Once upon a time (about two years ago), I shared some tips for the last minute shopper to get their holiday gift giving covered.  They were, I’m pleased to say, a huge hit, helping dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands, of last-minute shoppers to keep their gift exchange partners happy and help to fill up the space beneath the Christmas tree.  (Or barring that possibility, helping them to have a serious head injury so as to allow them to dodge the whole Christmas season altogether.)

But it’s been so long since I put that up, there’s sure to have been some updates to how the smart consumer covers their last-minute gift-giving (besides, of course, buying presents early enough to avoid having to do last minute gift-giving in the first place; that’s just crazy talk).  Let’s take a look at some other possibilities for the gift-giver who has waited until the last possible minute:

1. Money: Always a classic; there’s a fair chance you have some in your wallet at this very moment.  (Unless, of course, you’re just getting back from some other Christmas shopping).  It’s inexpensive, highly flexible, and generally appreciated by nearly everyone.  Now, it does tend to send a bit of a strong message (namely, “I did not have any idea of what to get you for a gift, so here’s some cash”), but that’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a decent card.  If you want something more personal, you can try…

Yes, I like to use this Money Gift picture; it's very fitting for this time of year.

2. Gift Cards: The standard for anyone who wants to give something a bit more personalized than cash, but still is at a loss about what to give to their chosen recipient (not always the gift-giver’s fault, of course; if I had a dollar for everyone in my family who has been tight-lipped about possible gift ideas, I’d be able to buy quite a few more gifts for everyone).  Of course, being more personalized can be troublesome; it’s possible to buy a gift card to somewhere your recipient doesn’t ever shop or want to shop.  It’s also possible to end up with a gift card that’s pretty well worthless, as anyone still holding Circuit City or Borders gift cards can tell you.

3. A Time Machine: Alright, it’s a little early to pick up one of these.  (Some spoil-sports will argue that it is impossible; if time machines exist, they say, we would have seen people who were from the future coming back to our time.   I say they’re just trying to spoil our fun; haven’t they heard of cloaking devices or police boxes?)  But still, it would make a wicked present, or you could use it to get something for your recipient from their past.  Or use it to become the king of a past time period; either method is fine, really.

4. Coal: Have someone naughty on your list?  Pull a Santa and give them some coal the next time they start acting up.  Besides helping to reinforce some sense of appropriate punishment, you’ll also be able to help out the coal industry.  Why should the fat man in red have all the fun, after all?  Just be aware that not everyone will be amused, and that coal can be a bit on the expensive side.

5. A Thoughtful, Insightful Gift That Shows a Deep Understanding of the Recipient and Adequate Realization of What They Both Want and Need, An Even Deeper Grasp of Their Psyche Than They, Themselves, Possess, a Gift That Is Sure to Leave a Deep Impression on Them Years, Even Decades, Later: You don’t have time for that kind of thing; let’s get back to that ‘money’ idea.

Alright, that’s plenty of gift ideas for now.  Here’s hoping everyone has a good Christmas, and has already finished their shopping (I know I have no desire to go to stores now, with all the gift shoppers in a near frenzy).  Here’s also hoping you came up with lots of thoughtful gift ideas, in spite of my best efforts to play with your minds!

Well, it is the Fourth of July once again.  For those of you outside the US, there’s probably not much to distinguish today from any other Monday in the summer: hot (or cold, for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere) and filled with work, commutes, and all the normal fun of a Monday.

For those of us in the United States, though, it’s the time of year when we take a day off, consider all the effort and consideration that went into creating this great nation, and set off some fireworks.  Mostly the fireworks, though.

That’s why, on this day of celebration, I have just one reminder to share with my fellow Americans (man, it makes me feel presidential just writing that): Don’t Blow Yourself (Or Any Part of Yourself) Up Today.  Even beyond the obvious pain (and, if your family is anything like mine, probable humiliation and mockery), there’s the potential cost of going to the hospital to get various parts of your body repaired or replaced.  Plus, you can avoid getting saddled with an embarrassing nickname like ‘Stumpy’ or ‘Idiot Who Blew Up His Hand With A Firework’ (some nicknames are more creative than others).

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If you can do this, you should have a great Fourth of July.  Here’s hoping you have a great holiday, spend plenty of time with friends and family, and avoid any deforming injuries during your celebration.  Enjoy the holiday!

(And don’t worry, once the holiday is over, I’ll be back to my normal personal finance advice dispensing ways, as opposed to general safety advice.  I just wanted to have a little Fourth of July fun, and maybe get people to think twice about shooting off so dang many fireworks.  Enjoy the holiday!)

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You night have heard, but we shouldn’t be here, or at least, we shouldn’t be enjoying ourselves quite so much.  Yes, apparently this past weekend (May 21, 2011, at 6 p.m. your local time, to be exact) the Rapture was supposed to come and take the faithful up to heaven, leaving the rest of us here to suffer the horrors of Armageddon.  (I’m including myself in the, to borrow a phrase,  ‘Left Behind’ group; while I try to lead a good life, I wouldn’t put money on me being amongst the select and chosen few.)

Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news about that whole event.  The good news is that the Apocalypse apparently isn’t here yet; the whole production seems to be a mistake by the pastor in charge. That’s probably a good thing; I don’t know about you, but I’ve got plenty I’d like to do before the final curtain falls on the planet and our species.

But there’s bad news to be had as well; at some point, the world is likely to end.  My informal survey (that is, things I’ve heard about but don’t feel like formally researching) indicates that the most likely date for the next end of the world is December 21, 2012, when I guess the Mayan calendar ends (and apparently the Mayans were able to pinpoint exactly when this whole ‘time’ thing would cease to exist, as well), although I’ve heard other dates being tossed around, from the 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel to several dates that Nostradamus threw out there.  (Yes, Nostradamus gave multiple dates for the end of the world; no, I don’t know how that would work.)

So, what should you do when it comes time for the world to end, for reals-ies this time?  How can you make sure that you make the most of your last few hours, while ensuring that you aren’t caught unawares if, just by chance, the world DOESN’T end when you think it will?  (I know, I know, what are the chances of that happening (again), but humor me here.)  Here’s a few thoughts on what to do come the (next) end of the world:

Dos and Don’ts for End of the Planet Preparations

DO Live a Good Life: There’s plenty of disagreement about just what the correct religion is (and whether any religion is correct), but there is generally an agreement on how to be a good person.  Treat others the way you would like to be treated, don’t lie, cheat, steal, murder, or otherwise abuse other people, and try to take any abuse you suffer without vengeance or anger at your abusers, and you should come out alright.

DON’T Try to Convert At the Last Minute: I don’t claim to speak for God, but I’m guessing He’s able to tell the difference between sincere changes in faith and ‘I’m doing this to get out of this (literal) heck-hole’ conversions.  The latter probably don’t get you too much credit.  Also, while death bed conversions are probably better than nothing, trying to game the system by living an unholy life and converting at the last minute is quite likely to backfire on you; there’s that whole ‘not knowing when you’ll die’ thing to contend with, after all.

DO Live Life to the Fullest…: One of the advantages (if you can call it that) of impending doom is that it reminds us of everything we want to do in life, and how little some of us have actually done towards finishing that list.  So, regardless of whether there is a threat of Apocalypse, try to live a full life and take advantage of all the world has to offer (and the fact that we live in a time and place when traveling the world and experiencing its many cultures and wonders is not only considered normal, but is highly encouraged).

…But DON’T Count on the Apocalypse to Wipe Out Your Debts: That said, don’t spend December 20, 2012 (or the days before the next expected end of the world) running up the bill on your credit card.  It might seem that you’re taking advantage of the system, but if your plan to deal with the bill is to be Raptured during the grace period, maybe you want to reconsider, before you end up stuck with a huge bill you need to pay.  The Bauer Family saw this happen to them, and you don’t want the same thing to happen to you.

DO Enjoy Your Life: I’ve been writing most of this article tongue-in-cheek (as you might have guessed, although I tend to write like that pretty frequently), but if there’s one thing to take away from this whole story, it should probably be the importance of taking advantage of the time we have available.  If you live well and fully your entire life, even the end of the world becomes something you can face with a smile, knowing you had a good run.  So, regardless of when the end comes (if it even will during our lifetimes), here’s hoping you have lived a good life to that point.

What will you be doing during the (next) Apocalypse?

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Well, here it is again, Tax Day.  Yes, April 15th, the day that is dreaded by more Americans than any other, is finally upon us, and with it comes all the normal stress, struggle, and possible heart problems that the U.S. public dreads.  It’s a time when fathers and mothers weep openly, brothers and sisters rise up in arms against each other, dogs and cats unite to form an unholy army…

Wait a moment, what’s that you say?  Tax Day is April 18th this year, and people have an entire extra weekend to get their taxes prepared and in the mail?  That’s good and all, but it does leave me in a bit of a lurch; what am I supposed to write about now?

Ah, I know!  As I did last year (or I suppose more properly, as I linked to on other sites, for the most part), I could write about some of the giveaways and awesome offers that various companies are using to lessen the sting of taxes (and to boost their business at the same time; businesses aren’t stupid, after all).  So, here are a few things you can look forward to on Monday, even if you spend all weekend filling out your tax forms:

Tax Day Offers 2011

-Bruegger’s Big Bagel Bundles: Not quite a freebie (hey, even generous corporations have to a make profit), but Bruegger’s is offering their Big Bagel Bundles for $10.40 on Monday.  (Note the price’s similarity to a certain federal tax form most people come to hate after a few years of filing taxes; expect to see a lot of such tax day links next Monday.)

-Tax Relief Days at McCormick & Schmick’s: Of course, even though the Federal government’s decided to push the tax due date back a day, most of us still associate April 15th with taxes.  McCormick & Schmick’s has decided to hedge their bets, offering drink and dining specials on both April 15th and April 18th.  (And they’re using the $10.40 pricing, as well.)

-Cinnabon Bites: If you are a fan of cinnamon buns (and I’ve only met one person who wasn’t, and she had the excuse of a near-deadly cinnamon allergy), you can get two free Cinnabon bites on April 18th in their ‘Tax Day Bites!’ giveaway.  (Get it?)  I’m starting to drool a bit just thinking about it.

-Free HydroMassage: If you can think of a better way to relax after tax season is over than a massage, I’d like to hear it (and also hear about any companies offering to give it away this Monday).  If not, here’s good news: HydroMassage is offering free (hydro)massages from April 14th-18th.

-Hooters Wings Offer: If you’re a guy, there’s much worse ways to spend the day than eating wings served by attractive girls.  You can get those served much cheaper by printing out the Buy 10 wings, Get 10 Free Hooters Coupon provided by Spend Less, Shop More.  (You can say that you’re studying Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications if your significant other decides to question your true motives for visiting a place called ‘Hooters’.)

Of course, there’s plenty of other resources that can help you find tax day giveaways; it seems that just about every company has a few of them going on at some point between today and Monday.  I like 2011 Tax Day Freebies and Discounts page from the Bargainist in particular, as it’s one of the most complete lists I’ve seen, and still growing (I’m planning to share a few of my finds there soon.)  Hopefully, after all these giveaways, you’ll be feeling much less stressed about Tax Day.  Have a good (and not completely tax-oriented) weekend!

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Ah, entertainment.  It’s what keeps us entertained and amused in between work and our other required duties.  It brings a smile to our day and a song (or four) to our hearts, to say nothing of that one you just can’t get out of your head.  The world would be a lot a duller if we lacked for entertainment, that goes almost without saying (although I’ll say it anyway).  That’s why it’s such a shame that many forms of entertainment are facing near extinction.

Wait, What?

To understand what I’m rambling about, we’re going to have to take a trip back in time to cover a concept I’ve mentioned already, the Superstar Effect.  Go on, click the link and read up.  I’ll wait.

Look, there's a seat open over there on that bench

If you read through the article (or just assumed I’d include a reminder about the content, which I’m about to do…), you’ll recall that the Superstar Effect is the economic concept that explains how movie stars, musicians, authors and other performers can become, well, superstars.  In a nutshell, the nature of their work and the existence of recording and duplication devices means that it is possible for everyone to enjoy the songs of Katy Perry or the movies of Rupert Everett without the performers having to put any additional work into new performances.  Whether Ms. Perry’s newest CD sells three copies or three million, she’s put the same amount of work into it, and it requires no more time for her to increase her sales.  (Although, if she sells only three copies, her recording company will probably want her to do *something* to try to drive sales.)

Where’s the problem?  Well, easy mass-distribution can be a double-edged sword.  While it makes it easier for record labels, movie producers and book publishers to spread the work of their performers and potentially generate large profits as a result, it also makes it easier for people to make illicit copies and spread books, music, and movies without paying the performers.  The wide-use of personal computers and related devices means that there’s little trouble with acquiring almost any form of media you’d like; without too much difficulty, I’m certain that anyone reading this could easily acquire an illicit copy of any movie, book, or song that they could want.  (Please don’t take this as an invitation to go off and start downloading things illegally; I was making a point, not a suggestion.)

