The Amateur Financier

Well, once again I’ve made the trek across the great state of Pennsylvania, this time for family reasons rather than work.  Yes, my godfather (the kindly, gift giving kind, not the running our family’s highly illegal crime syndicate kind) was born on August 1st, so I came back in order to more easily attend the party this Saturday.  It’s always good to help celebrate with your family, although these cross state trips are really starting to wear on me.

Still, it promises to be a fun time, and I do like my family for the most part.  Plus, it should be good practice for when I bring my fiancée out to visit; always good to get a refresher on the eccentricities of my family members before I subject her allow her to meet the crazies interesting people in my family.

Unfortunately, all the travel and time spent with my fiancée has left me with less time than usual for catching up on my blog reading.  Thank goodness for RSS Owl; otherwise I’d completely lose track of all the blogs I try to follow.  I’ve managed to catch some of the best posts each week using the feeds there.  Some of what I’ve found useful this past week includes:

What If There Was No Tomorrow? – Sometimes, you forget that on the other side of the computer screen, there are actual people who have lives outside of this computer screen.  It usually takes some big event to remind us that our fellow bloggers are mortal; earlier this week, Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money had a near death experience.  He nearly choked to death and thus had an epiphany about his life and how quickly it can end (as people tend to do in these situations.  Thankfully, he seems alright, and will be imparting some of the lessons he learned soon.

Chart Early Retirement – A good post from Luke Grand, writer of the new blog Cash Out Life, which focuses on preparing for an early retirement.  In this post, he suggests plotting your expenses, earned income, and passive income over the course of several months.  That way, you can see whether you are earning more than you spend and gauge when your passive income will become high enough to exceed your expenses.  It’s a pretty good exercise, one that can help you see where you finances currently stand.

What to Bring to College-College Survival Skills – Studenomics takes a new twist on the list of things to bring to college, collecting a list of four different skill sets you’ll need to survive college life.  I agree with all of them (particularly cooking and cleaning, an area in which college students tend to skimp) and would add good study habits, as well.

Save Money By Becoming An Organized Packer – Given how much I’ve had to carry from one side of Pennsylvania to the other in the past few weeks, any thoughts on how to be more efficient are welcome.  Luckily, on My Life ROI there are a fewer thoughts on how to make your travel a bit easier.  I’m especially fond of the reminder to Ziploc bag anything that might spill; after a bad situation with a left over milkshake on this last trip, I can definitely tell you it is no fun trying to clean up after a spill.

(Image taken from the Skate Ranch of Raleigh website)

Well, it’s time again to gather up some of the more interesting posts on the interwebs for a feature I like to call, Thoughtful Thursday Friday!  If you recall from yesterday (oh please, it was only a day ago; you can’t have forgotten that soon), I’ve been doing a lot of traveling this week.  I’m not a big fan of traveling, especially when it involves me driving a total of twenty-four hours in the course of this week, just going from my fiancee’s house to my mother’s house and back, twice.  (Yes, you heard that right: I’m going to spend the equivalent of a full solar day in the car this week to complete two round trips from one end of the state to the other.)

To add to my aggravation, I had an appointment with my doctor this afternoon to see if my ribs or any of the underlying organs were seriously damaged during my fall.  She didn’t think there was any problem (her comments amounted to, ‘if you’re still moving around alright and haven’t been vomiting blood all this past week, you probably aren’t seriously hurt), but she decided to send me in for a few tests anyway.  I ended up getting lost on the way to the hospital, missing the appointment her nurse got for me, going to the emergency room to get my CAT scan, and waiting in the waiting room for over two hours because she wrote out the prescription wrong.  (During the two hours, the emergency room staff were playing phone tag with my doctor’s office.)  Eventually, because my doctor could not be reached, I was sent home without getting the CAT scan (although, the tech at the hospital concurred with my doctor: with no more serious symptom than a few bruised ribs, I was unlikely to be in any health danger.)  All I can say is I can’t wait for digital health records to be commonplace; hopefully, being able to store and send my health information digitally could have prevented me losing so much time over a single missing word on a prescription.

But, I’m still trying to stay optimistic; the job interview I had today went pretty well (PeTA ended up causing my would-be employers to laugh), and I should be able to go back to stay with my loving girl (although, if I get this job, I’ll have to move out, yet again).  Plus, it’s that time of the week to catch up on some of the good posts that have appeared on the personal finance blogs:

Carnival of Personal Finance #214: United States Presidents Edition – I normally don’t mention carnivals on my Thoughtful Thursday posts; they are typically just a collection of links (not enough of which lead back to me), frequently presented without much thought or flare.  In this case, however, Stephanie of Poorer than You has gone to the trouble of matching each submission up to one of the past (or current) US Presidents, including putting up the official Presidential portrait of each one.  In short, this is a carnival as carnivals should be; go and support Miss Stephanie, and hopefully we can more beautiful looking carnivals like this in the future.

