- RT @Dave_Champion Obama asks DOJ to look at whether AZ immigration law is constitutional. Odd that he never did that with #Healthcare #tcot #
- RT @wilw: You know, kids, when I was your age, the internet was 80 columns wide and built entirely out of text. #
- RT @BudgetsAreSexy: RT @FinanciallyPoor "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." ~ Unknown #
- Official review of the double-down: Unimpressive. Not enough bacon and soggy breading on the chicken. #
- @FARNOOSH Try Ubertwitter. I haven't found a reason to complain. in reply to FARNOOSH #
- Personal inbox zero! #
- Work email inbox zero! #
- StepUp3D: Lame dancing flick using VomitCam instead or choreography. #
- I approve of the Nightmare remake. #Krueger #
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.
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.
Carnival Roundup
Live Real, Now was included in two carnivals last week:
Carnival of Personal Finance #348 hosted by Money Qanda
and
Yakezie Carnival hosted by 101 Centavos
Thanks to all of the hosts for including my posts.
Get More Out of Live Real, Now
There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.
You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader. I prefer Google Reader.
You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.
You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook. Facebook gets more use than Google. It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.
You can follow LRN on Twitter. This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.
You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of. I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.
Have a great week!
Carnivals This Week
I seem to be failing frugal parenting. My son spent the entire week telling me how happy he’d be if we could go to the game store so he could spend some of his money. Tying emotions to shopping is badbadbad.
Live Real, Now was included in four carnivals last week:
Carnival of Financial Planning – Edition #224 at AaronHung.com
Yakezie Carnival – Mardi Gras Edition at Young Adult Finances
Canadian Finance Carnival #76 at Canadian Finance Blog
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie – Rain Man Edition at Thirty Six Months
Thanks to all of the hosts for including my posts.
Get More Out of Live Real, Now
There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.
You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader. I prefer Google Reader.
You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.
You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook. Facebook gets more use than Google. It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.
You can follow LRN on Twitter. This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.
You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of. I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.
Have a great week!
Paying For Heart Surgery When You’re Not as Rich as Randy Travis
Very sad news broke this week about Randy Travis. The country crooner, whose hits ironically include a song titled “From the Hard Rock Bottom of my Heart,” was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart problem that arose from viral cardiomyopathy, a condition that is characterized by a weakening of the heart muscle due to a virus. The virus that caused this disease is usually pretty harmless, but in some patients, extremely dangerous complications can arise. For Travis, the complications weakened his heart, and he required hospitalization and emergency heart surgery.
Travis is pretty fortunate, financially. He is also pretty wealthy. Therefore, the costs associated with this problem are not likely to set him back financially like they would most Americans. How can people who are not rich like Randy Travis pay for heart surgery?
The easiest way to pay for a heart surgery is to let someone else pay for it. This tip may sound like a joke, but it is the way most people pay for heart surgery. Insurance is a risk management system in which many people pay premiums so that they do not have to bear the entire brunt of a financial loss. Some will come out ahead by paying less in premiums than the amount of the health benefits they will receive. Others will be on the opposite end of the stick. Health insurance can come from the private market or the public coffers through programs like Medicare and Medicaid. While there might be a copay for these procedures with insurance, the insured will not have to pay the whole tab.
Another way to pay for heart surgery is by raiding a retirement account. This is not really advisable in most instances, but desperate times can call for desperate measures. The money can then be paid back over time in the best-case scenario, and getting the doctors paid off will take a major burden off of the back of any heart patient.
Taking out a home equity loan can also be a way to pay for a heart surgery. Those who have some equity built up in their home can sometimes find enough to pay off some emergency bills. Of course, it usually takes years to build up this equity, so many will not have this option available to them.
One final way to pay off a heart surgery without being rich like Randy Travis would involve getting a second job. This might cut down on the amount of time available for cardiac rehab, but the doctor will want his or her cut. It is likely that the hospital will be even more serious about getting paid. This will especially be the case if the hospital is for-profit. It might take some time, but those who are able to survive the extra work should be able to eventually pay off their bills.
