Author: Lazy Man

[The following is a fictional story by Kosmo. Kosmo is an aspiring novelist, vehement opponent of the designated hitter, student of true crime, and plays the keyboard for The Casual Observer – an eclectic, team-written web magazine.

Kosmo would like to give readers of Lazy Man and Money a discount at his store. For the next month, use the coupon code LAZYMAN20 to get a 20% discount on all items (excluding writers’ tip jars).]

Michael Hays tried to avoid talking about his job whenever possible. When the question inevitably arose, he said that he worked as a compliance specialist within the Treasury Department.

This was technically true. The Internal Revenue Service was within the Treasury Department, and an auditor could be thought of as a compliance specialist. This was Michael’s way of evading the slings and arrows that might otherwise come his way, while still staying on the angelic side of the truth.

Michael plopped into his chair and looked at the work ahead of him today.

First on the list were follow-ups to some letters than had been sent to taxpayers to ask for evidence of certain deductions. Many of the taxpayers had deftly shunted the letter on to their tax professional. Most of the tax professionals had written coherent responses and attached the necessary documentation.

Some of the others had decided to respond without the assistance of professionals. Several of them had done very competent jobs, allowing Michael to cross their names off his list as well. Several others had responded in a manner that made it very clear that they did not fully comprehend Michael’s request. Michael set these aside for the moment.

Next on his list was the dispute with Mr. Anthony Davis. Mr. Davis had taken advantage of an investment opportunity that was determined by the IRS to be a tax shelter. The amount was so small that Mr. Davis was getting minimal benefit from the shelter. Michael had the impression that Davis was simply trying to pick a fight with the IRS. Michael hoped that Mr. Davis would soon realize how foolish it was to risk jail time over this dispute.

The next batch of letters contained the interesting ones. Most of these were from the people who had ignored the W2s and 1099s that had been sent to them, under the firm belief that the IRS did not have the authority to collect taxes. The standard array of arguments arose from the letters. The tax system was voluntary, the sixteenth amendment was never properly ratified, the only people subject to income tax are employees of the federal governments. Some of the other letters involved disputes about bogus credits that the taxpayers had claimed on their returns.

Michael spent time carefully crafting his responses to these letters, citing the relevant case law in each situation. Michael was a bit surprised that so many people were still conned by quacks selling fraudulent tax evasion schemes. Time after time, courts had affirmed the authority of the IRS to collect taxes. So many frivolous claims had been argued, and so many had been dismissed by judges. The IRS had even posted a list of these arguments with details of the cases – but many of these people simply didn’t want to hear the truth.

The final letter on Michael’s desk was the most pleasant. A recent audit had tripped up a wealthy business owner who had used a variety of shell corporations and foreign bank accounts to evade taxes. Michael had eventually unraveled the mess, and the IRS had laid the facts out in front of the man. They offered a deal – pay the back taxes, plus interest and penalties, and the IRS would back down and not pursue a fraud case. Michael pulled the check out of the envelope and stared at the amount for a moment – $13,312,872.42. It was not uncommon to receive checks to settle disputes, but Michael was always happy to see such a large check.

Michael wondered where these dollars would end up going. The construction project near Michael’s home had been stalled due to a lack of federal funding. Perhaps now the road could be widened and the traffic lights installed. The current state of the road was not adequate for the volume of traffic. The changes would make it much safer.

Perhaps the war on terror could afford more advanced screening tools that would allow for detection of dangerous items that currently evaded the scans at the airport. Maybe this money would prevent a hijacking.

Michael was a volunteer at one of the Head Start programs in town. The program was always a bit short of funds. Maybe this money would allow these kids to be more prepared for elementary school.

Of course, Michael knew that this thirteen million dollars wouldn’t be earmarked for any of these projects. However, he also knew that actively pursuing all tax revenue legally owed to the government would allow a higher level of funding for many great programs. Michael knew that nobody enjoyed paying taxes, and realized that large amounts of federal funds were unfortunately wasted – but also knew that without the funds provided by income taxes, the United States would be a much worse place to live.

[If you liked the story above… or even if you didn’t… I urge you to visit The Casual Observer and extol the virtues of the designated hitter.]

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Last week when I reviewed Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss Reviewed, I mentioned that I hate books. I really do, but today I’m going to contradict myself. Almost a year ago, Dan Holt sent me his book Nobody Wants a Million Dollars and asked me to review it. It got lost in the shuffle, but this past weekend I had a chance to bring it up.

One of the biggest advantages of this book is that it’s only 133 pages… and large type font. Despite being a slow reader, I could have probably finished it in an hour and a half if I wasn’t watching the Bruins’ game. With it being so short, Mr. Holt has to get to his point and move on… my attention span thanks him for that.

As for the contents of the book, I found myself agreeing with about 60% of the book’s advice. The other 40%, are things that I wouldn’t necessarily say is bad advice, but maybe not targeted at my philosophy of personal finance. All that said, I could see it as a gift to a student graduating college – it’s a good starter on personal finance. If you go that route (and you might not be able to since I see you can’t buy it on Amazon at the time of this writing), please direct them to this post. I have alternative viewpoints on 20% of the book. Here are some examples:

