CK Blog

To help out my monthly cash flow for the moment, I changed my payment plans to Sallie Mae. I had went with the default standard payment plan originally, but have switched to a graduated plan. Under this plan, my payment is lower for the first couple of years compared to what I had been paying and will be a bit higher later on. I hope one of these days I will be able to get more aggressive on repaying them even though it does have a really nice interest rate.

You may have heard the story over the summer of Steve and Annette Economides, a family of 5 whose frugal lifestyle on a household budget of $35,000 and newsletter of thrifty tips earned them the nickname of “American’s Cheapest Family.” They wrote a book of the same name and after hearing a nice mention of it on Paul Harvey; I put it on my list of books to check out. I finally got my hands on a copy and have to say I was left feeling a little let down after reading it. I breezed right through it, which in this case was not a good thing. It threaded on familiar ground to anyone who has read a little on frugal living. I am not sure if I was just expecting some groundbreaking insight to smack me from reading this book, but whatever it was, I did not get it. Maybe if I reread it and forced myself to really stay with it, it might change my outlook, but it was hard to resist the urge to skim over large parts the first time let alone a second time.

The book is broken up by chapter into major categories such as food, clothes, and medical expenses along with discussions of how to teach kids about money and get yourself out of debt. Their tips are fine, particularly if you are new to the idea of frugal living, otherwise you probably are already familiar with a lot of them.

They do a decent job of talking about shifting your attitudes towards your finances and living and the payoffs of living a thrifty life, it did help to tie everything together and explain why the effort of frugality is worth it. I would have liked them to have gone a little more in-depth in this area, but they hit the high points at least.

All in all, this book is okay I cannot say I had any huge problems with it, it would be fine for some particularly those just starting out in trying to be frugal, it was just not the book for me.

As part of the whole process of moving, I took a look at the various books that I had on my bookshelves and stacked in various boxes and thinned out to a shelf of books that I really enjoy and want to keep. That means I have about 8 boxes worth of books that I am not so in love with. Some I would probably never read, so I enjoyed the first time but once was enough and some I can part with if I don’t dwell on it (the bandage effect).

I have been going through the boxes and inputting the ISBN numbers into an spreadsheet as an inventory method. I then have been searching places like Amazon and Half.com to get idea of the prices and what I find is depressing from a seller’s prespective. So many of them are going for $0.75 or less, lot of times a penny. The sheer amount of volume only would have to sell to make a decent rate when you consider postage and envelope costs along with commissions. As a buyer, it of course is nice to get a bargain like that. Of course whenever I am looking for a book though, it seems like noone is selling it for a penny.

Of course money is money and if you watch your costs, you’ll come out with a little extra from selling assuming someone buys your book eventually, but running some quick calcuations it looks like a lot of effort for very little return.

Can someone please explain to me something that I’ve noticed on eBay? I saw an item of Amazon.com that I was interested in, but could not justify the expense to myself. I got to thinking of ways I could lower the cost such as cashing in little contest and survey points for amazon certificates and also looking on eBay for people selling their gift cards.

For a variety of reasons such as people winning the gift cards in contests and wanting to turn them into cash, people will auction off their gift cards and you can often get them for about 80% of the face value depending on the card. Looking at the Amazon.com certificates listing though, I was noticing people bidding up to the face value or even more for the cards. Where is the point in bidding $31 for a $30 amazon.com certificate? Why not just go to Amazon or whatever store and buy one and save the extra cash? Personally unless I’m saving 15-20% off the face value, I don’t really find it worth the hassle and potential risk of buying the certificates off eBay.

I guess maybe if you’re using a stolen paypal account or are just dumb, it doesn’t matter how much you bid, but anyone have any idea what the reasons would be for people paying face value or more for gift cards on eBay is?

As I have mentioned, I recently moved into a new place and as part of that got a new phone line. Personally I do not have much of a need for a landline, I use my cell phone for the majority of my calls and I think my parents are about the only people who have my actual landline number, everyone else has my cell number. I got the phone for the DSL connection, I know I could have gotten naked DSL, but I got the landline for the 911 coverage.

I picked the metered option which is $6.50 base plus another $5.50 in extra charges and profit fees. I also got charged $47 for connection charges, which makes me mad because I found out afterwards that I could have gotten that waived if I would have ordered it online instead of over the phone. I know it costs a little more to pay the operator to take my order, but not $47 worth. The nice thing though is they did split the charge over 3 months so it is $15 a month instead of one big chunk.

