The basics of marketing -product, place, price, promotion -apply to more than businesses selling the newest flavor of soda. These keys fit every time you want something from someone else: a job, a used bicycle, a tenant, a stellar stock. The next time you seek, consider implementing these four points. See where they take you.

The classified ads lured me this morning with a few things:

First, an item I didn’t ever think I could want, let alone need–

Product: WWII radios who in her right mind would want these things? …I almost called because of the tempting description of something else that I didn’t need. The product wasn’t just a radio, it was the best radio, or so said the ad. These radios were in breathtaking oak frames, functioned like new, and had been maintained since day one.

Place: location, location, location I can get these radios here in town?! Or they’ll provide shipping on my online order? Hmmm’prime downtown pawnshop?

Price: I think that a product has to be the cheapest possible (aka Walmart) or the best of the best in quality Ummm’fully functional, ancient radios? Best of the best, not KMapart as Todd calls KMart

Promotion: How will we know about the product? Radio, word of mouth, county fair, door to door? Advertising a radio on the radio could have a nice ring to it, but honestly, Rick Dee’s Weekly Top 40 is playing right now, and I’m not sure his youthful listeners are interested in these radios. The best advertising– Newspaper: classifieds: items under $100. Perfect Is someone obsessed with James Blunt also going to go gaga over this item? Know the demographics of your target–stuff like age, race, lifestyle, sex.

Second–

And which of these would you think to rent from today’s paper?
1. XYZ Property Mgmt 999-9999 * 2 bdrm house
2. Exquisite 4 bdrm Ranch House on 1,000-Acre Ranch. River to forest service. A naturalist’s dream location. Spectacular environment. 10 Mi. S. of town $xxxx/mo 999-999-9999
3. Spacious 4 bed w/ fenced yard near Lincoln Park: dishwasher, garage $xxxx. Andrew: 999-9999
4. Avail now; 2 bdrm, very clean, w/fridge. Stove + hookups, no garage, no pets/non smoking, $xxxx/mo + 1st, last, dep. 999-9999

*the last one cracks me up’why would you pay per line to tell readers that you have a fridge and stove provided in your rental? Isn’t that a norm? Should have done their research.

I always assumed that every loan held a flat rate’my credit card, a house payment, a car payment. Oh to be naive! The truth, as many of you know, is that loans don’t always have set rates. Heck, we rushed to consolidate our student loans a month ago and credit card rates hardly remain steady. Interest comes in two general types:

Variable rate loans: interest rate fluctuates up and down to reflect the rise and fall in interest rates paid to savers by the lender
Fixed rate loans: pay the same percentage on your interest rate every time.

Which is better? My old finance professor told our class, “Fixed is forever,” meaning that you typically want your long-term loans to hold fixed rates. He said, “Hold variable very little.” Variable rates are typically best for short-term loans in the most general sense.

The interest rate that you’re being charged comes from a combination of two factors:
Index rate + margin
The index rate is a rate that reflects current market conditions and can easily be verified. The most popular index is based on interest rates of all securities and treasuries from 3-month bills to 30-year bonds. Known as a 1-year constant maturity treasury, this rate is published by the Federal Reserve based upon their daily calculations.
A lender obviously isn’t going to charge only an index rate. They’re about profit, right? They throw in their margin‘the cost of doing business, risk of loss on the loan, and bucks in their hands. This addition ranges from 2 to 3 percent.

If you’ve got that variable rate mortgage or you’re considering, a few notes I’ve learned over time:
The amount of time between adjustments’the adjustment period‘ranges from six-months to five-years, though typically adjusted once a year. Now you’ll benefit from longer adjustment periods when the market rates are rising of course. You’ll also benefit from shorter periods if the index is decreasing since it’ll show up in your monthly payments sooner.

With the way things are going now (UP), you’ll be glad to know that an interest rate cap (aka ceiling) sets how much interest can increase for any one adjustment period during the life of your loan. That way, you can’t get dumped with added interest rates. A payment cap is also set, limiting how much your monthly payments can increase in one year.