How Do You Want to Pay Taxes? – An interesting question posted by the Weaknomist.  Besides the obvious answers (Never, or if that’s not possible, as infrequently and as cheaply as possible), there’s a range of possibilities from a sales tax to an income tax to a hybrid system like we currently have.  Personally, I’d prefer consumption taxes (like a sales tax) over income taxes if possible, with refunds or other mechanisms to keep the system as progressive as we can make it.  But that’s just me.

Going Green: Costs Big Bucks, Returns Big Bucks – One of the biggest problems with going green (now that you are no longer automatically assumed to be a tree hugging ultra-vegetarian commune dweller for even bringing up the concept) is the sometimes large up-front costs you pay.  On My Life ROI, such costs are considered with an eye towards the money you could save by, say, suppling part of your electricity with solar panels or meeting LEED standards for energy efficiency.  Luckily for the would-be greenie, the large upfront costs can (usually) be made up with energy savings in the future, although you’ll have to consider your specific situation to see if this is right for you.

Checklist for College Freshmen: Dorm Room Essentials – A little bit of nostalgia for me, I suppose, thinking back to my college days.  Studenomics provides a list of things that an incoming freshman should bring, from hangers to sandals.  Take away the coffee maker, add in an alarm clock, clothing, bedding, and toiletries, and his list matches my supplies, and freshman year went pretty smoothly for me.

Oakland Almost Stumbles on California’s Budget Fix – Taxing medicinal marijuana.  As reported on Lazy Man and Money, Oakland has recently decided to start taxing medical marijuana to bring in increased revenue.  This led to a discussion of whether legalizing pot would be a good thing, economically and societally.  I generally think it would be; legalization, monitoring, and taxing just makes more sense to me than the government spending money to prevent people from purchasing a good they want to acquire.  Of course, without having any independent research at my disposal to prove that in one way or the other, this is more a statement of my general feelings than a legitimate political platform.

Carnivals/Round Ups where I am featured:

The 99th Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by The Skilled Investor, featured my column Risk Management Strategies

Weakonomics Links: Management or Egoeconomics, a round up by the Weakonomist, featured my column The Tragedy of the Commons

Well, it’s official: I’m now living with my fiancée, and it’s certainly quite interesting.  It’s the first time I’ve really had to share my space and my things with another person.  Back in college, I lucked out and usually had room mates who stayed to themselves and when I was back at my childhood home, my mother and sisters generally gave me plenty of space.  My dear Sondra, on the other hand, likes to spend her free time with me, which is making it harder to find time to get online to update my blog (to say nothing of searching for a new and better job.)

To make things worse, as far as getting blogging done is concerned, I made the mistake of bringing my graphics tablet along with my computer when I came to live with her, which combined with the Adobe Photoshop (c) program on my computer, means that she is almost as interested in using my computer as I am.  (Of course, what really bothers me is she is much more talented at drawing on it than I am….)  I had to all but wrestle it out of her hands in order to write this post.

But I’m sure we’ll find a way to share; after all, we intend to live together for the rest of our lives.    I’ll have to try to get more of my blogging and job hunting done while she is at work.  And speaking of blogging, here are some of the good blog entries that made me think this week (when I could steal my laptop back, at least):

How to be a Horrible Credit Card Customer – One of my favorite subjects, using credit cards in a way that benefits you and not the credit card companies, being covered by Broke Grad Student.  As long as you don’t charge more than you can afford and pay off the total each month, using a credit card (particularly a reward card) can be a good financial decision.  As one of the commenters noted, though, credit card companies charge the retailers a fee when you use your credit cards; some will pass the costs onto you, so you have to watch if the price is higher for credit card purchases (and use cash at those locations).

Credit Card Rules for College Students – Or anyone else, for that matter; Studenomics shares some good advice for using your credits and not letting them use you.  His comments are mostly right on, especially always paying off the balance and not spending more than you have available.  That said, unless you always spend up to your limit, I would not apply his advice to have a lower credit card limit; you’ll hurt your credit score, both by having less credit available and by using a larger portion of available credit when you do spend money.  My advice: keep a higher credit limit, and find some way to limit your spending to a small portion of that limit.

8 Tips to Avoid Scams on Craigslist – Over on Poorer Than You, Stephanie shares some tips to avoid scams on Craigslist.  I’ll be the first to admit, sites like Craigslist make me nervous, and articles don’t help.  Still, given how popular and useful Craigslist can be, I will likely use it at some time in the future.  When I do, I’ll keep her tips in mind (the one on not accepting strange forms of payment especially sticks with me).

