MousePotatoPower

I’m a numbers person.  I like Excel.  With a decent set of data, I can amuse myself for hours making lists, charts and pivot tables.  Anything past algebra is beyond my comprehension, but I can easily calculate a 15% tip when I eat out.
Some of the people that I know aren’t as mathematically-inclined when it comes to percentages and fractions, but after a recent conversation with a few friends, we came up with a 2 easy ways to calculate an appropriate tip.

#1) Let’s assume that you are going to tip 15%.  Figure out what 10% of the bill is (move the decimal point one digit to the left.  Figure out what half of 10% is and add those 2 numbers together.

#1a) If you had bad service, stick with a 10% tip.   Just do the decimal point trick from method #1.

#1b) If service was excellent, leave a 20% tip.  Start with the decimal point trick from method #1 and double that.

#2) This method will vary depending on what the tax rate is in your state.  In Hawaii, it is currently 4.712%.  Find the tax amount on your restaurant receipt and multiply that by 4.

If all else fails, pull out your cellphone.  It’s got a calculator, doesn’t it?  Do the math with your phone.

One of my favorite types of blog posts are lists.  They don’t require much reading and they get to the point very quickly.

BusinessPundit.com has a list of Ten Books on Investing Recommended by Warren Buffet.

I like the idea and efficiency of investing, getting money to work for you. It’s a lot better than trading hours for dollars at a job.

• Take on the Street: What Wall Street and Corporate America Don’t Want You to Know. What you can do to fight back
• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns
• Speculative Contagion: An Antidote for Speculative Epidemics
• Benjamin Graham on Value Investing: Lessons from the Dean of Wall Street
• The Theory of Investment Value
• Where Are the Customers’ Yachts? or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street
• The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel
• Paths to wealth through common stocks
• Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust
• Security Analysis: Principles and Technique
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits

You can’t argue that Warren Buffet knows what he’s doing.  As of February 2008, Forbes ranked Buffet the richest person in the world, surpassing Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Helu.

Even though he is worth over $60 billion dollars, he only takes a salary of $100,000, lives in the same house that he bought in 1958, drives his own car, does not carry a cell phone, and intends to donate the majority of his fortune to charity when he dies.

Buffet regularly invites business students to visit his companies and gives them the opportunity to ask him questions, and ends the intensive day of learning with lunch at one of his favorite restaurants.

CNN has a great article about Warren Buffet.  My favorite question/answer out of the article is:

What advice would you give to someone who is not a professional investor? Where should they put their money?

Well, if they’re not going to be an active investor - and very few should try to do that - then they should just stay with index funds. Any low-cost index fund. And they should buy it over time. They’re not going to be able to pick the right price and the right time. What they want to do is avoid the wrong price and wrong stock. You just make sure you own a piece of American business, and you don’t buy all at one time.

Great advice from the Oracle of Omaha.

Is this a female Bill Gates?

This 17 year old dropped out of school because a business idea based on MySpace is earning her $70,000/month. Believe it or not, she doesn’t even sell anything right now, she gives stuff away for FREE!

Article on DoshDosh

A more in-depth article from FastCompany.com here.

You might as well make money online. My personal checking account doesn’t give me any interest and it hasn’t for over 10 years. My personal savings account isn’t much better.

Last year, I found out about a micro-lending website called Prosper. Prosper is like an e-bay for loans. I signed up as a lender and ponied up $300. 10 months and 7 loans later, I am sitting on $318.71 with no defaulted loans. The math doesn’t quite add up. I know I’m securing interest rates above 14%, but earning $18.71 on $300 only comes up to about 6.25%. Either way, I’m turning a better profit than any bank account I have seen.

As a borrower, you can borrow up to $25,000 per loan, typically at interest rates below what a bank would offer you. As a lender, you must loan at least $50 per borrower. You “win” the loan by bidding the lowest interest rate. I have been able to secure as high as a 17.42% interest rate.

Your mileage may vary. A few caveats that you will want to know:

• Prosper is open to anybody. The typical lender does not fully understand the risks involved with lending and will usually bid too low of an interest rate (based on the borrower’s credit history).
• Low interest rates are good for borrowers.
• Borrowers can sign up without verifying home ownership or even a bank account. To me, this screams high-risk loan.
• The expected annual loss rate that Prosper displays only applies to borrowers with less than 20% DTI (debt to income) ratio. Borrowers with a higher DTI will default on loans at a higher rate.
• Prosper (and micro-lending) is relatively new and unproven. Will you jump on the wave and ride it to potential fortune? Or is this trend headed for disaster?

Sign up by clicking on this referral link by August 31, 2007 and successfully fund a loan within 90 days of signing up to earn $25.