Finance/Cash

 Yes we are once again in the throws of the annual tax return. Do it Don't ignore it.

So you go into McDonalds for a flat white coffee. How much ? €3.60. Ok

That works out at €21.60 per week and €1123.2 per year. A traveling mug saves a fortune over time. 

So when I was young and I bought my first house with a 30 year mortgage  one of my fellow workers told me something. "As you come to the anniversary of your mortgage make a double payment and inform the bank that that payment is to come off the principle"

Now that was important. In repayments how much did I save? I was going to tell you at the end but its better now.

That first months payment shortened the repayments by a full year !!!!!! 

I have paid off 4 mortgages in my lifetime, all through hard work and sound financial advice.

Why buy a €50,000 car when a €5000 one would do the work just as well.

The depreciation on a new car is frightening and the cost of buying one on the never never is mad. 

Once in a lifetime you may have to walk away from a complete wreck, better the old car than the new.

By the way the loan company do not like you to shorten the term of your loan.

If you have €100 in the bank you might €2 1/2 extra in interest. but if you borrow €100 you will owe €109.

Here is  a tip for you IBC.CO.JP They sell used cars in Japan. I bought around 12 cars from them. Buy cars from stock that includes shipping. 

I have used MCC now on East wall Rd 015153362 They will tell you what the taxes will be and you can see where you will go from there.

You have to put a new radio in and Traynors  scrap yard will have a good one, the registration and NCT tax and off you go.

Buy from stock, thats the price to Dublin auction prices are +++++ Though I nearly bought a New York yellow cab at auction for €4000. That was lucky for me that I did not get it. 

One day I went in to wire money to pay for 3 cars that I had bought.

You could see the scow on the face of the teller as I walked up. I handed her the papers and her face lit up like a Christmas tree.OH Hello, Its nice to see you again.

Its strange how money effects some people. 

When I fix the font I will tell you about the taxi driver that had a win on the lotto. 

 

Putting off things

 One man who got into my taxi I will never forget.

Among the things he told me was not to put things off, deal with things that are on your mind as the things that you put off will slow you down and cause problems in the end. My income tax returns  were the problem at that time. How much time do you have? 2 weeks and nothing done. As soon as you drop me off go home and deal with it.

He told me a lot of things and said that if he was starting his life again he would love to be a taxi driver !!!! Look you will meet a big variety of people and they might put an idea into your pocket. An idea that you can run with. Be positive.

At the Westbury hotel he asked me in for coffee but it was early in the day so I declined.

His name was Charles (Chuck) Feeney the inventor of Duty Free Shopping.

Mr Obama had brought out a law that you couldn't give away more than $2,000 anonymously, at that point he had given away $ 8 billion.

I took him to the press conference without a hint about his business.  

One fantastic thing he did was to build a 200 bed hospital in Vietnam, fit it out and pay for the running of it. all on the quiet. 

There is a book written about him called "The billionaire  who wasn't "By Connor O'Cleary

I wrote to Chuck and I would contact him 2 or 3 times a year until he died. 

I can't get back to normal font so I will go.

Death and taxes are for so sure deal with them. 

His thoughts  

Tom Ford

I don't know if he is Henry Fords grandson but he is in the perfume business.

I saw this in Dublin duty free. None of my business really but I will share it with you.

There was a display and right on top there was a bottle of Tom Ford perfume, I was waiting for my wife so I reached for the bottle and the plunger was broken !  I picked up the bottle and the bottle was cracked. It had a big lump of sellotape covering the crack.

Perhaps the idea was that they put a dummy bottle there to stop people taking it. I was still thinking about it when I came home and I went on line... No proper contact unless you were placing an order.

The staff are perhaps showing the public what they think of them. 

Or perhaps they care nothing for their own jobs.

In Santorini there was a man in a souvenir shop, there are loads of tourist shops one after another. So a guy walked up to the cash register with around €20 worth of goods. He had 2 pencils as well and he asked the lady to sharpen them. She reached over and got a pencil sharpener €3 !. He said nothing and put his money back into his pocket and walked out. Both sides were at fault. It would have cost nothing to have the pencils ready to go.

Our hotel had a big enough menu. They also had a big menu board on the footpath around 10 foot past the hotel.The name of the hotel was not on the menu and when you turned around to look the hotel name was not visible. I mentioned it to the staff and all that they said was "Its right here" 

One other thing was the menu was in Greek and it was not clear. 3 times I got completely different dishes than I ordered. I suggested that they should number the dishes, the sweet dished be given letters.

I was told that there was never much problems with wrong orders yet I got 3 and I noticed other wrong orders being sent back

There was a restaurant in Dublin and it had excellent food. Booked solid months in advance,

No prices on the menu !

If you had to ask the price you couldn't afford it.

Then a man arrived and he looked at the books and they were closed down.

The wise man said Sean Kinsella ran  a great business, all the great food cooked to perfection.

Such a great pity he didn't know how to cook the books. 

Sale agreed ?

 I came across this the other day. An elderly couple were selling the family home and with the estate agent they agreed a price.

