- RT @kristinbrianne: Get Talk and Txt Unlimited Cell Svc w/ Free Phone for $10 per month by joining DNA for Free. http://tinyurl.com/yyg5ohn #
- RT: @ChristianPF is giving away an iPod Touch! – RT to enter to win… http://su.pr/2LS3p5 #
- 74 inch armspan and forearms bigger than my biceps. No, I don't button my shirt cuffs. #
- RT @deliverawaydebt Money Hackers Network Carnival #111 – Don't Hassel the Hoff Edition http://bit.ly/9BIAvE #
- @bargainr What would it take to get you to include me in the personal-finance-bloggers list? #
- Working on a Penfed application to transform my worst interest rate into my best. #
- Gave the 1 year old pop rocks for the first time. Big smiles. #
- @Netflix @Wii disc works well and loads fast. Go, go gadget movie! #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-24
- 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. #
How to Prioritize Your Spending
Don’t buy that.
At least take a few moments to decide if it’s really worth buying.
Too often, people go on auto-pilot and buy whatever catches their attention for a few moments. The end-caps at the store? Oh, boy, that’s impossible to resist. Everybody needs a 1000 pack of ShamWow’s, right? Who could live without a extra pair of kevlar boxer shorts?
Before you put the new tchotke in your cart, ask yourself some questions to see if it’s worth getting.
1. Is it a need or a want? Is this something you could live without? Some things are necessary. Soap, shampoo, and food are essentials. You have to buy those. Other things, like movies, most of the clothes people buy, or electronic gadgets are almost always optional. If you don’t need it, it may be a good idea to leave it in the store.
2. Does it serve a purpose? I bought a vase once that I thought was pretty and could hold candy or something, but it’s done nothing but collect dust in the meantime. It’s purpose is nothing more than hiding part of a flat surface. Useless.
3. Will you actually use it? A few years ago, my wife an cleaned out her mother’s house. She’s a hoarder. We found at least 50 shopping bags full of clothes with the tags still attached. I know, you’re thinking that you’d never do that, because you’re not a hoarder, but people do it all the time. Have you ever bought a book that you haven’t gotten around to reading, or a movie that went on the shelf, still wrapped in plastic? Do you own a treadmill that’s only being used to hang clothes, or a home liposuction machine that is not being used to make soap?
3. Is it a fad? Beanie babies, iPads, BetaMax, and bike helmets. All garbage that takes the world by storm for a few years then fades, leaving the distributors rich and the customers embarrassed.
4. Is it something you’re considering just to keep up with the Joneses? If you’re only buying it to compete with your neighbors, don’t buy it. You don’t need a Lexus, a Rolex, or that replacement kidney. Just put it back on the shelf and go home with your money. Chances are, your neighbors are only buying stuff so they can compete with you. It’s a vicious cycle. Break it.
5. Do you really, really want it? Sometimes, no matter how worthless something might be, whether it’s a fad, or a dust-collecting knick-knack, or an outfit you’ll never wear, you just want it more than you want your next breath of air. That’s ok. A bit disturbing, but ok. If you are meeting all of your other needs, it’s fine to indulge yourself on occasion.
How do you prioritize spending if you’re thinking about buying something questionable?
Net Worth Update
Welcome to the New Year. 2013 is the year we all get flying cars, right?
Here is my net worth update, along with the progress we made over the course of 2012.
As you can see, our net worth contracted by about $11,000. Part of that difference is due to selling our spare cars and–against my better judgement–taking payments with a lien on one of them. That is supposed to be paid off within a couple of months. If not, I’ll play repo man again.
The other part of the difference is in the final preparations for our rental property. The only things left to do are sanding and polishing the hardwood floors and cleaning the living room carpet. The final push to get to this point cost some money. All told, we’re nearly $30,000 into getting the house ready to rent. For the naysayers who think we should have sold it, we would have spent more getting it ready to sell.
Other than that, we’re not doing poorly. Our credit card is still being paid off every month and our mortgage is shrinking. If things continue to go well, we’ll have our truck paid off in a couple of months and the mortgage by mid summer.
Late Pass: Insurance for the Terminally Ill?
This is a guest post.
Uh oh. Not only have you put in decades of loyal service for a company that does not offer a life insurance policy to employees, now you have a terminal disease that has numbered your days. You always meant to get a life insurance policy at some point, but it was just one of those things that there was never enough money left for at the end of a month after bills, groceries and just enough fun to make worthwhile.
Your life is one that needs insuring to protect your family following the now-inevitable, but has that ship sailed? Is it possible to make up for lost time by obtaining a life insurance policy as a terminally ill patient?
You already know that insurance companies are experts at assessing risk. Each potential policy holder is effectively examined to determine their likelihood of living a reasonably long time, and a terminal illness is an obvious negative in this department.
Many insurance companies will be hesitant to offer a comprehensive policy that they know they will have to pay out in fairly short order, but you may be able to get a type of life insurance known as graded premium life insurance.
With graded premium life insurance, you pay a monthly premium to retain coverage. If your illness should terminate within two years, your family will receive all the premiums you have paid as a benefit. Should you last longer, the insurance provider pays the full value of the policy. This is a compromise that gives you the peace of mind that a life insurance policy can provide while allowing the insurance provider to minimize their risk.
These policies typically have cash values ranging from $10,000 to $50,000, so while they might not guarantee the permanent stability of your family, it will offer them much-needed assistance through what is sure to be a difficult time in their lives. Premium amounts vary by age and relative health, but generally the closer you are to qualifying for a payout, the more it costs to enter the lottery.
Life is unpredictable except for its certain end, and sometimes this reality leaves us less prepared for the future as we would like. Fortunately, a terminal illness does not make a person completely uninsurable in most cases. Of course, it is much easier and less expensive to get life insurance as a person who is not dying, so the best strategy may be to invest before your health becomes an issue.
Beat the Check
- Image via Wikipedia
Have you ever played a game of “Beat the Check”? Your rent is due tomorrow, but you don’t get paid until Friday, so you write the check today an, on payday, you run to the bank to get your paycheck deposited before it has a chance to clear. To stretch out the time, you write yourself a check from another account to cover the deficit, knowing that will take a few more days to clear. This is called “floating” a check.
Sound familiar?
I think most people who write checks have tried to rush a deposit in before a check clears.
In 2004, the Check 21 act went into effect, which turned the game on its head. This law gave check recipients an option to make a digital copy of a check, slashing processing time. Instead of boxes of checks being transported around the country, the check began getting scanned and instantly transferred, along with all of the encoding necessary to keep the digital checks organized. This dramatically cut the amount of time it took to clear a check. What was once a week was reduced to as little as 48 hours.
Now, as technology improves and banks update their infrastructure to match, the “float” time has been reduced even further. Many banks are using image control systems to instantly convert all incoming checks to digital format. Within a couple of hours, these images can be transmitted to the Federal Reserve, to be transmitted nearly instantly to the issuing bank. If both the issuing and the receiving banks are using modern image control systems, it is impossible to float a check. “Beat the Check” is a thing of the past. It’s like betting on purple at the roulette wheel.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the funds are instantly available. That would eliminate the banks being able make use of the funds during that time. Don’t expect the banks to make a habit of allowing you the use of your money before the federal regulations demand it.