• Nobody Wants a Million Dollars – This is, of course, the title of the book. The idea behind this is tha if everyone really wanted a million dollars, they could do it by living extremely frugally and working 16 hour days. It’s not that no one wants a million dollars, it’s just that people have different priorities. Anyone who reads this website knows I surely do. Holt agrees with this. However, the idea that No Wants a Million Dollars in the context of working all the time seems like an overly exaggerated premise to start with.
• Needs vs. Wants – Holt disagrees with the idea of “paying yourself first” when it comes to saving. He believes in covering the basic needs (shelter, food, clothing, etc.) first (Not to be confused with a mansion, great steaks, and fine suits). I think that’s an assumption in “paying yourself first.” If we have to tell people to do the things that keep them alive, I think our society has failed. With that assumption in place, “paying yourself first” in the context of saving for the future makes great sense.
• Spending – Dan Holt seems to rely very highly on budgets. He checks his purchases to see if they are in the budget. That works for him. I “try to budget in my head” (as he puts it), but I succeed. He always sticks to his pre-determined buying plan when going into a store – even giving himself a speech to reaffirm that if necessary. I allow for the flexibility of picking up useful non-perishable items when they are on sale.
• The $21,000 Savings on a Car with a No Debt Plan – One of my biggest issues with the book was the comparison of a “Debt Plan” and “No Debt Plan.”
  • Debt Plan – The plan of living with debt is someone putting $5,000 down to buy a new (2007 at the time) $35,000 car at a 7.25% interest rate… thus paying $40,855 after 5 years (I’ve reduced the math details for brevity).
  • No Debt Plan – The plan of avoiding debt is someone buying a used car for $5,000. That opens one up to use the payments they would have made on the new car to save money. After three years of saving, the person can buy the same 2007 car for $20,000 (and still have $4,300 left over).

  The problem that I have with this is that the person with the No Debt Plan isn’t getting an equivalent product. That person is getting two previously used cars instead of the new car that he/she set out for. It turns out that most of the $21,000 in savings from the No Debt Plan, comes from buying a product that deprecates extremely fast after that depreciation. It should be called the Buy Depreciate Assets After They Depreciate Plan. It’s one that could be used not only for cars, but also for technology products (as long as you don’t like new technology features).

In the end the biggest problem I have about this book is that it assumes the reader has a lack of self-discipline. Dan Holt admits to having problems with credit and getting in debt in the past and I think that’s where his view comes from. He advocates using cash as a means of self-control (you can’t spend what you don’t have). When it comes to paying off your credit card each month he wishes you “Good luck” and further says, “you may be lucky enough to pay it off every month, but is it worth the risk?” Paying off your credit card balance each month has nothing to do with luck, it has to do with being disciplined in your spending. And yes the rewards of using my grandfathered 5% cash back card on groceries, gas and drugstores is worth it. It doesn’t hurt that I get another 3% back on office supply, home improvement, and restaurants with another card. These rewards add up to hundreds (maybe even more than a thousand) a year for me.

As long as you can control the opportunity, I think it’s worth trying to maximize everything you can to get ahead. I would include stacking up rewards.

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This weekend, my wife and I realized that if one of us got up early and went jogging with our dog for 20 minutes we’d be hitting a new high in productivity. For one our dog (a husky/yellow lab mix) gets much needed exercise. That exercise will hopefully prevent him from getting restless during the day while we are at work (something that happens from time to time). The other half of the productivity comes from the exercise that we get. The person who doesn’t walk the dog in the morning gets and early trip to work in an effort to get home early for another dog jog.

Today I’m the one getting to work early. Traffic was a breeze at 7AM (yes it’s not the norm. I’ve found that Silicon Valley generally has later sleepers). The traffic was so good that I got into work only to find locked doors at 7:30. No one was around to let me in. That wouldn’t be a problem if I wasn’t the only person at work without a key. I had never made it a priority to get one since it was only twice previously in months and months that I was here before or after hours. Let’s hope this is just a blip in the overall plan. Something tells me that’s going to be the easy part and jogging the mile and a half in the morning is going to be a little more difficult.

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I know this is a personal finance site, but occasionally I like to write about my first love… technology. One of my favorite pieces of technology is the Firefox web browser. I like to root for the underdog company for more competition leading to more choice for consumers. For that reason, I’ve never been a fan of Internet Explorer, even when it looked like Netscape was dead. Thus I have been using Firefox’s main code back when it was Mozilla 0.7 (who remembers Phoenix and Firebird? Anyone?).

A few weeks ago, that came very close to changing. Firefox had started to slow on my computer. On a lark, I loaded up Google Chrome and found that it was really fast. So it seems like a no-brainer to switch, right? Well not so fast. I have a lot of extensions for Firefox and I couldn’t work the same way with Chrome. Right as I was about to bite the bullet and switch to Chrome, I had an idea. What if Firefox is a little like Windows… the more you use it, the more it slows down with extra junk sticking around pulling resources? If Firefox is like that, perhaps I could clean it. I thought about deleting all history, cookies, many plugins, etc., but then I had a better idea.

I remembered that back in the old days Firefox had something called “profiles”. Everyone using Firefox had a profile, but they are often not aware of it. These are kind of like users in Windows. However, Windows shares a single registry and most of the “extra junk” goes there. What was slowing me down was the information in my Firefox profile. Solution: Create a new, clean profile and use that. The result was a fast new Firefox again. The article that I used to help me get started with profiles mentioned that it might be best to have different profiles for different tasks. That’s exactly what I decided to do. I created one for general browsing. I then created one for blogging, web development, work, and one that I just label as “fast”. The blogging one has bookmarks, saved passwords, and extensions that help me blog more efficiently. The web development one has a number of web development extensions.

There are three main advantages to Firefox Profiles:

• Faster Performance – My “extra junk” is now divided amongst 6 segmented profiles. The general browsing one still gets the most junk, but it’s not nearly as bad.
• Increased Focus – Because my work profile is all work-related, I’m not tempted by Evil Mike Reiss and his continuous coverage of the New England Patriots.
• Multiple Gmails at the Same Time – One of my biggest issues with web applications of all kinds is that it’s hard be logged into multiple personas at the same time. Want to Tweet about your personal and business life in two different accounts? You’ll be logging in and out of Twitter quite a bit. Have a couple of Gmail accounts that you want to keep separate? Same thing. With different profiles, there is a whole new instance of the browser. I can be logged into a Gmail account in my work profile and an entirely different Gmail account in my blogging profile.

