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What to Take Away From John Cleese’s Divorce
If you haven’t been kept under a rock your whole life, you’re likely familiar with actor and comedian John Cleese. Part of the infamous Monty Python crew, he starred in films such as Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail, and television shows such as Faulty Towers. However, are you familiar with what has happened to Mr. Cleese financially over the past few years?
When Cleese divorced his third wife she ended up with a divorce settlement that quite literally made her richer than him, despite the fact that they were married for only 16 years and had produced no children.
Divorce is, unfortunately, a fixture of modern society, and people of both sexes need to know how they can protect their personal finances in case of a divorce. After all, these days more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, so not preparing yourself financially for it is engaging is some rather wishful thinking. So how best to protect yourself and your personal finances, should you be unfortunate enough to have to go through one?
If you are the higher-earning party, get a pre-nup prior to marriage; this simply cannot be overemphasized. Cleese himself, already married to wife number four, incidentally, was told that he should have her sign a prenuptial agreement, he initially didn’t want to, despite having just been taken to the proverbial cleaners. He only reluctantly had one written up when his legal team essentially insisted. Even though prenups can be challenged or modified in court, if you are the party bringing more assets to the relationship, it is irresponsible of you not to solicit a prenuptial agreement from a potential spouse.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you should protect assets you have in joint accounts with your spouse, and also begin to actively monitor your credit, if things become acrimonious between you two. This way, you will prevent them from absconding with the totality of your shared funds, or ruining your credit if they are feeling malicious. If you need further information on how to do this properly, speak with a qualified financial planner.
So if you find yourself considering marriage and either have significant assets to protect or suspect you might have them in the future, you owe it to yourself to look into the legalities surrounding prenuptial agreements, and other thorny issues related to personal finance. Failure to do so can end up seriously impacting your life in a negative way, should you ever be faced with a vindictive or greedy spouse; protect yourself!
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Counting Cards: How to Cheat At Blackjack
I don’t gamble much. I’ve got this boring kind of luck that let’s me gamble for a really long time on not much money, without ever winning big.
For example, when my wife was very pregnant with our first monster, we took a trip to visit my parents. It’s a 2 hour drive, and she needed a break halfway there. In the truck stop, we bought $5 worth of scratch-offs to pass some time. We turned in the winning tickets for more scratch-offs. And again. And again. Two hours later, we were out of winners, but had never accumulated more than $10.
Another time, we went to the casino to play slots. It took nearly 8 hours to spend $20. That sounds boring, but we had good conversation while we were playing.
I’ve never had a big win or a big loss from gambling, so I’ve always been kind of bored with the idea.
Now, cheating at blackjack, that’s a different matter. Pulling one over on the casino without getting caught…they make movies about that kind of stuff.
To be clear: counting cards in your head isn’t cheating. Legally, the worst that can happen is you can be asked to leave. To get a Hollywood-I-cheated-the-casino-and-got-caught-and-beat-by-the-mob kind of beating, you need to win a lot.
A lot.
To get started, there are a few things you need to know. One of those things is how to play blackjack, but I’m not going to get into the basics. If you don’t know how to hit, stand, or count to 21 without taking your clothes off, this guide may be too advanced for you. Come back later.
Super Basic Strategy
You don’t need to count cards to use this strategy. You will do better than most players if you follow along.
1. The dealer must hit, or take another card, if he has 16 points. If he has 17, he stands.
2. The hole card–the card you can’t see–is always worth 10. Of course, it’s not, but for the purposes of your strategy, assume it is.
That means, when the dealer is showing a 2, you’ll assume he’s got 12 points and will hit. If he’s showing a 7, you’ll assume he’s going to stand. If he’s showing an 8, your goal is to beat 18, not push for 21.
That’s it. If you do that, you’ll come within a couple of points of even odds against the house. Google “blackjack basic strategy” if you want to improve this.
Even odds isn’t good enough.
Card Counting
Counting cards sounds tough. Rain Man tough.
It’s not, but you’ll want to practice at home a bit before you try it in the really real world.
The rules are simple:
1. Cards 2-6 are worth 1 point.
2. The 10, jack, queen, king, and ace are worth -1.
3. For every card that is played, keep track of that score. This is a running score across multiple hands until the deck is replaced or shuffled, so don’t stop at a new deal.
4. Divide the running score by the number of decks remaining in the shoe. If there are approximated 150 cards in the dealer-thingy, that’s 3 decks, so divide by 3. If your running score is 18, that means the number your playing against is 6. If the casino is using a continuous-shuffling thingy, forget counting the cards.
That’s it. You’re never adding or subtracting more than a one, and you’re doing that against a number that tends to stay pretty low.
How do you use that, you ask? Easy.
When the score is up, bet higher. If it’s low or negative, bet lower. The higher the number, the higher your bets. If you’ve got a 5, a 6, or more, bet as much as you are comfortable with. If your playing score is low or negative, bet close to the table minimum.
Why does this work?
A higher score indicates that the main assumption of the super basic strategy is more likely to be true. When you’ve got a score of 10, you know a lot of lower-value cards have already hit the table, so it’s safer to assume that the dealer’s card is worth 10.
You don’t change anything about the way you play each hand, you just change the way you bet each hand. Counting cards doesn’t tell you specifically what’s going to happen during each hand, it just tackles the statistics of the game. It moves the odds in your favor, by up to 2 or 3 percent. Over one hand, this won’t help, so don’t sweat losing a hand here and there. Over an entire shoe of hands, you should be able to steadily win more than you lose.
And, as Brian Brushwood says, in the course of your life, very few things make a cooler story than getting kicked out of a casino for counting cards.
Do you play in casinos? Ever tried to cheat?
Paying For Heart Surgery When You’re Not as Rich as Randy Travis
Very sad news broke this week about Randy Travis. The country crooner, whose hits ironically include a song titled “From the Hard Rock Bottom of my Heart,” was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart problem that arose from viral cardiomyopathy, a condition that is characterized by a weakening of the heart muscle due to a virus. The virus that caused this disease is usually pretty harmless, but in some patients, extremely dangerous complications can arise. For Travis, the complications weakened his heart, and he required hospitalization and emergency heart surgery.
The easiest way to pay for a heart surgery is to let someone else pay for it. This tip may sound like a joke, but it is the way most people pay for heart surgery. Insurance is a risk management system in which many people pay premiums so that they do not have to bear the entire brunt of a financial loss. Some will come out ahead by paying less in premiums than the amount of the health benefits they will receive. Others will be on the opposite end of the stick. Health insurance can come from the private market or the public coffers through programs like Medicare and Medicaid. While there might be a copay for these procedures with insurance, the insured will not have to pay the whole tab.
Another way to pay for heart surgery is by raiding a retirement account. This is not really advisable in most instances, but desperate times can call for desperate measures. The money can then be paid back over time in the best-case scenario, and getting the doctors paid off will take a major burden off of the back of any heart patient.
Taking out a home equity loan can also be a way to pay for a heart surgery. Those who have some equity built up in their home can sometimes find enough to pay off some emergency bills. Of course, it usually takes years to build up this equity, so many will not have this option available to them.
One final way to pay off a heart surgery without being rich like Randy Travis would involve getting a second job. This might cut down on the amount of time available for cardiac rehab, but the doctor will want his or her cut. It is likely that the hospital will be even more serious about getting paid. This will especially be the case if the hospital is for-profit. It might take some time, but those who are able to survive the extra work should be able to eventually pay off their bills.
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