This week I had an emotional fallout with a friend I had planned to visit over something as simple as the following:
she wanted me to pay for my own groceries and half of her gas while I was at her house and I thought that was too much to expect of a guest. In fact, I thought it was downright rude. She in turn, thought I expected too much of her as a host. The end result is that we are no longer on speaking terms, but the cause of this altercation was so basic and avoidable had I been in an Aridni mindset when I talked with her: it all boiled down to money.

I was raised in a family where knowing how to be a host was essential to the success of my father’s business. When I was growing up, we regularly had visitors from other countries stay at our house and we wined/dined them, took them to see tourist sites in Boston and did everything possible to make their stay comfortable. Had I not been hospitable towards these guests, it would have hurt our family’s solvency and my father’s reputation. More importantly, as my mother always emphasized, it is important to treat your guests the same way you would want to be treated if you were in their home. It all boiled down to respect. Now, if I am visiting a casual friend, I don’t necessarily expect them to buy me caviar, but I do expect that since I am the one paying for the plane ticket, they will cover some of the other expenses of my visit.

Now, my ex-friend in Virginia has different financial expectations. As she put it, “friends don’t pay for friends… No one owes you anything and if kindness is given, it should be appreciated but not expected.”

I don’t see paying for groceries to be a financial trade- I see it as hospitality, a kindness that is reasonable to expect if you are visiting someone. If I want something special that she doesn’t have, then yes it makes sense for me to buy it myself, but should I have to pay her back for half the spaghetti and meatballs we consumed? What if I get seconds and she doesn’t?

Now, after my friend had explained that she is very poor and sometimes can’t even afford her own food, I completely changed my expectations to accomodate the new information. Our similar, yet contrasting backgrounds could provide a clue as to the discrepancies in our financial expectations of eachother as host and guest. We were both brought up in well-to-do families, but her parents never spent any of their wealth on her–my ex-friend always had to fend for herself. My parents on the other hand, made sure I was never wanting for anything and at the same time, impressed upon me the importance of giving to others who were less fortunate.

The result? My friend thinks that everyone should fend for themselves and I believe in the phrase “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She says she is too proud to accept “handouts” from people (i.e. a host paying for her groceries) while as a host I would be embarrased to charge my guests for their food. Who’s right?

If the tables were reversed and I was the host, I would most likely not extend an invitation for someone to stay at my house for a week if I did not have the means to be a hospitable host. However, if my budget was really tight and I was close to the person, I might say something like “I really would like for you to visit, but I just want you to know ahead of time that I can’t afford food for two.” That is very different than what my ex-friend said which was “you have to pay for your own food. Every last bit of it.” In fact, as I told her, if she visited me and I was living on my own on a budget, I would pay for her food even if it meant that I had to save up for it because those are the expectations I have of MYSELF as a host. But was it right for me to impose my expectations of myself on her?

The bottom line here is whether it was reasonable for me to place my own financial expectations on my ex-friend and vice versa. Were my expectations of her too high? She certainly thought so; I beg to differ.

What’s really sad is that we were very close friends, but because our financial expectations of eachother were so different, we both percieved eachother as being rude and unreasonable.

My advice: If you are living on a budget, next time you go to the bank, make sure you open a “hospitality” savings account so you can be prepared the next time you have a house guest. Either that or don’t ask for company.

We’ve all heard that insanity equates the same actions done over and over as we keep expecting different results. Not surprisingly, the results never seem to change. There’s a good chance that you’re doing things exactly like your parents did when they were your age. I mean, they’re probably your biggest introduction into money management. Guess what, in twenty-five years, you’ll probably be living just like they are now if you’re following their earlier path.

Your financial success is established now. The decisions you make today shape who you’ll become. So the question is, anyone out there hoping for something different… working toward something different?