like the portion control (and calorie control) of pre-made meals which kind of force you to stop over-consuming, just make sure you don’t buy the double packs, or extra large servings. So I’m sure I’ll be trying them at some point.

Get a Life Cycle/Bicycle?

And you’ll notice I didn’t talk about the life cycle or bicycle. I’ll be damned if I actually know what a life cycle is! I did ride a couple of ‘special’ bikes at the gym, but I couldn’t remember if that was what they were called. And for bicycling, I’ve never been good at that, … I always get a sore ‘behind’ much quicker than my patience running out. So I’m not sure I’ll be trying either of those out any time soon!

Make Sensible Decisions

Sounds obvious, but there are times where we are spending money and we may actually be impairing our health. So look at your spending, check out the AceCashExpress Blog for some helpful financial advice.

Did you like this blog review? Are you financially and physically in shape in 2012? Or have you already broken your 2012 Resolutions? Share!

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At the beginning of the month, I usually withdraw a nominal NT$5000 (about US$165) to last me as long as I can. It covers coffee money, snacks and outside purchases, the occasional book or two (which are hideously expensive here), newspapers (not daily), some daily necessities, or occasional luxuries. So about the 8th of the month I always feel richer than the rest of the month.

I do make withdrawals from the bank to cover additional expenses, so most of this money is pocket money in the broadest sense. Pretty much by the end of the month, I’ll ‘borrow’ NT$1000 from the wife who’s in charge of the general expenses. That usually lasts me from then to the end of the month.

BUT, the biggest enemies of this money are Buckstars where I typically spend nearly NT$200 on coffee and something to eat! It’s surprising how fast that money can go when I go there every day! Even the occasional trip to 85C can speed up the pace of expenses.

The rest of the money goes on small stuff for home or business, and I occasionally forget to reclaim this money! Right now, though, is an exception: I have nearly NT$2000 in my wallet and that’s before my pocket money. I can’t remember why… but it’s there. I should save it.

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photo credit: helmet13

What is a “hui”?

But how did people lend in ancient societies where banks were non-existent? Time Magazine ran a story in 2004 that explained one of the ways that Chinese society uses to raise money when getting credit or loans from banks is impossible. And in China it tends to be very difficult to get any kind of credit, even now.

The story was called “China’s Shadow Banks” which in tune with much of American journalism these days preyed on the idea of fear… In reality, the system is quite simple, and as a former participant (through my wife) I was afforded an insider view of the process from beginning to end.

Our Personal Experience

Way back in 1995, we were planning to get married; of course we had almost nothing at the time, and so my wife’s friends organized a ‘hui’.

American Enterprise Online describes the process, albeit inaccurately.

The most common type has about 15 members (carefully chosen by the organizer to make sure they are harmonious and feel bound to honor their promises to each other), and each member is expected to contribute $500 at every monthly meeting. This provides a monthly capital pool of $7,500. At the first meeting, a hat-drawing or other lottery decides which of the 15 members will get to take the fund home. At the second meeting, the remaining 14 members hold a drawing for the $7,500. By the 15th meeting, every member will have taken home the $7,500. In practice, this means fourteen out of the 15 rosca members will have received an interest-free loan.

In Taiwan, there were a number of differences in the process that were not accurately described.

Interest paid

When we did the Hui, interest was payable. In fact, because of that, each pool was less than the theoretical maximum. Interest rates were fixed at the start of the term. Another difference is that if it was the recipient’s turn, then that month the recipient did not need to make any contribution at all (after all, that would be a payment to oneself).

So for the first recipient of the pool, each of the other 14 members would pay the premium less the interest rate. Thus, if the premium was 1%, then each participant would pay $495 to the recipient. Then the recipient would make payments each month at the full rate until the term of the Hui in fifteen months. The second month would come around, and the second recipient would make no payment, but would receive the full payment from the previous recipients, and the discounted premium from those who had not yet received any pool.

This would go on through to the last recipient, who would receive the full premiums from the other 14 people, not pay a premium himself. In this case, the last recipient would pay no interest on the money at all, but would have paid 14 months at the discounted rate. Thereby, he’d pay $6930 but receive back $7500 (including his own premium).

Rotation: Fixed or Random

Another difference with the article (worth reading) is that the rotation was either agreed by the members: if one person particularly needed the money for a wedding or house, then they would get it. If more than one person needed or no one needed it, a lottery would be used to determine who gets the money.

