- RT @ramseyshow: RT @E_C_S_T_E_R_I_: "Stupid has a gravitational pull." -D Ramsey as heard n NPR. I know many who have not escaped its orbit. #
- @BudgetsAreSexy KISS is playing the MINUTE state fair in August. in reply to BudgetsAreSexy #
- 3 year old is "reading" to her sister: Goldilocks, complete with the voices I use. #
- RT @marcandangel: 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills http://bit.ly/b1tseW #
- Babies bounce! https://liverealnow.net/hKmc #
- While trying to pay for dinner recently, I was asked if other businesses accepted my $2 bills. #
- Lol RT @zappos: Art. on front page of USA Today is titled "Twitter Power". I diligently read the first 140 characters. http://bit.ly/9csCIG #
- Sweet! I am the number 1 hit on Ask.com for "I hate birthday parties" #
- RT @FinEngr: Money Hackers Carnival #117 Wedding & Marriage Edition http://bit.ly/cTO4FU #
- Nobody, but nobody walks sexy wearing flipflops. #
- @MonroeOnABudget Sandals are ok. Flipflops ruin a good sway. 🙂 in reply to MonroeOnABudget #
- RT @untemplater: RT @zappos: "Do one thing every day that scares you." -Eleanor Roosevelt #
Credit Card Glossary
As evil as credit cards are, most adults have one. Have you ever wondered what percentage of those people know the details of[ad name=”inlineright”] their credit card agreement, or even what all of the terms mean?
Here’s a quick list of the terms and their definitions.
- Average daily balance – This is the balance most card companies use to calculate your interest. They add the balance each day and divide it by the number of days in the billing cycle. This number times the interest rate is (roughly) the interest you have to pay.
- Annual Percentage Rate(APR) – This is the interest rate expressed as the interest accrued in one year. The actual calculation is much more complicated.
- Balance transfer – If you’ve ever paid your VISA with your Mastercard, you’ve done a balance transfer. These often have a great introductory rate and a lousy permanent rate.
- Cardholder agreement – This is the contract that defines all of the terms of your card: interest, default consequences, payment terms, and everything else. You should never sign for a card without reading and understanding this document.
- Charge-back – If you dispute a charge on your card, the issuer may issue a charge-back, and take the money back from the merchant to return to you.
- Credit line – This is the amount you are able to charge. You should fear this number and stay as far away from it as possible.
- Default – When you stop paying your card, you become delinquent. If it goes on too long, you will be in default. Read: screwed. This is when they crank your interest rate to the sky and cut your limit to match your balance. It’s also the point that affects your credit rating.
- Due date – This is the day which, if you miss it, will cause you to acquire an extra $15-39 fee for the privilege of misreading your calendar. Always pay your bill before this date.
- Finance charge – This is the actual interest accrued for the billing period. This is money you are paying for the privilege of borrowing the rest of the money. Next month, you’ll pay a finance charge on this money, too. Yay!
- Grace period – For most cards worth owning, you get 20-25 days before the issuer starts charging interest. The best way to manage your card is to pay it off completely twice a month. That way, you’ll never use up your grace period and never pay a cent of interest.
- Introductory rate – Many cards will offer a crazy-low interest rate for six months to lure you in…like crack. They’ll get you hooked, then raise the rate and force you to charge new toys at the higher rate. Ideally, you’ll never carry a balance, so you’ll never have to worry about the introductory rate.
- Minimum payment – If debt has an evil heart, this is it. If you pay nothing but the minimum required payment, you will be in debt for the rest of your life. Always pay more, even if it’s just an extra $20.
- Over-the-limit fee – If you ignore your credit limit and keep spending, you’ll get hit with another $15-39 fee for the privilege of not controlling your irresponsible impulses.
- Periodic rate – This is your APR expressed in relation to a specific time frame, usually as a daily periodic rate. For example, if your interest rate is 18%, your daily periodic rate is 18/365 or 0.0493%
- Pre-approved – When you get a pre-approved card, you are actually just getting a notice that you have been pre-screened as not being too much of a deadbeat for that particular card. You will still have a full credit check before the card is issued.
- Secured card – If you’ve got lousy credit, sometimes your only choice to repair it is to get a prepaid card. You give the company $200 and they will let you charge $200. They are almost always loaded with fees and are usually a very bad deal, but if it’s the only game in town…?