With all of this happening, more than a few commentators have commented on what the future of entertainment will look like.  The views vary from the enforcement of artificial scarcity to keep entertainment companies in business to distopian visions of worlds where nobody has any entertainment.  But I’m actually surprisingly optimistic about what the future of entertainment holds, thanks to

Fanfiction!

Fanfiction, (and related media like fanzines and fanart) in case you’ve managed to cruise the internet without running into any of it, is pretty simple in concept: it’s stories (fiction) that is written by fans of a particular series, book, or movie.  Essentially, fans of say, Star Trek decided that if the TV producers are going to be so unkind as to cancel the series after three seasons, by goodness, they’re going to write stories of their own and share them with fellow fans.

Just as with the pirating of media, the dawning of the internet and other technology has made it much easier to share these stories with other people.  I would likely have never learned about fanfiction if it were not possible for me to check some out from the comfort of my desk.  In fact, if you’d like to see what I’m talking about, you can check out Fanfiction.net,* one of the biggest and most popular fanfiction sites on the web.

*WARNING: Before you start reading, a warning about what you are likely to encounter, so you don’t have a reason to come back and complain that I didn’t give you a proper heads up.  Most fanfiction tends to be written by women, particularly teenage and preteen girls, and as you might expect, is thus usually focused on romantic (and sexual) pairings between characters in a given series (and sometimes between series).  In particular, fanfiction writers are fans of slash pairings, pairings of two (or more…) male characters.  (Remember that mention of Star Trek fanfiction earlier?  Some of the first ‘modern’ fanfiction was stories of Kirk and Spock doing things that Kirk normally did with green women…)  Just a fair warning about what you are likely to find if you do much fanfiction reading.

What Does This Mean About The Future of Entertainment?

Alright, so I’ve amused you, possibly disturbed you, and possibly convinced you to write fanfiction of your own.  But we still haven’t spent too much time considering just what this means for entertainment in general.  So, here it is: people like to create, and they like it when other people enjoy their creations.  Fanfiction writers aren’t doing it to make money (and in fact, depending on how vigorous the copyright holders are about enforcing those copyrights, potentially risk fines or even jail for their stories), they just want to share stories with other people involving the characters, places, and stories that they enjoy, frequently while writing under a pseudonym.

This is why I’m confident that entertainment will continue; there is a strong instinct in humans to share stories and keep our fellow humans entertained.  Now, this is not to say that entertainment will continue to be the mammoth industry that it has become; there’s a good chance that the possibility of piracy will keep entertainment from being nearly as profitable as it has been in the past, and we might, in fact, be in the waning days of giant movie budgets and massive music video performances.  But I’m sure that we’ll continue to find ways to amuse ourselves, and each other.

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Ah, yet again, I find myself wishing I was half as creative in my writing as real life seems to be.  Recently, Alabama lawyers brought a lawsuit against Taco Bell, alleging that the meat in their tacos and other food products isn’t really ‘meat’ so much as filler.

Oh, the jokes, jests, and general snide comments that I could make now.  Not that I’d be the only one; apparently late night comedy show writers (such as the head writer for the David Letterman show) are planning to make some jokes themselves (and might, by the time you read this, have already made their jokes and other comments; there are advantages to having a late night television show and a team of writers to help you).  Yes, there’s plenty of cheap material to be mined.

Hypno-chihuahua says "Stop Reading, and Eat at Taco Bell!"

But I’m going to take the high road instead (and not just because I can’t hope to compete with Letterman).  As you might realize from my previous forays into the world of current events, I have a tendency to view almost everything through the eyes of a blogger; fitting, since I am a blogger.

My Advice to Taco Bell

So, what lessons can we take from this particular event?  Well, if you’re someone in charge of publicity at Taco Bell, the lesson it seems you’re taking is that the best way to fight back is as aggressively as possible, firing back to media outlets with a sternly worded memo noting that that your meat is all meat, and that you are seeking legal action against the lawyers that brought up the lawsuit in the first place.  An impressive action, one that should end all the controversy over this product, right?

Well…not so much.  You see, there are pictures like this floating out there:

Yup, that’s ‘taco meat filling’, prominently labeled with Taco Bell’s logo, courtesy of Gizmodo.  In case you can’t read it, the first ingredient is beef, but it’s followed immediately by water, and then several other ingredients ranging from seasonings to silicon dioxide (which, unless all my years as a chemist are mistaken, is the same chemical formula as sand).  It does seem to give new credence to the Alabama’s lawyers assertion that the meat in Taco Bell’s products doesn’t contain enough beef to be called beef.  (And actually, if the assertions that it contains less than 40% beef is in fact true, it’s possible that they shouldn’t legally be able to call it ‘meat, as in ‘taco meat filling’.)

So, here’s my advice to Taco Bell: It seems like you’re falling into something of a Streisand Effect here, where the more you complain and try to hide the truth, the more people want to dig deeper and try to discover what’s got you so riled.  If you have been telling the truth, if your beef is in fact 100% beef, then I’d say the time has more than passed to prove it.  Sternly worded letters and threats of legal action have this sad tendency to make you look guilty, at least when they aren’t coupled with more substantial proof (especially when, again, your accusers have photographic proof to the contrary).

Now, let’s say you, Taco Bell, have in fact been serving ‘taco meat product’ and calling it beef without sharing the truth with your customers.  In this case, there isn’t much that you can do.  (Well, alright, you could drag out court battles for years, or attempt to change the law behind the scenes to retroactively prove yourself correct, but well, the less said about what happens if your actions later come to light, the better.)  Your best course of action is to admit that you are in the wrong (at least about assertions that your accusers are lying, if nothing else), make the changes to your supply chain that are needed, and promote the change appropriately.  You could even use the opportunity to explain why you were using this meat product rather than pure beef in the first place, perhaps even starting a conversation about the costs of food and the pressures of marketing (or perhaps I’ve been reading too many comments on some of these websites).

A Few Final Words

Now, onto some advice for individuals.  If you are an avid Taco Bell diner (or a fast food diner in general), you might want to reconsider your eating habits.  Consider dining at home; not only can you avoid the possibility that your ‘beef’ is not as beef like as you thought, but you can save money on your dining, as well.  (Hey, look, a personal finance tip found its way into my article; how’d that happen?)  When you dine out, be more conscious of your eating habits, and take advantage of the resources available to you to eat the sort of meal you want.  (Taco Bell’s Ingredient Statement has all the same information about ingredients as the picture on Gizmodo; although, they refer to their meat as seasoned ground beef.)

Whoo, that was quite a lot; it’s good to know that if I can’t make a living as biochemist, there’s plenty of work to be found giving much needed advice to corporations.  If celebs (like that rascal 50 Cent) and corporations keep doing these types of things, perhaps I’ll have to start devoting a portion of my blog to advising them (and the people who have to deal with them) on how to get their acts together…

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(If you just happen to be a youngster who believes in Santa Claus, now might be a good time to look away and go read something else, while pretending you never saw this.  Go check out Nickelodeon’s website or something.  Oh, and sorry about ruining your childhood.)

Call me a Scrooge if you must (although, honestly, he had some pretty good ideas on population control), but I’m kind of glad that Santa doesn’t exist.  Let’s be honest, the idea of a magical man who produces billions of toys and distributes them all over the world sounds AWESOME when you are young (doubly so when you know that some of those presents are coming your way), but as you get older, you start to see all the many ways it would actually be less than good, for both you and the world in general.  Ways like:

-He would bankrupt every toy/electronics/jewelry/heck, every company really: Let’s be honest, if Santa did exist, and ran a hidden organization that built perfect replicas of everything from teddy bears to high end consumer electronics, the world economy would be screwed.  Thousands of companies depend on the revenue they bring in for Christmas gifts to get their balance sheets in the black for the year.  (Hence the origin of the term ‘Black Friday’, when holiday shopping would push the companies into profitability.)

Santa: Public Enemy Number One

If nobody had to buy presents for Christmas, who knows how many companies would end up going bankrupt as a result; let’s start with the toy companies and go on from there.  The economic impact of someone who can produce toys via ‘magic’, without having to pay for parts, labor, or shipping, would be devastating.  And about not having to pay for labor…

-We’d be condoning slavery: I’ll tell you, I’ve watched just about every Christmas special and movie in existence, and not a single one ever even hints at the elves being paid for all their hard work.  Not even in the cookies and milk we leave out for Santa.  Now, they are magical creatures and that, but still, even supernatural beings deserve a living wage.  (They should probably consider starting a union or something.)

For one night (or a few nights, as he apparently comes at different times for different groups) every year, Santa is the hardest working man on the planet; for the other 364 days or so, he’s a cruel slave driver with no respect for human (or elven) safety.  (And let’s we  haven’t gotten into the issue of the reindeer; I’m sure PeTA would have a few words about using animals to pull a sled around the world.)  But even when he is working, Santa is not exactly doing the sort of things we’d approve of…

-He uses magic to break into people’s houses: Let’s be honest: for almost any other person, real or imaginary, breaking into houses on a regular basis would be a sure way to end up on the Most Wanted List.  Heck, we even force the Easter Bunny to stay outside and leave his brightly colored Easter Eggs hidden in the grass.  (Although, that might just be due to our innate anti-bunny bias; but that’s a subject for another day.)

But no, for Santa Claus, we put aside our objections to breaking and entering and just let him go wherever he wants.  Not only that, but we leave him milk and cookies (and in some places hay or carrots for those overworked reindeer).  What other intruder gets treats for breaking and entering?  And we’re just touching on his criminal tendencies…

-He uses a number of aliases: Let’s be honest, noncriminals don’t need to go by different names everywhere they go.  Yet, that’s exactly what this ‘Santa’ does.  Besides Santa Claus (or ‘Santa’, to his friends), you have Father Christmas, Father Frost, Christmas Man, Saint Nickolaus, and that guy who’s always shilling for Coca Cola.  And that’s not counting the numerous other names applied to this one guy, who apparently needs a different name in every country he travels.

Let’s be honest, for all these reasons, it’s best that Santa is purely a figment of collective imagination.  The world is better off without him.  Bwa, Humbug I say!

(Note: I hope it’s obvious that I’m being sarcastic in this article (as I so often am).  While a real Santa would bring along a few pretty big problems, the idea of Santa is amazingly inspirational and encouraging.  The idea of Santa can be a tremendous encouragement to us, and spur us to act more generous and giving to each other.  Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, as long as we keep the spirit of giving and caring for each other in our hearts.

Oh, and that Scrooge comment, the one about his ‘good ideas on population control: a joke, nothing but a joke.)

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Congratulations!  If you’re reading this post, there’s a good chance that you’re a lottery winner.  Or you’re just a regular reader of my blog.  Or you found my blog and this post by pure chance, and decided to read it because of the interesting title.  Alright, so there’s quite a few ways you could have found this blog entry.

Let’s focus in on the first one, though; if you win the lottery.  It’s not impossible (although, the big prizes are statistically unlikely), and it’s good to be prepared if you ever find yourself in that situation.  We’ve all heard the stories of multi-million dollar lottery winners who go bankrupt; if you don’t want to be another source of schadenfreude for future personal finance readers, it will good to have a plan for your millions.  Here are some thoughts to get you started:

1. Get An Annuity: Your main obstacle to making your millions last is, well, you.  There’s going to be a nature tendency to want to spend, spend, spend; after all, you can afford it.  This wouldn’t be too bad, but you’re also likely to have the mindset that ‘I’m so rich, I can spend whatever I want and still be rich.’  That’s a very dangerous attitude to have, since (a) your lottery winnings, however vast, are finite and (b) your wants and desires are not.  In short, one of the best ways to protect you from yourself is to limit how much of your winnings you have access to at any one time.

You want to keep at least some of your winnings under lock and key

A good way to do this is through an annuity.  In an annuity, you’ll receive a regular payment for the duration of your life (or the longer of your life and your spouse’s wife, if you opt for joint and survivor coverage).  There are even some lottery systems (Pennsylvania being one of them) that offer to annualize your winnings right off the bat, giving you your winnings over the course of twenty years rather than in one lump sum right when you win.

Why bother spreading out your winnings like this?  To put it bluntly, it’ll cut down on the risk that you blow all your cash in a short period time.  If you are getting regular payments stretching out over decades, it’ll be harder, if not impossible, for you to spend all that money and end up bankrupt.  (This should NOT be taken as a challenge to any lottery winners out there; I don’t want you to prove me wrong.)  While not guaranteeing that you’ll manage your winning properly and end up dying well off, it’ll give you a good head start at avoiding temptation.  And speaking of temptation…

2. Resist the Urge to Dramatically Increase Your Spending: One of the first things you’re going to want to do upon getting that first winning lottery check is to go out and emulate The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (or if you’re closer to my age and a bit too young to remember that show, maybe you want a place that could end up on Cribs).  The temptation is probably quite huge; we as a culture seem almost inundated with imagery and stories of how the rich choose to spend their money; now that you’re rich, why shouldn’t you live the same lifestyle?

Well, unlike you, most of the celebrities we read about can easily earn quite a bit more money by acting in another movie or writing another book; they aren’t limited to spending a single pot of money.  You, lottery winner, are; while there are stories about multi-lottery winners out there, there is as yet no way to ensure that your next attempt to win will be as successful as this last one.  Unless you’re still working or earning money in some other way (and what big lottery winner will work any longer than they have to?), you have only your pot of lottery money draw from.

Luckily, it’s not that hard to keep your nest egg alive and well.  Limit your spending to 4% of your total winnings (the standard safe withdrawal rate) while investing the rest, and there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to pass on more money than you won.  Alternatively, if you opted for the annuity as I mentioned above, limit your spending to the amount the annuity gives back to you each year, and you shouldn’t have any major money worries, at least during your lifetime.  (If you annuitize all your winnings and don’t pass anything onto your heirs, they might be a perturbed with you, to put it mildly.)  Although, while we’re on the subject of inheritance…

3. Resist the Attempts of Friends, Family, and Strangers to Get a Piece of Your Money: When it was first announced that you won, you probably noticed that you became much more popular.  Estranged family members sought to patch up wounded relationships, friends you hadn’t seen in years, even decades, sought to rekindle their bonds, and people you don’t recall even meeting suddenly wanted to be your friend (or perhaps lover).  You probably felt a bit like Cinderella at the ball, instantaneously the most popular person around.

I hardly need to tell you, but many, if not most, of the people trying to get close to you in the wake of your winning are more concerned with your new net worth than with you as a person.  A healthy dose of cynicism will be a valuable asset as you adapt to your new life and new winnings.  While not everyone in your life will be trying to get a piece of your pie (and behaving as if they are will only drive away those who genuinely care for you), the unfortunate fact is that some people will try to leverage any relationship they have with you to get a portion of your winnings.

Given this reality, here are a few quick tips for handling the requests for money from your friends and relatives:

a) Don’t ‘invest’ in your acquaintances’ business(es): You’re likely to hear about more than your share of business ideas that your friends and relatives want to get off the ground, and they’ll generously offer you the chance to get in on the ground floor.  You should decline; if their business idea is good, they should be able to get outside funding, and if it is bad, you’ll blame them if they end up losing your ‘investment’.  Either way, you’re better off not putting money into their business ventures.
b) Don’t loan your relatives money: It’s not bad advice to avoid making personal loans in general, but it especially makes sense if you are suddenly the richest person on the family tree.  Having an outstanding loan will strain your relationship, particularly if the loan holder views you as a stingy jerk for forcing them to repay when you’re already so rich.  If you must provide money to your relatives, make it an outright gift, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, you probably shouldn’t give that person money, period.
c) Watch out for scams: If you are one of those lucky, lucky few who have never encountered a scam before, I’d like to welcome you to the internet!  But seriously, expect the number of scams you encounter, and more to the point, the number of scams targeted at YOU, to increase dramatically now that you’ve won the lottery.  Some of them may even be presented via your friends and relatives, either because they’ve fallen for a scam themselves or because they are trying to scam you (sad, but possible).  Keep your guard up about any offer or ‘opportunity’ that seems too good to be true (or asks for personal account information), and you should be able to avoid most of the scams out there.

This is far from an exhaustive list of all the issues you’ll face, Mr. or Ms. Lottery Winner, but it should be a good start.  Hopefully, I haven’t scared you into donating the whole pot to charity (although, far be it from me to denigrate such a generous donation).  Winning the lottery can be the best thing that ever happened to you, but you need to be aware of the pitfalls.  Good luck enjoying your millions!

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If you’re like many people today, you’ve probably played online games at one point or another.  If you’ve done so in the past 12 years, you might have even played a little game called Starcraft, a strategy game where you control one of three competing alien races.  If you happen to live (or were willing to move) to South Korea, though, you could have made a career of playing and competing against other players.

I’ll give you a moment to read all about the players, their groupies, and their (six figure) salaries (including the fact that the tournaments are attended by more people than the Superbowl).  I’ll give you a few more moments to shake your head in disbelief and contemplate the unfairness of life.  Ready to go on?

As crazy as it is for the players of a computer game to make so much money, it’s really not that unprecedented for the top performers in certain fields to make incredible profits.  Is it really that different (or more bizarre) for players in physical sports (football, baseball, soccer, etc.) to earn multi-million dollar salaries?  Or for top movie actors to have earn millions per movie, while the average actor has to get a side job as a waiter/waitress just to pay the bills?  In all these cases, the top performers benefit from the Superstar Effect.

The Superstar Effect

The Superstar Effect is the economic term for when the top performers in some fields are able to get phenomenally large salaries.  In order for you to be a superstar, your field needs to meet three criteria:

• The market must be fairly large; if only a few hundred people are interested in your field, you’re  not going to become a superstar, regardless of how good you are.  (This is why there are superstar singers, but no superstar nose flutists.)
• Everyone in the market wants the good provided by the top performer.  This is usually not an issue; if all other things are equal, the average person is going to want the goods or services that are the best.
• The good is provided with technology that enables everyone to enjoy the services of the top producer.  (This is why there aren’t any superstar plumbers, but there are superstar singers; wide distribution of songs allows everyone to enjoy the performance of, say, Katy Perry, but plumbers can only fix so many sinks during the week.)

What? I'm a Katy Perry fan.

These characteristics mean that the easiest fields in which to become a superstar are those that involve performing in one method or another.  It’s easy to record something like a a movie (or a professionally played Starcraft game) and distribute it as widely as needed.  The costs of adding one more copy to the number already being produced (the marginal cost of increasing the distribution) is relatively small, meaning that it’s easy to expand the number of people who watch (or play, or otherwise enjoy the product).  The same logic holds for some physical goods, as well; more people want to read the latest book by Stephanie Meyers than alternative books, and so she becomes ever wealthier.

Of course, it’s not possible for every profession to develop superstars; for fields where you need to be there in person (everything from plumbers to doctors to lawyers), it’s impossible to reach true superstar status (at least with our economics-provided definition).  While the market might be large for their skills, and everyone wants service from the top performer, it’s usually not possible for doctors or lawyers to provide service to everyone who wants their help.

The Downsides of the Superstar Effect

In the modern age, though, there are some downsides to meeting the qualifications for being a superstar.  Everyone wanting to enjoy your products, cheap and easy methods of distribution and lots of fans are a recipe for both superstardom and widespread pirating.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that the fields where most superstars develop (music, movies, and other recorded performing arts) are also the fields most afflicted by piracy.

Unfortunately, there’s a tricky balance that needs to be struck.  Too much effort put into making it impossible for pirates to to copy your work can also make it harder for legitimate users to access your products; too little effort can result in your product being rampantly pirated, decreasing your profit.  Finding a balance between these two extremes can be tricky, and you can see how various groups have run into trouble going to one or the other extreme (The RIAA, the Record Industry Association of America, is (in)famous for their prosecution of people who download music from illicit websites; they’re also the butt of numerous jokes and snide comments as a result.)  All of that said, though, it’s the sort of problem I’m sure most of us would like to have; figuring out how to make some money off the incredible throng of people eager to enjoy our products.

That’s the Superstar Effect in a nutshell; the explanation for how superstars can develop in every field from movies to music to yes, playing a decade-old video game really, really well.  Next time someone starts to complain about the outrageous salaries commanded by professional athletes, feel free to point out the salaries commanded by professional Starcraft players and the universal tendency to (over)pay people who play games.

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Happy Labor Day to all my fellow Americans!  Hopefully, you’re reading this as you prepare to go visit your extended family and indulge in a nice, end of the summer picnic.  It’s Labor Day, the perfect time to take a break from your labors.

Of course, not all of us currently have jobs we need a break from; given nearly ten percent unemployment, there’s a fairly large possibility that you’re currently in between jobs, yourself.  If you’re a fairly recent graduate, you’ve probably come out into the world and found few, if any, people willing to hire you right out of the gate, especially with older, more experienced workers willing to take your place for the same pay due to their own situations.  If you’re young and just getting out of college, the thought of moving back in with your parents has probably already crossed your mind a time or two.

Well, good news and bad news on that front.  The good news is that you’re not alone; a sizable portion of today’s twenty-somethings have ‘boomeranged‘, returning to live with their parents.  (Although, as that link indicates, it’s not as unprecedented or widespread an event as some media figures, including those who dubbed Generation Y as the ‘Boomerang Generation’, would have you believe.)  It’s not considered evidence that you are horribly socially defective anymore, at least by most of your fellow Gen Yers.  (Myself included, as I ‘boomeranged’ for over three years after I graduated from my undergraduate institution.)

An entire generation, defined by an Aboriginal weapon

Now the bad news: that still doesn’t make it an ideal living arrangement, particularly when it comes to dating.  However understanding both your significant other and your parents might be, living with Mom and/or Dad is bound to add a snag to your social life and ability to romance the boy or girl of your dreams.  Not to mention that fact that the stereotypes and mockery of those who are still living with their parent(s) continue to exist; check out the tongue-in-cheek dating guide from the Financial Samurai to see some of the images the phrase ‘I live with my parents’ can conjure up while you’re at the bar.

Making Yourself More Date-able

So, what’s the solution?  Give up, throw yourself into the ‘living with my parents’ stereotypes, and start sewing your costume for the next comic book convention?  Not necessarily; there are ways to make yourself a more attractive romantic partner, even when you’re rocking your Mom’s basement.  (Although, if you still want to go to a comic book convention, go right ahead; I’ve been to a few, and they’re a blast if you’re in a geeky mood.)  If you want to make yourself a more attractive potential date, and gain some financial independence and confidence in the process, you should:

-Get a Job: “But,” you argue, “I’ve been trying to get a job since I first graduated; what more can I do?”  A complete guide to job hunting is outside the scope of this article (check my previous thoughts on the issue), but here’s the take-away for today: take a crummy, part-time, ‘just to put money in my pocket’ job if that’s all you can get.  You can (and should) continue to search for something more permanent, hopefully where you can put your formal education to work (although, if you have a degree in something like ’18th century French Romanticists’, I’ll warn you now that your only real chance for a job in that field will be to continue your education and get a position as a professor), but you should be willing to take a crummy job just to have some money coming in.  Because you’re going to need money in order to…

-Pay Your Own Bills: Your parents are letting you live with them; don’t stretch their generosity even further by having them foot your bills.  Pay them yourself, and get a taste of what it’s like to truly be a responsible adult in the world.  Your student loans will be a big one (how big depends on how much you borrowed to pay for your classes and other, hopefully academic related, expenses), but don’t forget to chip in for things like your share of the phone bill and groceries.  If you still have a sizable amount of money left after all that (or perhaps even if you don’t), you should also…

-Pay Rent: Even if your parents (or grandparents, or other relatives) don’t expect you to pay rent while staying in your old bedroom, you’d be wise to do so, anyway.  Not only will paying rent to your parents help to cover all the expenses you aren’t chipping in for above, doing so helps you to get in the habit of setting aside a sizable portion of your income for housing expenses.  It’ll also help change you from ‘freeloading mooch’ to ‘hard-working, potential date material’ in the eyes of would-be romantic partners.  (At least, it worked that way for me with my fiancee.)

If your parents refuse to take any rent money, try to make this deal with them (consider making this deal anyway; it’s a pretty good one): suggest that your parents take the money and put it aside, in a special saving account for you.  When you leave their house, the money will be yours again to help pay the down payment on a new house, or to cover the first few payments on an apartment that’s not in their basement.  You’ll still develop discipline as you keep paying them (discipline that will come in handy with your eventual housing payments), plus you’ll have a nice chunk of change when you’re ready to move out on your own.  Speaking of which…

-Make a Plan to Move Out: Living with your parents has lost of some of the sting, at least if you’re a Gen Yer, but it’s still easy to overstay your welcome.  Make a plan to move out after a certain period of time or after you’ve achieved some basic financial goals (like ‘building up a three month emergency fund’ or ‘earning at least $500 a month’) that you’re working towards steadily.  Having such a plan will let your parents, your dates, and even yourself know that you’re serious about not staying in your parents’ house forever, and should motivate you to work even harder to make it a reality.