The day after setting up my profiles, Lifehacker published this very helpful guide on Firefox profiles. My timing is, as always, very poor. The big take-away in this guide is to get the Profile Switcher plugin. It’s a must-have for getting the most out of Firefox profiles.

(Note: Yes, I’m realize that I’m ripping of Lifehacker’s title a bit, but I had already started this article before Lifehacker published that guide. I’m sticking with what I had.)

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Tim Ferriss’ Book 4-Hour Workweek has been around for some 2-3 years now… and yet, while it’s right in the Lazy Man wheelhouse, I hadn’t read it until recently. Why didn’t I read it? Here are the two biggest excuses:

• I Hate Books – I’d like to blame Ethan Frome for my hated of books, but the truth is that it probably started long before that. I have a pretty short attention span the Internet and blogs especially play to that. In fact, if you’d ask me what books are worth reading off the top of my head I’d go with How To Win Friends and Influence People, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (please spend the $5.42 that Amazon is charging for this book – seriously! The title is outrageous, but it’s a really good book), Everything by Malcolm Gladwell, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Great Gatsby. This book joins that elite list.
• I Cross the Frugal Line to Cheap Sometimes – I was waiting on this book through Paperback Swap since it came out. When a book is really good and is worth re-reading multiple times, people don’t want to give it up. Finally, when I got close to the top of the list, my wife decided to just pay the $15 (or whatever it was) and get it for me for Christmas.

Having finished the book, one of the things I can say is “wow.” It’s where I was trying to take this website when I set out. The reason I created this website is that I realized that my girlfriend (and now my wife) was going to retire at age 44 due to 20 years of service with the military. At that time, she’d might want to enjoy life in way that a regular 9-5 worker couldn’t. So I created this website to explore ideas on how to avoid the working the next 35 years. At the time, I had no idea that this website wasn’t just the question on how to do that, but it may also evolve into the answer.

As you can imagine Tim Ferriss and his 4-hour Work Week strives to get to the same place… earn a very good income with limited “work”, thus giving you the freedom to do the things you want to do. I found myself agreeing with Tim Ferriss on almost everything he said, except that he used the word “lazy” in a negative context almost every time. I like to think that he’d choose a different word if he was a software engineer (see lazy evaluation).

His book and this blog cover a number of similar things. (Before I get started on them I think this blog was started well before his book was published, but some of his ideas were published before this blog.) Here are some examples:

• Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) – See my About Page. It’s the first item I listed.
• Parkinson’s Law – While I mention time (as Mr. Ferriss does), and space, I also applied this to dealing with money – Are Your Resources Swallowed Up By Parkinson’s Law?. You might have heard of it under the term “lifestyle inflation.”
• Wasting Time Trying to be Too Perfect – I covered that here: The Enemy of Good in Entrepreneurism. In reality it’s the other 20/80 not covered in the Pareto Principle.
• Speed Reading – The book gave some tips to read quickly (a great set of tips in about a single page). I need to re-read those tips and practice them as I named reading slow one of Three Reasons I Will Never Be Rich. I mentioned how slow I read again in my 2008 goals. I also put it on my short list of tips on How To Be Successful.
• Hiring a Virtual Assistant – I mentioned How to Find a Virtual Assistant, and Why Hire a Virtual Assistant , previously. Tim Ferriss spends a chapter or two going in great detail.
• How To Negotiate – Okay, I failed here, I have about 600 bookmarked websites on how to negotiate and from what I can tell I haven’t written about it. I think it’s because that’s always been on my wish list to learn.

So you may be asking right now, “Why do I need to get 4-hour Work Week when I can read this blog?” The short answer is that Tim distills all that information (and much, much more) into a book that most people can read in a couple of days. I really can’t do the book justice in just a few hundred words – . This blog rambles a lot about things you might not care about (i.e. my life). Though you may like this blog a bit more because it follows a person’s journey to implement the ideas in the book (even if I didn’t know the ideas were in the book).

Again, I recommend very, very few books, so if you have been on the fence on whether you should buy 4-Hour Workweek. I say, “do it!” I wish I had done so a couple of years ago.

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I’ve been very bullish on Palm phones in this space and in person. I have found that multitasking adds so much to the smartphone experience. You can’t currently get that out of the box with the Apple IPhone. Google’s Android devices allow for that, but from what I’ve read on Lifehacker, Google doesn’t keep the phone’s OS updated and in sync. Specifically they said:

“…those looking to buy and enjoy an Android smartphone for any length of time are in the dark as to what’s coming next, on which carrier, and how long they’ll have to wait for an upgrade—if it ever happens. Right now, the G1—only one year and four months old—is running Android 1.6, and looks like it may stay that way forever.”

Android phones don’t have that strong link between the operating system and the hardware. You may remember that Microsoft (via Windows Mobile) and Palm (remember their Sony PDAs) tried the model of an open OS and I don’t there was one major success. I believe that Apple showed it’s best to tie the hardware to the somewhere so you don’t have three companies (carrier, hardware developer, software developer) all mixing things up.

Palm came along and gave people the best of both worlds… a physical keyboard, an open application market-place, changable battery, multitasking, availability on multiple carriers, and a strong tie between the hardware and software where your phone actually gets better through numerous updates. Palm has just one problem… no one knows about their phones. Lifehacker also mentioned recently that people tend to choose the most popular phone, not necessarily the best phone. Palm has to change that. How they do that, I simply don’t know. They’ve made some poor advertising choices in the past, but even now that they’ve righted the ship, it doesn’t seem to be getting good sales.

It seems like more and more people are gravitating to the IPhone or Droid devices. That has caused Palm to revise their earning estimates downward. Their stock in the last 18 months has moved from around $1 to $18 and back down to about $5.50. Earlier today, I decided to go long on Palm with a small amount of play money. I’m a sucker for the underdog when they have solid technology. Before following me, I warn you that I also invested in AMD a long time ago thinking that they could split the marketshare with Intel since their chips were just about as fast and much cheaper.