Then a man knocked on the door and offered them €40,000 more than the price they had agreed to. 

It gets better. 

The estate agent said that once they accepted an offer they could not go back on it.

The solicitor said that until the final sale agreement is signed it is still negotiable.

Funny thing is that the new buyer had made the higher offer before the lower offer was accepted !!!!

Perhaps the golf buddy of the estate agent was going to make a killing? 

The estate agent might be looking for a new job. 

I worked in a pub a good few years ago and the publican had 2 other pubs. One pub was not bringing in less money it should have. Peter sent me down to look and I could see nothing wrong either.

So Peter employed a private eye to work there for 2 weeks as a barman. After that time he reported to Peter the bar owner and said how he had watched him and during the busy time with the rugby he was ringing up everything in the three tills....Peter threw up his hands,,We only have 2 cash registers the third one was the rogue barmans 

Our local sweet shop used to short change the kids and he got away with it for ages. One day my lads were buying sweets and a kid called Micheal Stowe was with them. When the sweets were laid out and the cost was added up, the shopkeeper said no you have not enough money and went to put some sweets back. Micheal as quick as a flash added it up in his head and told the shopkeeper that in fact he had to pay back  3p change.

I often think of that kid, he was killed off his bicycle a couple of years later. God bless him. 

Life goes on and today in the mailbox there was a doomsday book. I never saw the likes since the Cuban missile crisis. Have enough water in the house, make sure that you have enough fuel etc.etc.Emergency numbers. I was lucky that I had taken my medication.

You know people in Ireland are blessed to have people coming here to work and improve their situation.

I met a wonderful girl from Ukraine the other day, bright and attentive. I have no doubt in my mind that when she grows up she will become a doctor or a lawyer one day. 

Please God send peace to those people.

WE on the other hand had to go overseas in our droves when I was young. I remember being in Liverpool and I had run out of Sterling. The barman laughed and took the Irish coins off me. "This is the capital of Ireland lad" 

In New York or Boston you would go to an Irish bar and the barman would point you to good work.

I don't know but perhaps I will stop while I can. 

Well done Bono and the lads.

50 years ago 4 lads from Mount Temple school got together and formed a band. 

50 years later they are still together and U2 carries on.

It is no mean feat to still be packing out stadiums and they are bringing out a new CD (or whatever they call them now)

So a big hands up for U2 

Others, the sky falls on them

 We had a man over to give us a price on some building work.

After looking at what was needed to be done we adjourned for tea. 

The conversation was formal and he had told us that his brother had died of cancer in the summer. 

Then he asked me how David is getting on in the taxi. I said that he is holding on in there.

Then he told me a story which I will remember until the day I die. The family lived in London. Three brothers and his father had died a few years earlier.

So 2 boys living at home and the mother. One night the mother decided to visit an old friend a few miles away and she went over on the bus, they had no car as London is well connected for transport.

When the conversation finished  the buses had stopped running, so she hailed a taxi on the street and gave her destination. The taxi was heading in the opposite direction so he made a U turn.

He made a U turn without looking and a Range Rover doing over 60 MPH rammed into the back of the taxi. The impact was so hard that his mother finished up in the boot of the car with a broken neck.   

From her purse the police found her address and brought the 2 brothers into the police station. The body was taken away to the mortuary and the brothers stood on the road waiting for a taxi.

Who was there as well? The taxi driver. He spoke to them and suggested that they share the taxi as they were going in the same direction. 

A taxi arrived and a couple of miles down the road the taxi driver got out first. No "Here is a couple of bob for the taxi fare,"  Not even a sorry for the accident. He just got out and walked away.

The insurance company refused to pay. 

They just said that she was a widow with no debts so there was nothing to pay.

Later they agreed to pay the cost of the funeral which was around £6,500 at the time. 

You would fight it but the big boys have the power.

I am rich, I own  my house and my car. I can take a holiday and my health is great.

Count your blessings not your troubles 

Good night Sleep well 

 

 

I'm BACK

 Boys and girls and bots I have returned from Santorini in Greece.

We were there 45 years ago as a young married couple. 

We have all changed with the passing of time.

Its great to get away once in a while.

So I will retire for the night and update with a story about a taxi driver in London. 

somwonw came in

 Then I got cut off.

As I was saying. there was a hell of a crash. 5 guys driving down the motorway the wrong way. They were filming it to TivTock. 3 people going to a wedding in the UK were hit. Absolute carnage. The very thought that they were broadcasting this on the internet is beyond belief.

In the UK there was a crash killing 3 police officers,,,, again coming down the motorway the wrong way.

A equal to that was that one of the rogue car occupants had their house burned down.

Glen Hansard died from a fall from his motorcycle. 

Today the news came in that Dolly Parton had died.

She wrote more than 1,000 songs I heard it on the radio.

Loads of good vibes about her,

She was in Ventry Co.Kerry and someone noticed that she was a bit cold. Someone put a shawl over her shoulders and she jumped up saying. "Thats the first time a man has tried to put clothes on me."

 

God bless you all