100th Post From The Rat

It’s hard to believe, but this is the 100th post that has been published by The Rat.

My 100th post! In a lot of ways, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been able to reach this figure. My biggest hope is that I have provided value to my readers and visitors with the various threads I have published. The whole intent of my site is to share both ideas and topics as it relates to personal finance, as well as real life experiences. If only one person has gotten something positive from Ending The Rat Race, then I’m a happy camper, because the spirit of this blog is also for others to be motivated as it relates to achieving their financial objectives.I’m really pleased to see an increase in comments and activity on my site over the past weeks. Since my blog’s humble beginnings a couple of years ago and on a Squarespace platform (which was admittedly, a lot of fun), I sometimes look back at some of the struggles I had in publishing content on a consistent basis. I knew it was something that I was always passionate about, but being caught up in a ‘rat race’ of my own took me in so many directions. I honestly gave it my best given the circumstances; when I look back at some of the articles/posts from the earlier days of this site, I’m proud at the fact that I was even able to squeeze them out and publish them. I think they occupy an important place on this site for a lot of reasons.

‘Set For Life!’ If You Won, Would It Really Be Enough?

The only time I buy lottery tickets is during the Christmas holidays. I buy them for family and friends and put them in their Christmas cards with the hope that perhaps they’ll win big. Normally, I buy the ‘Set For Life’ scratch off tickets because the top prize payout is bigger than what we typically see with most scratch off tickets.

As per the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, here are the rules of the game:

Scratch n’ Win

Joining An Investment Club

Investment clubs have been growing in popularity.  Perhaps you know of someone in your community that has recently joined or is part of an investment club. Or maybe you just heard of a group of people that are involved in one.  Maybe neither.At any rate, I thought I knew the intricacies of what an investment club really was all about until I read up more about it. Besides, my Dad had told me he was part of one when he was younger, so I automatically knew, right? Wrong.

What Is A Typical Investment Club & How Does It Function?

The typical investment club (or stock club as some may call it) involves a group of people with like-minded interests who like to “pool their money and invest together as a group”, as per the Investors Association of Canada. (On a side note, the association also offers a handy glossary of investment terms in alphabetical order for those who are interested).

Do You Have A “Buy & Hold” Investment Strategy?

I’ll be honest – I hate selling. I truly despise the prospect of having to make the call to dump any shares in my portfolio.  Unfortunately, its happened a few times more than I had wanted over the past few years, but in retrospect, I feel most of the moves were warranted.  The most embarrassing time, one in which I look back as a valuable learning experience, occurred in the midst of the market meltdown we all witnessed in late 2008.Markets were performing rather well and I had leveraged funds for investment purposes. I knew I was ‘rolling the dice’ in a lot of ways, but the numbers somehow made sense to me at the time. Then came the unanticipated wave of fury being unleashed upon the markets and portfolio value started to plummet. In the heat of the moment, and with the prospects of being in an even worse position in the very near future if a move hadn’t been made, I dumped all the shares in stock that I had leveraged for investment purposes. I lost several thousand dollars in the process. Ouch.

Are You Up For The Challenge? Joining The Yakezie Challenge.

After visiting many blogs over the past couple of weeks, I could not help but notice the badge that can be seen in the image below. At first, when I saw fellow bloggers post threads with titles having the words “Yakezie Challenge”, I paid no mind. It wasn’t until this week when I came across yet another post describing the challenge and I decided to read up. It didn’t take long before I found myself back again at the Financial Samurai’s site.

Kudos to the Financial Samurai- I mean really. He has certainly harnessed the true powers of the Katana (along with Eliminate the Muda!, CJ Bowker, MBA Briefs and others for their involvement) with this type of challenge. Not only does this challenge enable bloggers to improve their ranking and relative traffic position on the web, it allows us to get to know other fellow bloggers having similar interests and promote each others’ sites.

And in the spirit of this initiative, I’m officially announcing my acceptance of the challenge and will start selflessly promoting other as of right now. Feast your eyes on some of the following Proud Members of The Yakezie Challenge and some of their recent threads: