- @Elle_CM Natalie's raid looked like it was filmed with a strobe light. Lame CGI in reply to Elle_CM #
- I want to get a toto portable bidet and a roomba. Combine them and I'll have outsourced some of the least tasteful parts of my day. #
- RT @freefrombroke: RT @moneybeagle: New Blog Post: Money Hacks Carnival #115 http://goo.gl/fb/AqhWf #
- TED.com: The neurons that shaped civilization. http://su.pr/2Qv4Ay #
- Last night, fell in the driveway: twisted ankle and skinned knee. Today, fell down the stairs: bruise makes sitting hurt. Bad morning. #
- RT @FrugalDad: And to moms, please be more selective about the creeps you let around your child. Takes a special guy to be a dad to another' #
- First Rule of Blogging: Don't let real life get in the way. Epic fail 2 Fridays in a row. But the garage sale is going well. #
Annual Fees: Scam or Service?
Annual fees. For a lot of people, this is the worst possible thing about a credit card. That’s understandable, since paying interest is voluntary. If you don’t want to pay it, you just need to pay off your balance within the grace period. Annual fees, on the other hand, get paid, whether you want to or not, if the are a part of your credit card.
When I was 18, I applied for a credit card that raised an undying hatred of Providian in my heart. I was dumb and didn’t read the agreement before applying. When I got the card, I read the paperwork and nearly made a mess of myself. It had a $200 activation fee, a $100 annual fee, a $500 limit, a 24% interest rate, no grace period, and a anthropomorphic contempt for all things financially responsible.
Yes, you read that right. The day you activate the card, you are 3/5 maxed and accruing interest at rates that would make a loan shark blush like my grandma is a strip club. Instead of activating, I cancelled the card and ran away crying. It was a mistake but didn’t cost me anything.
In exchange for all of that, I got…nothing. The card offered no services of any kind in exchange for the annual fee.
On the other hand, I have a card with an annual fee right now. It’s $59 per year, but it offers value in exchange.
This card’s basic offering is a 2% travel rewards plan. With most of our spending on this card, we’ve managed to accumulate $400 of rewards, so far, counting the 25,000 bonus miles for signing up.
In addition, it offers 24 hour travel and roadside assistance. The roadside assistance itself will pay for the fee, because I think I’ll be canceling my AAA account after 16 years. The card’s plan isn’t as nice, but I haven’t been using the AAA emergency services for the past few years, anyway.
It extends the warranty on anything I buy. It includes car rental insurance and concierge service. Concierge service is sweet. Need reservations for dinner? Call the card. Need a tub of nacho cheese? Call the card. Need a pizza? Well, call Zappos.com.
All in all, the card is paying for itself a couple of different ways, so in this case, the annual fee is definitely worth it. I guess there’s a serious difference between Capital One Venture and Providan Screwyou.
How do you feel about annual fees? Love ’em, hate ’em, have a card with one?
Little Monster Late Fees
Last week, I paid a late fee to daycare. I neverpay daycare late.
Except last week.
As I’ve said before, I work 80 hours a week.
For the last couple of weeks, my three year old has decided that she needs to sleep in every morning. No getting up at 6:30 for her. No way. That little prima donna wants to lounge in bed until 8, then watch a movie while eating breakfast in bed. She’s never gotten that treatment, so I don’t know why it’s become her goal.
Last week, she decided to throw a tantrum when I woke her up.
Followed by a tantrum when I reminded her she doesn’t get to wear diapers during the day.
Followed by a tantrum when I dared to pick out clothes that didn’t have horses, or didn’t look right, or weren’t sweats, or weren’t picked out by Mom, or this, or that or….
I’ve been the one to get her ready almost every morning for 3 years and she has never been catered to that way.
Me: overtired, with 1000 things on my mind.
Her: diva training, trying to wake up.
Her sister: teasing, asking questions, and generally doing her best to stand under my feet.
Her brother: gets himself ready, but tries to avoid combing his hair before school, and can’t be relied on to put on clean clothes.
Me: overtired. Juggling getting three kids and myself ready to leave. 1000 things on my mind.
Daycare: What check?
She finally got paid on Thursday. Over the 12 years we’ve had kids there, we’ve paid late maybe 5 times. I hate late fees.
What’s the fix?
Checklists don’t work for me, when I’m rushing around. I tend to ignore them while I’m herding children.
Selling the monsters to the gypsies is out. They are far too difficult to succeed working in the salt mines.
