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Why do you need a trailer?
As I mentioned before, we recently bought a Chevy Tahoe. When we bought it, we had a Ford F150 and a Dodge Caliber that we could have traded in, but decided to sell on our own, instead.
About a month ago, we sold the truck. If you’ve never owned a truck, you probably don’t realize how handy they are to have. From hauling brush to moving furniture to donating large amount of crap to Goodwill, we used our truck.
We’ve also been on a mission to replace all of our old crappy stuff with nicer things, without spending a ton to make that happen. We’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist, then taking that money to buy other stuff we’re finding good deals on.
We found a 4×8 utility trailer for $300. It came home with us. The first thing I heard was “Why do you need a trailer?”
Now, we could have made do with delivery fees or rental trucks, but that seemed silly to me.
- We recently replaced our living room couches. One of our cats had mistaken one of them for a litter box. No amount of enzyme cleaner gets that smell out of a couch cushion. Shortly after that, my fat a** popped two of the springs out of the bottom. Bad couch. We found a good deal on brand new replacements, but the delivery fee would have been $80.
- My wife found a beautiful entertainment center last week that matched the corner entertainment center we already have. We don’t need another entertainment center, but after convincing the seller to sell us the side units without the center unit, we have glass-doored bookshelves that exactly match the largest piece of furniture we own. Without the trailer, we would have had to rent a truck to get them home.
- Tomorrow, we’ll be taking the last load of stuff out of my mother-in-law’s house. Without the trailer, that would be several trips in the car.
We’ve had the thing for 3 weeks and it has almost paid for itself in time and money. I think that makes for a good investment. I don’t expect to buy a new living room set every month, but it’s nice to be able to deal with large things when the need arises.
Book Review: The Art of Non-Conformity
We grew up in a world of expectations: Eat your vegetables, don’t poop on the carpet, do your homework. It continues right up to “Go to college”, “Get married”, “Having a dozen kids”. Are those the expectations you want to use to guide your life?
Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Non-Conformity (the blog and the book) puts the question like this: We we were younger, we heard “If everyone else was jumping off of a cliff, would you do that too?” In theory, that meant we were supposed to think for ourselves. Yet, as adults, we are absolutely expected to conform and do the things everyone else is doing. Work your 40, take a week’s vacation once a year, and repeat until retirement or death.
Is that our only choice?
The Art of Non-Conformity attempts to be a guidebook, showing you how to live the live you want to live. Chris has made a lifelong series of decidedly unconventional choices, from dropping out of high school to attending 3 colleges simultaneously to spending 4 years as a volunteer in Africa. For the past few years, he has been working his way through visiting every country in the world. He is an expert on non-conformity.
The books tells a lot (a LOT) of stories of people who have either made the leap into a self-defined life or people who have done nothing but talk about taking that leap while staying comfortable in their soul-numbing careers.
The Good
The Art of Non-Conformity is an inspirational book. It spends a lot of time explaining how to break through the wall of fear to take control of your like. More important, it explains why you’d want to. It does not pretend to define how you should live your life, it just provides the framework for the mentality to help you make that decision for yourself.
The Bad
If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide, complete with a list of possible work-alternatives, this isn’t the book for you. This book approaches lifestyle design from the conceptual end rather than the practical. If you want a practical manual, I’d get the 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris. Ideally, you should get both. They complement each other well.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. If you’re considering taking a non-standard path or just hate the career- or life-track you are on, you should read The Art of Non-Conformity. I’m planning to read it again in a couple of weeks, just to make sure I absorb all of the lessons.
Family Bed: How to Make It Stop
baby on the cheek.” width=”300″ height=”199″ />For years, my kids shared my bed.
When my oldest was a baby, I was working a graveyard shift, so my wife was alone with the baby at night. It was easy to keep a couple of bottles in a cooler by the bed and not have to get out of bed to take care of him when he woke up once an hour to drink a full bottle.
Then he got older. And bigger. And bigger.
We tried to move him to his own bed a few times, but it never worked well. He’d scream if we put him in a crib, so we got him a bed at 9 months old. That just meant he was free to join us whenever he woke up. Brat.
We finally got him to voluntarily move to his own bed after his sister was born. Shortly after she was born, I woke up to see him using her as a pillow. To paint the proper picture, this kid is 5’9″ and wears size 12 shoes. At 11. When I woke him up to tell him what he was doing, he decided to sleep in his own bed.
Method #1 to get your kids in their own bed: Have kid 1 try to crush kid 2 and feel bad about it.
Method #1 isn’t a great solution.
Soon, baby #3 showed up and we had 2 monsters in bed with us again. Once they started getting bigger, it became difficult for the 4 of us to sleep. We tried to get them into their own beds. Unfortunately, even as toddlers, my kids had a stubborn streak almost as big as my own. Nothing worked.
Eventually, they got big enough that I was crowded right out of the bed. At least we had a comfortable couch.
Sleeping on a couch gets old.
When the girls got old enough to reason with, we had a choice: We either had to find a way to convince them they wanted to sleep in their own room, or we had to have a fourth brat for them to attempt to crush at night.
We went with bribery. Outright, blatant bribery.