There; a simple plan to get you from Chateau de Mom to a place of your own, and make you look less like a loser and more like a dedicated, driven person while you get there.  With luck, all of that should be enough to convince your date(s) that you’re a keeper.  Again, it’s worked for me, why not for you?

What else for you recommend for someone who’s ‘boomeranged’, and wants to help establish their financial lives?  Does being employed and paying their own bills make a potential date more dateable in your eyes, even if they do still live with their parents?  Do you have something fun planned for Labor Day?  (I’ve got a six hour drive home, myself.)  Inquiring minds want to know!

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For most of us, the main motivation to get up and go to work in the morning is the desire for a pay check.  After all, that’s practically the definition of work; something you wouldn’t normally want to do, but are willing to do in exchange for money.  Yes, there are other reasons to work, from the chance to better all humankind to simply having something to do every day, but primarily, it’s all about the money.

That said, there are some jobs where the intangible benefits of the job itself make me think that I’d be willing to take them on without any compensation.  These ‘dream jobs’ are the type that I’d consider doing, even if they’d pay so little (if at all) that I’d have to take a second (and possibly third) job just keep food on the table while doing so.  Some of these jobs are…

Playboy Photographer: It’s hard to imagine a man who wouldn’t want to take on this particular task (with the exception of those men who’d rather work for Playgirl, that is); heck, it was one of Homer Simpson’s dream jobs, along with rock star.  With the possible exception of ‘Being Hugh Hefner’ (a job that is, alas, already taken), there’s few examples of employment that sound more appealing.  There is a slight risk, I suppose, that spending hours each day trying to get the best shots of attractive, nude women could wear on you, and the last thing you’d want to see when you go home is your significant other naked, but that’s the kind of risk I’d be willing to take.

Not a Playboy Photographer, as far as I know; but did you really think I was going to use a picture from Playboy?

Penthouse Photographer: Actually, I suppose this is rather similar to being a Playboy photographer.  Somewhat naughtier magazine, slightly less prestigious, but still, the photographers employed there get to spend all day taking pictures of nude women; it’s not a bad deal.  Let’s just lump all such positions into one ‘gets to take naughty pictures of attractive females’ job and move on from there.

*Flips through a few pages of the Dream Job list*  Wow, there were a lot more naughty jobs than I thought at first.  That might say more about me than about how good the job would actually be.  Ah, here’s a non-naughty one:

Ruler of the World: Another position where the fringe benefits vastly outweigh the actual duties and responsibilities of the job.  As Tears for Fears put it, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”; there’s something about the thought of lording it over all humanity that appeals to our innate desires.  Admittedly, the actual job of ruling would likely be tough and require long hours; still, it’s hard to say that that would be enough to dissuade me from wanting to pursue the position.  Of course, I don’t need to shoot that high to gain power…

Ruler of a Small Island Nation: Perhaps trying to take over the world is a bit much; it’s a goal that has thus far thwarted everyone from Pinky and The Brain to Stewie Griffin, and they had the advantages of being cartoon characters to help them out.  No, maybe I should set my sights lower, on a single nation.  Preferably something small, out of the way, unlikely to draw much attention if it suddenly is taken over by a benevolent ruler.  Perhaps something in the South Pacific; if you’re going to rule over an island, why not one with a great climate?  Although, the native uprisings and all that international diplomacy could get tiring; still, it’s a darn sight better than working in retail.

Superhero: Strong, fast, muscular, and able to pull off skintight spandex; there’s a lot to like about the superhero profession.  Plus, you don’t get paid for doing it, making it a perfect fit for our list already.  It has its downfalls, as well; supervillains constantly trying to destroy the world, the country, the city, or you, personally.  Still, you don’t see many of them around currently, so maybe I’ll luck out if and when I develop super powers.  Of course, there’s always the alternative path…

Supervillain: Not a bad alternative; just an evil one.  Besides having many of the same advantages as a superhero, there’s also no need to be noble and refuse compensation for using your powers; that’s the whole reason why you’d use them, to derive a profit or gain power.  True, a life of crime isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely worth some consideration.

Mad Scientist: Similar to supervillain, although even more dependent on my extreme, twisted intellect.  From re-animating the dead to building doomsday devices to…re-animating the dead some more, there’s a lot you can accomplish with nearly impossible science, a willing supplier of all the money and supplies you need, and an almost reckless disregard for the laws of man and nature.  Plus, shrink rays!  Everyone loves shrink rays!

That’s about it; the jobs I’d do for free.  Admittedly, the number of openings for these positions is fairly small; they wouldn’t be dream jobs if they were open to just anyone.  Still, if you happen to have an ‘In’ with Playboy (or wherever I’d go to get a job as a despot or super-powered comic book character), let me know; I’m ready and willing to start my dream job at any time.

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I’m going to change things up a bit and direct the comments in this article towards retailers and merchants rather than my normal audience of individuals.  There seems to be a disconnect at times between retailers and their customers, and I’m hoping some of my advice can close the gap.  If you run a business, now’s the time to get a little free market research courtesy of the Amateur Financier.

(Warning: A few of the following suggestions are bit risque.  If you are easily offended, or haven’t had your morning cup of coffee, you might want to hold off on reading through this post.  If not, well, let’s get to it, then!)

Women’s Clothes Manufacturers: My first (and probably best suggestion) is directed at the manufacturers of women’s clothing: make your biggest sized apparel ‘large’, the next biggest ‘medium’, and so on.  Besides fighting the trend I’ve noticed of decreasing the sizes considered a particular size (since when is a woman with 36-24-36 measurements (‘perfect’ measurements) considered extra large), you’ll win dozens of female customers eager to wear extra, extra small clothing.

The first image result for average woman; notice that she's not a stick figure.

Condom Manufacturers: Basically, the same advice as above, only in reverse; start at ‘huge’ and increase the sizes from there.  Your customers will thank you.

Pornographers, ‘Male Enhancers’, and Everyone else who advertises via Spam Messages: Stop.  Just stop any use of spam as a means of selling your products.  I know that you’re probably saying, ‘But Roger, we use spam because it works; we get more business that way.’  I’ll make this as clear as I can: whatever increased business you get via using spam is more than offset by the number of email users you turn off to your products (and indeed, to your entire industries) by using spam.  Please, just don’t do it.

Producers of ‘Reality’ Television Shows: Besides the fact that the term ‘reality television’ has been twisted and stretched well beyond the original meaning (to include everything from Survivor style elimination contests to Real World style contrived voyeur series), the whole thing is getting out of hand.  Please, please, please, for the love of sugar, stop now before we all go mad.

Specialized Television Stations: Stick with your specialty.  If I turn on the History Channel, I expect to see something vaguely historic; if I turn on Food Network, I’d like to see some food preparation; and if I watch Cartoon Network, I want to see some cartoons.  Increasingly though, these specialty channels are adding unrelated content to their schedules; History Channel and Food Network are doing reality series (which are at least vaguely related to the topic of their network) and Cartoon Network has added a sizable amount of real life programing to their schedule.  Please, please, just go back to what you do best.

Food Manufacturers: Stop it with all the endless variations on your products; there’s really nobody in the world who needs fifteen types of potato chips, especially when most of them involve things that you can put on the chips yourself if you really desire.  Besides clogging up the aisles at the local store, you’re actually making it harder for customers to decide what product to choose, decreasing the chance that they’ll buy anything.  (Don’t take my word for it; Malcolm Gladwell covered just that situation in his book Blink.)  Fewer options will help not only us poor schlubs stocking the shelves, but your bottom line.

-Manga Translators: Bring over more manga series, and get them translated faster.  I realize it’s easier said than done (otherwise, it’d likely be done by now), but given the number of fan sites that provide free access to scanlated (that is, translated and then scanned) manga issues, you need to be quick to keep up and prevent too many people from abandoning professionally translated works.

Realtors: The barrage of commercials won’t change the fact that the housing market is down at the moment.  Everyone who wants to buy a new home already knows that interest rates are at one of the lowest points in the recent past; it’s been a major news story for the past year, as people watched the market tank and the government respond by slashing interest rates to nothing.  You’re not going to get the heady days of the early 2000′s back anytime soon, so just cool your jets a bit, you dig?

There you are, some advice from me to the manufacturers and retailers of the world.  Enjoy the free market research (sample size: me)!

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If you’re a regular reader, and frequently follow the links that I provide, you might be aware that I’m a fan of Cracked.com.  Although a comedy site (and a pretty funny one to boot; I’ve laughed out loud to some of their articles on more than one occasion), they also generally have good, sometimes thought provoking articles.  I’ve even been inspired to write some of my articles here based on the articles they offer; my ‘Your Mind and Your Money‘ series was inspired by the Cracked article on ‘6 Logical Fallacies That Cost You Money Every Day‘, for example.

Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of Crack’s articles is that they are good at pointing out problems, but not so good at coming up with solutions.  This is to be expected, I suppose; pointing out human foolishness is much more fun than coming up with a ten step plan to fix the problem.  For example, they provide a list of 6 Subtle Ways The Media Disguises Bulls*** As Facts, but fail to give the reader thoughts on how readers can protect themselves from said bulls***.  (Although, simply knowing some of the underhanded tactics will hopefully help readers to spot them and resist them.)

Enter the Amateur Financier.  I’m not only going to pass on the ways that the media can bend facts to fit their preconceptions and possible agenda, but provide you ways to defend yourself.  With no more ado, let’s get that Bulls*** Detector fired up:

#6: Weasel Words

What It Is: Weasel words are words used to give the author (or reporter, or speaker) a way to express their opinions without having to take ownership of said opinion.  Attributing opinions to ‘some’ or ‘many people’ or ‘the American public’ allows you to express your opinion (or set up a straw man against whom you can make a noble stand) without having to find a person or group that actually holds that position.

How to Defend Yourself: Whenever you hear or read someone attributing an opinion to a vaguely defined (if at all) group, ask yourself whether they’ve given any proof.  Given the huge number of surveys, polls, and opinion gathers out there, if there is a sizable group that believes the Earth is in the shape of a dodecahedron, for example, there should be some proof to cite to that effect.  If not, feel free to substitute ‘I’ (that is, the author, reporter, or commentator) or ‘the people I oppose’ for any weasel words you encounter.

#5: Implying Without Saying

What It Is: By mentioning two (or more) ideas together in a story, the media can take advantage of the natural human tendency to assume that the two things are linked. Saying ‘Hundreds become wealthy after reading The Amateur Financier’ implies that reading this blog caused the increase in wealth, whereas the truth is that reading the blog probably had a minimal effect on the gain in wealth.  (Not that you should stop reading, of course…)

How to Defend Yourself: The main problem is the same one I’ve discussed before, assuming (falsely) that correlation is the same as causation.  Remind yourself of the difference, and you’ll be less likely to read stories about teenagers going on rampages after playing video games and assume that the video games caused the rampage.  (Or that, say, in reports about politicians doing illegal/immoral activities, that being a politician caused the person to be less ethical.)

#4: Burying Inconvenient Facts

What It Is: Reality doesn’t always go the way we want, but by twisting what we show, we can make it appear differently.  So, I can say ‘Survey Shows The Amateur Financier Most Popular Personal Finance Blog’ without mentioning that the survey is of me, my mother and my fiancee.  If you don’t take the time to read far enough to catch that detail, the headline sounds pretty impressive.

How to Defend Yourself: Reading the entire article to ensure that there aren’t any qualifiers or other modifying statements that contradict the headline (or at least, make it less solid than it initially appeared) is one option, although given the deluge of information facing most of us, it’s not likely to be possible all the time.  A healthy level of skepticism about news in general (and news with provocative headlines in particular) will serve you well, especially when the headline attributes the claims to another source (study, survey, a particular group, etc); that’s another way, similar to our ‘weasel words’, for a journalist or other commentator to express their views without having to claim ownership of the opinion.

#3: Biased Photos

What It Is: They say a picture’s worth a thousand words; too bad so many of them are lies.  By picking and choosing among the available photos (and videos or audio clips) and selectively editing out useful details, a publication can choose to make a particular person look powerful, knowledgeable, and capable, or look foolish and incompetent.

How to Defend Yourself: After the initial burst of disgust, happiness, or patriotism (whatever emotion the media outlet was trying to spark), take a moment to stop and think about why the media chose that particular picture (or other piece of media).  They’re usually trying to support some thesis about the person or events in question, and not every picture represents a public figure’s true personality.  Think about all the pictures of you where you were looking less than your best, and cut public figures a little slack for not always being ready for the cameras.

#2: The Active Voice

What It Is: By selectively using either the active or passive voice in their headlines, the media can choose to blame the actors or give them a free pass.  For example, ‘Police shoot and kill man who was robbing bank’ (the active voice) puts the blame for the man’s death clearly on the police, while ‘Man shot and killed while robbing bank’ (the passive voice) leaves the question of who shot the man open for speculation (the bank guards, his partner, an armed civilian, etc.), implying that being shot and killed was a natural consequence of bank robbing.

How to Defend Yourself: This is another case where reading beyond the headline is your best friend in getting to the truth.  While the actor might be obscured in the attention-grabbing headline, it shouldn’t be long into the article before the actor that caused the results in the headline (in this case, shooting and death) is revealed.  (Although, keep point #4 in mind; the truth might be buried.)

#1: Guessing the Motives Instead of Reporting the Facts

What It Is: Trying to determine the rationale behind someone else’s actions forms quite a lot of modern reporting.  Rather than stating that ‘Obama supports a public health bill’, it becomes ‘Obama wants health bill to further big government agenda’; instead of ‘Republicans state costs as reason for opposition to bill’ it becomes ‘Republicans desperate to defend status quo and their corporate backers’.  In both cases, the latter example speculates on the motives behind the actions, rather than reporting what happened straight as in the former examples.

How to Defend Yourself: Unless there’s been news reports that I’ve missed, there’s currently no mind readers who exist outside of the occasional comic book character.  Thus, the only way to really know what someone is thinking is to have him or her tell you; if they (or their spokespeople, for the rich and powerful) don’t tell you directly, you simply can’t know.  (Even if they do tell you directly, I hope that you maintain enough skepticism to not take them solely at their word; reporters and journalists aren’t the only ones who try to tweak the truth.)  A healthy amount of doubt about the motives ascribed to any particular action, no matter who is doing the ascribing, will serve you well when reading the news.

There you have it, six ways the media can twist reporting to back a particular view point, and some advice on how to avoid falling into that trap.  Now go, go and feel free to expose yourself to some media with your new found knowledge of how it might be manipulating you.  Just don’t read too much at once; over exposure to that stuff isn’t good for you.

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Well, it’s April 15th once again, and if you’re a proud resident of the United States of America, that means one thing above all others: it’s tax day.  Yes, today is the day when you need to have your taxes in the mail or face the full wrath of the IRS (an organization that the average American seems to imbue with more superpowers than a small army of super villians, and at least twice as much malevolence).  Yes, on the list of least favorite days, April 15th is all but unrivaled.

But it doesn’t have to be a day of sorrow and dread; April 15th can be a day of happiness and light.  Stop with the insane laughter; I’m not kidding!  Let’s see some ways you can celebrate the day you help the government with the money it needs to provide for the public defense, create a social safety net and, um, build bridges to nowhere.  (Hey, I’ll be the first to admit that not every government expenditure is an intelligent and well-thought out measure.)  To celebrate April 15th, you could…

#10. File an Income Tax Extension: Hey, I understand; life gets busy and you might need some more time to organize your tax forms.  If so, you can fill out the IRS’s form 4868 to get another six months (until October 15th) to finish filling out and mailing your tax forms.  (Be aware, though, that the extension only applies to the tax paperwork; you still need to send in your tax payment by today or face stiff penalties.  This is why ‘file for an extension’ isn’t the first suggestion in every tax advice column; unless you have a good idea of what you’ll owe and are ready to pay it, it could make a bad situation even worse.)

#9. Plan How to Use Your Refund: If you are in line to get a refund (I am, at least from the federal government, thanks in part to the ‘Making Work Pay’ tax credit), one way to make Tax Day more palatable is to think about what you’re going to do with that refunded money.  Building up an emergency fund, kick starting your retirement investments, perhaps even having a little fun (with part of it, at least); all good choices for using YOUR money.

#8. Tweak Your Withholding: Alright, this might not seem very celebratory, but if you got an over large refund (a sign that you have let the government withhold too much for taxes) or worse, ended up owing a substantial amount of money (withholding too little), adjusting the amount you have withheld from your paycheck will make your 2010 taxes much easier to handle.

#7. (Belatedly) Celebrate Tax Freedom Day: For those of you not in the know, Tax Freedom Day is the day when the average person has earned enough to meet their tax obligations; from that point on, the money you earn is yours to keep.  This year it fell on April 9th, nearly a week ago.  So, drink a belated toast that you’re now working for yourself and not the government from this point on.

#6. Enjoy Some Tax Day Freebies: Now we’re talking!  Because corporations know what a pain Tax Day can be (and are usually good at promotion whenever they get the opportunity), there are plenty of freebies to had today, from cupcake bites at Cinnabon to cookies at Subway.  A few sweets should make the taxes go down easier.

#5. Find a Tax Day Celebration: You’re not alone; there are few people who enjoy Tax Day.  Luckily, with so many people trying to put it behind them, there are frequently some good celebrations to be had as everyone celebrates getting their taxes out of the way for another year.   A quick search of your town (or a nearby urban area) and ‘Tax Day Celebrations’ could turn up any number of fun and relaxing events; a school of massage is apparently offering free massages in Pittsburgh, for example.  As for some other social options…

#4. Watch (or Attend) the Tea Party Protests: This year, there’s going to plenty of fireworks (of a metaphorical kind, at least) as the Tea Party protesters are planning to stage another protest in Washington (with plenty of affiliated protests around the country) to advocate for less government and lower taxes.  It’s probably too late to get to Washington for the protests (or the nearly inevitable counter protests) but given how colorful these protests and counter-protests can get, it should provide some good entertainment on the evening news, if nothing else.

#3. Even More Tax Days Offers: The list of Tax Day promotions is even longer than I thought.  The Bargainist has a few more Tax Day bargains, from a free massage at Hydromassage (apparently a sizable number of people think you’ll need a massage after paying your taxes; they might be right…) to gift card bonuses at T.G.I.Friday’s.  (It’s also worth mentioning that McDonald’s is running a special on hamburgers and cheeseburgers from 5 to 7 p.m.  This isn’t a tax thing, though; it’s celebrating the anniversary of McDonald’s founding.  Still, if you get a hankering for a burger today…)

#2. Read A Good Book: One of the easiest, most enjoyable, and (at least to me) most fun ways to take your mind off your troubles (or tax related burnout) is to read a good book, preferably something happy and humorous.  The last thing you may want to do is to read a book about government when you’ve so recently paid your taxes, but if you want a funny take on what the Feds will do with your money, consider reading Parliament of Whores by P.J. O’Rourke or America (The Book) from Jon Stewart and the cast of the Daily Show.  Both are hilarious looks at how the government works (or doesn’t work) that will have you laughing out loud.  (Until you realize how true they really are and start to cry…)

And the best way to celebrate Tax Day 2010…

#1. Enjoy Yourself: Tax Day is here, the months (or weeks, days, or maybe even hours, for procrastinators or the highly efficient) of gathering paperwork, staring at nigh incomprehensible forms, and filling out your taxes have ended, the paperwork has been filed, and you’re free from worrying for a while, at least.  Relax, kick back, and enjoy being free from worries about taxes until next year (or at least for several months, if you filled for an extension).  You’ve done your part to keep the country chugging along; now, just rest for a while, maybe enjoy some of the aforementioned freebies, and above all, have a great April 15th, everyone!

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(Inspired by this post from Punch Debt in the Face, wherein he writes a note to his future self, I’ve decided to do the same, and address myself ten years into the future.  The Fuuuuuu-tuuuuure!  *Waves my arms around to indicate that we’re traveling into the future.*)

Hey, 37 year old Roger,

Look at you, rocking middle age.  Or have life-extending treatments advanced so much that you’re still considered a young whippersnapper? Regardless, you’re probably married, with children, hopefully with a well-established career and free of all the worries and doubts that seem to plague me, your younger self.

I have so many questions I wish I could ask you…What kind of job do you have?  What kind of house do you live in?  Are you still blogging?  Is anyone still blogging, or  did blogging get replaced by some other method of communication, like live Internet ?  What are the computers like?  Have you become part machine?  Did the machines take over?  (It already seems that way, although if you remember back to 2010, they were largely idiotic.)  Has ANY of the cool technology that sci-fi writers have been promising us since the 1950′s come to pass, or am still waiting on my flying car, fusion generator, and vacations to Saturn’s rings?

I could go on, but unfortunately, this is probably going to be a one way communication.  (Although, if you got your hands on a time machine, you could send me a list of advice; or better yet, come back, pick me up, and we could visit my seventeen year-old self and give him some food for thought.)  Just because I can’t get messages from you, though, doesn’t mean I can’t share some thoughts with you.  So here’s my advice to you, my ten-years-into-the-future self:

1) Love Your Wife: If all goes according to plan, you should be gearing up to celebrate your eighth wedding anniversary with Sondra in 2020 (on Halloween, if she has her way on the wedding date).  Remember to love her and cherish her every day, and be sure to tell her whenever possible.  Be sweet, loving, and kind, just as you always wanted to be.

2) Love Your Children: Again, if all goes according to plan, you should have had the one or two sweet little girls you and Sondra are hoping for well before 2020.  Of course, given your luck and the tendency for unexpected things to happen, you’re probably raising an entire basketball team’s worth of rowdy, sports-loving boys.  In any event, I hope that you remember to love and cherish them as the wonderful gifts that they really are.  (No matter how crazy they may drive you some of the time.)

3) Enjoy Your Work: I’m not sure at all what kind of work you’ll be doing.  Maybe you’re continuing to work in the Quality Control field I got into; maybe you’ve managed to turn The Amateur Financier into a financial dynamo and excellent source of money; maybe you are a successful businessman in some other field.  So many different possibilities to explore; that’s why I have to remind you that if you aren’t enjoying your work, you shouldn’t keep doing the same old thing.  Life is too short for you to do something you hate; there’s plenty of opportunities, and you should take advantage of them.

4) Give to Charity: It’s probably too much to hope for that in a mere decade or so, all forms of human and animal suffering have ceased to exist.  (Although, I’m perfectly willing to be pleasantly surprised on this point.)  If not, I hope that you’ve been steadily giving to those who need the money more than you.  You are very, very lucky, although it might not always seem that way, and giving what you can, when you can, is good for yourself as well as others.

5) Lead a Happy Life: This should, I hope, go without saying, but sometimes the struggle and hassle of day to day life is such that we forget to enjoy ourselves along the way.  No matter what the future looks like, you have plenty to celebrate and enjoy, from good friends to loving family.  Just take a few moments every day to reflect on how fortunate you are, and remember to laugh as often as possible.

That’s it, my future self.  I hope that all of this advice is stuff that you’ve already been doing for the past ten years and have committed to heart half a decade ago, but even if so, it’s worth repeating them to remind yourself (or myself, I suppose) of how good life actually is.  Good luck, my future self, and keep working well!

Roger (Age 27)

P.S. If you want to show your gratitude for all the helpful tips, a return note with next week’s lottery numbers would be appreciated.  You know, just a friendly thank you between two versions of the same guy, that kind of thing.

P.P.S. Unless doing so would get you in trouble with the Time Police; I don’t want you to spend time (heh!) in a time jail because of something I will have had done in the future.

P.P.P.S. Unless the Time Police don’t give a care (or don’t exist); in that case, send those numbers on back!

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Previously, on Wacky Wednesday…You know what?  No, we’re not going back to the future this week.  Instead, we’re going to take a little break and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the finest Irish tradition.  No, not drunk and singing in the local pub; catching a leprechaun!

So, you’ve finally sat down and figured out your finances, and it looks like you need a miracle to make ends meet.  No, scratch that; a miracle is far too subtle a word for what you need.  You need a sizable amount of pure magic squeezed into the shape of a funny little man wearing green clothing.

You’ve probably guessed it by now, but this week, we’re looking into how to hunt leprechauns!  (I only put it in the title and mentioned it in the introduction; how many more hints do you need?)  Now, these little buggers are diabolically tricky to catch, and leprechaun traps aren’t exactly sold in the corner store, so you’re going to need to follow these steps exactly:

1) Get thee to Ireland: While leprechauns can be found anywhere that the children of the Emerald Isle call home (and occasionally, wherever people wear ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ shirts as a way to get some first base action), the largest number can still be found in their native land.  If you want the best chance of catching one (or more), you’ll need to get to Ireland as soon as possible.

2) Find a Good Hunting Ground: With so few reported leprechaun sightings, it’s difficult to get an exact bead on where they might be located.  It is worth remembering that besides being known for hiding gold and an inexplicable fondness for children’s cereals, leprechauns are cobblers, first and foremost.  Find somewhere with plenty of handmade shoes (try an old-fashioned shoe store), and you’ve got a good start on finding your leprechaun.