I was further convinced of Palm’s death on a recent trip to Barnes and Nobles. There were at least 30 books on iPhone development, a few for Android development, and not a single book on the shelf for Palm WebOS development. So while I wallow in my future stock market losses, check out these personal finance links:

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I had never been to Washington D.C. Recently my wife had the opportunity to go for work and I figured this was a good opportunity for me to see the sights. She was able to get a couple of days off of work and on her first day she suggested we go on a bus tour. We decided to go with GrayLine DC – and their DC in a Day Tour – at $55 per person. As you can tell from the title it was a big mistake. (Note: In the title, I’m assuming that the person reading this is one person and thus isn’t spending the $110 we did.)

Let me take you through the day in a series of bullet points:

1. Capitol Building – The bus drops us off at the Capitol building at 9:00 and says he’ll be back to pick us up at 11:00AM. For obvious security reasons the bus can’t park that close to the Capitol. Our group walks around to the building and we find that it closed to the public today for a special ceremony. So we now have 2 hours with no way to contact our bus driver to see something else. (Note to tour guides: If you aren’t going to be with the group, leave your cell phone number behind so that people can reach you. Also get everyone in the tours cell phone so if they are late to the meeting spot they can be reminded). Fortunately the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court are behind the Capitol, so we head there. The Library of Congress had an interesting exhibit about Herb Block. It also had a lot of information on the Declaration of Independence and other notable historical documents. It was somewhat interesting and may have been better than Capitol. I couldn’t tell you since I didn’t see the Capitol. The Supreme Court was pretty boring with not much to see or do.
2. White House Visitor Center – The next stop was the White House Visitor Center. I thought this was going be the highlight of the tour… after all you don’t get too much bigger than the White House in D.C. Unfortunately after the 9/11 attacks they moved the White House Visitor Center so it’s away from the actual White House. When I visit a “visitor center”, I actually expect to see the place. The White House Visitor Center was mostly pictures and a couple of artifacts. While I thought it would be difficult to be more disappointed, I was wrong. The bus driver mentioned that we could walk from the Visitor Center to the southern part of the White House and see it. The website exclaims “You might even see the President!” We went to the south side, but it was more blocked off than Fort Knox. You could only see specs of whites through some dense trees and part of what may have been a flag poking out. I imagine the specs wouldn’t even be visible if it were summer time when the trees had leaves on them.
3. Smithsonian (American History version) – This was by far the best stop on the trip. The Star-Spangled Banner alone was amazing. However, seeing everything in the Smithsonian in two hours is like trying to do Europe in 5 days. It’s destined to fail. We also have to eat lunch in this time. The Smithsonian’s cafeteria is overpriced with a roast beef sandwich, a chicken salad wrap and a drink running us over $22.00.
4. Ford’s Theatre – You might know this landmark from such events as The Place that Lincoln was Assassinated. Continuing on the disappointment track, the theater was actually closed as there was a performance. There was a museum portion of it open. We got to go through that and then across the street to see the 700 square foot place where Lincoln actually died (actually called The House Where Lincoln Died). Looking at blood-stained pillows… kind of morbid. We finish here with 25 minutes left on this stop before the tour continues. My wife and I decide we might as well pick up a glass of wine, but the wine bar is closed as it’s between lunch and dinner.
5. WWII Memorial – Outside the famous reflecting pool near the Lincoln Memorial is the WWII Memorial. Unlike other memorials with names on them (I think Vietnam Memorial – haven’t been), this is more like a really big fountain. There are 56 pillars for all the US states and territories during WWII (I learned that the Philipines was once part of the United States (my history teachers never covered WWII because they started the year with Columbus). The big disappointment here was that the reflecting pool was drained for cleaning. It resembled a construction zone.

That was the whole tour. I would have liked to visit either the Lincoln Memorial or Washington Monument, but that wasn’t on the list. I probably would have preferred the Jefferson Memorial over the Ford Theatre. I also would have liked to see the Smithsonian (Natural History version) and the Hope Diamond.

Despite all the above, perhaps the worst part is that we were staying in a hotel (Harrington Hotel – good for those on a budget) that was within about a mile of all places. When we weren’t able to get wine after Ford’s Theatre, we decided to walk two blocks back to our hotel just to visit the bathroom. It made the whole bus ride pretty useless (especially with the excellent and cheap Metro system here).

While we were issued tickets for Ford Theatre, I found out that tickets to the museum are free. In fact, each stop on our tour was free. I’ll take some responsibility, we could have researched things better and realized that we could have done them on our own. On the other hand, I think the tour company should take some responsibility and not book places that are closed or under renovations when there are a lot more other things to see and do. Let my experience be a warning to anyone else considering a D.C. tour.

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With tax season around the corner, I finally got around to opening up a SEP-IRA at Fidelity. (I don’t know what took me so long, the process was very, very quick.) For those unfamiliar with SEP-IRA’s, they are a retirement vehicle for self-employed individuals (Read more about SEP-IRAs here). As income from this site counts as self-employment income, I am looking to contribute a few thousand dollars before the April 15th deadline.

I’m heavily leaning towards investing two Vanguard Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)… VTI and VEU. The former tracks many of the stocks in the United States. The later tracks a basket of stocks from numerous places outside the US. Together, it’s not a bad stock diversification for the world markets (especially considering it’s two trades with very low expenses). I should note that it’s worth looking into Fidelity’s offerings as well – especially since I’m going to have a Fidelity account. I’ll probably skew the percentage of the investment of those two 60-40 style towards the VEU… I’m already heavily invested in the US economy since 99% of my income comes from there.