The big sticker shock part came from the DSL side. I got the charge for the modem which was $49.99, I could have brought it off eBay and saved a little chunk. Then they charged me $12.95 for the shipping and handling of the modem but thats not a biggie. I was impressed with how fast they got the modem to me, it was waiting for me when I got home from the work the day after I initally ordered the phone line, but the DSL was not even scheduled to be activated for another week and a half, so they could have sent it parcel post for all I care instead of charging the extra money. Plus I am sure it did not cost them nearly that much to ship the package given what I know about how much it costs my company to ship out packages. Now my company is a really big Fortune 500 type, but our volume probably is a drop compared to a fulfillment place like this one that will drive the price down.

I guess it was just the overall sticker shock of getting the bill for so much more than I was expecting caused me to just react so negatively. Once I really sat down and looked at it, I understood the various causes of it even if I still was not thrilled with it.

I am stuck smack in the middle of a money rut. I am starting to get really tired of thinking about my money or personal finance in general. I used to be diligent about keeping track of stuff in Quicken, but I have not updated my file in probably close to a month. I keep an overview by glancing at Yodlee or my online banking. I pay my bills and do some little things here or there but big picture stuff is escaping me.

I think it is a little bit of several factors. Part of it is I have just moved so I had many extra expenses related to that have set me back and money overall on both on a bankroll sense and a monthly outgoing basis is tighter. Another factor is I help my parents who are both older handle their bills and day-to-day financial stuff so I get an extra helping of dealing with the money stuff. It also probably does not help that as a topic I read a lot about personal finance and investing because it can be interesting to me and I probably need to take a little break from some of that reading. Maybe read a novel or do a puzzle, something different!

I think the biggest factor though is that I am not making the progress towards my financial goals like I want to. My net worth direction is going in the opposite direction that I want it going in. I am not living some high life full of HDTVs and Playstations, overall I am a pretty frugal guy, but past mistakes and family boundary issues have me stuck between that proverbial rock and a hard place that I need to keep working to break out of. I could write a whole slew on how I could blame others particularly on the boundaries issues, but in the end, I am the one who made the decision to say yes when I should not have.

I will figure my way out of this rut with time, right now I just feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a large financial hole with my little shovel trying to make a little headway and getting nowhere. So I will just have to take a breath, give it some thought and prayer and take another day at a time.

Every so often, you will read or hear something that burst a little bubble in your subconscious. It is usually something simple that you should have already gotten, but in your nice little innocent world, it did not occur to you. This happened to me over the little endorsement blurbs on the back on books.

When scanning over a shelf of books trying to decide if I should pick up a book that I might not be familiar with, I will be the first to admit to being swayed by a endorsement on the back of the book. After all, if an some and so thinks its a good book, why not take a chance on it? I know that is consumer psychology 101 and all, but it does work.

Still one day I was reading something that now escapes me, but it mentioned among other methods that how as a author you can pay someone a fair amount like $5,000 and have some famous author talk about how fabulous your book is. Now this is no different than various other endorsement situations, but I guess the bibliophile in me just shutters a little bit at this. Maybe it is because in other endorsement situations, it can be easier to tell when someone is compensated for their positive spin versus wondering if Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame really enjoyed that new economics book on the shelf or something greased the words. Its like I know when Paul Harvey is waxing poetically about the new Bose Wave system, it is a commercial that he is being paid to endorse the product. But now I often wonder about those little blurbs on the back cover.

I do not mean to imply anything about Mr. Levitt by the way; he was just an example of someone I have seen several books recently. In fact, I selected one book on economics from the library based largely on his endorsement on the back of the book. I guess they really do work, huh?

Still one day I was reading something that now escapes me, but it mentioned how as a author you can pay someone a fair amount like $5,000 and have some famous author talk about how fablous your book is.

I am in the process of moving for the first time in my life. I am leaving the house that I grew up in and venturing to some new place that will now be called home. My parents are also moving at the same time so I have stayed behind in the old house to get it finished packed and cleaned up while they are getting settled in their new place. My stuff has mostly been boxed up already and I moved a good portion of it today into storage until I get into my new place. The thought that struck me when I was loading boxes into my car is how much I haven’t missed basically anything that has been in these boxes for probably two weeks now.