We put a chart on the wall with each of their names and 7 boxes. Every night they slept in their own beds, they got to check a box. When all of the boxes were checked, they got $5 and a trip to the toy store.
It took 10 days to empty our bed and it’s been peaceful sleeping since. That’s $5 well-spent.
Have you done a family bed? How did it work? How long did it last?
Choosing an eCommerce Platform to Sell Products Online
According to the U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2011 to 2016, a report conducted by global research and advisory firm Forrester, eCommerce sales in the United States topped $200 billion in 2011. This figure is set to rise by a staggering 62% by 2016, with the resulting $327 billion in annual eCommerce sales accounting for 9% of total retail sales. Spurred by innovative shopping models and online loyalty programs, the eCommerce sales channel is clearly benefiting from the increasing levels of comfort customers are feeling while shopping online. It’s not too late for companies of all sizes to reap the benefits of growth in this area. Assuming a product is ready to sell, the digital landscape boasts several eCommerce platforms and related services that will help companies to sell products online.
eCommerce Platforms: Several Flavors of Opportunity
eBay and Amazon: Ready Made eCommerce Platforms
Online retailers eBay and Amazon offer a quick and easy route for any business to start selling products online. The global reach of these sites means marketers gain immediate access to an audience of millions of potential customers. Despite increasing publicity in respect of the fees charged by the sites, particularly by eBay, a growing number of traders boast a turnover in excess of $1m. If nothing else, these platforms represent a practical opportunity for new companies to get started in online retail.
Shopify: Out-of-the-box Online Retail Stores
To date, over 20,000 business owners are using Shopify to realize the benefits of selling products online. This creative software allows businesses to use their own domain name, includes eCommerce hosting and an integrated shopping cart. It also boasts many online store designs customizable with over 100 ecommerce website templates. Payment for the service is made monthly with different plans available to suit businesses of varying sizes.
Facebook: Move Over Farmville
The phenomenal growth of social media has surprised most Internet users. With Facebook membership expected to exceed 900 million users by the end of 2012, a report from comScore, ‘The Power of Like, ‘ claims that customers are between 40 and 150 times more likely to consume branded content that is visible in their newsfeed than they are to visit a particular business page. Startups like 8th Bridge and Payvment are helping online retailers take advantage of this trend with the provision of innovative eCommerce solutions that encourage users to shop where they socialize.
Wordpress: It’s not just for Bloggers
While it’s true to say that WordPress was initially targeted at bloggers, it is now better described as a competent eCommerce and CMS platform. It’s a perfect option for those businesses who prefer to do things their way. Users can take advantage of free or premium eCommerce website templates and various WordPress plugins that will see their site turn from a basic blog site to a fully functional online retail store in minutes. Although all the potential eCommerce platforms discussed required that due diligence is given to marketing and optimization strategies, a business running its own online store should prioritize these aspects of success.
From Bricks to Clicks
The ‘clicks not bricks’ mentality is set to grow beyond the most idealistic of visions. Savvy business owners will give appropriate consideration to which eCommerce platforms will best suit their needs and that of their business. Many will come to the conclusion that the best solution is a combination of platforms.
This is a guest post.
More Debt
Even though we just paid off our credit cards in August and have started competing to pay off our mortgage, we opened a new debt account on Monday.
We’ve been shopping for a new(to us) car for a while. Simply put, we’ve outgrown our current vehicles.
As I said last week, these are our needs:
- We have 5 people in our family. My 13-year-old son is bordering on 6 feet tall and shows no sign of not growing.
- Every weekend, we have at least 1 extra kid, sometimes 2.
- We still have a giant(24 foot) boat that we won’t be selling until spring.
- My wife wants to lease a couple of ponies next summer, which will mean a horse trailer to haul them in.
We were looking for a GMC Acadia, which would meet our needs, but after talking to my brother–an Acadia owner–and the dealer, we decided it wouldn’t be the best fit. It would be marginal for towing the horses and the back row of the older models isn’t as roomy as the new one I sat in.
Saturday, we went to test drive an Acadia, which is where we had the conversation with the dealership. We ended up test-driving a Chevy Tahoe instead of the Acadia. With the options and mileage, it bluebooks for $27531, but they were using it as an online price leader and had it priced at $25000. Maybe I missed something, but the thing ran well, handled great, and the engine sounded good. As a way to get people on the lot, it worked.
Our plan was to put $5000 down, and see about trading in our Dodge Caliber and Ford F150. We brought the Caliber with us. Its bluebook value is $9,969. They offered us $5500, so we went home.
Sunday, we decided to sell the car and truck ourselves. We texted the salesman and offered $24,500. He accepted, we got a new truck that will fit our family and our needs.
With taxes, fees, and our down payment, we now have a car loan for $21564. Our plan is to sell the Caliber for $9500 and the F150 for $6800. That will leave $5354. We have a beneficiary IRA that has to be cashed out relatively soon, so we’re planning to do that early in January to push the tax burden to next year, which will end the loan.
Effectively, we’re paying about $300 in interest to give us a chance to move our assets around to take advantage of an SUV meeting our needs for $3000 under blue book. Yes, we could have waited until the assets were ready, but this truck wouldn’t have been there, so we jumped on it.