That sounds all nice and good… but I love to find a bargain. I don’t think either of those two represent that. So I’d like to carve out a small percentage of that money for a “speculative” investment. The kind of speculative investment that I’m looking for is not like investing in Palm (a company I love, but the world fails to see how great its products are). I’m looking more for an additional ETF… most likely a sector ETF. For instance, a few years ago, I invested in energy when it was fairly cheap. I think it has been a good investment. In 30 years from now, I still think the sector will be relevant.

So readers, I ask for your help… what sector with long term relevancy is cheap right now? Let me know in the comments.

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Last night, my wife and I were fortunate enough to entertain a few bloggers at our home. While we typically hang out with The Digerati Life and Stop Buying Crap once a month, this time, a couple of other bloggers dropped by while they were in town. If you are a reader of this site, you are probably aware of J. Money from Budgets are Sexy. You might not be as aware of A Gai Shan Life. I have to admit that I wasn’t as aware of Revanche blog as I should be. However, I encourage you to visit her site. It’s very well done. (Like you may gather from the logo, she’s really good with dogs.)

With the exception of my BBQ running out of propane, the night went perfectly. We played a game of Settlers of Catan (seriously the best game of all time). J. Money, learning the game for the first time, came very, very close to winning. However, in the end, SVB from The Digerati Life won.

It’s always nice to get together with other personal finance bloggers. We all have something in common, but it’s really odd how little “shop talk” went on. Anyway, enough of my ramblings for now, here are personal finance links for this past week:

Money Writers:

• Brip Blap shows how his cousin and wife sold their house for bigger gains in how to make money on Facebook.
• Learn how to file a consumer complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at Digerati Life.
• Frugal Dad shares 9 ways to save money on car insurance.
• Generation X Finance gives 28 tips to save money on car expenses and save thousands of dollars!
• Million Dollar Journey posts about the Canadian Income Tax Deadline
• Money Smart Life discusses differences between an overtime exempt employee vs non-exempt employee.
• Unemployed tax deductions provide tax relief says My Dollar Plan.
• The Sun’s Financial Diary posts know thy (financial) self.

Top PF Posts:

• Free Money Finance provides a list of top tools for analyzing your salary.
• The Smarter Wallet offers 5 career planning tips for college graduates.
• Wise Bread shares 14 travel hacks and airfare saving tips.
• Five Cent Nickel asks how do you know if a credit card number is valid?
• Get Rich Slowly shares the problem with prognostication: why you shouldn’t invest based on “expert” predictions.
• Consumer Commentary on saving money on soundtracks .
• Ready to be Rich talks about the personal finance habits of Filipinos.
• Fine Tuned Finances posts some tips to help you save $100.00 or more each month.

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Recently I’ve been rocking out to a new song by the band Paramore. If you haven’t heard of them, well they’d probably say that ignorance is your new best friend. In fact, I’ve been rocking to them so much lately that lead singer Hayley Williams has replaced Taylor Swift in the category of Inappropriately Young Female Singer that Lazy Man is Crushing On. Getting back to the subject, the song that really got my attention is Brick by Boring Brick. If they given a vote I’d say it is the best song in at least 3 years, maybe 5. To my surprise, when I looked into the lyrics a little deeper a hidden financial lesson came to the surface.

Did you catch it? Some of the lyrics are little hard to catch. Here are a few that I popped out when I first heard the song:

“She lives in the fairy tale somewhere too far for us to find”
“Keep your feet on the ground when your head’s in the clouds”
“Her prince finally came to save her and the rest you can figure out but it was a trick and the clock struck 12”
“Well make sure to build your home brick by boring brick or the wolf’s gonna blow it down”
“Ba da ba ba da da ba da…”

What kind of financial lessons can we take away from this? As Hayley Williams says:

“‘Stop living in a fake fairytale… like, WAKE UP!’ When thinking how I could really get that across in the song I decided I’d use a house. Someone’s safe place, even in a fairy tale… you can’t forge a refuge out of magic & fairy dust. You gotta build it just as real and as solid as a stupid old brick.”

So financially speaking, give up the lottery tickets and pour some money into your 401k. Don’t pay for real estate seminars or get rich quick schemes and max out that Roth IRA. Don’t buy MonaVie or sell MonaVie and build up that emergency fund. When the wolf comes to blow your financial house down, you’ll be glad you built it brick by boring, stupid old brick.

Do you know someone who has their financial head too far in the clouds? If you do (sing along with me):

Go get your shovel
And we’ll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle

I’ve got the full lyrics for you after the jump…

Well she lives in the fairy tale
Somewhere too far for us to find
Forgotten the taste and smell
Of a world that she’s left behind
It’s all about the exposure the lens I told her

The angles are all wrong now
She’s ripping wings off of butterflies
Keep your feet on the ground
When your head’s in the clouds

Well go get your shovel
And we’ll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Go get your shovel
And we’ll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Ba da ba ba da ba ba da

So one day he found her crying
Coiled up on the dirty ground
Her prince finally came to save her
And the rest you can figure out
But it was a trick
And the clock struck 12

Well make sure to build your home brick by boring brick
or the wolf’s gonna blow it down
Keep your feet on the ground
When your head’s in the clouds

Well go get your shovel
And we’ll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Go get your shovel
And we’ll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Woah, woah.

Well you built up a world of magic
Because your real life is tragic
Yeah you built up a world of magic

If it’s not real
You can’t hold it in your hand
You can’t feel it with your heart
And I won’t believe it

But if it’s true
You can see it with your eyes
Or even in the dark
And that’s where I want to be, yeah

Go get your shovel
And we’ll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Go get your shovel
And we’ll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Ba da ba ba da ba ba da…

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If you were wondering why I haven’t posted very much this week, it’s because I spent the weekend in Las Vegas. It was my first trip there in about ten years. It’s a little hard to say which changed more, Vegas or me. It’s probably pretty close.

