- 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. #
Selling Your Home: The Real Estate Agent
If you are not able or willing to sell your home yourself, you’ll need to find a real estate agent. A realtor is someone who deals with all of the hassles involved in selling your home in exchange for a fee of up to 7% of the selling price.
The hassles include marketing, an objective price analysis, advertising on the internet and in newspapers, providing a yard sign, negotiating the sale price, reviewing and filling out the contracts, and navigating the entire process for you. The aren’t meaningless duties, so make sure you are getting what you pay for. You need to find the right realtor for you.
The key to to ask questions, particularly the right questions. You can ask the wrong ones if you’d like, but they tend not to help much.
Helpful questions include:
- “Can I call your previous clients?” If the answer is no, run away! If the answer is yes, get the list and call them.
- “Have you sold any homes near here recently?” Get the names and numbers of the customers and call them. Find out how it went and what they wish would have happened differently. If the realtor hasn’t sold nearby homes recently, keep looking.
- “Will you put your sales strategy in writing?” If it’s not in writing, you may be left paying the full commission, without getting the full promised service.
- “What will you tell a potential buyer that wants to negotiate?” Make sure you and your realtor are on the same page.
Now for some secrets that realtors will not volunteer.
- The selling fee is negotiable. If you live in a popular development, or if nearby homes have sold quickly, you should be able to get your fee reduced a couple of points.
- You don’t have to sign an exclusive listing agreement. With an exclusive agreement, you will pay the realtor a fee if the house sells. Period. With a non-exclusive agreement, you can list with several agents and only pay the one who actually sells your house. If you find the buyer, you won’t pay a selling commission at all.
Selling your house can be intimidating and realtors are there to make the task easier for you. Have you had any problems with real estate agents?
Resolving Legal Disputes
Dispute resolution has to do with the impartial rectification of conflict between individuals or parties. More specifically it is the utilization and execution of methods that are designed to resolve conflicts. In a case in which there is a dispute between people or groups, often times a third, neutral, party is selected to be an impartial representative for the disputing persons. Although dispute resolution can refer to resolutions both in and out of the court, it mainly applies to disputes that are settled outside of the legal framework of the judicial system.
Two of the most common types of dispute resolution are known as adjudicative and consensual. While adjudicative resolution requires a third party to mediate the outcome, such as a judge or jury, and usually involves some form of litigation, consensual resolution is the attempt to solve the issue between the two disputing parties without involving a third party, although at times a neutral arbitrator will be selected to preside over the case, though they will often be there not so much for authoritative purposes but more as a council to keep things fair. There is also a third upcoming type of dispute resolution, online dispute resolution, or ODR, which has become more popular in recent years with the rise of the internet’s prominence in daily life, but it is mainly the application of traditional consensual resolution practices, only adapted to the online environment.
Many disputes can be solved simply through adherence to the law, however, sometimes issues arise that the legal structure isn’t equipped to handle, and so a third party is chosen to resolve the conflict. These types of conflict fall within the jurisdiction of the law and so will be relegated to the political system for arbitration. Judicial resolutions are conflicts that will be, hopefully, settled by the court. In the United States, this is often the case with dispute resolution. This form of resolution usually involves litigation. This is the use of outside individuals to argue for or against the disputing parties. In a courtroom, the lawyers are the litigators, while the judge and jury listen to the arguments in order to come to their decisions.
Extrajudicial resolution is non-court settlement of conflict. Also known as alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, this is what people are usually referring to when discussing dispute resolution. ADR is usually more efficient, cost effective, and less time consuming than judicial resolutions. Extrajudicial resolution concerns various types of ways to settle conflict. These include arbitration and mediation. In arbitration neutral individuals will listen to both sides of an argument and render a decision based on evidence. Unlike the court systems, this proceeding doesn’t necessarily include a binding agreement with the parties.