3) Creating a Trap: Are you supernaturally strong, fast, and otherwise physically adept?  If not, then you’ll probably want to set a trap rather than try to catch one of the wily buggers on your own.  There are plenty of sites that claim to show you how to build a leprechaun trap, but don’t believe them; if you knew how to catch a magical, gold-hoarding creature, would you reveal the secret?  On that note, my suggestion is a non-lethal, catch and release trap of some kind; you want something that will capture the leprechaun without killing or seriously hurting the little person.

4) Bait the Trap: Here’s the tough part (well, one of many, I suppose): how do you entice a centuries-old, frail looking, miniature fairy man whose biggest hobbies are making shoes, hoarding treasure, and drinking punks like you under the table?  Gold is a popular suggestion, but then, if you had a chunk of gold just sitting around, you wouldn’t need a leprechaun, would you?  For better luck, try using some postcards by Amy Brown or Nene Thomas; if pictures of scantily clad fairy girls don’t get your leprechaun’s attention, I don’t know what will.

5) Success! - If you followed the first several steps, it should just be a matter of time before a leprechaun falls for your trap; if you took my advice on the type of bait to use, listen for a wolf whistle followed by a lot of cursing in Gaelic to indicate that its sprung successfully.  Congratulations, you’ve caught a leprechaun!

Now, you have to be very, very, VERY careful from this point on; leprechauns, like all fairy folk, are diabolically tricky, and will use every attempt to escape.  You need to (carefully) remove him from the trap, while keeping a tight (but careful) grip on him to prevent him from escaping.  There’s a number of issues you’ll need to be concerned with while you try to get the truth out of your leprechaun captive, including:

• The leprechaun may offer you a gold or silver coin from his pocket in lieu of taking you to his treasure.  DON’T DO IT!  The coins he carries with him are magic and not for human use (the silver coin returned to his pocket each time it is spent, the gold coin turns into a rock).
• Don’t accept his ‘treasure’ at face value, either; it might be ‘leprechaun gold’, which will disappear at dawn.  Keep a good grip on the little sprite until you’ve ensured that the gold is real.
• You have to keep an eye on the leprechaun, as well; the moment you blink or otherwise turn away, he’ll flee away with the speed of a rabbit.  For that reason, it’d be good to work with one or more partners and practice blinking in turn; that way, there will always be at least one of you looking at the leprechaun.
• When it comes down to it, there’s only one really, truly good way to ensure that you get what you want out of a leprechaun, and that is… hunh?  What did you say?

DID YOU JUST LOSE THE LEPRECHAUN?

How’d that happen?  Never mind, what’s done is done; I was afraid of this happening, anyway.  Of course, the next step is the same whether you were successful or not:

6) Go to the Pub and Have a Few Drinks: So, you had the leprechaun, but you ended up losing it.  Or maybe you successfully managed to get a hold of the pot of gold and want to go out and celebrate.  Either way, the next place you should go is to the nearest pub.  A nice, stiff drink will ease your sorrows, while buying a round for the house is a great way to celebrate your new fortune.  If you do get the leprechaun gold, though, be careful of people offering to watch the pot for you while you hit the head; they might be genuine, but they could also be thieves (or even the wee folk, reclaiming what’s theirs).

Note: As you might have guessed; this post was entirely tongue in cheek.  It’s just a little something to have some fun.  No offense was meant to anyone, human, leprechaun, or scantily clad fairy girl.  Have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!

Shout Outs I Missed

As I was going over my list of links yesterday, I realized that I missed a few people who took the time to promote my blog.  Since I always try to return a favor like that (when I’m aware of it, at least; sometimes these things are never brought to my attention), here’s their shout outs:

Money Beagle (a blog title that makes me think of Snoopy) mentioned my Aesop post in an article about not spending money to save money.

Also, I did a guest post on ways to preserve your emergency fund, which was posted on a snazzy looking new site, Cash Flow Sherpas.  Give it (the article, and the site) a look.

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Time for a quick quiz.  Tell me what cell phone company will charge the least amount to use their services.  You have one minute…and go!

*Waits patiently for one minute*

Time’s up!  What did you come up with?  Assuming you gave this some serious thought, you probably realized that coming up with an answer depends on a lot of information I didn’t share with you.  How many people on the plan, how often they talk, when they make most of their calls (during business hours or outside normal business times), and where in the world the other people you usually call are located; any or all of these things could impact which plan would be the cheapest.

Even knowing all those factors, however, is no guarantee that you will find the most cost effective choice for cell phone service.  That’s because cell phone companies, realizing that few people, if any, can tell the difference in cell phone service well enough to make a choice based on the service provided, have taken the tactic of trying to confuse costumers on the price in order to stay in business.  If they didn’t, the price of cell phone service would drop to the cost of providing it, and all but the biggest company (perhaps two or three) would be forced out of the market (that’s economies of scale at work).

Sadly, this is the most accurate book about the future I've ever read

Instead, cell phone companies have effectively created their own ‘confusopolies‘.  I wish I could claim credit for creating that term, but it was first coined by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, in the 1998 book The Dilbert Future.  Here’s how he described the confusopoly of the future:

“A group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse costumers instead of competing on price.”

Basically, any group of companies that produce a product indistinguishable to the average user (because it has no taste, odor, texture, or other easily measurable attributes) could form a confusopoly.  Cell phone service is one obvious example; unless your company is constantly dropping your calls or otherwise making the service unusable, it’s hard to distinguish between the average, the good, and the great.

Other companies that provide near identical service, particularly information and financial companies, can also form confusopolies.  Internet service, online banking, and investing firms are all services that are hard to distinguish based purely on the quality of service; you can execute stock purchases just as easily with eTrade, Sharebuilder, or Charles Schwab.  Rather than competing to the ‘best’, they instead focus on confusing the consumer, or taking a divide and conquer approach by focusing primarily on different segments of the market.  (So Sharebuilder focuses on mutual fund-style investing, eTrade touts themselves to active traders, and Charles Schwab provides access to a stock broker, for example)

Defend Yourself From the Confusopolies

With confusion becoming a more popular method of gaining and keeping costumers and more types of types of businesses that form natural confusopolies coming into existence, how can you protect yourself?  Here’s a few hints to get the most out of the companies you use:

1) Know yourself and your needs: As mentioned, one common tactic for confusopolies is to focus on subsets of the population, and competing on one or two issues that appeal most to that group (as opposed to everyone who needs the service in some form).  When choosing a cell phone company, for example, try to take advantage of plans that will benefit you the most.  If you (or someone in your family) texts constantly, a plan that allows unlimited texts could be the best option for you, while if you only talk on your phone (a novel idea, I know) a completely different plan would be the least expensive.

2) Take Advantage of the Competition: Many companies in fields where confusopolies are rampant provide bonuses to encourage people to use their services.  (Frequently the goal is to get you to sign on due to the low rates and keep paying when the rate eventually shoots up due to mental initial.)  As a result, if you keep on top of your plans and switch when your rates are about to shoot up (or when you are about to run out of free stock trades, or whatever introductory specials are being offered), you can take advantage of their generosity and keep your costs low.  (Provided, of course, that the transaction costs of switching are low; swapping mortgage providers every few years is unlikely to save you any money unless the differences in rates offered is substantial.)

3) Don’t Panic: It’s good advice in general, but in this case it’s especially appropriate.  While you shouldn’t just rest on your laurels, the endless pursuit of the absolute lowest priced service is only going to eat up time and possibly drive you insane.  If you have a cell phone provider, stock broker, and internet company that provide good service for a reasonable rate, you don’t need to switch constantly to save a few dollars.  Just relax, enjoy the service, and keep an eye out for better offers, but don’t feel the need to spend every weekend combing through offers for the services you need.

There you have it, three simple steps to keep confusopolies from taking advantage of you (and allowing you to take advantage instead).  Keep an eye out, as they’re only going to increase in number as a result of ever lowering barriers to entry.  Have fun trying to out confuse the confusopolies!

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Previously, when Wednesday last got Wacky: You found yourself stranded two hundred years in the future, after a time travel money making scheme went awry.  The good: your investment grew into a multi-billion dollar fortune.  The bad: thanks to higher than expected inflation, that’s less than the typical fast-food worker earns in the course of a year.  The ugly: any attempt to withdraw the money in order to travel back in time (and not invest the money in the first place) causes the money to disappear (something about causality and other things that sound like they should be part of a Star Trek plot line).  What will you do now?

You stare at the ATM for a while, watching as your money blinks in and out of existence while you consider withdrawing it, lamenting the quirks of time travel.  You finally consign yourself to staying in the future (or your new present; you make a brief mental note to invest in a dictionary that will give you some words to describe your new situation).

After withdrawing your entire fortune, a few thousand Reagans (million dollar bills; the basic unit of currency in an over-inflated future), you try to figure out where to go from here.  After making one last attempt to spend this money on a rental time machine (you swear you hear Reagan laughing at you as he briefly blinks out of existence before reappearing), you resign yourself to your fate: working in the 23rd century, at least long enough to earn money to travel back to your own time.

First, though, you need someplace to live, and probably some food, too.  Actually, to judge from the gurgling in your stomach, it’s probably best to go for the food first, and then try to find some lodging.  Luckily, there’ s a little food stand not that far from the time travel company.  Unluckily, it seems that only food products that aren’t insanely expensive are food pellets.

You try to ask, in the coolest way possible, just how many pellets you need to consume in order to stay alive, and find out that you hold a month’s worth of food in the palm of your hand.  Provided you have a hand the size of a shopping cart; it turns out that there’s only so far you can compress the 2,000 some calories, numerous vitamins and minerals, several grams of fiber and assorted flavorings and preservatives you need to consume each day before physics says you have to stop.  You buy enough pellets to last a week or two, fork over a goodly amount of Regans, and pray that you don’t turn into a hamster before you finally make it back to your original time.

Then it’s off to find a place to live.  You don’t need anything too grand; you literally don’t own anything but the clothing on your back and the supply of pellets you just bought.  You manage to find a perfect place for your base of operations; a sleep tube at a hotel that’s half a meter (20 inches) wide, half a meter tall, and 2 meters (80 inches) deep (the ‘Presidental’).  Not much space, granted, but it gives you a place to sleep.

Then comes the real trouble: finding a job.  You think about your line of work before traveling to the future, but that’s probably out.  Your field has probably advanced so far that you would barely understand what was happening.  Much as an eighteenth century doctor who awoke in the twenty century would wonder where you kept the ether and the leeches, there would be almost no way you could simply pick up as, say, an electrical engineer and start working.

Of course, that leaves one very undesirable career path for you: minimum wage jobs.  Not the most appealing possibility, but you have to do what you need to do.  Figuring that fast food would be a good start when looking for a job that doesn’t require crazy twenty-third century skills.  It’s a nice thought, but fast food, like much of society, has gone mechanical: all the prep work, and even the serving, is handled by robots.  Clown robots.

DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?

After feeling the first sting of rejection, and worrying that you will have nightmares for years, you seek other employment.  You try to find a decent sales job; surely, the techniques for trying to move product can’t have changed that much.  Schmooze, be personable, and push the products.  Yup, that’s the ticket.

Unfortunately, years of (over)exposure to high pressure sales tactics, constant bombardment of advertisements, and of course, lots of advance on fighting temptation have rendered most traditional advertisements useless.  In their stead, a new technique has risen to prominence: mind control!  Yup, rather than subtly (well, at least by comparison) trying to influence your decisions, advertisers took the path of least resistance and started to force consumers to purchase their products.  Of course, with hundreds of different corporations throwing conflicting subliminal messages, the end result is about as effective as twenty-first century pop-up ads (and just as concerning to the average citizen).  Just to be safe, you resolve to avoid all media until you’re safely back home.

You finally find a job, at a pet salon.  Too bad all the animals are intelligent.  It’s incredibly disconcerting to be berated by a dog for screwing up a nail clipping, or mocked by a bird for a bad feather comb-over, or insulted by a cat for improper grooming techniques (actually, considering how cats normally are, that’s not too surprising).  Still, you muddle through, doing your best to save up money for a return to the past, promising yourself that you’ll never, ever, EVER get a talking pet again.

Will you make it through your job without going insane?  How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if he could spend all his time gossiping instead?  Will Roger finally allow you to get out of the future in the next episode?  (Answer: HAHAHAHAHAHA!)  Tune in next time to find out!

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I’m a mood that combines playfulness with nostalgia.  I think it’s because I’m currently back home and have a job interview today, so I’m both happy and thinking about my past.  I’ve been thinking a bit lately about some of the stories and fables I was told as a child.

So today, let’s have some fun with some of the most famous of Aesop’s fables, and see how we can apply the lessons found within to our personal finance situations.  After all, these are stories that I (like many of you, I’m sure) have heard since I was young.  Let’s go on a trip down memory lane and see what we can learn about money management from good old Aesop.

