Leaderboard

The fancier the restaurant, the harder it is to dine alone.

Several staff members keep track of my spending for me, and they let me know quickly when a problem develops. I say that rather tongue in cheek, as the idea that I might have a problem with money is laughable. Of course, I just lost an expensive race for President... Oh, me? Ha! I have so little money these days, but I do know where it goes and when. An advantage of having litle is that there is less to follow.

I think younger generations (which have never had to balance a checkbook) may be less likely to do that kind of thing. Some banks offer some tools to integrate with Quicken/Mint somewhat but I've never even gone that far. I know I probably should, but that's never quite made me. Sometimes I wonder how much money I wasted back during the height of my hiring guys... and am a little glad I don't know... I do occasionally watch Suze Orman, have a savings, and have paid off my credit debt. But my retirement account is a horror show (people could be seriously rich if they'd done the opposite of what I've done the last 6 years or so!).

I don't budget but I do use Excel to keep track of how much I have in my bank accounts. There are lots of articles and blogs on how much to allocate but I have never found them useful because expenses that they figure are fixed (such as electricity and water) actually vary. One site that I like is http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/ . All of the readings that I've done on the subject indicate 3 basic things: create an emergency fund, pay off your debts and save for retirements.

And what does the answer mean? Would you turn down a stoned escort? If you are a top, and he is on crystal, well, aren't you in business? That's my understanding. I hate it when drugs take over a person's life, and if I thought the escort had serious problems that way, I wouldn't let him use drugs on my time.