It's Not Easy To Save Money

If you're earning minimum wage, or close to it, it's not easy to save money. Simply putting your money into a savings account can you make you feel like your money is just sitting there and rotting away. Yes, savings accounts give interest. But this amount is so small and negligible, that you barely get pennies on the dollar. It is quite depressing to see a bank statement with over a thousand dollars saved, only to find that you've gained less than a dollar in interest. Money market accounts aren't much better, and usually require high minimum balances.

So what about CDs? It could be considered a downside that you can't really withdraw funds (well you can, but for a heavy penalty). However, there are many different period options now available. You used to have to open a CD for 1 year minimum, but now they are offering CDs with periods as short as 3 months. Depending on the bank you choose, initial deposits aren't that high either. $500 is low enough for the average minimum wage earner to cough up.

But how much would you actually earn? Using very rough and generous estimates, we can use an example of a $500 CD for a 6 month period, at 2% simple interest. 2% may sound very high compared to some national averages, or other saving options; but in reality, it just means that for every $100 you put down, you are only getting $2 back. That means in this example, putting down $500 will only give you $510 in 6 months. $10 sounds great compared to a regular savings account. But what can you do with $10? $10 really isn't much. After taxes, that is just about 2 hours of work for a minimum wage earner. $10 probably isn't enough to persuade someone to go to a bank, spend some time doing paperwork, and then come back after 6 months to collect.

It all seems like too much effort just to save some money. This probably explains why it's so hard for lower income people to save their money. There is little tangible incentive to do so. What is the Average Joe to do?

Where's help when you need it?

Ever notice that when you truly need help, no one is available?

If you're a very independent person (loner *cough cough*) such as myself, you probably don't share your problems very often with others, and you'd rather stumble your way trying to figure things out on your own.

But then there are times where you hit roadblocks - and stumbling your way just doesn't cut it. It is in these times that you truly need some sort of guidance.

And isn't it ironic how during these times, people who perpetually avail themselves as being helpful just aren't available (or even worse - just plain unhelpful), for one reason or another?

Although this may sound very cynical and pessimistic, sometimes I truly believe that the only person you can depend on is yourself. This is a step below what my father has told me several times - that the only people you can truly depend on are your family.

Sucks.

School sucks. Work sucks. Life sucks?

Bleh.

I hate to sound like a real whiner but School really sucks when you spend thousands of dollars to learn and end up not learning much. But you can't blame teachers because they're just doing their job. I honestly feel like Degrees are nearly meaningless. What's really important is a person's Knowledge and ability to apply that Knowledge. Degrees do not always reflect this.

And work really sucks because you can't get a good job without some form of Degree. It's very easy to end up in a s***y job that bleeds you dry of sleep and energy for low pay - yet you must endure just to get through Life.

Well not everything in Life sucks. Sleep is nice. So I guess, Life without Sleep sucks. But what else is there to Life besides School, Work, and Sleep? Hmm...

Here I am back to blogging~

A lot of people have told me time and time again that personal blogs suck and no one cares about how people complain on the internet. But for some reason I always find myself at home typing out things. Even though my websites/blogs always seem to fail in one way or another, I get short bursts of inspiration that drive me to make them over and over.

Picking a name for a blog really sucks too. There are hundreds of blogs with cool domain names that are taken up, and haven't been used for years. I wish that Google had some way of purging old and inactive blogs. Cool names like Red and Blue haven't been updated since 2001. And just like me those blogs failed. Maybe they ran out of things to say, or maybe they didn't feel like sharing things over the internet, or maybe they just got lazy and didn't feel like posting anymore.

I actually have some decent content because I'm always thinking deeply about a lot of things. It's just that I'm a pretty lazy person and typing out well thought-out posts require some effort that I'm not always willing to put in. Yet here I am sitting here trying again. Maybe something will come of this... if not, there is always the delete button.

And that is a button I'm willing to press. I used to have a blog called "Valley of Shadow" where I was pretty much making an online journal during a period of my life where I was very depressed. Some people say blogging is therapeutic - maybe it's because you get type out your feelings and emotions freely without any form of immediate criticism (comments aren't posted right away and aren't read right away). This is also probably very good for introverted people who aren't always comfortable talking with other people. I myself am an introvert and I've always been more comfortable writing about something than actually talking about it. But after that point in my life had passed, I felt no need for the blog and fully deleted it. As of this post "valleyofshadow" which is a decent domain name is available...

I'd like to hope this blog will turn out to be more than just a dumping ground of random stuff, but it seems to be that a lot of blogs just turn out that way... If you have something interesting to say I invite you to leave a comment. Good blogs always seem to have some dialogue. And yes, I plan to respond to comments.

Thanks for reading. Peace~