1) Fable Name: The Ant and the Grasshopper

Short and Sweet Summary: There was once an ant and a grasshopper.  (Good start, no?)  The grasshopper laughed, frolicked and played the days away, while the ant diligently spent his time during summer and fall gathering up extra food.  The grasshopper laughed at all this effort; why gather food when there was such an abundance all around them?  When winter came, though, the grasshopper found himself out of food while the ant had plenty, and the grasshopper comes to realize the folly of his short-sighted ways.

A hardworking ant, possibly working hard

(Depending on what version you read and the particular message the author is trying to push, the final fate of the grasshopper and the ant (or ants, in some versions) can vary.  In the most traditional versions, the grasshopper dies from starvation.  Since this doesn’t make the most child-friendly ending, in many cases he gets food from the ant, usually in exchange for providing some service or at least promising not to be as lazy in the future.  There are also plenty of more politicized versions, having the grasshopper suing the ant and taking his hard-earned food (to send up socialist/communist worldviews) or attacking the ant for being so stingy (to attack those who hoard wealth).  For our purposes, we can end the story once the grasshopper realizes the error of his ways.)

General Moral: Prepare today for lean times tomorrow.  Also, if an ant and a grasshopper both offer you financial advice, go with the ant.

Financial Moral: Pretty much the same as the general moral; be sure to stock up on money (or other supplies, etc.) while you have the opportunity, particularly if you know the lean times will be coming.  Replace ‘winter’ with retirement, ‘food’ with money, and ‘ant’ with anyone who didn’t get a trust fund for their 16th birthday, and you have a pretty good plan for saving for your golden years in our ‘fund your own retirement’ economy.

2) Fable Name: The Tortoise and the Hare

Short and Sweet Summary: A tortoise and a hare have a race because the hare was talking smack about the tortoise’s mama (or possibly just called the tortoise slow).  During the race, the hare takes an early lead, getting so far ahead that he decides to take a nap (or goes off to play keno, depending on the version of the tale).  While the hare is distracted, the tortoise slowly but steadily catches up, and then overtakes him.  By the time the hare wakes up (or gets kicked out the of the casino due to his bad credit), there’s no way for him to beat the tortoise.  Victory to the slow guy with the shell!

General Moral: Slow and steady wins the race, OR don’t take a nap until you finish the darn race.

Financial Moral: Pretty much the same as the general moral (the one about slow and steady winning in the end, not the napping one).  A decent to good financial plan, implemented over the course of a lifetime, will be much more effective at boosting your net worth than a great financial plan you only follow off and on.  (Note: you should not take the lesson that betting on a long shot in a race is a good way to improve your financial security; they’re long shots for a reason, and no every gamble will pay off in the end.)

3) Fable Name: The Dog and the Bone (noticing a pattern to these names yet?)

Short and Sweet Summary: A dog goes walking alone with a bone in his mouth.  He looks down into a still pool of water, and sees another dog looking back at him, also with a bone in his mouth.  Getting greedy as he looks at the other dog’s bone, and thinking that the other dog looks like a bit of a push over, our first dog opens his yap and barks at the second dog.  His bone drops into the water, disappearing under the waves, leaving the dog (and his reflection) without any bones at all.

Pictured: Dog; Not Shown: Lost Bone

General Moral: If you get greedy, you risk what you already have.  Also, mirrors can steal your soul (or at least, confuse you, if you happen to be a dog).

Financial Moral: Let’s quote another source of great wisdom, Warren Buffet: ‘Rule #1: Never lose money.  Rule #2: Never forget Rule #1.’  As with bones, so it is with money; it’s much easier to keep what you already have then it is to earn more.  If you get greedy and try for excessive gains, you can end up losing what you already have.  (Add in the number of scams and other simply fraudulent ways people will try to get your money, and the importance of keeping what you have comes into sharp relief.)  Invest smartly and don’t try to shoot for the moon with your returns, and you’ll have a much better shot at growing your wealth and adding to your supply of bones (or cash, if you prefer that type of thing).

4) Fable Name: The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs (just like that, the pattern is gone)

Short and Sweet Summary: A farmer and his wife (I picture them as Ma and Pa Kent from the Superman comics, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what Aesop intended) discover that they have a goose who lays golden eggs.  After a few days of enjoying the bounty this goose puts out, they get impatient, and slaughter the goose to get all the golden eggs at once.  Alas, once the goose is dead, they find no golden eggs inside, and realize that they’ve just killed a source of great wealth.

General Moral: Greed and impatience destroy wealth.  Also, geese aren’t filled with all the eggs they’ll ever lay (at least, not in fully developed form).

Financial Moral: As usual, the general moral can be pretty easily applied to the personal finance; get greedy and it’ll backfire on you.  This is most apparent when looking at your nest egg (an apt term for a waterfowl based fable); if you start with a small, safe withdraw rate when you retire, your nest egg will have the chance to grow, continuing to generate more money (golden eggs) for your spending pleasure.  Pull out too much of your money in the first few years, and watch as your nest egg quickly withers away, and you spend your retirement years desperately searching for more money (or a goose that lays golden eggs).

Alright, that’s enough nostalgia for one day; hopefully, there’s plenty of stories mentioned here that spark a few memories of your own childhood, and maybe, just maybe, remind you of a

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Previously, in our Wacky Wednesday hi-jinks: You’ve rented a time machine and attempted to profit by investing money and coming back two hundred years later to spend the profits.  The plan worked; your measly one thousand dollars had become more than 4.8 BILLION dollars; unfortunately, inflation has taken such a toll that this amount is about the cost of a used hovercar.  (“The Pinto Mark XIII, now with non-exploding hoverpods!”)  It takes several Reagans (one million dollar notes, so named for the late twentieth century president on their front; whether this is an honor or an insult, you don’t yet know) just to buy a cup of coffee.  Realizing your error, you run back towards your DeLorean shaped time machine, only to find it being towed away…

You wave and shout to get the tow truck men to stop, but they give you a dismissive shrug, make a few comments about ‘work is work’, and continue to haul away your only way to get home.  Eventually, your shouts and curses, (and the tears welling up in your eyes) convince the driver of the hover tow truck thing to give you a lift back to the rental place.

As you climb into the cab of the hovering tow truck, you wonder why everything in the future seems to be hovering.  After that, you wonder what you should do from here.  You don’t have much more money (adjusted for inflation) than you had back in early twenty-first century, but you’re in the FUTURE!  You could go on adventures on the moon or join a Star Fleet crew, visit strange solar systems, and sleep with green women (or men; far be it from me to judge you).

As thoughts of space flight and glorious science fiction adventures dance through your head, you look out the window to get a better view of this strange, new world.  You’re greeted by a bunch of billboards (floating, of course; you wonder if there was a law passed in the twenty second century that absolutely everything had to float or what).  After adjusting your eyes to the garishly designed billboards, you manage to make out some of the things being advertised.

The first sign you make out seems a bit odd; non-artificial strawberries on sale, 500 grams for 200 Reagans.  You’re still getting used to this whole future currency, and the metric system always gave you trouble (and you don’t even want to guess what the whole ‘non-artificial’ comment means), but it sounds as if a carton of strawberries is selling for the 2010 equivalent of two hundred dollars.  They certainly sound rather precious.

A few more billboards continue to erode your confidence that this is not the fantastic future for which you were hoping.  An assortment of ‘food pills’, living tubes with huge monthly rents, and ads for ‘One of the Last Remaining Forests’ make the future seem less utopia and more distopia.  It isn’t until you see the billboard for ‘Soylent Green’ that you finally decide you’re much better off back in the past.  You’re not sure if it’s some kind of twenty-third century joke or truth in advertising run amok, but you sure as hell don’t want to find out.

Now that you’ve decided to go back, you try to figure out how you can still profit off of time travel.  Clearly, depending on interest alone isn’t going to be enough to make you rich with no effort, so you may as well as see if there’s any way to make a Reagan or two off of your next time machine rental.

Unfortunately, most of the easiest ideas that pop into your mind just won’t work.  Trying to set up your own time travel travel agency would require a lot of work; getting the needed permits from the Time Police alone could take hours.  Ditto for exchanging products across time; while selling strawberries (and other natural products) in the future sounds like a great way to make money, you can’t imagine nobody else would try it if it was allowed.

Your mind briefly goes toward the idea of gambling.  While most forms of gambling disappeared shortly after time machines began being used commercially (the one casino that remained open was the site of the famous ‘Trump Debacle’; nearly one billion dollars won by ‘gamblers’ armed with future knowledge in the course of one day, leading to lawsuits for decades), there’s still the chance of passing information about future events to yourself before they went mainstream.  It’s just a matter of getting by those Time Police.  But come on, they can’t be everywhere (or everywhen) right?

You finally settle on your plan as you pull into the time machine rental place; travel back in time, pull your money out of the investment that got overtaken by inflation, pass it to another version of yourself along with some hints about future sporting events, and then distract the Time Police elsewhere.  Maybe you can try to kill Hitler; that always gets their attention.

You settle on your plan, and go up to the debit machine to pull out your money, to find that your account balance is empty.  Thinking it must be some horrible mistake, you vow to stay in the future just long enough to complain to your broker, when the full amount reappears in the account.  Still confused, but rather happy, you go to pull the money out again, when once again, it disappears without a trace.

Bewildered, you wonder just what’s wrong with the machine for a moment before it hits you; there’s nothing wrong with the machine, there’s a flaw in your plan: if you take the money out in the past, it won’t be available for you to use now in the future.  The only way you can have the money now is if you don’t travel back to take it out.  Frak!

How can you get around this paradox?  Will you be stuck in the future forever?   Does Roger like asking rhetorical questions as a way to wrap up these articles?  (Answer: Heck Yes)  Stay tuned next week (or the week after if I get busy again) for the next exciting chapter!

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(As part of my attempts to ‘loosen up’ while blogging, I’ve decided to make my posts on Wednesdays into more humorous affairs.  It’ll be the perfect way to get over the hump while still learning a thing or two about money and personal finance.  Have fun while we discuss a perfectly legitimate (if rather far fetched) way to make a huge personal fortune.)

Let’s say you have a time machine.  No, don’t ask where you got it; that’ll just spoil all the fun.  How about we say that you got it at the local Doc Brown’s Time Machine and Mr. Fusion Emporium?  (Editor’s Note: I’m the first in line for a franchise when they start to expand.)

Once you’ve finished warning your past self of all the mistakes that you’ve made and how to avoid them, you’re both delighted and surprised to discover that you haven’t faded away after altering the flow of time.  (Or maybe your past self just didn’t listen; make a mental note to find a time when you weren’t out partying during which to pass on vital future information.)  You still have one trip left on the time machine before you have to return it, though, so what should you do now?

"Hi, I'm Marty McFly, and I'll be your chauffer for the evening." (c) Universal Picture

That’s when you have a brilliant plan; take advantage of compound interest to make yourself a billionaire in the future!  Yes, all you need to do is put aside a small amount of money now, allow it to grow for a few centuries, and you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams.  It’s the same principle of compound interest that inspires financial advisers to tell you to start investing early, but rather than waiting a few decades (and working the whole time to keep saving), you’ll simply skip ahead a few centuries and live like a king!  You’re not the first person to have this idea; it’s a concept known as the

Compound Interest Time Travel Gambit

and it’s been used in everything from Futurama to “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”.  If time makes your investments grow, than more time must make them grow even further, and centuries would allow you to become obscenely wealthy in the future with only a tiny amount of money invested now.

You make up your mind, pull all the money you have left after your time travel rental out of the bank (a full $1000) and after a little bit of research at the time travel office, invest it in a fund that looks to have good prospects over the next two centuries.  You hop in the time machine, set the chronometer for 200 years in the future, and the gun the gas to get up to 88 miles per hour…

BAM!  You’re on a road that hasn’t been used in over a century, since cars no longer need to drive on the ground.  You head over to your brokerage, to learn how your fund did.  Your broker pulls out your files (blowing the dust off them in a comical fashion), and with a little bit of checking on her computer, tells you that your balance is currently over four billion (yes, billion with a B) dollars.  (It’d be around $4,838,949,585 if compounded at 8% for 200 years, for those who like exact numbers.)

After you recover from your fainting spell, you tell your broker to cash some of the fund out, so you have some spending cash to enjoy this strange new world.  You remember that inflation has been active the years you’ve been gone; at an average rate of 3.5%, it’s going to take $1000 to have the same spending power as one dollar when you left.  So, with one thousand dollars being the new single, you decide to take out a healthy amount to ensure you have enough; “Give me one million dollars” you ask, smiling broadly as you do so.

Your broker raises an eyebrow, selling off a portion of your investment, and handing you a single bill (one with a picture of Ronald Wilson Reagan on the front, you note with a bit of nostalgia).  You’re a bit surprised, but when you see the ‘$1,000,000, Legal US Tender’ written on the back, you decide the government must have started issuing much higher denomination bills rather than revalue the currency.

