- Working on my day off and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. #
- Sushi-coma time. #
- To all the vets who have given their lives to make our way of life possible: Thank you. #
- RT @jeffrosecfp: While you're grilling out tomorrow, REMEMBER what the day is really for http://bit.ly/abE4ms #neverforget #
- Once again, taps and guns keep me from staying dry-eyed. #
- RT @bargainr: Live in an urban area & still use a Back Porch Compost Tumbler to fertilize your garden (via @diyNatural) http://bit.ly/9sQFCC #
- RT @Matt_SF: RT @thegoodhuman President Obama quietly lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water last week. http://bit.ly/caDELy #
- Thundercats is coming back! #
- In real life, vampires only sparkle when they are on fire. -Larry Correia #
- Wife found a kitten abandoned in a taped-shut box. Welcome Cat #5 #
Payday Loans Suck
A few weeks ago, I was approached about placing ads on this site. I was excited when I read the email. It came from a real domain, didn’t involve any Nigerian princes or wire transfers for overpayments.
Over the course of the email conversation, it was determined that, for a fee, I would place some links in a few archived posts. It would just be links to improve search engine ranking, without being an eyesore for my current readers. I don’t have a problem with that. The intrusiveness is similar to Chitika ads, which are only visible to search traffic. It’s a nice way to advertise: monetization without alienation.
Then I saw the links. I was being offered money to promote payday loans.
Payday loans offer to loan you–for example–$100 for the low(snort) price of just $25. That’s not bad. Only 25%. I know some credit cards that aren’t that good. The catch is that the loan is due in full in 2 weeks. That gives it an APR(Annual Percentage Rate) of 650%. That’s not so good.
When you payback the loan, your paycheck is pre-spent by whatever you borrowed, plus the pound of flesh fee and you are that much more likely to need their services again, digging you even deeper.
It’s not like the target demographic is terribly affluent. These are people who not only can’t make ends meet, but also can’t acquire traditional credit. They are left paying this insulting fee.
I consider payday lending companies to be immoral, unethical and generally, more than a bit dishonest. These are the people who give decent, hardworking capitalists a bad name. I’d rather go to a mob loan shark. He’s at least honest about what he is.
They got shot down.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy making money. I also enjoy the money I make here.
But not at the expense of my soul or my integrity.
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 Well-Trained Husband
I am so well-trained.
I was more than a bit wild when I was younger. For the most part, that ended when my son was born. When you procreate, it’s time to put the wild on a shelf and become a reliable provider. That’s just the way it is. Anybody who prioritizes the wild over the progeny needs to be forcibly sterilized and exiled before be sold for parts.
When my mother-in-law got a membership to Sam’s Club, she gave my wife the second card, so we effectively have a membership. For those who don’t know, Sam’s Club is a warehouse store that has some incredibly good deals and a lot of things that look like good deals because you are buying in bulk.
The thing I hate most about warehouse stores is the default accusation of theft when you leave. They require you to line up so the the person by the door can look at your receipt and pretend to count what’s in your cart while they are really scanning for the most-stolen items in the store and ignoring the rest. The only thing they really accomplish is making all of their customer feel like thieves.
I used to bypass the line and the checker and just leave. My wife got sick of the indignant screeches coming from the store as we left. Eventually she got me to stop.
Last night, I went back to pick up supplies for a fund-raiser I’m helping to organize on Sunday. I went with one of the other organizers, who had some personal shopping to do later. We checked out using his account and he paid, while I took the food home to keep until Sunday. Since he’ll be getting reimbursed for the food, he kept the receipt while I headed for the door. Anybody see the problem here?
When the receipt-checker challenged me, I docilely stepped to the side and called my friend to bring the receipt to the door. I hate the feeling of submitting to authority, especially when the authority is pretending to be customer service. I just calmly did what the door-cop told me, just like my wife wanted, even though she wasn’t there.
I hate warehouse stores.
