STUPID BANK!

I’m not with Bank of America but I’ve been shopping around for another bank. As I‘ve been listening to NPR, I’m learning that many of us have. We may not have sleeping bags out on Liberty Square, but there are other ways to let your dissatisfaction be known with the policies and culture of many big banks.

Like many I’ve been scrambling trying to secure my finances as much as possible because with all of the economic uncertainty, it’s hard to get a grasp on the next financial step. Should you invest in Treasury Bonds? Stock? Gold? Solar Energy? Place cash in a shoe box and bury it in your back yard?

I’m a subscriber to a couple of financial newsletters to help me navigate through this mess. Not that any of these people have all the answers, but thinking about these things, for me, is like cracking a window and putting my nose to the crack so that I don’t die from smoke inhalation.

These times are important and historic for us all, so I wanted to share this article by David Eifrig about an alternative to “Big Bank Consumer Abuse.” May it inspire you to DO SOMETHING. I’ve reposted the article below.

The Simplest, Easiest Way to Turn Your Back on Big Banks
By Dr. David Eifrig, editor, Retirement Millionaire
Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Sallie Krawcheck is getting paid over $5 million soon… for getting fired.

Joe Price is also making millions… for getting fired.

Sallie and Joe are executives who just got fired from Bank of America. They are set to collect over $10 million as part of their severance packages. Meanwhile, Bank of America is going to charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards. It's also laying off thousands upon thousands of workers.

It's a crazy situation. The big banks took billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts… And now, they're paying fired employees millions and millions of dollars.

Sallie and Joe are two of the latest targets of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters. But you don't have to go to Wall Street to protest Bank of America and its paid-for friends in Washington D.C. You can opt out of the system with a simple move I've been telling people to make for years now…

Move your money to a credit union.

You've probably heard of a credit union. But if you're like most folks I've talked with, you figure there's no real difference between them and a big, name-brand bank… at least not to you, the small, private account holder. But they are different. And at times like this, the benefits of joining a credit union are important.

Very simply, credit unions are nonprofit companies that act as local community banks. And guess what? The rates credit unions offer are spectacular. I get 1.25% on my simple checking account and 1.25% on my basic savings account.

And the nice part is, Wall Street doesn't have access to my money anymore. You see, the credit union turns around and loans my money to other members. Rather than investing in insider shell games, like mortgage-backed securities, the credit union's bread and butter is car, boat, and housing loans that charge 5%-8%.

That's how they make money to pay their employees and rent. They borrow from depositors at 2% and get 5%-8% from their lending. Unlike Wall Street, the board members meet locally in a credit union conference room, not on some island resort, spending the shareholders money. Even better, the board members are usually volunteers. Is this sounding good or what?

Are there any risks? Not really. Your money is as safe as – if not safer than – it is in the larger commercial banks. Just like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which is supposed to insure your deposits in a commercial bank, credit unions have the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF). This fund is backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States government," too. Just like commercial banks, each individual is insured up to $250,000.

The only catch is, to join a credit union you have to – by law – have some sort of affiliation with the group that sponsors it. For some credit unions, you have to work for particular employers. But in other cases, you need only be a resident of a particular state. For example, if you live in Florida or California, you can join any number of credit unions. And several pay more than seven times as much as the big banks for your checking and savings business.

My dad was a state employee in North Carolina, which qualified me to join. To find out more about joining a credit union and research if you're eligible to join one, go to www.findacreditunion.com.

The way I see it, by banking with a local credit union, I'm giving my capital to local people and businesses, instead of the huge Wall Street firms that steal my taxes, pay their cronies big fat bonuses and severance packages.

Wall Street bailouts were supposed to revive the economy by producing money in the form of loans to all sectors and industries. Of course, we know that was a load of bull. Instead, the big money-center banks hoarded those dollars and used them to plug holes in their balance sheets.

But putting your money with local credit unions will help stimulate your local economy in the way banks should operate. These institutions don't keep plush offices or send their board members on luxury vacations. They exist solely to turn deposits into small business loans, home mortgages, and car loans.

If you take your money away from Wall Street and keep it local, you'll support small business ventures near you. I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay for any more golf trips, big bonuses, or million-dollar office decorations.

Together, let's stop the fraud of Wall Street and support our local community banks and credit unions.

Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,

"The Ko" - A Solo Project - Available Soon

Six years ago, I began working on a spoken word project with two other poets and a musician. Oh this project was supposed to be enlightening, empowering, enchanting… and a bunch of other words starting with e-. It was supposed to be a work that addressed the mind, body and soul. It was a labor of love and I was so excited to be working with such talented people.

It started off great. Kind of. One of the poets had a bit of an attitude towards me. And it wasn’t me simply imagining it. The other saw it too. But I hadn’t wronged her, so I wasn’t too concerned with it.

In the beginning I was so wonderful, the music was phenomenal, the poems were interesting (for the most part) and we were building a marketing plan that would’ve given us real visibility. But piece by piece it all began to fall apart. One of the poets started veering off from the concept of the CD…remember that poet who didn’t like me? She also had words for me and the other, for discussing the project outside of conference calls which put a wedge between us all. We lived in different states.

The moment we began discussing the marketing plans with the musician, he freaked out, and couldn’t quite ever articulate what the problem he was having with the plan. It was like he started speaking another language none of us understood. It was amazing. I started to feel really bad about this – responsible even, because I was the one who’d brought him in on the project. Things were getting really rough, but me and the other poet were determined to just get though the minutia and just finish the darn thing…. Until… I told the musician I had a boyfriend. Dropped. Just like that. The musician announced he no longer wanted to work with the rest of the group (but was still willing to work with me on a solo project).

