Over the past weekend I borrowed another one of Robert Kiyosaki’s books from a friend. I believe it’s his latest one now, but I’m not certain about this. At any rate, this one is called Rich Dad’s Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money.

What do I think of the book?

If you’ve read some of his other books in the past, you’ll probably recognize a lot of the information in the book. He talks about the importance of financial intelligence as well as many other topics that he’s gone over before. It isn’t a bad read, but he does mention the fact that Nixon took us off the gold standard back in 1971 too many times. Now, here are the chapters in the book for those of you who may be interested in it:

1. What is Financial Intelligence?
2. The Five Financial IQ’s
3. Financial IQ #1: Making More Money
4. Financial IQ #2: Protecting Your Money
5. Financial IQ #3: Budgeting Your Money
6. Financial IQ #4: Leveraging Your Money
7. Financial IQ #5: Improving Your Financial Information
8. The Integrity of Money
9. Developing Your Financial Genius
10. Developing Your Financial IQ: Some Practical Applications

If you’re just starting out trying to get your finances in order and trying to get ahead, then you’d probably benefit from reading this book. If on the other hand, like I’ve already mentioned, you’ve already read some of his other books, then you’ll most likely find little value added.

Over the past weekend while we were in Dallas, my brother was looking to buy Mario Kart Wii after he saw how much his daughter enjoyed the game in store. Best Buy either didn’t have it in stock or was holding it back because it was in the ad for the next day, I can’t remember which, but we couldn’t get it there so we went to Circuit City instead for which he had a gift card anyway.

Long story short, we ended up getting the game. But it’s the Circuit City experience that I was really soured with. My brother wanted to get another wheel for the game so that he would have two. Since Best Buy was selling it for $9.99, we figured that Circuit City would price match it and everything would be fine. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. As it was explained to us, in order for them to do the price match it had to be in an ad, they had to call the store to verify it, and the other store had to have it in stock. In our situation, the ad didn’t come out until the next day and they were holding the wheels back so they would be in-stock when the ad did come out.

Keep in mind that it was just the ad that was coming out the next day. The regular price was still $9.99 at Best Buy while it was $14.99 at Circuit City. All this just comes down to poor (very poor) customer service. If these are really the stipulations of their price matching policy (I’m not exactly sure it is yet) then it’s poor customer service from corporate on down, and it’s no wonder that Circuit City’s stock price and financials are tanking. Needless to say, I definitely won’t make Circuit City my first stop when I’m looking for something. The only chance they have of my future business is if they’re the only ones that sell something I really want, which is highly unlikely given their competition.

I ran across a short article on CNN Money entitled, Buffett Sees U.S. in Recession, and when the Oracle of Omaha speaks, people tend to listen. Now, whether or not the country is actually in a recession as it’s technically defined still remains to be seen, but here’s what Buffett had to say:

“I believe that we are already in a recession. Perhaps not in the sense as defined by economists. … But people are already feeling the effects of a recession.”

It’s an interesting take on the subject of recession, and one that’s definitely more practical. I mean, aren’t the effects on people’s behaviour more important than whether we’ve actually had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth? If people are feeling pinched and are afraid of inflation and other financial worries, what does it really matter if we technically are or aren’t in a recession?

I must say though that it depends on one’s individual situation whether they feel this way or not. I personally don’t feel the pressure of a recession even amidst rising gas prices and such. We have a certain buffer built into our “budget” (if you can call it that) so the current conditions aren’t having all that horrible of an effect on our situation. Others will see things differently though.

Regardless of your personal situation though, it’s safe to say that things are definitely changing. The lifestyle of the past couple of years probably won’t be the same going forward. The days of easy credit and the “we can pay for it later” attitude are going to have to change if they haven’t already. It’s not something that we can’t deal with, but change happens and we’ll have to adapt. For those who are unwilling to adapt and make changes, it’ll probably be tough, but if you’re willing to find and learn a new way to play the game in the changing financial landscape, you should manage to do just fine.

