- Watching Gamers:Dorkness Rising #
- Charisma? Weee! #
- Tweeting a dork movie? I'm a bit of a geek. #
- We just met and the first thing you do, after boinking a stranger in the presence of the king, is to murder a peasant? #
- Every movie needs a PvN interlude. #
- Everything's better with pirates. #
- Waffles? Recognize. #
- The Spatula of Purity shall scramble the eggs of your malfeasance. #
- Checkout clerks licking their fingers to separate bags or count change is gross. #
- Watching Sparkles the Vampire, Part 2: Bella's Moodswing. #twilight #
- @penfed was a waste of money. $20 down the drain to join, wouldn't give a worthwhile limit, so I can't transfer a balance. #
- @JAlanGrey It's pretty lame. The first one was ok. This one didn't improve on the original. in reply to JAlanGrey #
- RT @tferriss: Are you taking snake oil? Beautiful data visualization of scientific evidence for popular supplements: http://ping.fm/pqaDi #
- Don't need more shelves, more storage, more organization. Just need less stuff. #
- @BeatingBroke is hosting the Festival of Frugality #226 http://su.pr/80Osvn #
- RT @tferriss: Cool. RT @cjbruce link directly to a time in a YouTube video by adding #t 2m50s to end of the URL (change the time). #
- RT @tferriss: From learning shorthand to fast mental math – The Mentat Wiki: http://ping.fm/fFbhJ #
- RT @wisebread: How rich are you? Check out this list (It may shock you!!!) http://www.globalrichlist.com/ #
- RT @tferriss: RT @aysegul_c free alternative to RosettS: livemocha.com for classes, forvo.com for pronunc., lang8.com for writing correction #
- Childish isn't an insult. http://su.pr/ABUziY #
- Canceled the Dish tonight. #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-22
- RT @MoneyMatters: Frugal teen buys house with 4-H winnings http://bit.ly/amVvkV #
- RT @MoneyNing: What You Need to Know About CSAs Before Joining: Getting the freshest produce available … http://bit.ly/dezbxu #
- RT @freefrombroke: Latest Money Hackers Carnival! http://bit.ly/davj5w #
- Geez. Kid just screamed like she'd been burned. She saw a woodtick. #
- "I can't sit on the couch. Ticks will come!" #
- RT @chrisguillebeau: U.S. Constitution: 4,543 words. Facebook's privacy policy: 5,830: http://nyti.ms/aphEW9 #
- RT @punchdebt: Why is it “okay” to be broke, but taboo to be rich? http://bit.ly/csJJaR #
- RT @ericabiz: New on erica.biz: How to Reach Executives at Large Corporations: Skip crappy "tech support"…read this: http://www.erica.biz/ #
Charity is Selfish
I try to give 10% of my income to charity. I don’t succeed every year, but I do try.
I don’t give because I’m generous. I give because I’m selfish.
If you give to charity, you are too.
I’m not talking about people who give to charity strictly for the tax deduction, though that is selfish too. I’m referring specifically to the people who give to charity out of the goodness of their hearts.
If I give a thousand dollars worth of clothes to a homeless shelter, I get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I helped people stay warm.
If I send $100 to the Red Cross for whatever terrible disaster happened shortly before I made the donation, it makes me feel good to have contributed to saving those lives.
The put-the-inner-city-kids-on-a-horse thing we do? Makes me happy to get those kids into a positive situation.
Donating blood? Yay, me! I’m saving lives!
While it’s nice to help other people, that’s not the ultimate reason I’m doing it. I do it because it makes me feel good about myself to help other people, particularly people who–for whatever reason–can’t help themselves.
That’s the basis of altruism. It’s not about helping others, it’s about feeling good about helping others.
The truly selfish, the evil dogooders, are the ones who want to raise taxes to give it away as “charity”. They get to feel like they are doing something and helping others while not actually contributing themselves and, at the same time, stealing that warm fuzzy feeling from the people who are providing the money to start with.
Evil.
Charity has to be done at a personal, local level or the benefits to the giver are eliminated while the benefits to the receiver are lessened. Bureaucracy doesn’t create efficiency.
For the record, if it’s taken by force, by tax, it isn’t charity. Charity cannot be forced. Forcing charity is, at best, a fraudulent way for petty politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and activists to feel they have power over others.
Again, evil.
How Much is Your Pet Worth?
A few years ago, one of our cats had a urinary tract blockage. When that happened, the cat’s bladder became almost rock-hard. He was in pain.
Naturally, this came to our attention late on a Saturday evening. Our choices were to leave the cat in pain or head to the emergency vet. One x-ray, one emergency catheter, and 2 nights in the vet’s office later, we charged the $750 bill and brought the cat home. He lived about two more years and had to be on a special UT-friendly diet. He spent the next two years with poor bladder control and very little energy.
