Posts Tagged ‘money’

Chuck Norris Invented Personal Finance

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

“Let me give you some advice.  Put your money in the bank, and forget about it.”

-Chuck Norris

As much as we hate to disagree with Chuck Norris (and are definitely expecting a round-house kick to the face after this post), here at TILE we know that saving money in the bank is only part of being responsible for your financial life. It’s just as important to learn how to make smart investments and get involved in causes you care about – doesn’t Chuck Norris know about spendgrowgive.com?!

Silly question – Chuck Norris knows everything.

(reblogged from moneyisnotimportant)

Super Weird Facts about Money

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

dollar-snail.jpg
credit: RangerRick

Did you know…

- $1 bills have an average lifespan of 22 months, but coins can stick around for as long as 30 years!

- U.S. “paper money” isn’t paper at all – it’s actually made of 25% linen and 75% cotton, the same materials you make clothes out of! Money shirt, anyone?

- Scientists have identified 93 different types of bacteria living on dollar bills! Better have some hand sanitizer handy when you hit the ATM.

- 35 million new bills are printed every day, which adds up to about $635 million dollars. But don’t worry, the government isn’t adding $635 million dollars into the money supply every day – 95% of those bills are used to replace money that has gotten worn out or damaged and needs to be retired.

- Some new Euro coins have so much nickel in them that they cause people to break out in an allergic reaction. Talk about having money problems!

Now you know.

If Spider-Man had been our first president…

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

Reblogged from moneyisnotimportant:

spiderman-dollar.jpeg

Do you think this dollar would be accepted anywhere?

If we need more money, why can’t the government just print more?

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

That could work, but then again, it might not be so simple.

Until 1971, the U.S. dollar was backed by gold and silver. That means that you could bring your dollar to a bank and redeem it for one dollar worth of gold or silver. Today, the dollar is backed by the strength of the U.S. economy and the size of its GDP. But for explaining purposes, let’s say it’s backed by marbles.

Let’s imagine you have five dollars and those are worth five marbles. To buy a marble, you need one dollar. If you print another five dollars without somehow producing another five marbles, your extra dollars aren’t really backed by anything. Basically, now your ten dollars are only worth five marbles and to buy one marble, you need two dollars. This is called inflation.

Now let’s say you owe your friend five dollars for the five marbles that she gave you last week. Unfortunately, you don’t have five dollars to pay her. If you print five dollars, then you can pay her what you owe but she will end up with dollars that are worth less. However, as long as we are producing more marbles, we can print more money because it has something to back it. In the U.S. we pretty much trust the Government to make sure we have the marbles to back our dollars. So when they print more money, we trust that the GDP will grow to match it.

Printing money may help us pay old debt but in the end, without a strong and growing economy, it does more harm than good by making all of our dollars weaker and forcing prices up.

What do we learn from all this? Printing more money doesn’t help us in the long run unless whatever is backing our money is growing too.

Currency is…

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Currency is any object or set of objects designated as money – usually by the government. Currency must be in public circulation, have a predetermined value, and be exchangeable for other objects, goods, or services.

Why is a bank better than your mattress?

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

Carving out a secret hole in the side of your mattress may seem pretty cool, but it’s really not a practical place to store your money (it doesn’t sound too comfortable either).

Mattresses, along with stuffed animals and shoeboxes, all seem like safe places to store your money (supposing no one else knows where it is), but you’re actually putting yourself in a financially bad position. By storing your money in places like these and not a bank, you are slowly losing money and risking all of it too. How does that happen?

Banks are not just money storage facilities; they use your money to offer financial services (at a cost) to other customers and in turn pay you interest on a regular basis. By keeping your money in a bank, you are actually earning money as opposed to just hiding it away. Banks also keep your money safe; your money is guaranteed up to $250,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a government organization, in case something happens to the bank. No one has ever lost a penny of covered funds from a bank failure since the FDIC was created in 1933. Compare that to losing your wallet or your sister raiding your mattress – you are not getting that money back.

What does this mean for you? Well, you can either be sure about the safety of your money (while earning a little extra at the same time) or you can hide it away under a mattress and hope no one ever peeks under the sheet.