In our experience, it worked well with a small enough group of friends, though when I first heard about it, I was quite puzzled and fearful of the process. In practice, we were involved in two hui’s over the early years; and both worked out. The second hui actually resulted in us being picked last, and making a little money.

Fraud, Scams and Outrageous Risk

photo credit: jepoirrier

However, just a few years after, I heard of several cases where local people in Sanshia where my wife’s family lived either were so involved in huis that the whole scheme came tumbling down because they were using one hui to pay another. In another, the organizer ran away with the pool before the end of the term.

Also, there is risk that the hui will collapse but, another difference that I noted is that in Taiwan, the ‘hui’ had legal status as each member signed an agreement, and I’ve heard of ‘hui’s where members absonding has forced the hui leader to pay installments on behalf of the absconded members. And this does happen.

One of my friends married to a local asked me to participate in a hui with them. Since I didn’t quite trust the female partner, I baulked at the offer. Some months later, their business collapsed and they absconded. Of course, the hui would have been unpaid as the typical hui runs for 12 months or more.

Overall Impressions

In communities or groups of people where relationships are vital and everyone is interconnected, the social pressure would make huis more difficult to collapse as personal and family reputations were at stake; neighbors knew where you lived! In groups where relationships are not so tangible or direct, it’s much more difficult for the organizer of the hui to evaluate the ‘creditworthiness’ of each participant.

It is an effective way for Chinese to collect capital; it’s faster than savings, can be interest free, there’s no limits on how the money can be used, and it’s fairly secure. There’s an interesting discussion on Forumosa from a few years ago on how it worked.

I’ve been searching for an old spreadsheet which I will upload, but I can’t remember where I saved it. I’ll add it when I find it.

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If you’re interested, download the file (in zip format) and upload it to your favorite OPML supported FeedReader. The file is generated from Google Reader, and does work well with that and, of course, BlogLines Feed Reader.

Happy Reading. Oh, and do share what feeds you like! Perhaps I’ll add one or two of them!

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Five Posts from Last Week.

• January 2008: Financial Results, Traffic and More… (0)
• A Man With A Plan: Ways to create additional income (2)
• What would you do if… (some bad news) (0)
• Monday News: A Carnival, Tidying Up, Chinese New Year and our 1st Martian Reader (0)
• NetWork Solutions: How YOU can gouge your customers in 10 steps or less – a case study (2)

In Other News,

…Voxant Scripts: No longer works on this blog

Sorry about the video posting earlier on Saturday, but it turns out that Voxant has changed their scripts such that I can no longer place their videos in my posts. I’m not sure why yet, but I was unaware that there’d been a change until I saw an invisible video yesterday. I was already tired from blogging, so rather than waste time, I simply deleted the post. I didn’t want to fight their scripts. Any suggestions?

…Get A FREE Review

I’ve been running a competition for a free blog review. Check this post for more details. It would be fun to see how many people can guess properly. Of course, now that the deadline has passed, I’d like to award the prize to … Drum Roll! It was Michael Turton who wrote: “I’d say you were on or about floor 25. Nice shot, shows the tree-lined avenue perfectly.” I’ll be featuring your blog sometime after Chinese New Year on InvestorBlogger dot com. Thanks, Michael. Michael works there in one of the Universities, so he knew the answer .

…Carnival of Making REAL Money

The 11th edition is now available on the other blog, now so go over and check it out. I’ve posted over 20 links to excellent articles.

…New Project: Adding Images To Your blog

SponsoredReviews’ blog has a great post on adding pictures and images to your blog with excellent advice that covers software, printscreen, royalty free images, etc. It’s an excellent detailed post.

…Should M$ buy Yahoo?
And of course, the big news story of the week is Microsoft Buying Yahoo!. I’m not so sure that this will be good for Yahoo!s customers. I love what they have done with many of their services, but I’m afraid that M$ will just monetize the hell out of the services in ways similar to HotMail, and Listbot.

…First Investments
A friend today was asking about investing in currencies as a way to make additional interest, but he wanted to invest a lot of his money into South African Rand. Is that a wise move? What do you think?

Let’s hear your answers on these or any blog issues!

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1. Saturday Bytes: WMV to FLV and FireFox’s Causing Me Frustration
2. Technorati: Why you should bother, how you do it, and the ‘dark side’
3. NetWork Solutions: How YOU can gouge your customers in 10 steps or less – a case study
4. and our new Advice Column: Your House Is Not YOUR ATM Machine

For the advice column, simply drop your email to us (anonymously, if you wish) and I’ll write InvestorBlogger’s response with some suggestions.