About the same time, I had a coworker with a cancer-ridden cat. Until that time, I had no idea that you could get chemotherapy for a cat. Between the chemo and the regular surgeries to remove tumors, they were dropping a few thousand dollars every few months.
Recently, a friend’s cat ate a ball of twine and narrowly avoided intestinal surgery that would have cost $2500. He was willing to pay instead of seeing his 8 year old cry. I figured a new kitten would soothe her hurt.
How much is too much to spend on an animal?
When our cat needed a trip to the fuzzy emergency room, we had no savings. I’m not sure how we were keeping our bills paid. $750 was a lot of money, but we didn’t hesitate. Afterward, we discussed it and decided that it wouldn’t happen again. When a pet needed that much care, it would be time to put it down.
We’ve currently got a 17 year old arthritic cat. I tried discussing its end-of-life options, but my wife looked at me like I was asking her to punt bunnies into a lake. I fear we’re going to be paying a lot to stretch out the end of the cat’s life.
Now, before anyone tells me that I hate animals, we have 5 cats, 3 kids, 2 gerbils, 2 pythons, and a dog. We are an animal-friendly house. Or we keep spares.
That said, it’s the natural order of things. People outlive their pets. When you buy a pet–with the exception of giant tortoises and some birds–some part of you knows you are going to outlive it. What’s the right amount to spend, trying to stretch out the most uncomfortable years of a pet? When does the financial burden outweigh the companionship? When do I go from cold-hearted jerk to financially-responsible pet-owner?
For the pet owners out there, how have you dealt with this? How much would you spend to keep your pets kicking?
Discount Gift Cards: How Much Can You Save?
Do you know where you shop regularly?
Would you be happy if the things you bought there were suddenly, magically discounted?
It could happen.
I don’t think the game store down the road is suddenly going to institute a “Jason Rocks” discount program, but some of the bigger chains I visit have an unofficial option that can save you money, and it’s not a five-finger discount.
You can buy discounted gift cards. You can find a gift card exchange being run on a number of websites. How does it work?
There are two kinds of card exchange.
The first simply connects buyers and sellers. If you want to buy a gift card, you browse the list of available cards until you find something you like. You place your order with the exchange, who then take a fee and pass the rest of the payment to the seller, who’s got the job of sending it to you. When you get the card, you get to find out if the balance still exists or if it’s going to expire in the morning. Most people don’t sell a lot of gift cards, so their reputation isn’t really at stake. Avoid these, unless you like gambling.
The second kind of exchange actually buys the cards from the sellers and verifies the balance and expiration date before posting them for sale. When you go shopping, you’re dealing with a company that is putting its reputation–both with its customers and its bank–on the line. If there’s a problem, you’ve got someone to contact who probably isn’t going to vanish.
You visit the site, find a business you want to visit, and buy a card at a discount. The discount ranges from around 3% up to around 30%, with most discounts hovering around 10%. That means–depending on the store–you can get a $100 gift card for $90. Not a bad deal, especially if it for a store you’d be visiting anyway.
Have you ever bought a second-hand gift card? How did it work for you?
Why I Hate Payday Loans
I hate payday loans and payday lenders.
The way a way a payday loan works is that you go into a payday lender and you sign a check for the amount you want to borrow, plus their fee. They give you money that you don’t have to pay back until payday. It’s generally a two-week loan.
Now, this two week loan comes with a fee, so if you want to borrow $100, they’ll charge you a $25 fee, plus a percent of the total loan, so for that $100 loan, you’ll have to pay back $128.28.
That’s only 28% of actual interest; that’s not terrible. However, if you prorate that to figure the APR, which is what everyone means when they say “I’ve got a 7% interest rate”, it comes out to 737%. That’s nuts.
They are a very bad financial plan.
Those loans may save you from an overdraft fee, but they’ll cost almost as much as an overdraft fee, and the way they are rigged–with high fees, due on payday–you’re more likely to need another one soon. They are structured to keep you from ever getting out from under the payday loan cycle.
For those reasons, I consider payday loan companies to be slimy. Look at any of their sites. Almost none are upfront about the total cost of the loan.
So I don’t take their ads. When an advertiser contacts me, my rate sheet says very clealy that I will not take payday loan ads. The reason for that is–in my mind–when I accept an advertiser, I am–in some form–endorsing that company, or at least, I am agreeing that they are a legitimate business and I am helping them conduct that business.
In all of the time I’ve been taking ads, I’ve made exactly one exception to that rule. On the front page of that advertiser’s website, they had the prorated APR in bright, bold red letters. It was still a really bad deal, but with that level of disclosure, I felt comfortable that nobody would click through and sign up without knowing what they were getting into. That was a payday lender with integrity, as oxymoronic as that sounds.