3 Things You Need to Know About Homeowner’s Insurance
If you are a homeowner, you need homeowner’s insurance. Period. Protecting what is mostly likely the biggest investment of your life with a relatively small monthly payment is so important, that, if you disagree, I’m afraid we are so fundamentally opposed on the most basic elements of personal finance that nothing I say will register with you.
If, however, you have homeowner’s insurance, or–through some innocent lapse–need homeowner’s insurance and you just want some more information, welcome!
The basic principle of insurance is simple. You bet against the insurance company that you or your property are going to get hurt. If you’re right, you win whatever your policy limit is. If you’re wrong, the insurance company cleans up with your monthly premium. Insurance is gambling that something bad will happen to you. If you lose, you win!
Now, there are some things about homeowner’s insurance that you may not realize.
1. Homeowner’s insurance will not protect you against a flood. For that you need flood insurance. The easiest way to tell which policy covers water damage is to see if the water touched the ground before your house. An overflowing river, or heavy rain that seeps through the ground and your foundation are both considered flooding. On the other hand, hail breaking your windows and allowing the rain in or a broken pipe are both generally covered by your homeowner’s policy.
Do you need flood insurance? I would say that, if you live on the coast below sea level, you should have flood insurance. If you’re on a flood plain, you need flood insurance. If you’re not sure, use the handy tool at http://www.floodsmart.gov to rate your risk and get an estimate on premium costs. My home is in moderate-to-low risk of flooding, so full coverage starts at $120.
2. You can negotiate an insurance claim. When you have an insurance adjuster inspecting your home after you file a claim, most of the time they will lowball you. Generous adjusters don’t get brought in for the next round of claims. If you know the replacement costs are higher than they are offering, or even if you aren’t sure, don’t sign! Once you sign, you are locked into a contract with the insurance company. Take your time and do your research. Get a contractor out to give you a damage estimate, if you can.
3. Your deductible is too low. If you’ve built up an emergency fund, you can safely boost your deductible to a sizable percentage of that fund and save yourself a bunch of money. When we got our emergency fund up to about $2000, we raised our deductible from $500 to $1000 and saved a couple of hundred dollars per year. That change pays for itself every 2 years we don’t have a claim. I absolutely wouldn’t recommend this if you don’t have the money to cover your deductible, but, if you do, it can be a great money-saver.
Bonus tip: If you get angry that your homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover flooding, even if you haven’t had to deal with a flood, and you cancel your insurance out of spite, and you subsequently have a ton of hail damage, your insurance company won’t cover the crap that happened during the window where you weren’t their customer.
Are you one of the misguided masses who prefer to trust their home to fate?
Do you have an insurance horror story?
Living the XBox Life on an Atari Income
At some point, everyone has “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” Over the last 25 years, we’ve even been peddled the “you can have it all” myth from every direction, including the media and the government.
The truth is simple: you cannot have it all. You can have anything, but you can’t have everything. In order to have one thing, you have to give up something else. It’s a law of nature. If you have $5, you can either get a burger or an overpriced cup of coffee, but not both.
“But wait!” you shout, rudely interrupting the narrator, “I have a credit card. I can have both!”
Wrong.
And stop interrupting me.
If you have $5 and borrow $5 to get some coffee to go with your burger, you will eventually have to pay that money back with interest. You will have to give up a future-burger AND a flavor shot in your overpriced coffee.
Everything you buy needs to be paid for, some day.
If you have an Atari income, but insist on living the XBox life, you will wake up one day, buried in bills, forced to live the Commodore-64 life out of sheer desperation.
There is a solution.
Don’t get all XBox-y until you are making XBox money. That way, you’ll never have to worry about going broke tomorrow paying for the fun you had yesterday.
Even when you have an XBox income, ideally you’ll restrict yourself to living a Gamecube life, so you’ll be able to put some money aside to support future-you instead of constantly having to worry about your next paycheck.