We went for a friends’ military promotion ceremony, but it certainly didn’t hurt that it was Vegas. As usual, we didn’t want to break the bank, so we looked for ways to get by on the cheap. Here are just my early impressions on the short amount of time we were there.

Best Las Vegas Hotel Value

I’m going to give this a tie to two hotels, even though we only stayed at one. I did look at the Trip Advisor reviews of the second and it looks like the place we’d choose next time. I’m giving this award with great attention to “cheap” rather typical “value.” The reason for that is because in Las Vegas, most people are typically only looking for a place to crash for a few hours anyway.

• Super 8 – We stayed at the Super 8 a little off the strip. While that may sound like a bad location, when we get to best value casino it earns a lot of points. It was around $42 a night including taxes. This isn’t a place to impress the ladies. While there may have been a drug deal going down and some ladies likely “practicing the oldest profession”, my theory is that it just adds to the flavor. Little known fact: At over 300 rooms, it’s the largest Super 8 in the world.
• Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon – We stopped here briefly because we had a little time to kill before dinner one night and this was the only place we found with a craps table open. I was also curious of the food specials posted outside (more on that later). It’s got a better location than the Super 8 as it’s on the strip across from the Bally’s. I’m told you can view the famous Bellagio water show from time to time there. It seems like the pricing is competitive with the Super 8, so it’s worth considering.

Best Las Vegas Housing Value

It’s not a hotel, so I couldn’t include it above, but some friends of friends decided to rent a house. We stopped by a couple of times and it was an amazing place. It had to be about 4000 square feet. It had a two pools… one for swimming (with a hot tub) and one better known as billiards. The place was in great condition with exceptional appliances, flooring, counters, etc. It’s five bedrooms easily could sleep ten (and you could stretch that if you put people on couches. All this for $269 a night. If you have 4 or 5 couples, you could live in the lap of luxury for around $30 a night per person. You’d even save more on groceries as you have a full kitchen. The downside is that the strip and airport was about a 10 minute car ride away, so some of that savings is going to go to a rental car or cab.

Best Las Vegas Casino Value

The Ellis Island Casino & Brewery wins hands down in this category. While there are other casinos with all the bling, this is my kind of place. This was right next to us at the Super 8 (one of the reasons we stayed at the Super 8.) It has a $5 craps table… I can play twice as long to lose on the increasingly standard $10 minimum craps tables in most casinos. (Yes, I think of it in terms of how much I can play before losing. I think that’s fair to set the expectations low when the house has an advantage on you.) That’s enough for a good casino, but it’s the extra’s that make Ellis Island my favorite. Cocktail waitresses come by quite often and when you ask for a beer, they bring 20 ounces from their own brewery. In life you usually get to choose two out of three of the following: free, quality, and quantity. While I’m stretching the “free” here (as I was gambling), you can fork over $1.50 in cash for the same beer if you aren’t gambling. Beyond that Ellis Island has Metro Pizza, voted 4 years in a row the best pizza in Vegas (I concur with the decision) and the best food special you’ll find (more on that later).

While on the topic of craps, I should mention two things. 1) I’m extremely conservative so the house typically has less than a 3% advantage on me. I left Las Vegas with about $75 in total winnings. Know when to talk walk away, right?

Best Las Vegas Food & Drink Specials

• Ellis Island Casino & Brewery – The $6.99 steak special is one of the best deals you’ll find anywhere. It is a 10 ounce filet cut that would easily sell out at $20 any other restaurant. I’ve paid more than $30 for a steak that wasn’t as good. With potatoes and green beans it is a full meal. It’s available 24 hours a day, and it’s worth going out of your way for. I’ve already mentioned the beer special above, so for less than $9 you could really be celebrating in style (if you forget that it is a hole-in-the-wall casino.)
• Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon – Yep, I’m going back here. They get an honorable mention for a steak (rib-eye) and eggs special for $5.99 available from midnight to 6AM. Sadly due to the timing of that special, we didn’t partake. I also noticed that they had $5 pitchers of Miller Lite, which is up there with the Ellis Island beer special.

I think that covers most of the deals that we found in Vegas. As for the rest, it wasn’t a deal going to ESPN Zone for the USA-Canada hockey game, but it was fun. It wasn’t a deal (and not particularly fun) going to the new hotel Aria for drinks. We were slightly positive at RumJungle in Mandalay Bay (I remember it being a lot better 10 years ago).

I would like to try to spend a week in Vegas spending as little as possible. You could stay at Super 8 for about $300 (weekend is more expensive) and eat for around $150 ($20 a day). Our flight from Northern California was around $100 round trip (Virgin America, which I highly recommend). So two people (sharing a room) could plan a whole week for about $800. If you join all the casino’s players clubs and used the free money they give out, you might even break even for the week.

Then again, a week of the Vegas lifestyle may just kill you. The weekend alone was quite a bit for me.

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This guest post comes to you from The Digerati Life, a site that covers financial topics that range from which online brokers to choose, to how you can teach your kids about money. The blog is up for a Plutus Award for best career blog… I encourage you to vote for The Digerati Life in the category of Best Personal Finance Blog for Careers. The following piece focuses on why many people are broke and what they can do about it.

Yeah yeah, you’ve heard this before, but it’s always worth reviewing the basics, in my opinion. And what exactly is the secret to becoming financially secure? In my mind, it’s living within your means. It’s the key to good personal finance management — seems so obvious yet if you look around you, it’s basic advice that many people don’t really bother to follow.

But the fact is, living within your means is the first step towards successful budgeting and getting your financial house in order. It’s simple enough — you can do this by controlling your spending a couple of ways: either by sheer will power, or maybe by being more organized and strategic about how you spend your money.

Many people have fallen into financial trouble to the point of having to file for bankruptcy when they become credit card addicts, or when they decide to take on too many low-interest rate loans or commit to a mortgage when they just don’t have the kind of income to support it all. Balance transfer credit cards and 0% interest credit cards are tempting to carry, but those 0% offers don’t last forever. Eventually, the card rates shoot up and you’ll be paying a lot more unless you’re able to wipe out your balance before those rates adjust.