- Universal default – Sometimes, if you default on one card, every other card you have decides to gang up on you, because your “risk profile” has changed. Yet more proof of the evil that is credit-card debt.
- Variable interest rate – Some card tie your rate to the Prime interest rate, so when that changes, your rate does, too.
Did I miss any terms?
Getting Out of Bed
- Image by Wha’ppen via Flickr
Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Is it so you can exercise the privilege of spending 8 hours in a cubicle?
I didn’t think so.
In Okinawa, it’s call the ikigai. In Costa Rica, it’s the plan de vida. It’s your sense of purpose–the reason you get out of bed in the morning. In these cultures, having a strong ikigai can be directly correlated to a statistically extreme lifespan*. All around the world, the plan de vida is the single factor most likely to cause someone to feel they have lived a fulfilled life.
Do you know your ikigai?
For some people, their plan de vida is to successfully raise their children, then their grandchildren. For others, it is charity. Some folks are serial entrepreneurs, always looking for the next deal, the next business. For still others, it is a collection or an urge to travel. There are even some whose sole reason for getting out of bed(other than potty breaks) is work.
The last category is most common with teachers, soldiers, and police. The problem with wrapping so much of your identity up in your profession is retirement. What do you do when your ikigai–your reason to wake up–goes away? In Okinawa, teachers and police tend to have very short retirements because they lose their reason to for living.
What is your plan de vida, your passion? What drives you to keep going? Do you live to write, or to raise your children? Do you <shudder> live solely for someone else’s happiness? When you find it, it will resonate as “this is you”. Finding it is a deep soul-searching, not a light-hearted explanation or a new fad.
Your reasons can, and should, change over time. You can’t live for raising your children years after they have grown up and moved away. Finding this one factor in your life can be the thing that leaves you on your deathbed looking back with a smile instead of regret.
What is your plan de vida?
* From The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest
A Look Back
I’m on vacation this week and thought it would be nice to post a look back at some of my early posts. These posts are some of my favorites, but were written when there were only 3 or 4 of you paying attention.
Since I know you don’t want to miss anything, here are 5 of my favorite early posts, in no particular order:
1. Cthulhu’s Guide to Finance. I’m more than a bit of a horror geek. Books, movies, or games; all keep me entertained. Over the weekend, I taught my Mom how to play Zombie Fluxx and Gloom. When Cthulhu approached me about writing a guest post, I couldn’t refuse.
2. Birthday Parties Are Evil. It’s hard to remember to be cheap when your little girl is asking for a bowling party. It can run $200 to get a dozen kids an hour of bowling and a bit of pizza.
3. No Brakes. This is a post about why I had a hard time coming to grips with financial responsibility.
4. 4 Ways to Flog the Inner Impulse Shopper. Who can’t love a BDSM-themed personal finance post? Every blog needs a dominatrix mascot, right?
5. Fighting Evil by Phone. In which I share the method of convincing Big Nasty Telephone Company and their Contracted, Soulless Long Distance Provider to leave me the heck alone and stop demanding $800 they refused to admit was their mistake.
Crying is for Winners
Have you ever seen a kid come off a wrestling mat, crying his eyes out because he lost?
Often, that kid will get told to be tough and stop crying.
That’s wrong.
I’m not opposed to teaching kids not to cry under most circumstances, but just after an intense competition, I love it. It’s the best possible sign that the kids was pouring his soul into winning. It means he was trying with everything he had.
It means he is–or will be–a winner.
When a kid, particularly a boy in a tough sport, is crying, you know he’s going to try harder and do better next time.
For all of the “tough guy” ability it takes to succeed as a wrestler, I’ve never seen another wrestler teasing the crier. They’ve all been there. Wrestling is a team sport, but you win or lose a match on your own. When you step out in front of hundreds of people and spend 3 to 6 minutes giving every ounce of everything you have to give, only to find it’s not good enough, you’ll often find you don’t have the final reserve necessary to control your emotions.
This is different than a kid crying because he lost a game, just because he lost. Some kids feel entitled to win anything they do, regardless of the effort they put it. That’s also wrong.
Crying at a loss is okay after putting in maximum effort and full energy, not because the dice went the wrong way.
Happy Form
If you don’t know why you are hear, please read about the 21 Day Happiness Training Challenge.
