It’s Friday already which means it’s to give attention to some great articles that I’ve read this week.

The Restaurant Blogger was dining out with his family one evening and his bill included a $4.40 charge for hot water! What would you do? Would you let it pass? Find out what The Restaurant Blogger did in his article “Hot Water Please.”

Brip Blap has a well written article on how America grew rich, fat and unhappy.

Canadian Capitalist tells us to expect modest market returns going forward as explained in his article “Bogle and Buffett’s Modest Expectations“. The most interesting part of the article is that Warren Buffett himself is a big advocate of passive indexing for most investors.

The Digerati Life has a thought provoking article called Big Toys For Top Dollar: 5 Reasons People Spoil Their Kids.

Lazy Man and Money attended a Stanford graduation ceremony with Oprah as a guest speaker. Lazy Man summarizes the speech with 16 Thoughts on Oprah’s Stanford Commencement Speech.

The Sun’s Financial Diary explains how International ETFs Suffer as US Stocks Plunge.

Money Smart Life explains how to sell your house on your own.

My Dollar Plan answers a question most business owners have in the article “How to Handle Irregular Paychecks“.

Generation X Finance does an analysis of ETFs vs. Mutual Funds: Which One is Right for You?

Gather Little by Little explains How to be a Hypermiler. I have similar strategies explained in a past article on How to Maximize Gas Mileage.

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Between a comment from a reader, hearing the song “Cats in the Cradle” on my way to work, and being a new father, it really got me thinking about what money really means to me.

Here is the comment that was posted a little while back:

When I was growing up, money was very scarce. My father was a workaholic and he has always been traveling away for a bigger paycheck. As far as I remember, I met him for the first time when I was nine in a foreign country where he was running his own business. He always told me that money is the most important thing in life and I need to do everything to make sure I’ll never miss it, etc.

Now that he is nearing retirement, his priorities changed completely, but it is too late to change me though. I got hooked early on and I love personal finance & investing. There is nothing that I enjoy more than planning and working towards my financial freedom :) However, I would not abandon my family for such a long time in order to reach that goal faster.

The comment above got me pondering about how money can really skew whats really important in life. Are all those hours working to build financial wealth worth the time away from the family? Why is it that when financially wealthy people approach retirement, they reflect and wish they spent more time with their family?

Growing up, my father worked at least 100 hrs a week to support the family. The workoholism (word?) must have rubbed off on me because I spend at least 70 hrs a week between full time work and the online venture. This got me thinking about how much time that I will miss watching my child (or children) grow up. What is working so hard for financial wealth worth if you miss the things that give you true value in life. Here’s to another addition to the “pros” side of early retirement.

How many of you had parents who worked too much? Did you turn out to be a workaholic too?

Photo credit: juria yoshikawa

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Even though I don’t typically buy cutting edge technology, I do enjoy keeping up with the news. The biggest consumer technology news these days is that the Apple iPhone 3G is making its debut in Canada on July 11, 2008! It will be offered through Rogers and Fido Wireless.

What can the iPhone 3G do? Along with the higher 3G data speeds, It’s really for the technology geeks who want to be able to listen to MP3’s, take pictures, get GPS mapping, surf the net (via 3G or wifi) and talk on the phone with one gadget that will fit in your shirt pocket. The iPhone also offers a sleek touch screen interface that’s like no other.

The biggest issue that I have with the new Apple iPhone 3G is the potential cost. The $199 iPhone (8GB version on 3 yr term) sticker price isn’t too bad for a device of this caliber, but it’s the (unknown) monthly data costs with Rogers (or Fido) that will most likely be the deal breaker. There is a lot of speculation on what the monthly contract will be for voice and unlimited data. Most are hypothesizing that the cost will be around $100/month (similar to what AT&T charges). I will update this post when more details are released.

Update June 27, 2008: The Rogers price plans have been released by Telegraph Journal (via RedFlagDeals.com)

"    iPhone 3G Price Plans at Rogers Wireless
    ————————————————————————-
                                              Sent      Incoming
                                              Text      Text       Visual
    Price   Voice                    Data     Messages  messages   Voicemail
    ————————————————————————-
    $60 /   150 minutes + unlimited  400 MB   75        Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    ————————————————————————-
    $75 /   300 minutes + unlimited  750 MB   100       Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    ————————————————————————-
    $100 /  600 minutes + unlimited  1 GB     200       Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    ————————————————————————-
    $115 /  800 minutes + unlimited  2 GB     300       Unlimited  Unlimited
    month   Evening and Weekend
    ————————————————————————-

    Data Usage - What You Get
    ————————————————————————-
    Monthly
    Data Usage   Online Applications
    ————————————————————————-
    400 MB       up to 200,000 text emails or 3,100 web pages or 1,360 photo
                 attachments
    ————————————————————————-
    750 MB       up to 380,000 text emails or 5,900 web pages or 2,560 photo
                 attachments
    ————————————————————————-
    1 GB         up to 524,000 text emails or 8,000 web pages or 3,500 photo
                 attachments
    ————————————————————————-
    2 GB         up to 1,048,000 text emails or 16,000 web pages or 7,000
                 photo attachments
    ————————————————————————-

Pricing includes unlimited Wi-Fi access at all Rogers and Fido Hotspots. Rogers Wireless will also offer two voice value packs for popular wireless features: a $15 monthly value pack including Caller ID, Who Called, Caller Ring Trax, 2,500 Sent Text Messages and 2,500 Call Forwarding Minutes; and a $20 monthly value pack including Caller ID, Who Called, Caller Ring Trax, 10,000 Sent Text Messages and 6:00 p.m. Early Evening Calling and 2,500 Call Forwarding Minutes.”

Check out the introduction to the iPhone 3G video below (feed readers may have to click through to view the video):

So what do you think? Will you be buying the new iPhone?

photo credit: _Andrish_

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