The Finance Buff

I’m back from my vacation. It was a good one. As you can imagine, after being gone for four weeks, there’s a lot for catching up, both at work and at home. Blog posting will still be slower than usual.

The good news is that nothing finance-wise was screwed up. All my bills at home were paid, thanks to pre-scheduled online bill payments. There wasn’t any problem with money outside the country either. My traveler’s checks were gladly accepted. My Fidelity mySmart Cash ATM card worked overseas without any problem. It  got me a good exchange rate too. The stock market didn’t move too much. The limit orders I set up before I left weren’t executed. Too bad the Fed lowered interest rate again.

My vacation in one of the poorest countries in the world is an eye-opener for me. Many words acquired new meanings. I feel really lucky living in the United States. To people in a developing country, the stuff that we complain about all sound like whining. People over there get by with so little and they are still happy. We have so much and we still complain. For example, this young man carried 80-100 pounds of stuff for us up and down the mountains, wearing flip-flops. This is a high paying job for him although it pays less than $10 a day. Just to travel to his next job site and make himself available for the job, he’s going to take a bus for 8 hours and then walk for 3 days.

Compared to what he’s doing, my job is really easy and I’m paid many times more. He wasn’t resentful at all. He was grateful for getting the job from us.