Do Your Homework

How often as a kid did your parents tell you, “Do your homework”?  Were you excited to do it?  Yet if you did do your homework you would learn more, get better grades, have a better life, have perfectly straight and white teeth, you would never be unhealthy, your favorite pet would never die and life would be very good.  Or at least that is how your parents may have acted.  The truth is, doing your homework is not just for kids.

My wife is amazing to me.  I can miss what is right in front of my nose if I am looking right at it.  She can find information that is buried deep below the Pentagon.  Well, that’s a bit of a stretch.  But she is very good at research.  I can look for information all day and give up.  I ask her (no, she usually volunteers) to find information for me and in a few minutes she tells me what I was looking for and then some.  She does the work and I get the benefits of her homework.  I love it.

I heard some commercials on TV for a package from the cable company that included phone, internet, and cable.  I looked at what we were paying for phone and Internet.  I compared that to their package deal which included cable.  I thought I was getting a good deal, so I switched.  But as they say, do your homework.

I tested the speed of my connection on DSL before the switch.  Then I tested the speed on cable.  Hum.  Not what I expected.  I thought they would be comparable in speed.  I even asked a cable representative if they would be.  Yes.  But not so.  The rate I was paying did not give me the speed I had with DSL.  It was a little less than half the speed.  So the savings are not as much as I thought they would be.  Lesson learned: do your homework.

Now before you say how stupid I was to not check the details before making the switch, let me point out that most people don’t do their homework with much larger expenses.  Taxes and Mortgages.  There are huge benefits of homework.

How many people know how to save the most on their taxes?  Many people pay others to file their taxes for them.  They don’t understand how the tax system is set up but they “have people” as the commercial says.  They understand that they can use the leverage of other people’s time and knowledge to simplify the tax return procedure.  They don’t have time or desire to learn the tax code but they use a system to their advantage.

Then there is the mortgage.  Do you really understand how that works?  You borrow $200,000 and pay back $431,000.  Does that look like 6% interest to you?  Learn how to cut that unnecessary interest down to a reasonable amount.  There is no need to pay more than you should.  With little or no change to your lifestyle or budget you can save a lot of money on your mortgage.  All debt actually.  Money works 24/7.  Is your money working for you or for someone else?  Learn how to use your money to your advantage.  Do your homework.  No spelling lists here.  It’s all videos.