Has there been a time when I probably could have used a thing or two in one of the boxes? Sure, but for the most part I could have taken all of it to Goodwill instead and not missed any of it. What does that say for importance placed on that stuff? Is it just cluttering my life and I should just get rid of it? Probably. I’m going to take a close look at stuff when I unpack it and try to weed out a lot of stuff I have outgrown or just don’t plain need.

Maybe you should try something similar? Unsure if you should just get rid of some stuff, why not try putting into a box and putting into the back of the closet or garage for a weeks and see if you really need it. Chances are you’ll probably forget about even having the items let alone missing or needing them. Why not then give them a new life by selling or donating them to someone else who could use the stuff. It clears your space and helps someone else out at the same time.

Part of my problem is a lot of the boxes I put away were full of books. I love reading and have spent a nice little amount of time scouring the shelves at Half Price books and other stores looking for gems to read. But I’ve read the majority of the stuff or honestly will probably never get around to reading some of them, and they are taking up space. I went through my two bookcases and gave each item a hard honest look. I could eliminate about two bookcases worth of books down to about one shelf if I just kept the books I really cared about.

What to do with the rest of them? Selling them is tough thanks to the oversupply of the market leading to little resell value in a lot of books. I could always take them to Half Price, but usually they will offer you a laughable small amount and from what I understand reading online they end up throwing away or recycling a decent amount of books that they “buy” back. I might list some of them on Amazon or Half.com, but you never know how long if ever it will take to sell a book. They might go in a week or sit listed for years if the market is not there for your book. In the end, I’ll probably list some on PaperbackSwap and whatever else is left, I’ll donate to my local library who will probably sell themselves at a friends of the library book sale.

Why not try looking at the stuff you have surrounding you and ask if it really is bringing something into your life? Maybe its time to box it up and send it on its way.

I am not much of a gamer these days. I have a copy of Sims 2 that I’ll play every once in awhile, throw in a game of Wall Street Raider or if I’m really bored, I might wander around Second Life but I haven’t really got the appeal of that game up to this point. Mostly though my gaming adventures mostly consists of a few card games or a good Sudoku puzzle. I have no big desire to rush out a buy a new sparking Playstation 3 or Wii. I did get cheated out a free Wii once, but thats a story for another post.

Its not to say I wouldn’t play one of those systems probably if I had one, but the desire just isn’t there. Even when my brother lived with me that had a Playstation 2, the times I did play I mostly stuck to one game. I do have some fond memories of games past though. I remember growing up with my original Nintendo playing games such as Wall Street Kid, Techmo Football or Bionic Commando (and of course Super Mario Brothers). We did upgrade to a Super Nintendo and I had a few games to play on there as well, but the memories of those are not so vivid. I am sure Halo is a great game with awesome graphics, but I think sometimes I’d still rather play Maniac Mansion or SimCity.

I did get my old SNES games out that I still have and played a few, it was still fun to play them. They are past their prime and I probably wouldn’t play them very often, but its nice to take a stroll down the old days back and relive a few memories.

While looking around Amazon.com, I noticed a suggested title from them called The Personality Code by Dr. Travis Bradberry. It seemed interesting and covered topics that I studied as an undergraduate in college so I looked more into it and the book itself was interesting enough but there’s more to this story though.

On the Amazon page for the blog entry by the author promoting a game hosted on his website. It was a Press-Your-Luck game based on the story of Michael Larson, the guy behind the game show scandal which is mentioned in the book. You could win prizes such as a blinkie, autographed copy of the book, a IPod Shuffle or an Nintendo Wii based on how well you scored in the game. I got lucky and got enough points to win a Wii. The game asked me to fill out a form with my information and said the prize would be shipped out within a week. Weeks go by and nothing shows up, I try following up and got nowhere.

Now I see the blog entry mentioning the contest is gone and the game on the website has been changed to a play game. Maybe they meant the contest to be over a long time ago and just dropped the ball by not changing their website or their entry on amazon before someone won a prize, but it seems a little shady to not award the prize and then just erase any mention of the contest like it never existed. There were no posted rules saying the game was over by a certain date or anything like that, I played the game in good faith and guess I really lost in the end. They could have at least sent an email or called and said “Hey, we screwed up, sorry.” At this point, I would not be surprised if the blog entry over at Amazon just got totally erased to get rid of my comment and although I don’t expect anything to come of this, I have to say I’m really disappointed at the outcome from the author of a book I find interesting.