The Dividend Pirate

Apologies for being totally out of touch with the readers of DividendPirate. A lot of things happened in the past 2 months. I was in India for 4 weeks. Spent 2 weeks in Hyderabad for some work related training that I had to give and then spent the next 2 weeks in Mumbai with my family. Had a very interesting experience and will try to share it with you all. Mainly I want to highlight a lot of the culture differences that exist between US and India. Also want to update the readers on the investment climate in India. In one sentence the mood over there has changed from “extreme optimism to subdues pessimism”. More about that later.

Among other things my parents are visiting and am really excited to have them here. Its their first trip to US. On the weekends I am busy being their tourist guide. This week we are visiting Crater Lake. Next week we have a week long trip to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Los Angeles. We are staying at the Bellagio. Have been to Vegas twice before, always wanted to stay there but never got a chance. Will have to avoid losing money at poker.

And while they are here frugality is totally out. My parents have worked really hard their entrie life and hardly taken any vacation. I want them to have a great time while they are here.

More stuff coming up in other posts. Keep checking…

Adios!!!

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My old car (ironically which I have nicknamed Old Faithful) finally bailed out on me. I left my car at the mechanic over the weekend and he said that

- my rear brakes need replacement(~200 bucks)

- so do my front ones(~200 bucks)

- my radiator needs to be replaced(~400 bucks)

- my oil gasket is leaking(~150 bucks)

- my oxygen sensors need to be replaced(~250 bucks)

- my door handle needs to be fixed(~350 bucks)

Grrrr… and this just after I replaced my tires with 4 new ones a couple months back(cost me 400 bucks). How ironic that the tires come with a lifetime warranty . Not to mention that I replaced my car’s starter last week for 250 bucks. How could my car do this to me? Oh and why did this have to happen at this time? I am leaving for India next week and wont have much time to fix the problem or shop.

We are just going through a “bad car phase” in life. My wifes car’s radiator started leaking 2 weeks back and we had to do a bunch of things that cost us 450 dollars.

In a way I am not surprised that my car gave up. It is 1995 made Toyota Avalon XLS with 170K miles on it and very poorly maintained by me. I had purchased it 4 years back for 5500 when it had 137 miles and at that time the car looked new. The previous owner had cared for the car very well. The car looked like it was 2000 built when I purchased it.

Anyhow I am confused about what to do at this point,

Spent Sunday afternoon cleaning the junk mail that we have received since a month. I am so freaking sick of it. I want to STOP receiving credit card offers, coupons, free magazines, charity request emails, insurance quotes, etc…. Cant these companies send me stuff online so I can delegate filtering the spam to Google. I hate wasting time and energy in doing useless s%$#% like this.

To give you an idea about the amount of junk that I received, I am including an image from Sunday afternoon. What gets difficult is out of the 100 junk mails there is one important letter in it. The challenge is to avoid tearing it off. For example while going through the treasure hunt session today afternoon I discovered a check of 490 dollars from my escrow company!!! I was about to tear it off because it came from Wells Fargo and I get a LOT of JUNK from Wells Fargo. I dont know how many such checks I have unknowingly trashed.

If you know of an agency, a number or any other way to stop receiving such junk please please I BEG you to tell me. Alright I think I should chill out a bit now. Time to read “The Anger Management joke”

Update:

Thanks for all the comments. Readers please read the comments for some very helpful tips.

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Like the rest of the country, we are also being hit hard by the high gas prices. Gas has crossed 4 dollars a gallon(ouch!!! I remember filling a tank at 1.81 dollars a gallon three years back). We have 2 cars and my wife and I drive 40 miles each daily. On an average our gas expenses were coming to 250 dollars per month(plus other related expenses due to driving like maintenance, etc…). So due to the spiraling costs, we decided to start taking the bus to work.

In Seattle, we have the concept of a “Park and Ride“. You drive your car to the Park and Ride, park your car and take the bus from there(pretty cool concept right). The Park and Ride is at a 4 minute driving distance from my place. In general Seattle’s public transportation is so much better than Los Angeles. In Los Angeles the big automotive companies never allowed the public transportation to gain good ground. Seattle’s is way better. In Seattle downtown, during the day public transportation is completely free. Riding the public transportation for me is free anyways because my company provides me with a free bus pass. Having ridden the bus for a week, I prefer riding the bus than taking a car because

- it helps me save money. If I save 250 dollars a month and invest it at 10% a year then in 30 years I should have 565,121.98 $$ saved. Now that’s quite a lot of money. You see the power of compounding. Try my savings and other calculators at http://dividendpirate.com/financial-calculators/

- gives me time to read a book.