Well, if you haven’t heard or read already, American Airlines is going to start charging a separate fee for checking even one bag. It’ll cost $15 for that first bag beginning with tickets purchased on June 15th, unless they decide to make the fee retroactive as well. This announcement has garnered a lot of attention in the media as well as across the net with most people upset about it.

I, on the other hand, am not surprised at all by this and don’t really see much wrong with it. Most people just view this as a price increase which is never welcomed by the public. But haven’t we been expecting prices to go up anyway? I mean, with the price of fuel continually going up and all the doom and gloom in the market, airline prices were going to go up anyway.

So if the prices were going to go up anyway, why would you want them to go up across the board for everyone equally regardless? If you usually travel with a lot of baggage, that’s why. If you check two bags as well as carry one on, of course you’d like the cost to be evenly distributed over all passengers. But if you’re going to travel with just a small carry on, I’d suspect that you’d rather not have to help foot the bill for people who are shipping more with them.

If you look at air travel as what it actually is, it makes a little more sense as well. It’s a transportation service. You’re essentially shipping yourself and some of your things from one place to another. If you go to the post office, UPS, or FedEx and ship something, you’ll naturally pay more for a larger package than for a smaller one.

So don’t be enraged by this pricing change. Airfare was going to go up anyway; it’s just now going up disproportionately for those who are packing more with them. Just be grateful for now that they don’t make you get on a scale yourself and charge by the pound…

It’s been in the media recently about two of the largest retailers, Sam’s Club and Costco, limiting the number of bags of rice that people could buy. With the current state of the economy, I can understand how this would make the news, but I’m not sure why people are making such a big deal about it. It’s not the first item that has had a limit placed on its purchase.

The restriction was only placed on “specialty” varieties of rice, and it was limited to four 20-pound bags. From the perspective of the average American consumer, I’m not sure what the big deal is. Who really needs to purchase 80-pounds of rice? I can see the impact to some small businesses who usually purchase large quantities, but it’s now just an inconvenience to have to go through the checkout a couple of times if that’s what it takes.

These are also the only two stores that have put restrictions on rice. You can still buy all you want at Wal-Mart or any other retail outlet. So don’t let something like this add to your worries about the economy. It isn’t anything worth fretting about.

It seems that over in London an ATM machine started paying out twice as much money as was asked for. Apparently it was doing this for a couple of hours until the machine finally ran out of cash. Hundreds of people were drawn to cash in on the mistake and people were calling up their friends telling them to come take advantage. They were requesting the daily maximum of 300 pounds and being given 600 pounds while their receipt only showed the asked for 300.

After reading this, I asked myself what I would have done if I were in the same situation. I’m sure for a lot of people something like this would be pretty tempting; however, I decided a long time ago that being honest in all things was more important than a quick buck. 300 pounds is a decent chunk of change, but is it really worth selling your integrity for? I would hope not.

There is an interesting article over at W Revenue about longevity research, or anti-aging research, entitled Living Well, Indefinitely. He just got back from the Emerging Technology Conference and this was obviously one of the topics there. It’s not something that I’ve thought too much about really, but I do find the subject interesting. (W Revenue is also giving out $20 to the first 100 people who post about it. I thought I’d write about it anyway, but $20 never hurt anyone.)

Basically the goal of this type of research is to prolong life, but not as we may currently think about it. It’s not just about increasing general life expectancy, but rather living healthier longer. Something along the lines of stopping (or I would add slowing) our cells from aging, say in our twenties. Would this be a bad thing?

Apparently there are some opponents to this type of thinking such as those with social concerns and population issues. Others view aging as natural and something that we shouldn’t mess with. I can see basis for many of the concerns, but I also don’t see much wrong with wanting to preserve the human life. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s what the medical profession is all about. If we could maintain a healthier and younger state for a longer period of time, I’d be all for it. There is so much in life to enjoy and experience, and this would allow us to do it.

Right now this issue is in the conceptual and early research stage. As far as I’m concerned, I would support further research in this area. Sure, there may be issues and concerns that crop up along the way, but I see no harm in the research to see what’s possible. So what are your thoughts on this issue? You could write your own viewpoint and maybe earn a little cash as well.