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| Being "Cash Rich" |
| Thursday, August 23, 2007 |
Well I stopped by our credit union today and got all the cash we need. Remember we have to have clean, unmarked bills for the payments for our coordinator, translator, and driver. And the amount we pay (roughly $5,000) is all given on the first trip. The reason you need clean bills is that most banks and foreign exchange places throughout the world, not just Russia, are very wary of counterfeit U.S. bills. So I needed to take that amount out (plus some walking around cash).
Fortunately the manager at our local branch of our credit union is familiar with this since he told me that another customer makes trips to the far east twice a year and he routinely stores up cash for him. So I was able to get everything we need from him so that's one less thing we need to worry about.
By the way, that term "Cash Rich" is actually what my dad always uses for the concept of maintaining a good personal balance sheet. Ah sorry, I guess even that was a bit too much finance gobbly-goop. What I mean is not to have too much debt (or at least what I call "bad debt") and to stay Cash Rich. And in these days of credit worries, which quite frankly the finance industry brought upon themselves, it's a good mantra to live by.
And in the off chance you are interested, what I consider good debt vs. bad debt is...
Good debt is tax deductible, long term, low rate debt (i.e., home mortgages).
Bad debt is high rate debt (i.e., credit cards, etc.).
It's fine (and actually quite beneficial) to have the first. But try to have none, as in zero, of the second.
This has been a public service announcement from the Retire Early and Sleep Well At Night organization. Thank you for your time. |
posted by Steveg @ 11:48 AM  |
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I'm Steve and this is my wife Stefanie. This is our story, mostly seen through my eyes, of the journey to create our family by adopting a child from Russia.
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"The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it."
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