Finding Freedom

I was browsing around today, and I came across this article over on Yahoo! that shows a definite link betwen people who have a healthy lifestyle and people who are fortunate enough to be financially well off.  While the article speaks mostly in macroeconomic terms about how third world countries that have a rising health standards are the ones to show the highest economic growth, there is certainly the implication that personal health contributes to a person’s own individual capacity to work better and, sometimes, more than the unhealthy person, and that is the kind of work that is more apt to receive promotions and raises.

 The idea of the article is intuitive enough; it’s just good to see studies backing up what makes sense.

My phone plan recently expired, and, with one of the biggest draws that cell phone companies have to keep you in their clutches is slashing prices on phones if you sign up again, I purchased a new phone at a reduced price in addition to renewing my plan.  Although prices for other plans were comparable, I opted to remain with Cingular because my family is all on Cingular, and those free mobile to mobile minutes really add up.

I started looking at my options for a phone, and I eventually decided on a mid-priced phone with seventy bucks in rebates.  Of that seventy in rebates, twenty of those dollars came as an instant online rebate, but to receive the other fifty, I had to send in my receipt, proof of purchase, and rebate form to a specified address.  I thought that that seemed reasonable, and so I went ahead and purchased the phone.

However, as I was looking at the rebate form later, I read that the other fifty dollars would not come as a check; instead, Cingular had partnered with Visa, and they were going to send me a fifty dollar Visa gift card. 

Now, I suspect that some of you will argue that fifty bucks is fifty bucks, but I’m afraid that I’m going to have to disagree.  By giving me a gift card, unless I can rock some kind of cash advance on that puppy, they are effectively not giving me my fifty back.  While I could have just taken that money and stuck it into savings before, now I’ll be forced to spend it in the near future, as gift cards are notorious for having expiration dates.

In short, I’m not really happy about how things turned out.  Do rebates tend to work out this way?

I spoke with my employer at my regular job, and he said that it was all right to adjust my schedule in such a way as to make doing the show work.  He further said that he trusted me, and just as long as my customers weren’t complaining, he really didn’t have any problem with it.

I sort of figured that he would be all right with it, but it is certainly very soothing and gratifying to hear it right from his mouth.

Some of you may remember that I auditioned for a show in a professional theatre a few months ago.  I didn’t get the part, but, because I at first did not succeed, I tried, tried again, this time with a different but just as prestigious theatre in the area.

And I got a part.

Obviously I’m as pleased as punch, but one of the greatest things about this is that they will be paying me pretty well for my time and efforts.  While it would be quite difficult to live on just that income, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be able to keep my day job as well, which means that my income will go up by about a third.  When you consider that the most I have received for acting in the past was a stipend of $200 for the whole rehearsal process and run of the show, getting paid nearly twice that weekly is not only awesome, but also a tremendous verification that I’m getting closer to doing the right things with my life.

What the extra money means to me is that I’ll be able to pay down my debts that much more quickly while thoroughly improving my acting resume.  Plus, because I will essentially be working two jobs, I’ll have less time to spend any extra money, which will only add to savings.

Sometimes you just have to keep trying, you know?  There’s something to be said about perseverance.

This is a Jackson Pollock painting entitled ‘No. 5, 1948.’  Though people are apparently reluctant to speak about it, the painting was recently sold for $140 million dollars, making it the most expensive piece of art ever purchased.

Now, maybe it’s just because I don’t have that kind of money, but I can’t imagine liking this, or any other painting well enough to want to spend that kind of money on it, especially, from an economic standpoint, with art being as just about the most subjective type of investment there is.

My hesitation to purchase would not stem from the painting’s abstract nature; I would be hard pressed to pay that much for Red Canna, which is one of my very favorite paintings.  Even as a self-professed art lover, I couldn’t bring myself to spend that much money.

I wonder what the buyer sees in it that I don’t.  It must be something pretty enduring to spend that much money on it.  I hope that I can appreciate something so much some day to make that price worth it.

After essentially falling of the face of the personal finance earth the last couple of months, I am back with this, my own dot com (thanks to Flexo’s offer a few months back).

Part of the time has been spent on other projects as well as being quite busy at work.  With the busyness that I have had, and the trials, toils, and snares I will likely be subjected to over the next couple of months, I offer to those of you who have come here a veritable relaunch with an asterix.

While I will certainly be posting more frequently than I had been, I’m going to shoot for posting a couple of times a week, as opposed to the daily posting that I had shot for for a while over at the old site.  I hope that this keeps me inspired enough to produce engaging and informative content, while not being too drained to want to go on.

For those of you who will still come here and read what my financially unsavvy mind has to say about things, thanks for sticking with me.