We tried to find other musicians to work with us. The music was far more inferior than the music we had gotten from the first musician. One of the poets decided to take over the project and decided she didn’t want our influence any more. She just wanted it finished without anymore road blocks.

It turned into a whole other beast. Talk about veering away from the concept. The poet-in-charge turned the project into an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign and incorporated every version of every track we had available with quotes from prominent female figures about… well I don’t know…. stuff.

It took years, but it’s out there somewhere floating around – a free copy of a body of work that had intended to be something great – enlightening, empowering, enchanting… I had decided upon the completion of this project, that I wouldn’t collaborate in that capacity again, with no control over how the project grows up.

Currently, I’m working on a spoken word project and the goal is to have it completed by the end of the year. The title of the project is called “The Ko” and it will incorporate spoken word, song and music. It’s unlike any project I’ve ever put out before, and it is totally and completely a vertical integration of my talent. It’s a bit terrifying at times and exhilarating at others, but overall I’m ready to polish it up and lay out there.

Keep it Simple

In the eighth grade, my math teacher instructed us to “work smarter, not harder.” That was his mantra, and since then, I’ve been forgetting that mantra, then remembering, then forgetting it again. When I give advice I use it to help others propel themselves forward, but then promptly abandon the idea when I should be applying it to my own life. I’m human. Things tend to pop up that remind me of what I should be doing. How I should be functioning. Remembering is often energizing – because it gives me hope that life has the potential to improve exponentially.

I’m often a whirl wind, scrounging to find time to eat and breathe with my schedule. My mission is to conquer the world. A megalomaniac… I know. My progress, to my dismay, has been crawling. But I march on to my own drum as I tweak my plans and tasks slightly to attempt to nudge my productivity. But it doesn’t work. You know why? Because there are times when I’m so overwhelmed that I abandon my plans and do only what is absolutely necessary as everything else starts to look like a tidal wave. Eventually I snap out of it, but it’s a cycle. An inefficient one.

Today I came across an article about simplifying your life by Ryan Murdoch who writes for ETR. The concept is a familiar one, encouraging readers to streamline their lives so that they are able to do more by doing less. Sound familiar? It hit me that this article is one of those “reminders” that pop up, seemingly, out of nowhere as a guide – a call above the wind – to help us remember what it is we need to do to get ahead. Something tells me that you could benefit from this article too. I’ve reposted it below.

How to Simplify Your Life

By Ryan Murdoch

In order to bring new things into your life, you must first let other things go.

But why is it so many of us focus on adding more or doing more when we’re trying to reach a new goal?

We want it all at once, but instead of progress we end up with a mess of results that mirrors the random plan we’ve concocted. I’ll give you an example from my own life.

Back in my martial art days I felt I had to maintain every skill set I’d ever learned – simultaneously. My teacher might be working with me on a few specific throws, but at home I’d be practicing those throws AND some striking work AND some stick work AND some knife work... AND let’s not forget falls. Oh, AND conditioning. AND more. Yeah, I actually tried to do all that each and every day.

Know what happened? Nothing much.

But when I stopped to focus on the lesson at hand, I discovered that the next time stick training came around, I had actually gotten better. Not just a little better, either. Things I’d struggled with were no longer obstacles. And the throwing work gave me new insights that I could apply to the stick.

There was a limit to how fast I could move – but there was no limit to how much I could shave away. I got faster not by building speed, but by shaving away those tiny movements that had nothing to do with my goal. I got faster by removing things rather than adding.

And the same lesson applies to the rest of our lives.

If you’re familiar with business books you’ve probably read that 80 percent of your achievements come from 20 percent of your efforts. What if you started focusing nearly all your efforts on those specific things? Could you imagine the results?

In order to do that you must first simplify your life.

Do you want to bring abundance into your life? You first have to let go. That means throwing out the junk that’s cluttering up your closets, your garage, your office or spare room. All those things you haven’t looked at for years. They weigh you down. Give them away or donate them to the Goodwill, where those same items might enrich someone else’s life. You don’t need them anymore.

Do you want to bring vibrant new relationships into your life? You first have to let go of those relationships that are no longer serving you. Those people whose phone calls you dodge because you really don’t enjoy talking to them. Those relationships that are entirely one way – the energy vampires who monopolize your time and drain you. Think about all those people you spend time with out of a sheer sense of obligation or guilt. Don’t judge them. Just let them go and move on.

There’s nothing callous in this. You’ve simply grown in different directions, and you honor that person by allowing them to move on. Spend time instead with people who excite you and who encourage you to grow in new directions. If your life is too crowded, you’ll never have a chance to let new people in.

Do you want to replace unhealthy habits with practices that promote your life? Don’t just slap a bunch of new ideas onto what you’re currently doing. Let those old habits go. That often means taking the time to closely examine your beliefs and decide why you started doing those things in the first place. It isn’t easy, but it works.

Do you want to reach new heights in your job or profession? Let go of all those tasks you do only because you feel you have to. Delegate them to someone else. Let go of all those tasks you absolutely hate – you’re probably not very good at them anyway. Release those things so you can focus on the tasks you are truly great at. THAT is where you bring something unique to the world.

Clean the clutter out of your life, remove the superfluous, and like a sculptor carve away absolutely everything that doesn’t match the ideal vision in your head. When you do, new opportunities you never imagined will rush in to fill that space.

Make some quiet time this evening and take out a notebook and pen. I want you to write half a page on the following questions: What is the ideal simple, good life for you? How would your life be simpler? How would your ideal simple life be different from the life you have now?

Examine each aspect of your life, consciously and deliberately. And begin removing those non-essential elements so you can focus on the things that truly matter to you.