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” your broker calls after you, a rather weird thing to say.  You see a nearby coffeehouse, and decide to have a quick drink.  You order your standard double foam, extra tall, mocha chocolate vanilla low-caffeine chive tea, and watch as the cashier rings it up.

“That’ll be five Reagans,” she says, waiting patiently for you to pay.  You hand her the bill, waiting for your change.  She sighs, “That’s one; four more, buddy.”

You stare at her a few moments before the truth dawns on you; inflation has taken more of a toll on the value of your money than you thought.  Whether because a few jags of hyperinflation during the time you were gone or because of a trend of long-term higher inflation, prices didn’t increase 1000-fold; no, the world experienced 1,000,000 fold price increases, a process known in books and movies as

Ridiculous Future Inflation

As Lazarus Long, one of Robert Heinlein’s characters put it, “$100, put at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years, will increase to $100,000,000 – by which time it will be worthless.”  (“Back to the Future” had an example that was even closer to home, predicting a Pepsi would cost $50 in 2015; if that comes to pass, I’ll be the first to admit that Obamanomics failed spectacularly.)  Cursing your lack of foresight (as well as wishing that you read/watched more science fiction before you went on your time travel jaunt), you head back towards your time machine, trying to think of how you can invest your money to become wealthy in the present (well, your present, which is currently the past…you know what, describing past, present and future when it comes to time travel gives me a headache).  But alas, your time machine is being towed; curses on repo men who can track you anywhere in the time!

Will you ever be able to get back to your own time?  How many Reagans will it take to rent a hotel room while you sort things out?  Will the Amateur Financier actually finish this story next week?  (Answer: Maybe)  Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of Wacky Wednesday!

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D’OH!  It’s one week before Christmas, and you haven’t started on your Christmas shopping yet?  Boy, are you going to be in trouble.  Luckily for you, I’m nearly done with my Christmas shopping, so I’ll take a little time and help you to get things ready.  (And by ‘nearly done’, I mean all my presents are bought, wrapped, and ready to go.  Well, except for a few I just bought yesterday, they still need to be wrapped. Alright, I still need to buy those few presents, as well… Once I get done with this, I might need to do a little shopping.)

Anyway, back to the subject of this entry: handling a lack of gifts on the biggest gift-giving holiday on the calendar.  Hopefully, you’re not panicking too much, as you still have most of a week to figure something out and get good gifts for everyone on your list.  The methods you have at your disposal include:

1) Buying the Gifts: In spite of what you might think, you can still order gifts online many places and have them arrive in time for Christmas.  Of course, the longer you wait to find that perfect gift for the people left on your list, the less time the packages will have to arrive; if you have any hope of getting the presents where they need to go in time, you should order now.

Pictured: Shoppers from last Christmas Season

For the truly last minute shopper, though, there’s no greater thrill than wading wallet first into the crowd at your local mall.  Do it today, and experience all the joy and wonder of getting yourself crushed into a small object the size of a sardine can.  Also, if you’re looking for Zhu Zhu pets, don’t bother; apparently, small animatronic hamsters are this year’s Tickle Me Elmo (or, if you prefer the classics, this year’s Cabbage Patch Dolls).  Assuming you make it out alive, and with a least a few functioning brain cells, it’s time to look at the next option on your list:

2) Make Something: If you build it, they will play.  At least, that’s the hope.  This technique will work best if (a) you are six years old, and every adult assumes that absolutely everything you create is freaking adorable, or (b) you happen to be an expert at some sort of craft.  Yes, if you are a skilled potter, sculptor or other artisan, the only worry you have is that it’s too late for you to get any good work done in time.  Oh, it is too late?  Well, welcome to the club, brother!

Assuming you want to plow ahead with making a present even if you aren’t that crafty, do yourself a favor and keep it simple, stupid.  This is not the time to experiment in exotic techniques like ‘rare earth metal kinetic sculpture’ or ‘furniture making’, but just stick to making something you know you can handle, like macaroni art.  Of course, if that’s ALL you can make, you might want to try my last suggestion:

3) Fake a Coma Through the Holidays: Alright, buying something didn’t work, and making things didn’t work.  How else can you make it through the holiday season with your dignity intact?  Why, faking an injury that causes you to drift into a coma, of course!  The best method is to have a bowling ball drop from a height sufficient to wound you and make you lose consciousness, but not to result in permanent injury.  It might take a few times, so start from a low height and work your way up.  When you wake up (ideally long enough after Christmas that nobody asks you where you put the presents, but not so long that it interferes with your professional or personal life), the holiday will be over, and you’ll have made it through without the need to buy any presents at all!

There, that should be enough to get you through the holiday gift-buying season relatively unscathed (except for that gaping head wound where the bowling ball hit).  Enjoy the tips, and have a happy holiday.

(A note to all the non-Christians out there: As children, you might have been annoyed at the fact that basically the whole month of December was devoted to a holiday you didn’t celebrate, where children other than you got toys.  I hope that, now that you are adults watching all the adults who celebrate Christmas drive themselves nuts trying to make the holiday perfect for their children, that you feel karma has justified your suffering.  Have a happy holiday season, and enjoy the Chinese restaurants on Christmas day; I hear they’re practically empty, and you should have your choice of seats.)

(Note: as mentioned in the title, this is humor.  Please, don’t go wounding yourself (or anything else crazy) just to avoid the holiday.  I was just trying to poke fun at the lengths to which last minute shoppers (including myself) in order to complete their shopping.  Don’t take this as an actual suggestion of how to handle your holiday shopping.)

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It’s Friday, the first Friday after Black Friday, no less.  With the end of the week upon us, allow me the luxury of getting a bit off topic.  I’m going to go over some advice offered by Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest men from the time of the founding of the United States of America.  It’s amazing how, more than two centuries after he wrote Poor Richard’s Alamanack, so much of Franklin’s advice is still relevant (if phrased a bit archaically).  What’s more amazing is how few people seem to follow his commonsense suggestions, even those who have heard these sayings before.  We’ll start with what is probably his most famous maxim:

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

The virtue of saving summed up in a mere seven words, Franklin pretty much says it all.  One of the fastest, easiest, and safest ways to increase the amount of money you have available is simply spend less, at least less than you take in.  Get a good handle on that, and the rest of this personal finance thing falls into place.

The Elder Statesman Himself

“Who is rich? He that rejoices in his Portion.”

Another one that still makes sense, it’s important to remember to be happy with what we have.  We can strive to improve our lives, of course, but being upset that others have more does nothing to improve our lives.  Plus, as Franklin was well aware, nobody is ever satisfied with their lot in life.

“The poor have little, Beggars none;
The rich too much, Enough not one.”

It’s a sad commentary on human psychology, but we are wired to never be satisfied with what we have in life.  We look at what other people have, we feel we don’t have enough, and we continue to strive to get more.  When we do get what we desire though, we find out that having money comes with its own set of problems.  Amazing the way things work themselves out.

“Work as if you were to live a hundred years,
Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.”

Franklin had a way with words; being prepared for any eventuality, whether you’ll live to a ripe old age (and need to survive off your savings and investments) or meet an unfortunate end (and leave your survivors to make a living without you), you need to be prepared.  Hard work and prayer will help to cover your bases, as will saving for retirement and getting insurance (since some things have changed since Franklin’s time).

“He that would Fish, must venture his bait.”

A somewhat longer, more old timey way of saying ‘Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained’.  If you’re hoping to get something (say, a fish), you’ll have to risk something of yours for the opportunity (say, a worm).  The same with investing: you can’t make a profit without the potential of losing your investment.  It’s just the way of the world.

Now to end on a much happier note…

“Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

This one is only attributed to Franklin, but it is one of the best quotations I’ve ever heard.  Remember the simple pleasures in life, and be sure to enjoy the drinks!

(The Benjamin Franklin quotations and picture  taken from The Electric Benjamin Franklin)

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By the time you read this, Halloween will have come and gone.  Hopefully, everyone had a great holiday, with plenty of candy, creative costumes, and scares.  (The good kind of scares, not ones that involve running out of candy as a gang of miniature hoodlums comes knocking on your door.)

There is something about Halloween that seems to bring out the kid in everyone.  Or at least, the childlike thrill of becoming someone, being able to step outside yourself and take on a new persona, act and react in ways that you normally couldn’t.  I don’t know what it is exactly; my best guess is that we all, regardless of how much we love our lives, occasionally want to see how the other half lives.  If the other half happens to be a vampire who’s ready to drain the blood of innocent maidens or handsome rakes, well, all the better then.

Psychologically, the idea of wish-fulfillment and unconscious desires made into a reality is wonderfully inspiring.  Add in the types of costumes chosen (sexy and seductive roles for the women, powerful predators for the men, figures of authority and control for the children) and the implications get even more profound.  Everyone can seize whatever is lacking in their own life and become something more.  That’s it; the true purpose of Halloween is nothing more than an id-releasing, ego-stroking, Freudian fantasy come to life!

Or maybe it’s all about the candy.

Candy: It's what's for dinner (for the next two weeks...)

Yup, definitely about the candy.  Happy Halloween!

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Well, I’m in a bit of a humorous mood today, so we’re going to do something a little different.  There are any number of weird and wacky words  and phrases that are used by investors to help describe the investment world.  You don’t normally think of investment bankers, accountants and others as the wild and crazy types, but they apparently have a pretty decent sense of humor when it comes to creating names to associated with the financial world.  Let’s take a look at some of them (courtesy of Investopedia)

Ankle Biter – A small cap stock, that is one with a market capitalization of less than $500 million.  The titans of Wall Street must have pretty high ankles if a company worth $500 dollars gets the same moniker as a 2-year-old toddler.

Black Knight – A company attempting a hostile takeover of another company.  A nicely descriptive phrase regarding how a targeted company will likely view the potential acquirer, conjuring up some potent imagery of invading hordes and kidnapping.  (Also, one of the nicknames that my Sondra uses for me.)

CNN Effect – The slowing of consumer spending during times of gripping news.  During a war or terrorist attack, people tend to be glued to the tube, trying to get all the latest news, before going back to their normal schedules..  I suppose nowadays it could be called the Fox News Effect or MSNBC effect, depending on your political leanings.

David Hasselhoff Index – A stock index of companies associated with David Hasselhoff, under the assumption that companies linked to him are more likely to be profitable. (Really?  Alright, we’ll run with it.)  Other related celebrity indexes include the Eva Longoria Index, the Lindsay Lohan Index, and the Paris Hilton Index.  (Again, I have to ask, really?)  All are based on the idea that companies linked to particular celebrities dervie some sort of unquantifiable benefit from the association.

Eat Your Own Dog Food - To use the products that your company produces.  If you’re a software company, for example, it means that your employees use your software in the course of their work.  It’s a good way to show confidence in your own products, but I have to ask: what do professional investors eat that ‘dog food’ is the food product that they chose for this expression?

Fool In the Shower – A central bank that doesn’t wait long enough for a stimulus action to work, increases the stimulus, and eventually ends up overshooting its goal.  Used by Milton Friedman, who used the allusion of a fool in a cold shower, who cranks the heat all the way up and ends up being scalded.  A good reminder that major policy changes take time to move through the economy.

Hot Waitress Economic Index – The theory that the more attractive waitresses there are, the worse the job market is doing (since attractive people have little trouble finding other work in good economic times.  So, if your waitress (or waiter; unlike Wall Street, I try not to discriminate) looks like a supermodel the next time you go out to eat, the downturn in jobs isn’t over yet.

Mad Hatter - A corporate executive who is considered incapable of leading the company.  One good warning is if he starts yelling out ‘Change Places’ at various points during a board meeting.

Samurai Market - Slang term for the Japanese Stock market; included here because I’ve been spending way too much time on the Financial Samurai’s website of late (and because, as my carnival on Monday should have indicated, I’m a bit of a Japan-ophile).  Similar to terms like ‘Yankee Market’ for the American stock market and ‘Bulldog Market’ for the British stock market.

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL) – A reminder that there is a cost to every decision we make, in terms of time, energy, or money.  Also, a reminder that nobody, with possible exception of your mother, will ever give you something with nothing expected in return.  (Also known as There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TINSTAAFL) for those who don’t like to use the word ain’t or have double negative in their phrases.  In either case, even the acronym is a mouthful.)

A Ton of Money – A lot of money; apparently, if you actually had enough one dollar bills to weigh one ton, it would add up to $908,000.  Personally, I would prefer a ton of twenties or hundreds, but even a ton of singles is a pretty hefty wad of money.

That’s all the definitions I have time to share; there’s plenty more to consider (and chuckle at) on Investopedia’s financial buzzwords list.

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