And now the news…

Monday is here, the first day of our holiday at Chinese New Year! Yesterday, we spent the whole of yesterday reorganising the school offices. I had to finish rewiring the computers, too. But it’s done, and the new network will work nicely, I think. One PC will be devoted to running the printers, another to running the network, another to running the photocopier, and another to running our IntraNet blog, I hope.

So, though we use a local network at school, we’ve distributed services across every PC except the notebook to maintain as much of a system as possible should one PC die. I had intended to network everything to just one PC, but then thought perhaps that wasn’t a good idea if there should be a hardware problem. So our services are distributed to minimize impact of broken systems. BUT we don’t have any extra capacity at the moment which is a pity.

The New Carnival 10th Edition and the new host

Yep, it’s out on the new blog, and posted with 21 good stories, and most of the junk removed. I took a huge paring knife to cut out duplicates, irrelevant stories, popup articles, etc., But I’m glad, the edition is good. Next time, we’ll feature a new section: Chinese New Year is approaching, posts that make special reference to that will be given their own featured section!

Chinese New Year: A time to tidy up

Chinese take a lot of time to clean up before the New Year (February 6th this year!) and I’ve really gone to town to clean up my own clothes closet! But I’m so untidy and disorganised that it took me more than 12 hours to put everthing here…

into here…

and it’s done now… But it was a challenge! And it’s not particularly neat and tidy, but it is sorted out now! What is the secret to being organized, please tell me!?

Amazon’s Big News: Downloads go International!

You’ve got to read this story about Amazon’s announcement:

Amazon MP3 is the only retailer to offer customers DRM-free MP3s from all four major music labels as well as over 33,000 independent labels. “We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S. They can’t wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free MP3 music downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President of Digital Music. “We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year.”

I’m skeptical, because their definition of the term ‘international’ may only include Canada, the UK, Japan, France and wherever else there is a localized Amazon site. But here’s hoping.

What’s that guy on Mars doing?

CNET is carrying this picture recently taken from Mars courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University of a 2″ man.

Nasa has finally taken a picture of a Martian: he (or she) is obviously squinting at the ASUS Eee PC with the 7″ screen while browsing InvestorBlogger dot com. What else could the Martian be doing? Suggestions in the comments please!

Upcoming Stories

These are some of the stories I’ll be posting several stories in the next few days:

1. What I did with my money
2. Security and WordPress: Beefing Up Security for your blog
3. WPBanners: A Fuller Review – Good Value or not?
4. Blogging: Usability Improvements

Do check back this week to see which is posted.

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So, let’s see what is in it!

One Taiwan ARC Card; two driving licenses; one car registration; two insurance cards (one already out of date); one bank account number (why?); a 2007 calendar; one NT$1000 bill; a National Health Insurance IC card; an MRT card (called EasyCard!); a CostCo Membership card; a Telephone Card (with IC); a Subway Customer Card (we have one near here!); a MasterCard and some ATM cards, none of which I use particularly often; and a NT$5 coin. That’s it. Oh, and I found an insurance sticker with a phone number that I SHOULD stick on my car window, but always forget to…

It was helpful, I threw out the old calendar, and reminded myself to renew my car registration; I also have to stick the Insurance Sticker on the window, just in case.

OK. So here goes: who’s going to follow me in this meme! Let’s see if Elizabeth at Table for Five will…!

Do mention in the meme: This meme was started by InvestorBlogger.

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Just yesterday, I went with Christine to a flower market in Taipei. This is something I normally hate doing, but this time something twigged: I may not appreciate the enjoyment and satisfaction she has from growing and keeping plants, but I could enjoy another aspect that I already knew about – taking photographs of the specimens. And the new power zoom of my Panasonic Lumix made it that much more fun.

Fashion affects us all

While I was thinking about this, another example sprang to mind: The Devil Wears Prada. Since this movie is set in the fashion world, most of the girls I knew reckoned that I wouldn’t or couldn’t possibly enjoy this movie. But they were wrong! And I was teased mercilessly for enjoying a ‘chick flick’ but I didn’t see it as a ‘chick flick’ at all. Far from it.

What was my secret? I had found something that I really enjoyed in the movie, the intrigue, the lead character called Miranda Priestly – played by Meryl Streep (one of my favorites since I first saw her in “Out of Africa”) – and the whole business of the fashion world. I also loved the idea that the fashion magazines were somehow connected to our daily lives, as Andy Sachs promptly found out, when lashed by Miranda’s tongue in the following diatribe:

Miranda Priestly: [Miranda and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy sniggers because she thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?

