A buddy of mine this weekend complained to me how his company wasn't letting him work on a couple of projects he thought were critical to the long term success of his company. He's the Senior Vice-President in charge of new product development for a medium sized, yet global business.

The reason they won't let him continue with the projects doesn't have much to do with whether they can afford them. To hear him talk about it, the company has plenty of resources. Business is good. He says the reason he can't get approval to work on the projects he thinks are important has to do with a recent change in the executive suite.

A new CEO recently brought on board caused a shakeup in the political structure at the executive level. Old alliances and allegiances have fallen apart. New alliances are taking their place. My friend feels like he's no longer in the inner circle.

It's truly terrific news that the recent fires in California are mostly behind us. I worry for all the people who have lost their homes in those fires. This isn't at all unlike a hurricane hitting Florida or the Gulf Coast. Disasters like these uproot entire neighborhoods. Some will rebuild. Some will leave and never return. None will ever be the same.

I can't help but wonder how many people's lives will be made even more complicated than they already are because they've lost all contact with their records. Think about it for a minute. How many accounts do you have? You have financial accounts, probably checking, maybe savings, a brokerage account. There's your 401(k), your IRA (maybe a couple of them). You probably have one or more nsurance policies, and a mortgage. Don't forget credit cards.

The list goes on and on. My personal stress level goes through the roof thinking how awful it would be to try to reconstruct all that information literally from ashes. I have three recommended ways to safeguard your personal information in the event of disaster

There was a time when I believed in clipping coupons and making the rounds to all the low price retail outlets. I'd watch the ads in the paper and keep track of the sales and promotions. I considered myself a smart shopper.

How many times have you heard a story told by a friend or neighbor or family member where he or she saved significantly on a purchase by driving all over town checking prices and negotiating between sales people? Did you ever get the impression there might have been a little obsession going on at the time? That used to be me, the obsessed shopper.

Somewhere along the line it dawned on me I was investing a lot of time in the process getting ready to buy and that time had real value. Once the value of my time entered into the equation, clipping coupons and driving to 3 different stores for groceries didn't make much sense any more.

When was the last time your weekend was a little bit too long?

There aren't many hard and fast rules about who gets paid how much; but there are a few realities. For instance, in general, outside sales people earn more than inside sales people. And inside sales people generally earn more than tele-sales people. Do you know why that is?

It's simple: A worker's value is determined by his or her replaceability. Good outside sales people are harder to find than people who can wait for customers to come to them. People who know how to deal with customers are harder to find than people who can read a script into a telephone. The harder to find people have less replaceable talents, or skills.

Your replaceability is determined by how much rare or unique capability you bring to your work. This uniqueness is what determines how much you earn. If you can't be replaced because of your unique talents, then your customers have no choice but to pay more for you.

Saturday night my wife and I went out for a really nice dinner at a very high end restaurant. How high end? The main courses cost about as much as our normal weekly food bill. The entire evening cost about as much as groceries for a month. Rest assured, that wasn't a place we could afford to eat on a regular basis. It was one really terrific meal though.

Over coffee the next morning we pronounced the previous evening a resounding success - the best meal we'd ever enjoyed together. We want to go back sometime because really enjoyed ourselves. It was well worth the tremendously high price.

I'm no legal expert. I make it a point to pick up the phone and call my lawyer if and when ever I'm thinking about any kind of new arrangement with another person or company. By new, of course, I mean anything out of the ordinary. Anything at all.

A story I heard this weekend illustrates just how loosely you should define "anything new" when it comes to arrangements.

The daughter of a gentleman for whom I did some work many years ago is about to find herself homeless.

Welcome to Friday. I don't know about you, but this week has gone by relatively quickly for me. I've had more than my fair share of challenges at work this week, and the weekends bookending these workdays are packed solid. There's nothing like a full calendar to make the time fly.

And of course, watching my portfolios appreciate tens of thousands of dollars in mere hours doesn't hurt at all.

To celebrate Friday, this old dog will be taking the afternoon off. I'm headed for a retirement planning seminar over lunch and into the early afternoon. After that it'll be time to hit the links for a round of golf.

I'll report back next week sometime on what I learn at the seminar. I'll tell you this right now. My first reaction on receiving the invitation was that I didn't think I'd have anything to learn. In fact I would have tossed it straight away had the invite not come from an old friend now in the financial planning business.

But I came to my senses and realized that if my impulse was to toss the invite without thought, I was probably a bit overconfident. I probably have something to learn. I'll find out later today if there are any new tricks this old dog needs to learn.

This weekend I was talking to one of the new neighbors who had just moved in a week or two ago. We chatted about the great fall-like weather we were having and how great its timing was for his moving in - mostly small talk, getting to know you kind of stuff.

As we were talking, his son walked up to the conversation. His dad introduced him. He said hello, and in the single-minded way only kids can truly master, asked his dad if he could borrow $50 for a new skateboard.

Michael's dad replied with some of the most sage debt management advice I've heard:

I had just purchased a coffee at a nearby coffee shop the other day. On the way out the door I glanced at one of the other customer's laptop screen. It caught my eye because he was a customer of the same bank I use. One glance was all it took for me to know he was paying his bills. I debated whether to say something; and I'm still not convinced I did the right thing. In the end, I fought off the impulse to ask why he'd be so careless with the keys to his identity.

Have you ever seen a sign in any public WiFi place telling you not to worry about identity theft? Have you ever seen a sign telling you they guarantee your identity won't be stolen if you use their free service? Of course you haven't. That's because they can't guarantee your confidential access and account information won't be stolen by identity thieves snooping around on their WiFi.

If you've been reading here a while you know we have a rather extensive home remodeling project going on. I'm happy to report at long last we're nearing completion. In a few weeks' time we should be saying good-bye to the last of the contractors we hired to do work here.

Now that we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel our stress-o-meter is starting to come down out of the "critical" range. Soon we hope to be completely relaxed and enjoying the benefits our hard-earned investments have brought us.