- RT @mymoneyshrugged: The government breaks your leg, and hands you a crutch saying "see without me, you couldn't walk." #
- @bargainr What weeks do you need a FoF host for? in reply to bargainr #
- Awesome tagline: The coolest you'll look pooping your pants. Yay, @Huggies! #
- A textbook is not the real world. Not all business management professors understand marketing. #
- RT @thegoodhuman: Walden on work "spending best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy (cont) http://tl.gd/2gugo6 #
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.
Net Worth Update – January 2014
This may be the most boring type of post I write, but it’s important to me to track my net worth so I can see my progress. We are sliding smoothly from debt payoff mode to wealth building mode.
Our highlights right now are nothing to speak of. We did let our credit card grow a little bit over the last couple of months, but paid it off completely at the end of December. It grew mostly as a matter of not paying attention while we were doing our holiday shopping and dealing with some car repairs.
That’s it. We haven’t remodeled our bathrooms yet, but we have the money sitting in a savings account, waiting for the contractor. We haven’t bought a pony yet, but we did decide that a hobby farm wouldn’t be the right move for us. We’ll be boarding the pony instead of moving, at least for the foreseeable future.
Our net worth is up $13,000 since September. Our savings are up and our retirement accounts are down because there are two inherited IRAs that we need to slowly cash out and convert to regular IRAs.
Link Roundup
What has happened to this week? It’s already Friday afternoon, and I’m short a post today. Since I skipped the link roundup last week while I was off with family, I’ll do it early this week and cheat you out of a real post today.
Finance links:
I enjoy trying new foods and eating out. Christian PF provides tips on doing that frugally.
Trent talks about “Family Dinner Night”. Invite a bunch of friends over to help prep and eat a buffet-style meal. Good time for everyone on the cheap.
Free Money Finance shares his 14 Money Principles.
MoneyNing shares how to buy school supplies for less.
Miscellaneous links:
Netflix just volunteered to shaft its customers again. There’s a 28 day wait to get most new releases, now. If I didn’t have almost 500 movies in my queue, I’d be royally ticked.
Mother Earth News has plans for a smoker/grill/stove/oven. I’d love to build a brick oven with a grill and smoker. A complete, wood-fired cooking center would be perfect for my house.
Major kitchen cleaning on Lifehacker. We’re doing this tomorrow, as part of our April Declutter.
That’s the highlight of my trip around the internet this week.
Disclosure
I’m not terribly commercial, but I do enjoy making money.
As such, it is safe to assume that any company, entity, corporation, person, place, thing, or other that has a product, service, post, or link has in some way compensated me for said product, service, post or link. That compensation–direct or indirect–may be in the form of money, swag, free trips, gold bullion, smurf collectibles, super-models, or just warm-fuzzies. That list is NOT in order of preferred method of compensation.
To reiterate: If it’s commercial, and it’s here, I’m probably being paid for it.
A Perfectly Maid Home
Last night, I got home after a 13 hour day at the office and found a spotlessly clean house. The laundry was folded. The dishes were done, and everything was put away.
It was great.
I work 80 hours a week, 90 if you count commuting time.
That’s about 50 hours at my day job, 10-15 hours working on this site, and 20-30 hours working on my other side hustles. Some weeks, my volunteer geek skills get put to use for a local non-profit, too.
My wife works at least 40 hours every week.
We chase our kids around, plan or birthday parties, visit family, take care of the yard, and do everything else that every other family does.
The difference is that, if I take work in all of its forms out of the equation and give myself permission to get a full night’s sleep every night, I have a total of 20-30 hours per week to eat, socialize, and spend time with my family. That not a lot.
I hate cleaning.
Between my work schedule and my cleaning aversion, I’m not always a lot of help around the house.
Half of my work time is spent at home. It’s hardly fair to expect my wife to clean up after me.
This has been a huge point of contention between us. She sees me on the computer and gets frustrated when I’m not helping her clean up. I get frustrated because I’m trying to make us some extra money, but she’s complaining that I’m not cleaning.
About a month ago, we hired a housekeeper. She comes every other week for a few hours and does a phenomenal job cleaning our house. We pay her about $150 per month for the work.
It’s been great.
My wife is happy because the house is clean. I’m happy because the complaining has stopped. Our housekeeper is happy because it’s more money. It’s a win/win/win scenario.
Now, $150 is a decent amount to add to our debt snowball, but paying for the cleaning services facilitates my side hustles, which bring in quite a bit more than $150 per month, so it’s even a good idea financially.
Even if it’s not, the peace of mind of knowing that I didn’t have to fold all of the laundry that was waiting for me yesterday makes it worthwhile.
How about you? Would you consider hiring a maid? Why?