Andy Sachs: No, no, nothing. Y’know, it’s just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y’know, I’m still learning about all this stuff.

Miranda Priestly: This… ‘stuff’? Oh… ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back.

But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers.

Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

Shift your focus: Shift your future

That’s when it suddenly hit home to me, if I’m struggling to understand why something is interesting to other people, I just need to shift my focus to something that I am already familiar with, and perhaps, just perhaps I can make a connection with it that helps me to ‘get it’.

When I first started doing the finances, and handling the money, it was a very difficult time for me, as I had to learn new ideas and unlearn my former prejudices – thinking about, talking about, and taking action on finances weren’t things that came easy to me.

How Things Change

In fact, it would be impossible for me to imagine then that I could be writing a finance column about money, investing, loans, credit cards, blogging and technology (to name a few of my themes!). But somewhere between the date I got married in June 1995 and when we bought the house in 1999, a transition took place in my brain that allowed me to grasp ideas and information that had been ‘foreign’ to me for a long time.

Have you had a similar experience? Share with us.  Ever had to tackle something that you had a distaste for? What happened?

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Day #1 – Cash Transforms Our Subsistence

When people lived in agrarian societies, we all were tied in various ways to the land. We would all benefit when there was a surplus, and grow hungry when times were lean. When we were living in traditional societies, we’d live hand-to-mouth, literally. Even in countries that have just industrialized, there is a memory of what it was like to live on a farm, rearing animals, raising crops, picking wild fruit… and in many ways, life was great. Your shopping mall was outside your front door when it was warm, but if it turned cold and snowy, well, like the Ant in the traditional Anansi story, you’d had better have finished your preparations for winter.

However, once we entered the industrial age, many of us still assumed that the hand-to-mouth subsistence type of economy or society still existed. It did. It was called living from “paycheck to paycheck”. The cash we received was the equivalent of the stored value of the produce that we used to have on the farm.

But we’d get the paycheck or ‘wages’ paid on Thursday or Friday. It’d be gone by Monday or Tuesday and we’d be eating bread and drinking water for Wednesday and Thursday. With the coming of the middle class, wages become salaries, and weekly payments in cash became monthly bank transfers.

Do you remember your parents attitudes to money? How did they handle the cash? Were they good at it? Or did they just spend it?

Part 2 is published Sunday at lunchtime, then each day next week.

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The TOS of many agreements allow the agreements to be cancelled by both parties without cause (I presume that means you cancel without having to provide a reason). In other words, I believe you can write them, and cancel the agreement, remove the ads and receive all monies owed to you at the time provided that the amount is greater than $10. I’d be happy to be corrected if that were not the case. So, don’t just blow that amount and don’t let Google keep it… You really can ask Google to close your Adsense account and remit your earnings. It’s in their TOS. According to their TOS, they will send you the earnings.

Quote:
In the event the Agreement is terminated, Google shall pay Your earned balance to You within approximately ninety (90) days after the end of the calendar month in which the Agreement is terminated by You (following Google’s receipt of Your written request, including by email, to terminate the Agreement) or by Google. In no event, however, shall Google make payments for any earned balance less than $10.

Also, if you have written Google to cancel your contract, let me know the results. Were you successful or not? Share your experience.

I’d be in less of a hurry to throw in the towel with Google, though. My own plan is to keep Adsense until it gets to $100 (which wouldn’t have been that long without Google messing the formats!). So yes, I know, my Adsense is still there, but that’s not for much longer! …

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In this letter presented by John Maudlin, Bill Gross takes a look at the future of the US boomer generation as consumers. He considers some startling, though rather obvious, conclusions:

“it will be up to younger generations to do the Lord’s work and there aren’t enough of them to provide health care, a comfortable retirement, and to compete head-on with the Asian invasion at the same time.”

We can postulate based on his rationale a number of consequences for the boomer generation: with fewer workers, productivity will have to rise to maintain the nation’s standard of living; prices for services for retired people will rise dramatically as more people use their wealth to purchase these services; many services provided originally by local and state government will become unworkable because of a shortage of labor, which no amount of local lawmaking will be able to solve; taxes will probably rise for everyone – creating a disincentive for individuals to work harder anyway, and forcing more corporations to look for cheaper tax shelters; … you can see where this is going. The intergenerational balance will be altered and as always in such situations, when one thing changes in one way, there is always a backdraft going the other way. Raise taxes … more money for government to spend on people… fewer jobs… fewer investments… possibly even capital flight.