We need to start picking out clothes the night before, to short-circuit most of the tantrum. We also need to enforce bedtimes better, but that’s hard to do Sunday night if they are allowed to nap too long on Sunday afternoon, which happens when I nap with my kids on Sunday afternoon.
Maybe the best solution is to switch schedules with my wife. I’ll go in to work between 6 and 7. She can herd monsters while trying to get ready for work.
20 Happy Thoughts
Since I’ve been on a bit of a death theme lately, I thought I post something purely happy.
Here it is. In no particular order, twenty unequivocated things that make me happy.
- My three year old has the most beautiful blue/silver/gray eyes I have ever seen.
- In the past 32 months, I’ve reduced my total debt load by $42,859.70. That’s an average reduction of $1,339.37 per month.
- My insane work schedule is paying off. I’m more than halfway to making my day job’s income redundant.
- My preteen son is currently showing none of the signs of the horrible rebellion that I put my parents through.
- The world hasn’t imploded, exploded, or tilted its axis recently.
- My parents did a good job of raising me.
- I haven’t touched my overdraft line of credit in more than 2 years.
- My wife loves me.
- I love her.
- Wrestling season starts tomorrow, and Punk ended last season with real promise.
- I’ve dropped 12 pounds in the last 16 days.
- Bacon is good.
- Daughter #1 is starting kindergarten in September and excited about it.
- Our cars are paid off.
- This site helps me stay motivated to eliminate my debt.
- You rock.
- I may get out of debt just before the world ends.
- The Yakezie Network has helped get this blog to where it is. If you’ve got a finance blog, join today. You won’t regret it.
- FINCON 2012 is is Denver and I won’t be napping on my motorcycle on the way there, like I did the last time I went to Denver. It’s not something I recommend, but it makes a neat story.
- I have 20 things to be happy about. That’s a recursive happy-maker right there.
$1,000,000 Business Idea
I’m sick of working my day job.
I’m sick of working my side hustles.
I’m sick of working.
To make up for all of that, I’m going to launch a new business. My business model is guaranteed to generate $1,000,000 in revenue the first month.
Seriously.
It’s going to be a father/son enterprise, and to prove that the business model scales, I’m going to help him generate another $1,000,000 in revenue the first month.
This plan is infinitely replicable and infinitely scalable. Steal my business plan and you can have a million dollar business, too.
Ready?
First, my son is going to sell his XBox for $100. Yes, he’s taking a loss, but that’s the cost of getting into the business. Oh, and he’s selling it to me.
$100 for him.
Second, I’m going to sell it back to him for $100.
$100 for me.
He sells it to me for $100.
$200 for him.
I sell it to him for $100.
$200 for me.
If we do this just 9,998 more times, we’ll have generated $1,000,000 in revenue. At 1 minute per transaction, I figure we can both be running million dollar business after just 2 weeks of full-time work.
That’s a two-week vacation every single month.
Phenomenal plan.
Some of the haters are going to explode with comments about “profit” and “expenses”, but I don’t care. Cash flow is king. They can sit at home and whine about their $50,000 jobs while I’m making millions. Sure, my profit (the money leftover after expenses are taken from the revenue) is on the low side, but I can make that up in volume.
Millions.
If I do this every month, I’ll be sitting on a $12,000,000 business. I bet I can sell that for 5 times my annual profits.
Any buyers out there?
Any entrepreneurs ready to copy my business model?
Anybody have a better grasp of the difference between cash flow and profit than I do?
Delayed Gratification, Take II
How much would you pay for a kiss from the world’s sexiest celebrity?
That was the focus of a recent study that I can’t find today. There is no celebrity waiting in the wings to deliver the drool, and the study doesn’t name which celebrity it is. That’s an exercise for the reader.
This was a study into how we value nice things.
The fascinating part of the study is that people would be willing to pay more to get the kiss in 3 days than they would to get the tongue slipped immediately.
Anticipation adds value.
Instant gratification actually causes us to devalue the object of our desire.
This goes well beyond “Will you respect me in the morning?”
The last time I talked about delayed gratification, it was in the context of my kids. That still holds true. Kids don’t value the things that are handed to them.
The surprising–and disturbing–bit is that adults don’t, either. If I run out to the store to buy an iPad the first day I see one, I won’t care about it nearly as much as if I spend a week or two agonizing over the decision.
The delay alone adds to the perceived value. The agony turns the perceived value into gold.
If I spend a month searching for the perfect car, the thrill of the successful hunt adds less value than the time it took to do the hunting.
Here’s my frugal tip for today: Delay your purchases. While it may not actually save you any money, you will feel like you got a much better deal if you wait a few days for something you really want.
