Rich Dad, Poor Dad

I have just finished reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and it has really changed the way I am looking at my finances. There is nothing in this book that is really all that different or against what you probably already know but it is constructed in a way that really makes it make sense, and although it doesn't contain anything I didn't already know what it has done is shown me that my thinking has been back to front, essentially (And very basically) I have always tried to pay all my bills and then save what I have left, this has caused me to have very slightly more money at the end of each year, I have then worked to improve my Job so that the amount of extra money is slightly more each year, according to Rich Dad what I should have been doing is improving my Assets (Basically anything that creates a passive income) so that they pay my expenses in fact other than as a way to buy assets the Job I have worked so hard to get really is irrelevant to my future wealth. Anyway as I say this is a very basic lesson I learned from the book so I am now going to try and follow the advice and see how it goes.

Since reading the book and to make sure I am not just being taken in by some slick advertising I have also read a lot of views that are against the book.

Taking both sides into account I think I would still happily recommend this book, Most of the "Anti" comments I have read are basically saying that Robert Kiyosaki isn't being honest with his stories or that he doesn't have a proven business reputation but to be honest I am not all that worried about these things as my advice is read the book and absorb the lessons but don't worry that much about the actual stories, to me it seemed these were more there to illustrate the message, they were not the message itself. (Even the books title could be seen as false as the Rich Dad referred too isn't Robert's Dad even if you believe everything in the book) So don't take it too seriously and you should enjoy it a lot.

5 Challenge Update

I wrote a blog post a while ago about 5 challenges I had set myself, before moving on with the new things that I am doing now I wanted to update, the 5 challenges I said I was going to attempt were:


2nd July to Mid August = 10,000 Steps for Pancreatic Cancer UK

September = Chiltern 3 Peaks for Ian Rennie Hospice

7th October = Blenheim Half Marathon for British Heart Foundation

14th April 2013 = London or Brighton Marathon for Pancreatic Cancer UK

1 Other to be decided later.

I completed the 10,000 steps and the Blenheim Palace Half Marathon and in April completed the Brighton Marathon (in case you were wondering it is a really long way!!)

As it turns out I couldn't complete the Chiltern 3 Peaks but instead completed (With my darling wife along side) the Bucchus Half Marathon which although only 13.1 Miles was almost as hard as the full marathon due to being off road and largely uphill.

Anyway, I have so far managed to raise just over £1,000 and am now coming into the final challenge of the five challenge series which will be the London2Brighton Challenge. (Feel free to sponsor me at http://www.justgiving.com/Adam2Brighton ) This will be an 100k 24 Hour Run/Walk but hopefully can raise some money for Pancreatic Cancer UK

Also this year I took part in the Lottery Anniversary Run which was a 5 Mile run around the Olympic Village finishing in the Olympic Running Stadium with a 3/4 Lap of the stadium, Obviously being my first year of running any events like this it was really unlike anything I had ever done before and the moment you run out of the tunnel and onto the track in front of a Stadium full of spectators was a really unique experience.

So below is my collection of Medals from my first year of running, They are the medals for (Left to Right) The Bacchus Half Marathon, The Brighton Marathon, The National Lottery Anniversary Run and the Blenheim Half Marathon.

And hopefully this time next year I will have some more to add to them!

Blog Relaunch Take ... about 7

Ok, Here I go again with yet another relaunch of my Blog, I tend to keep trying and failing to get any traction but have no intention to give up yet so lets go for it again.

Focus for the blog will remain the same, basically things I am interested about that people will either want to read about or not so expect the usual collection of Movie Reviews, Spurs Updates, Politics Rants and Tech updates. I will also be including things I find funny and my new passion which is High Yield Investing - Could I be any more interesting? Anyway for the next few days I will be posting and hopefully will keep going but then I have said that before.

