If you’re a fan of other personal finance blogs, or were home last Friday and decided to watch some network television, you might already be aware that ABC ran a special called ‘UnBroke: What You Need to Know About Money’ last Friday at 9 p.m. Unfortunately, I did not hear anything about this special until…last Saturday, meaning I completely missed the entire thing.
Not to worry, though; it seems that plenty of other bloggers were paying more attention than I, and managed to watch and make notes about the show. I’ve seen commentary on Green Panda Tree House (who apparently was tweeting on Twitter about the special live), Poorer Than You (which has a nice snippet of the show featuring Seth Green, always a good way to draw in a former Buffy aficionados like myself), and Lazy Man and Money, which actually goes through a blow by blow description of the show. It sounds like the advice they gave was fundamentally sound, if a bit old hat to anyone who’s done their own research: save for retirement, don’t buy more house than you can afford, limit your credit card usage. All good points, and it’s nice to see some attention paid by the national media to personal finance issues.
Although, it does make me think: if they had tried harder to get good money management information out to people years ago, rather than promoting programs like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, perhaps fewer people would not have been hit so badly by this downturn. But, that’s just me thinking out loud. Here’s some of the other posts this past week that had me thinking:
Any Printed Number is Believable – On Bad Money Advice, there’s a disscussion about an old study which broke down the time people spent during their lives doing various things (waiting at red lights, using the bathroom, waiting in line) in terms of years of their life. Frank Curmudgeon (which is a terrific pseudonym, by the way) notes that though the numbers given seem reasonable when expressed in terms of years, if you break it down into hours each day, you come up with some absurd results (like two hours a day spent in the bathroom). He also noted a recent Newsweek article claiming women spend nearly $450,000 on beautification during their lives, a number that makes some absurd assumptions. (Bi-weekly bikini waxes starting from the age of 13, anyone?) The moral of the story: be skeptical, double-check any assumptions, and work out the math yourself for any money-based claim.
Chipping Away Senior Discounts – One of the advantages of getting older, besides joining the AARP and being able to complain about kids these days, is getting senior discounts at various locations through out your community, from restaurants to movie theaters. However, as Mr. ToughMoneyLove notes, the recent economic downturn has caused two movie theaters in his area to raise their senior discount age. I’d imagine that you can expect more of this in the future, as well as declining student discounts and other ways for companies to increase the amount of money they bring in while avoiding increasing the retail prices they charge.
Things You Are Willing To Pay Consistently More For – An interesting question posed by Baker on Man vs. Debt: what products or services command a price premium when you spend? There are numerous good thoughts in the post, from great service to quality goods. Personally, I tend to be willing to pay a premium for books I want as well as help with my blog; two of my biggest spending weaknesses.
Financial Guru Review: Dave Ramsey – On Green Panda Tree House (and yes, this is the second time I’ve mentioned her blog in this post), there’s a discussion of Dave Ramsey and his seven steps. It’s a pretty good review of Mr. Ramsey’s general philosophy and his seven baby steps. Personally, I find too many flaws in his approach to consider following it completely, but it’s not a bad place to start, and many people swear by him, so it’s certainly worth learning more.
Tax Records You Should Save, and For How Long – Ever wonder just how long you need to save all your tax information? Ever worry that you didn’t know what to save? Ever use a bunch of rhetorical questions in a blog post? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should check out MLR’s (that’s My Life ROI (Return on Investment), in case you were wondering) research into just these issues. It’s a nice compendium of what information to keep and the time you need to save it.
Focus on the Long Term, Not the Money – Finally, Nut on The Writer’s Coin talks about taking back his blog, cutting down the number of blog entries and working on putting out less, but better, content. It’s a good approach, one I hope to emulate. I’ve been focused lately on how to maximize the profit of my blog, forgetting the importance of putting out good, quality content and sticking with my blog for the long term. If I blog, they will come; and if they don’t, I should at least have some fun with my efforts!
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