Enlightenment.
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I don’t post much these days regardless of whether I’m on hiatus or not. However I am in southeast Asia and unless something really interesting comes up there won’t be any posts for the next 3 weeks.
One of my friends who works at one of Target’s pharmacies informed me that when people go up to the pharmacy counter with general merchandise and ask if they can check them out they aren’t allowed to refuse them.
So if the regular checkout counters is jam packed and the pharmacy counter is still open. Skip the line!
As many of my regulars know I’m a big fan of Kiva.org. Ending world poverty is a near impossible task but it isn’t hard to loan capital to those that wish to lift themselves out of poverty.
So why am I funding $4,000+ worth of loans? Simply put, it’s all the money I have excluding my portfolio or emergency fund. This is money sitting in my checking account that’s been funding my partying and misc other activities. So the real question is why all my money?
I need to know that feeling again. How it feels to be broke. How it feels to have no girlfriend and no money. How it feels like to be “hungry and foolish” again. I’m going back to start.
Hopefully it’ll motivate me like it has in the past to find ways to make more money. Instead of sticking all my money in a CD or something I figure locking it up in Kiva loans would be a more charitable thing to do also. I’ll accept the 2.2% default risk for the greater good to help others lift themselves out of poverty.
So far I have contributed $1,175 in helping fund loans. Every couple of days I’ll look for loans and causes I like and fund more loans until I reach $4,000 or so.
I came accross this piece titled “My Name is Dennis Gartman and I’m a trader…” on InvestorVillage. It’s an interesting short read.
If you use PayPal frequently for purchases you might notice that sometimes PayPal refuses to give you the option to charge a purchase to your credit card if you have a sufficient PayPal balance to cover it. The reasoning is basically they profit more by not having to pay credit card processing fees.
So why do you want to charge something to your credit card instead of using your available PP balance? It’s the credit card rewards of course.
The easiest way around this is to withdraw all your money to your bank account. However for some people like me who sell on eBay and ship via UPS I always need funds in my account since UPS now only gives you the option of paying from your PayPal balance.
The tip to temporarily make your PayPal balance unavailable is simple and easy. Send all money is in your available balance to an e-mail address you control that is NOT registered with PayPal. Then when you are done making whatever purchases just simply cancel the payment all the money re-appears back in your PayPal account.
eBay finally grants me PowerSeller status! It doesn’t mean much besides the fact I get the little icon next to my name and I get a 5-15% discount on final value fees. Considering I paid roughly $90 in final value fees on my last invoice I’ll probably save roughly $4.5 (5%) or $13.50 (15%).
Getting PowerStatus involves selling $1,000+ in sales volume for at least 3 months. I didn’t think I got it since one month I sold roughly $800 or so worth of stuff. Hopefully I won’t lose my status as I don’t plan on selling much this summer.
Discovery Channel’s ad campaign featuring the slogan “The world is just awesome” is genius and spot-on.
It accomplishes several key things:
As everyone has probably noticed, the price of oil has skyrocketed to new highs recently. The main causes have been increasing demand and a weakening dollar. One of the big problems is a lot of people drive like idiots and get poor mileage in their oversized cars. The same guy you see on the news that whines about $4 gas while filling up his Ford F-150 is also the guy laughs at the Prius owners.
Personally I think $4/gallon is still relatively cheap and people will be in for real hurting down the road if they think that’s expensive. So why do I think gas should be more expensive?
Higher prices will curtail demand and force Americans to learn to use gasoline more efficiently. The US government should’ve imposed a $2/gallon tax after 9/11 when everyone was feeling so patriotic. The increase in price would’ve forced people to change their lifestyles and re-consider buying that Hummer. The price of gas then was roughly $1/gallon if I remember and people would have been perfectly fine paying $3/gallon for gas. Another reason is that people blame the oil companies for price gouging when the bulk of profits are enriching OPEC countries. If the higher cost of gas is due to our own taxes, at least it’s enrichening our own coffers.
Begging people to change their lifestyle isn’t going to work. Prices and money are the only tools you can use to influence people’s behaviors.
I awoke this morning to find that the us government added $300 to my net worth. The reason I get $300 instead of $600 is I paid no taxes for 2007 (all federal taxes paid were refunded).
I’m not particularly short on cash these days as I still have money form my birthday last month in addition to my federal tax refund so this “stimulus” check will actually go towards it’s intended purpose.
What particular consumer industry will I be stimulating? Me and my friends are planning on going skydiving in the next couple of weeks. Rather then spend the money on trendy clothing or gadgets, I decided to do something I’ll remember for years to come. Maybe I’ll get addicted and become a hobbyist, who knows.
I finally got around to upping my emergency fund contribution to $35/week. Upon checking my account balance it turns out my weekly contributions of $30/week have added another $1,000 to my emergency fund balance since Sept 07 when my emergency fund hit the $1,500 mark.
I’m setting a definite target amount for my emergency fund. The magic number is $10,000. If I continue at a rate of $35/week contributions it would take 214 weeks or so to accumulate $7,500. Interest accumulation here and there should cut a week or two off.
The most difficult part of saving is not touching the money. I use to have an obsessive habit of checking the balance daily but now I’ll check my balance once a month or so.