Although the main reason for this site is the amount of material and links I have collected and it started to pack the few pages I had on my original web site, I thought it would be valuable for some people I met to go through these pages eventually. The three "wow" moments I had and always remember will always be with me, I guess. The first was a friend and also a colleague. We talked about buying our first PCs and the conversation naturally went to financing. These were difficult times, right after the war in Bosnia, and funds were scarce. What he told me then opened my eyes quite a bit. He said he took a loan to buy a computer. When I asked why he did not simply put an amount of money away and save for it, he said he could not save and that he needed an obligation every month - i.e. a loan - that he would then pay off.
The second case came up in a discussion about cars. The story went to financing, again, and the person I was talking to said that it is extremely foolish to ever buy a car for cash and that loans a natural way to do it. I was stunned. Simply could not understand why would someone pay a fair share more for a car if they had the funds readily available. Especially in a situation like then, when it was uncertain whether they would have a job tomorrow.
The third case happened in a developed world. As I was handling some administrative issues, I turned to figure out which superannuation fund to take. It took more than I anticipated but I analyzed into detail which fund manager to take and which funds to put into the portfolio. While I was doing that, a couple of guys who worked at the company from a while ago asked me to help them with superannuation once I'm done with the analysis. It appeared they have never thought about it and just went ahead with whatever was the default fund for the employer.
There are numerous other cases but, after those initial shocks, I guess I got used to having people treating their financial matters in a different way.
Here I hope to have a reference that might come in handy to some of them. And to myself, of course. I just love having a page with links to different services, graphs, prices, etc. :)
The second case came up in a discussion about cars. The story went to financing, again, and the person I was talking to said that it is extremely foolish to ever buy a car for cash and that loans a natural way to do it. I was stunned. Simply could not understand why would someone pay a fair share more for a car if they had the funds readily available. Especially in a situation like then, when it was uncertain whether they would have a job tomorrow.
The third case happened in a developed world. As I was handling some administrative issues, I turned to figure out which superannuation fund to take. It took more than I anticipated but I analyzed into detail which fund manager to take and which funds to put into the portfolio. While I was doing that, a couple of guys who worked at the company from a while ago asked me to help them with superannuation once I'm done with the analysis. It appeared they have never thought about it and just went ahead with whatever was the default fund for the employer.
There are numerous other cases but, after those initial shocks, I guess I got used to having people treating their financial matters in a different way.
Here I hope to have a reference that might come in handy to some of them. And to myself, of course. I just love having a page with links to different services, graphs, prices, etc. :)
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