What Do You do If You Need a Payday Loan? – An interesting question, one I’ve never had to consider (luckily).  On Green Panda Treehouse, you can learn some of the alternatives to taking on payday loans (which are one of the worst things you can do financially, by the way).  In general, if you find yourself regularly taking payday loans to meet ends meet, you need to find a way to rearrange your financial life so you don’t need to rely on incredibly high interest, short term loans.  One of the suggestions I liked (and probably would not have considered for my own needs) would be to take out a loan via Lending Club; just make sure that you don’t get yourself into more debt, as you’ll defeat the purpose and have to both pay back the Lending Club loan and the new debt.

Use Twitter to Find a Job – Every so often, I read an article that just seems to come out of left field; this one from My Life ROI falls into that category.  I’ll be honest, I never would have considered trying to find a job using Twitter as a resource.  (In case you haven’t picked up on it from my comments about Stephanie’s post, I’m not the most internet savvy twenty-six year old.)  However, now I’m highly intrigued to try it out, and hopefully find something good near my new location.  Thanks, MLR, for the heads up!

That’s it for this week; I’ll share more fun links that make me think next week.  Enjoy my normal blog entries until then!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting with one of my old high school friends and having dinner together.  It was really enjoyable.  We’re both rather quiet people (or at least, we were back in high school), but when we have the chance to get together and let our hair down, we are great fun.

It’s amazing how much has changed for both of us in the eight years since we graduated from high school (it’s also amazing that it’s been eight years already, but that’s for another day).  He’s been married for over a year now, is currently a teacher at our old school, and is planning to go to England next year.  (I was debating whether to bring up whether he’s planning to have kids, and if so, when, but there was only so much time to discuss everything.)

Sometimes, all it takes is the chance to talk and remember with an old buddy to make you laugh endlessly.  (If you’re a very, very good blog audience, I might just share the Berlin story one day; remembering it made us both crack up for at least a solid minute.)  And so, quite happily, let’s look at some of the good articles out this week:

What Factors Matter for Your FICO Score? – I’m guessing that this information is unlikely to be new to anyone reading this, but if by chance this is the first you’re hearing of it, there are a total of five factors that determine your Fair Issac Corporation (or FICO) score (more commonly referred to as your credit score).  Over on Green Panda Treehouse, you can get much more detail on exactly what factors are involved, and how to improve each one.  With luck, you won’t need to do much improving, but just in case…

Erasing Negative Credit History – Now that you know just what your credit history is like, you might see some things you don’t like; so, how can you go about rectifying the situation?  In a guest post over on Poorer Than You, Kelly Oakin covers some of the ways you can erase negative marks on your credit report.  It’s pretty good advice for anyone with less than ideal credit.

The Three Most Influential Lessons From My Childhood – My friend My Life ROI shares some of the good lessons he learned from his father during his childhood, including the difference between want and need, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and that the best time to start saving, if you haven’t already, is now.  Good stuff, good stuff; it kind of reminds me of an old post of mine, in a way   Also, a happy birthday to Her Life ROI!

How to Guess A Social Security Number and Get Famous on the Internet – If you’re an American citizen, you’re probably (a) aware that your Social Security number has become a personal identifier nearly everywhere you go, (b) identity theft and similar crimes worry many people in our modern age and (c) anything that can panic a crowd will automatically grabs lots of headlines.  So, if a group of researchers showed that, at least for a select group of Americans, it was fairly easy to guess their Social Security numbers, you’d expect there to be a cavalcade of media coverage, right?  And you’d be correct: as Frank Curmudgeon of Bad Money Advice notes, there’s been a recently released study that shows just that.

But don’t panic yet.  As Frank points out, the news isn’t really THAT bad.  First, the odds of guessing a number, even in the best case scenario, are less than one in one thousand; not as hard as I would like, but more than enough to slow down the average punk with a Blackberry.  Second, even that number only works for small states and people born in recent years; if you were born in a populous state, the odds are much lower, and ditto if you were born before 1989.  Third, and least comfortingly, there are plenty of easier ways for no-good-niks to get your person information without relying on a brute force guessing techniques, so this new study will likely have little real world impact.  See, no reason to worry!

Honest People Still Do Exist – Finally, a nice reminder from Studenomics: even in the dog-eat-dog, cut-throat, vicious world in which we live, there are still good, honest people.  One of them returned Studenomic’s wallet over the weekend, using his address to get directions and personally returning the wallet to his house, before leaving without any kind of reward.  I like to believe there’s a very special place in Heaven for people like that.

And on that note, goodbye to you all, my friends!  Feel free to invite me to a pizza joint anytime; I’m a hoot!