But here’s some good news: since the implosion of the real estate market, we’ve learned a whole lot, as a nation. We now understand the importance of living within our means and of working with a budget. Some people have now changed their habits and have begun making changes in the way they manage their money. It may have taken a financial crisis for folks to sit up and take notice of their finances, but some gradual changes are afoot in many households. Here are a few steps we’ve taken to join the frugality bandwagon and add more to our high interest savings accounts:

Living Within Your Means: Some Steps To Frugality

1. Cut your telephone bill.
   Here’s one area where I’ve actually saved some money. Those services that offer a variety of packages such as your cable bill or phone bill may actually be one area where you can save a good amount. By finding the right custom “package” for your family based on your service usage, you can get the best value for your money. So analyze your phone bill and see if you can make do without the extras. Often, you’ll find that going with a basic telephone service may be sufficient; also your telephone bill can be reduced by a lot if you know your calling patterns well and decide to stick with billing packages that are a fit to your patterns.

   [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Landline Phone and Save Money on Cell Phones]

Reduce your electricity bills.

2. Simple changes to how you use energy at home may help with bringing down your energy costs. For instance, switching off power when you don’t need it, keeping your thermostat low and even switching to CFL bulbs are some popular ways to cut down on your utility costs. Some people go beyond this by really adapting the green mindset: they invest in things like a solar roof for their homes and Energy Star appliances to help conserve energy at home.

   [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Utilities]

Take a look at your entertainment costs.

3. These days, you can find a lot of free and cheap alternatives for your entertainment needs. This is also one expense category that you can easily cut down on. To cut costs, people have replaced watching movies at the theater with more family time, and long distance travel with visits to the local park or zoo. When you think about it, these alternatives can prove to be just as fun as the more exotic activities that may come to mind.

   [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Movies , Music, Television, and Books]

Cut your dining and restaurant bills.

4. These days, people are chasing after too much convenience and often find themselves hanging out at fast food joints and restaurants instead of cooking at home for the family. Over the long-term, this can become both a costly and unhealthy habit. In our household, we enjoy the occasional take out night, but we do our best to control our food tab!

   [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money at Restaurants.]

Control your transportation costs.

5. Take a look at how much you’re spending on transportation. Are you happy with it? If your gas usage is bugging you, then try for some practical solutions and see if they’re worth pursuing. Will carpooling work? How about using your town’s public transportation system? Sure, it may mean having to make adjustments in your schedule or routine, but if it’s worth the savings for you, then it’s something you should try to consider.

   [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Cars and Save Money on Gas.]

So if you really want to find that extra $100 you’ve been meaning to invest with an online discount broker or mutual fund company for a while now, then by digging a little deeper, you may be surprised by some of the extra trimmings you can do without. It just takes a little flexibility and a tad bit of discipline to keep your expenses in check.

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When you think of great minds in personal finance you may think of Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, or Jean Chatzky. You probably don’t think of a dog, but perhaps you should.

A few months ago my dog started doing something I had only read about in children’s books… burying dog biscuits in our yard. I remember the first time I saw him do it. I grabbed my wife and exclaimed, “Look at Jake! He’s being a dog!” (Sometimes, I’m not a wordsmith.) For a while, I thought he was just being a stupid dog. This past weekend when he retrieved one of his buried bones, something in my mind clicked.

Biscuits are like money for my dog. He was saving the biscuit for a rainy day when biscuits aren’t readily available. He’s learned to do what so many Americans have difficulty doing… passing up instant gratification so that for future benefits. I think this is noteworthy for two reasons:

The first reason is that he’s a dog. We didn’t train him to do it and he’s never seen another dog do it. Saving appears to be hard-wired into his brain… why do we have such difficulty with it?

The second reason I find it noteworthy is that there’s significant risk and no reward to burying a bone for later. The bone may get washed away by rain or stolen by zealous squirrel. The bone itself will even likely have less “value” to a dog as it will be covered in dirt. When people save their money in banks, it comes with some security (FDIC) and they are rewarded with interest. People should be the ones doing the saving.

This isn’t the only way he saves. Jake loves food – he’ll eat anything and everything and ask for me. However, we found that if we give him food and leave the house, he won’t eat until we get back. I think his rationale is that there’s no guarantee we are coming back, so he better conserve his food until the providers of his food are back.

Perhaps Fox should create a television show that asks, “are smarter than a dog.”

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If you’ve been following the news lately, you may have come across a story where a Pennsylvania school system has been allegedly spying on their students. The Rosemont’s Harriton High School’s computers included software that would allow them to turn on the webcam whenever they wanted. This would effectively allow them to spy on students in the privacy of their own home. This came to light when the school allegedly informed student Blake Robbins’ parents that he had been selling drugs and even showed a still photograph as evidence. The Robbins’ family claims these accusations are false. You can read more details here or watch this video:

CNET noted that the school system could be sued for violating a number of laws/regulations such as, “the Fourth Amendment, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, and Pennsylvania common law.” They didn’t even get into the potential child pornography charges that could potentially come from the girl who said that she shower with her laptop open to listen to music (if they are shown to have violated that).

I find the story interesting on many levels. Having a Computer Science degree and working in the technology industry for the past decade, I usually stay on top of technology happenings. It never occurred to me that a web cam could be used in a nefarious way like this. Take it a step further and imagine a virus that does the same thing. Yikes!

The biggest question for me from a financial perspective is, “What if the school is found guilty of all these violations?” The damages could be millions and spread across numerous families. On the outset it would seem that justice would be served and everyone could just move on. However, the community would be left with a bankrupt school system. That typically means raised taxes. So others in the town would have to pick up the pieces. This leads me to think, the ones who “win” could be the lawyers. It might even be in the community’s best interest to root for the school as outlandish as it sounds.