5 Challenges

As my last two posts have been very focused on jogging I thought it may be sensible to explain why this is as if any one actually reads this blog they may be surprised by the sudden change in focus.
As I have previously said my Mum passed away in December, my Mum was a massive inspiration to me and so, as I think is practically unavoidable, I started to think of what I could do to honour her, she was not a big one for sentiment for sentiments sake so I doubted that buying a plaque or other memorial would be worthwhile so instead I thought I should raise money for the pancreatic cancer trust - pancreatic cancer is the 5th most common cancer and people diagnosed are afforded just a 3% survival rate. - my plan therefore was to run the marathon for PCT, the only problem being that I doubted I could run down the road yet alone 26 Miles!

Last year however a very good friend of mine decided he was going to run the London Marathon, when he announced it in October I think most people found it hard to believe as he was not someone you would have thought of as a marathon runner.

After 6 and a bit hours however he crossed the finish line showing everyone who had doubted him that they were wrong and showing me that if you had the spirit and motivation that you could achieve your goals. So now I had decided next year I would be crossing that finish line either by jogging or pure determination, but I would be doing it.

But what to do and when? My first plan was to run the Windsor half marathon in October and then the London Marathon in April. However whilst working towards this (including a very sobering 1st Mile jog that really showed how much work I had to do.) I was asked through my work to join the 10,000 steps challenge.

This challenge involves walking 10,000 steps a day - as an office worker I was currently on about 4,000 so it is a substantial increase. - as it fit into my training schedule and the money I raised still went to, pancreatic cancer I  agreed and now had three challenges.

The next big change to the plan happened when I went online to book my place at Windsor only to find that they were full. As my training would take at least 20 weeks I couldn't really bring the half marathon forwards and I am going to Florida two weeks after so I did not have many options as to when I can run - to be honest the 7th October was my only free day, so I needed to find another half marathon on that day. As luck would have it there were several including the royal parks and one in Surrey, unfortunately as my luck would have it they were sold out too.

At this point I started to worry that I would not get selected for the London Marathon, as the public ballot isn't until October, and by that time everything else would be full so even if I didn't quit I may end up failing just through not being ready to commit in time. After a considerable period searching I found the Bleinham Palace half marathon on the right date, although not particularly near to home. The main problem however is that it is for the British Heart Foundation and I had intended to do both runs for Pancreatic Cancer but I am sure my Mum would have forgiven the deviation and it is still a worthy cause, and fits into my schedule. At the same time I decided I needed a back up plan in the likely event I am not selected in the London Ballot. Looking at other local marathons I saw that it was the last date to sign up for a guaranteed place for Brighton so I signed up there and then to at least make sure I had a half and full marathon booked, even if they wouldn't be my first choices.

So with three challenges set in place I started to like the idea of completing 5 challenges, if I am honest I picked 5 only as I think it sounds good. My 4th challenge is a family affair as I will be completing the Chiltern 3 peaks challenge with my Dad and my Sister to raise money for Ian Rennie Hospice at home (I know I had planned to raise all the money for PCT and this is in fact my third charity but Ian Rennie really helped my Mum so my Dad wants to give something back and again they are a great cause so I still think it is good.)

So that is my current plan.

2nd July to Mid August = 10,000 Steps for Pancreatic Cancer Trust

September = Chiltern 3 Peaks for Ian Rennie Hospice

7th October = Bleinham Half Marathon for British Heart Foundation

14th April 2013 = London or Brighton Marathon for Pancreatic Cancer Trust

As you may have noticed this leaves me short by one challenge and to be honest I have no idea what to do for it. But the way things have been so far I am pretty sure something will turn up.

Serious runner, or forget everything.

Had a big decision to make today, 2 months into my training and my wife offered to get me custom fitted for some running shoes as an anniversary gift. Whilst this may not seem like the biggest decision in the world it was huge for me as if I let her purchase them for me then it increases the pressure not to give up on my training, for the first time someone else has invested in me and shown belief that what I am doing is serious and more than just the usual post Marathon season fad. This morning if I quit it all I would be letting myself down, now if I quit I would be letting us both down.

In the end what swayed me to get it done was the same reason that it scared me. That someone believed in me enough to put their money on backing me not to give up.

