Easy Change

Unfortunately, this year I feel a little bit under-prepared for the upcoming holiday season. I am still managing to generate some extra income so I am not so concerned about spending a decent amount. However, the problem is that I cannot figure out exactly what is "decent". I need to buy presents for a fairly short list of people, but I would really like things to be nice and well-thought-out. I generally try to make it easy for people to shop for me by creating/updating my amazon wish-list as my birthday and christmas roll-around. I encourage people to buy used items from reputable sellers because I have had very good experience with that before. For music, books, and dvds, it doesn't matter to me if they are used as long as they work. However, depending on the person, the might consider getting a "used" gift to be tacky. So I would check with people beforehand. I generally like it because that means I will get more of the stuff that I want rather than just on...

As I get ready to wrap up another year, it seems there's always more financial work to do. Not long ago I went through my seasonal save-it, pitch-it fight with all the old bank statements, paperwork etc. However, I am realizing that the real interesting thing for me right now is getting ready for tax time and figuring out how much of a refund I will likely get. I know that I am going to get some flack for this but I have extra tax taken out of my check each pay period. Mostly, I do this to make sure that I never underpay my taxes. The other nice feature about this is that it provides some built-in buffer against my side income so that I am not whacked with a large amount of money in tax at the end of the year. This little extra kick in each regular paycheck means that I can generally use the side income as I see fit throughout the year. So now I am in the process of divvying up my expenses and such for the year into categories and getting ready to start filling out the forms on...

A few weeks back, there was a short article on InvestorGeeks about "Why the Poor will Always Be With Us". I found the article thought-provoking, but the point made by <a href=" http://jason.strangerstudios.com/ ">Jason</a> was particularly interesting. Jason Commented: <begin comments> I'm thinking of my father, who in 2001 bought a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee because he "needed something to make him happy". It didn't matter that a lot of what made him unhappy were financial problems, which the extra $20k he paid for that car vs. a comparable used car would have helped him out with. I'm thinking of the guy you know who lives in assisted housing but has a more jewelry than you do and better stereo system than you do. If either one of the people in the above scenarios had $30k in a "retirement account" they could gain access to, they would find a reason to spend it. The money feels idle and psychologically these peo...

Does everyone remember any childhood trips away from home? I remember going away to camp and feeling a little bit sad and lonely when other campers would get mail to open and whatnot. The same is true for college when you feel like you are far from home and days on end go by without hearing from loved ones.   Xerox has captured this feeling/idea and put it to work to benefit soldiers in Iraq. Regardless of how you feel about the war, I think it is a great way to do a little something that doesn't cost anything but a moment of your time. It is a site where you can add your name, town, and message and Xerox will copy a card designed by a child and include your message and send it to a soldier in Iraq. And it is free.   Go to <a href=" http://www.letssaythanks.com ">lets say thanks.com </a> to fill one out.   http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/letssaythanks.asp

I just got a mailer from my bank that I was being offered 1000 dollars of free life insurance. The option, of course, is available for me to get more if I would like, all the way up to 300,000 dollars with no medical exam. Unfortunately, the costs are prohibitive so I do not want to do that at this time. Plus I am covered by my work policy and an additional add-on policy that gives me another 10000 dollars in coverage. The standard stuff applies to both policies in terms of accidental death and dismemberment. Quite a morbid clause really, but I guess it is better than being out of luck if you lose a limb. So, after reading all of the paperwork, I feel comfortable that I can go ahead and send it in which is what I plan to do this weekend. I have to wonder though, did they get my name through the gold card that I recently got? Why all the sudden show of generosity from my bank?

So, not too long ago, I was at the sporting goods store and I went up to pay for my purchases. Nothing terribly exciting really, except that when I got up to the counter and swiped my card it was denied. I of course tried again to no avail when I realized that my debit card was expired. I was not terribly happy about that because I it put me off and I had to use a different card. However, life went on and after a nice dinner and a beer, it didn't seem to matter much. The next day, I called my bank to ask about getting a replacement card. They claimed they had already sent me one, which I never saw so they promptly offered to send another one, free of charge. Also, they would upgrade me to a "gold card". I thought, gold card? I don't want any credit junk here. They said it was still just an ATM card, but that it had additional services like AAA (Mastercard's version of roadside assistance). I thought that was great since it was free. However, I am now hard pressed...

On saturday, I went to IKEA in stoughton, MA and it was very different than I expected. It had a european feel, which is to be expected from the Swedish Home Furnishing's Store given their roots. However, I was also impressed with the prices. They were relatively affordable, even for someone who doesn't have tons of money. Unfortunately, though there was not much that was really ideal for my home because the stuff is definitely not at the same level of quality; but I wish that I had known about it when I first graduated college. It is a great place to go if you want to decorate stylishly and then redecorate every 5 or so years.... Or you are on a budget and cannot afford to pay lots of money for furniture.... Or you know that you are going to have to setup house in a very small apartment or rooms (since much of their furniture is scaled down). On the plus side, I bought several items that were only a dollar and it was fun because I got some christmas shopping done since I...