“A lack of workers can be solved only by producing more of them and that will almost assuredly be done only by extending Americans’ retirement age into their late 60s and a scaling back of their benefits”

Most societies will manage the transition to an older society in a number of ways: increasing the retirement age to 70-75 perhaps; decrease state pension benefits (by delinking inflation enhancements); increase private provisions through Pension schemes (though the risks will be borne largely by the investors); make it easier for older people to keep working by changing laws, removing age discrimination; improve tax structures for individuals seeking to invest for their pensions; and so on…

“To think that all the boomers have to do is sell their homes to pay for retirement and healthcare begs the legitimate question of “to whom and at what price?” ”

Of course when demand rises, so do prices. The opposite also occurs: when products become abundant, prices fall. Inevitably, the assets that the older generations have accumulated to provide in their old age will be of less value in the future as competing herds of people try to sell to provide income: they will sell their houses, their stocks, their businesses, their antiques… Naturally, some will find buyers through international markets, but many will simply have to sell at lower and lower prices.

So where does that leave the boomer generation, especially those who have made so few provisions for their retirement?

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Some people may think of credit cards as just “plastic money” that are there for their every convenience. What most people do not realize is that if you keep thinking that your credit card will let you get your way when it comes to “financial freedom”, well think again.

When it comes to dealing with credit card companies, be prepared to be bombarded with all sorts of “payment schemes”, “loyalty points” and “spending points”. It’s important not to get mesmerized by these sugar coated terms because in reality, no company is willing to shell out big money for big incentives for their clients without the hindsight of better profits for them. Always read the fine print before you start committing to anything, as well as keep in mind that when an offer is too good to be true – it most probably is.

Here’s a quick rundown of the most commonly used credit card terminologies:

* Grace period – In layman’s terms, this is actually the time allotted for you in between a purchase to the actual time that you’ll have to pay the interest for it. The most common time given for grace periods is usually from twenty to twenty-five days from the time that your purchase gets posted on the creditor. Although grace periods may actually be quite tricky at times because there are actually instances wherein you’re not given any grace period at all. So you’re actually better off to just pay off your total balance – in full, so that you won’t have to be bothered by increasing interest rates.

* Low introductory interest rate – if you’re looking for a good credit card, then keep an eye out for this kind of offer from credit card companies, although, there’s always a catch when it comes to these things so watch out. Some credit card companies are able to waive their high interest rates for up to a year while some can just have it for one to three months before your debt starts creeping in. There are so many choices out there, you don’t really have to pick instantaneously.

* Annual percentage rate – Also known as the APR, this is actually the number that would be referring to the total cost of your debt. Aside from that, it’ll also include all sorts of fees and the compounding interest of your account. The APR is what you should know how to use when it comes to properly being able to compare different credit cards. Always remember that the lower the APR number, then the better chances that you won’t end up with so much debt.

* Transaction fees – there are credit card companies who would still charge you this fee, especially if you opt to use your credit card for other transactions like a cash advance or if you don’t pay your dues in time as well as if you keep maxing out your credit card. Some credit card companies may actually even charge you a standard flat rate every month even if you didn’t use your credit card at all, so watch out for credit card companies like that. The kind of transaction fees that credit card companies may charge you is unfortunately, their sole perogative, so in case they would be offering you all sorts of incentives or even freebies, make sure that you know fully what you’re getting yourself into.

Credit card companies in spite of always wanting your good favor, they are strict on payments. If you don’t wise up about things concerning your credit card, they will bleed you dry. Not literally of course, but it is always better to spend cash when you have it instead of credit cards. Always keep track of your spending, or else before you know, you might end up in the deep quicksand of credit card debt.

I guess this article really underlines the point that our increasing focus on systems is leaving out the fact that there are really talented people out there who don’t fit into our nice little paradigms of the qualified.

Our societies are becoming increasingly competitive in a number of ways: degree(s), first college, then university, then professional, now Ph.D.s, this certification, that association…. In general this leads to improvement in standards for society. But for individuals, this can lead to hardship as increasingly the payday for such investments in career becomes more and more removed from the equation. Students now are leaving university after their master degree with $1000s of debt.

And yet, there lies the conundrum: the paying positions don’t always allow students to pay off their debts. Teachers need masters degrees now. But can they afford to pay off their debts on a teacher’s salary?

So we are lead to ask: is ever increasing (now Masters, and Doctorates) education financially wise or financial folly?

Kenneth