The custom fitting was done at Running Free in Parkstone in Poole http://www.runningfree.net/ the actual fitting took about 15 minutes and involved running up and down the shop then swapping shoes and trying again. Luckily the shop was mostly empty so it wasn't too embarrassing (always the main worry for someone of my protracted knackerdness) after three trips up and down the store I was informed that I needed lots of support for my arches (This is about as technical as I can get) but the long and the short of it is that I left the store with a new pair of Nike Zoom structure+ 15.
Now to make sure I don't let her down.

Jogging in Poole

As I was down in Dorset to visit my Nan my jog today was in Poole. The plan for today was for 4 Miles so I ran around Upton Lake, it was a far cry from my usual exhaust filled runs on the A23. The sun was bright but had not got too strong and the breeze coming off the lake was very refreshing, although got a little too blowy at times. The path was good condition and smooth - another welcome change to street running. Only real killers were the inclines that went over the railway and the lakes inlets but a good bit of hill training always mixes it up a bit.

The jog was my fastest yet coming in at 7 MPH and taking only 30 mins to complete 3.8 miles. The path I took led to the gates of Upton Country Park so a great deal of scope to extend the run, just a shame my next jog will be back home swapping boats and breezes for Crawley in a rush hour.

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/108482449

The Campaign for Elected Police Commissioners Starts Here

Once again it would appear that a significant political event is looking like it may occur unnoticed, as the title of this piece would lead you to understand I am talking about the elections in November to elect police and crime commissioners (PCC). For me this is a massive change in the political spectrum and one that I have personally supported for a long time, I am disappointed however that such a seismic switch in the political landscape should come without a referendum and a mandate from the people (As is happening for the elected mayors) obviously as a supporter of the idea I would have voted for it however there is a certain argument that could be put forward that the police service should not be accountable to politicians and that the Police must be free to uphold the law without being subject to the whims of the majority (Don’t forget that both Racial Segregations and Fascist Governments have been brought in by popular vote) so it would have been nice to have the debate first.

All that being said this is now going to be one of the most important locally elected officials, I think you could actually say the most important after all this one person will have a real effect on crime and disorder in your area and this is something that will affect everyone, for the most part the local council services are passive to use where as when it occurs crime is intrusive – If you try you can basically ignore what the council is doing where as crime can affect anyone at any time. So for this reason I am going to give the Sussex campaign as much attention as I can so at least my two readers will know a bit more about what is going on.

I am also looking to leave any party political bias out of my writing of these campaigns, my personal ideal of an elected police commissioner would be for an independent, in fact I think these roles would be ideally suited to someone with Job knowledge who also knew how the political games worked, for example Ray Mallon who is the Mayor of Middlesbrough.

In the Next Few Days I will be reviewing the people who have so far thrown their hats into the rings but for now here is the information I obtained from the Police Foundation.

But as a start here are the people that are looking to stand in the election.

Name: Paul Richards
Party: Labour
Website: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2012/01/13/power-to-the-pccs/
Occupation: Labour Author and Commentator
Political Experience: Losing Parliamentary Candidate in Lewes

Name: Ian Chisnall
Party: Independent
Website: http://ianforpcc.wordpress.com/
Occupation: Works extensivly in the voluntary Sector including working with Brighton Street Pasters and Sussex Churches Together
Political Experience: 2004 - 2009 Member of the Sussex Court Board, Since 2004 Member of he Independant Advisory Board.

Name: Peter Jones
Party Conservatives
Website: www.votepj.com/news.aspx
Occupation: Worked in Investment Banking and was a non-executive director for a number of companies, he retired in 1994.
Political Experience: Peter Jones was elected as an East Sussex County Councillor in 1997 and leader of the council from 2001, Peter was chairman of the Sussex Police Authority from 2005 – 2007 he was also Deputy Chairman of SEEDA
Other: He is married to Ex-Conservative MP Jacqui Lait (MP for Beckenham until 2010)

Name: Paul Dendle
Party: Conservative
Website: http://www.pauldendle.blogspot.com/
Occupation: Paul was Managing Director of Avro PLC until he sold the company in 1995, in his websites profile he lists his business interests as varied among travel, technology and property.
Political Experience: Paul was elected to Arun District Council (Arundel Ward) in 2003 and has been cabinet minister for central services since 2006.