Mediation is used in extrajudicial resolution as a way to open a dialogue between conflicting parties. The idea is to use a trained neutral third party in order to come up with unique solutions to solve the issue. A mediator is trained to be both an effective negotiator as well as an excellent communicator. A mediator is like a judge in that they cannot take sides, and they do not give legal advice either. Their decisions are not obligatorily followed, though they tend to be followed since the mediators are trained to make decisions that benefit both parties.
The techniques used in dispute resolution can be used both in and outside of the court room. It is often used by individuals who wish to speed up the process by not having to get into the political system. However, they are useful in many cases where individuals wish to come to the most beneficial agreement for all the parties involved.
ING Direct – 2 Day Sale
Today and tomorrow, ING Direct is having a “Financial Independence Days Sale”.
It’s a good sale. If you open a checking account or Sharebuilder account and you’ll get $76. Apply for a mortgage and you’ll get $776 off of the closing costs.
I have accounts at 4 different banks. Two of those were opened for specific debt-reduction purposes. Of the others, one is used for most of my cash flow and bill payments, and the other is ING. As of this moment, I have 15 accounts or sub-accounts with ING Direct.
Opening an account is painless and only takes a few minutes. They are currently offering up to 1.25% in an interest-bearing checking account, though I’ve never qualified for more than .25%. That account comes with overdraft protection, so you are charged interest instead of overdraft fees.
Once you have your first account set up, sub-accounts can be created in literally seconds. Why would you want a bunch of sub-accounts? I have a number of saving goals. Each of these goals has its own account at ING. I can tell at a glance how much we have saved for our vacation next month and far away we are from affording my son’s braces. My kids each have an account here because, currently, the interest rate is at 1.1%, which is miles ahead of most traditional banks. Combined with the convenience of total online control, there’s no contest.
Money transfers are smooth. I use one of my accounts as a transfer account to get money to and from two separate banks.
I also have a Sharebuilder account. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it is a stock brokerage with low fees and a low barrier to entry. If you set up an automatic investment, you get $4 stock trades with no minimum. I’m not aware of any place cheaper.
That all sounds like a lot of ad copy and the links are affiliate links, but the truth is, I am just that happy with ING. I’ve never had an accounting error, or any problems at all.
The downside? Paper checks are verboten. They will not accept paper checks, but you do have a check card to use. You can hit 35,000 ATMS for free withdrawals, but any deposits are held for a few days before you have access to the funds. It can also take 3-4 days to transfer money from ING to another bank. I keep enough in the accounts that I’m always spending or transferring older deposits while I wait for the new ones to clear.
Even if you don’t like the bank, get a checking account, use it a few times and get $76 for very little trouble. Open a Sharebuilder account, buy some stock and collect $76 for it. Without an automatic payment, it will cost you less than $20 to buy, then sell the stock, netting you $56.
Who doesn’t like free money?
Link Roundup
Wrestling season is finally over. Q1 is always such a busy time in my house. Now, spring has sprung and it’s time to start enjoying the weather.
On to the links.
Finance:
Here’s an intro guide to settling IRS debts.
Only someone who’s never had to deal with the full default process could think this was a good idea. The Department of Education outsources its collections for a reason. Eliminating private lenders will raise the students’ costs and eliminate options for troubled debtors. Yes, I worked in the industry for several years.
The Guide to Buying Glasses Online. I currently have 6 pairs of glasses that cost me a grand total of $150, with no loss in quality.
PenFed: Credit cards done right.
Not finance:
This is the coolest picture I’ve seen this year. Space pics for under $1000. NASA could take lessons, I think.
I miss the days when napping was possible.
38 Random Acts of Robyn. I’m thinking about incorporating this as a 30 day project.
Lawdog has a great idea to fix the problems with our legislature. It’s a beautiful Constitutional Amendment. If they have to play by the rules they set, the might start setting better rules.
“Only excepting such limited protection as offered by Article One, Section Six, Congress is hereby prohibited from exempting its Members from each, any, and all effects, duties or obligations rendered upon any citizen, or citizens, by any Law, Tax, or other action passed by Congress.”
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.