Well, I just recieved a comment from someone from walmart apparently which indicates that they are working to remove the articles from their stores that are offensive; refer to the previous post to get more information. However, I think that this is an excellent first step and I am glad that they appear to be taking this so seriously.

I just came across this article and thought I would share. I think it is definitely worth reading and then doing some research on. I don't know enough to know if it is untrue or not. Clearly, I am not an expert on these matters, but the <a href=" http://www.bentcorner.com/2006/11/09/wal-mart-is-selling-shirts-with-a-nazi-ss-skull-on-it/ ">implication that Wal-Mart is unknowingly selling clothing that perpetuates nazi thinking/neo-nazi stuff</a> is kind of scary from a stock-holder point of view. Again, just check out the article yourself and then make your own decision after you do some research. I'm glad I don't own any shares though. I would not want to have my money in a company that is getting this kind of negative publicity.

Personally, I spend just over 650 dollars per month just in transportation costs; this includes my car payment, insurance, fuel, and my commuter rail pass for taking the public transportation. However, yesterday it was announced that my commuter rail pass was going to increase by 22 percent and that there were likely more increases coming. For me, this puts my transportation costs at over 700 dollars per month. This is about a quarter of my entire net pay each month. This is absolutely insane! I am looking forward to eventually being done with my car payment and I am going to now look into reducing my car insurance bill to try to offset the increase. However, as much as I am concerned about my own wallet, I am also concerned about the social implications. This change will result in approximately 11.9 million fewer riders of the mass transit system which will mean more pollution and increased emissions contributing to global warming. This is a real concern. Furthermore, the poorer you...

There's an expression "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul" that we have in the english language. One of my majors in college was Spanish and my favorite part of the language is the fun idioms that there are. Its no different in English. In fact, I think that some of them are even funnier in your native tongue because you can really get all of the implications. Anyway, I have a loan that I've successfully paid down to about 6500 bucks; it was a student loan from college but it doesn't fall into that nice stafford loan category. So, instead, I am stuck paying on it monthly and there's no tax deduction for the interest being paid. Recently, the interest rate (which is variable - don't ask me why) shot up to 8.5%. That was the final straw for me; I knew that I could get a 0% interest credit card offer and save myself gobs of cash, albeit by taking a small ding on my credit score. However, after a month or two of contemplating, I finally got an offer from the Credit Ca...

Whenever you think of the talk, you think of safe sex right? The birds and the bees? Well, when it comes to personal finance and talking to your parents, the talk is when you talk about how they plan to handle the difficult stuff like what to do when they retire and all of that. Yesterday, I gave my mom a call and she was not busy and thought it would be a good idea for me to come over and we would talk about "money stuff". So, when I got over there I was totally impressed. Without even asking, she had written out exactly what her income and expenses were. She had a paystub to show me what she is currently contributing to savings and retirement accounts and was quite at-ease about the whole thing. This made me very happy and comfortable because I know that despite some of the debt hurdles and other issues she is facing, there is a reasonable plan to deal with them. We talked about how she would handle her debt and also discussed a couple of small steps for her to do. Next tim...

Well, a big project just wrapped up at work and I was super busy doing all of the work for close to a month. So, on friday, my boss came by with a small bonus giftcheque. It was a really nice touch and made me feel good that all of my hard work hadn't gone unnoticed. After a little bit of thinking I decided that it would be mad money. I have been doing really well lately and I'm continuing to save and pay down debts etc, but once in a while, I think it is really good to keep some perspective and really enjoy yourself. This little unexpected bonus was just the right way to do it. So, I went to see my cousin later that day and we splurged at Starbucks. It was a fun time and a nice way to spend some of it and a nice way to start the weekend.

Most of us remember last month's ban on spinach due to E coli, one of those nasty intestinal bugs that can easily cost you significant cash by putting you out of work, into the hospital, and for some who are really unfortunate, even kill you. The situation is not much better for those who drank contaminated carrot juice made by bolthouse farms, the producers of one of my favorite drinks - a strawberry/banana blend of juices which are quite tasty. In the end, there is not much to say about the ideas of prevention because in these circumstances, there is not much that can be done at the consumer level with regard to prevention. So, as was done by many, these products are simply avoided or banned by federal agencies to ensure that people don't get sick. <b>What does this mean to your Investments?</b> It does not take much imagination, however, to recognize that this is going to have a significant impact on your investment portfolio if you hold stocks of these compani...