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This past holiday weekend my wife, my dog, and I headed down to the wine country of Paso Robles, California. Each year a group of 17 vineyards called the Far Out Wineries get together to host a wine tasting event. For a price of $35 you can spend 4 days visiting any of the wineries and taste their wine for free. To make it even a better deal the money goes to charity (tax deduction!) and you can win some prizes as long as you go to at least 8 of them. It’s a brilliant marketing plan to get people down there and buying their wine.

This was our third trip down to Paso in the last two and half years. One thing we noticed this time is that there are a number of new wineries popping up. I don’t know if it’s the economy picking up, but it seems like the wineries have doubled in number. When we got to Carmody McKnight I had to ask, “With all these wineries popping up, can I expect this annual wine tasting event to expand from 17 to 30 and go on for a week?” I feel like I should have known the answer…

The sommelier explained that the 17 wineries that participate are good friends and that they’ve been doing the event for nearly 30 years. It’s an exclusive club. Though the newer wineries are quite good, it’s not practical to let everyone in the club. As you start adding more people the value of being in the club actually goes down. It would be difficult to coordinate events like the annual one around Presidents Day and probably lead to the whole group collapsing under its own weight. The sommelier also pointed out that there is a delicate balance to strike. For instance the new wineries could get together to form their own network and compete with their own program.

It struck me that this is very much like blogging networks. I’m part of The Money Writers which is a group of ten bloggers. We have the same issue of newer bloggers asking to be part of our network. We feel we are a good size and adding new people would increase the complexity. And often other bloggers will go out and join other networks. The only difference is that I encourage bloggers to join networks and don’t view it as competition in the same way that the wineries do.

Can you think of some other area where this concept of a limited network enters your life? (Outside of blogging, I couldn’t think of any.) Let me know in the comments below…

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I’ve written before about how to Save Money with Yard Sales. I decided it’s about time to put my money with my fingers were typing (“money where you mouth is” doesn’t translate nearly as well as in blogging). With few exceptions most of the following things in the two pictures below were bought second-hand. Other major savings were due to Amazon Friday Sales or plain old bargain sleuthing.

The room I’m going to show off is our living room. When we moved a few months ago, my wife saw this area and thought it would be an ideal place to entertain a few guests while enjoying a nice bottle of wine. That’s exactly what we set out to do.

Let’s start with the first picture:
[When looking at these pictures, it is worth noting that things could be more tidy. (Note to my wife: Honey, I tried to make things look as presentable as possible.)]

• Wine Cage/Rack – We found this in Craiglist for $300. Usually, you can bargain someone down on Craigslist, but in this case we didn’t even try. We considered to instantly be the center of this living area. After we agreed to buy it, we found out it was handmade as a wedding gift, but the couple just moved into a home with a whole wine cellar. Some have said that such a cage would normally cost over $1000.
• Grape Pictures on the Wall – These were $2 each at a yard sale. They are fill the wall space well and keep with the wine theme.
• Shelving of Spirits – A lot of the liquor here was brought home from vacations at duty-free shops. For instance, bringing rum back from Barbados is fairly cheap for the quality. Much of the glassware is from the aforementioned Amazon Friday Sale.
• Rice Paper Floor Lamp – That’s a Target Special
• Chair and Ottoman – We got two of these (see other picture) for $80 in cash at an estate sale. They don’t match the modern look of the sofa that you see in the foreground, but they are quite possibly the most comfortable chairs in the world. You can see how the legs are ornately carved in this picture (it’s more obvious in the second picture).

Now, we’ll go into the second picture:

• Glass Coffee Table – This was a Craigslist find. It’s from Pottery Barn originally. At $200 it was half-price of what it cost in the store. Later, we found a nearly identical looking table at Ikea for less money, which kind of hurt. However, ours has tempered glass, which made us feel better after seeing a report that dozens (or hundreds or thousands, I can’t remember) of people are injured falling through glass coffee tables. The tempered glass is much, much safer.
• Mirror Above the Fireplace – I bought a nearly identical mirror to this for a friend’s wedding gift. That was $200 at Pottery Barn, this was $40 at the same yard sale as the Grape Pictures above.
• Wedding Photo Book – This is a book designed by Snapfish. Our wedding photographer gave us a $1500 flat-rate for just the digital pictures. So while some people pay $5000 for wedding photographers and packages, we were able to print out a decent quality book for around $75. Plus if there’s ever a fire in our home, we can have a copy sent to us on the cheap.
• Candle Holder/Stand – I picked these up for $4 each at a yard sale about 6 years ago. My mother actually suggested I get them, and went as far as painting them to make them look nice and new. For 5 years, I heard my wife complain about where to put them in our previous places, but they finally a home here.
• Small Champagne Candles on the Fireplace – We got a pack of 12 of these at the same yard sale as the mirror and the grape pictures for about $3.
• Puppy – It’s worth mentioning that we specifically chose not to invest a lot of money into something that he can destroy. He’s pretty strong, but nothing he can do is going to dent the wine cage. As a side note, puppy the priciest thing in the picture (given the on-going maintenance costs like food, etc), but he’s also the most priceless. That makes him by far the best value of anything in either picture.

There are a few things in the second photo that I didn’t address. Many of them are things that my wife had for a long time (the tea set, the curtains, the painting reprint, the stand with the lamp). The things on the stand are wedding gifts with the exception of the lamp which was also a cheap Target purchase (I’d estimate at under $15).

I suppose it’s not one of those lavish rooms that you on the HGTV, but we think it gets the job done at a price that doesn’t break the bank.

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I’m off to celebrate President’s Day weekend with my wife and our puppy (though he’s over a year old now). I hope to be back on Monday with a light post and then kick off Tuesday with a brief tour of Lazy Man headquarters and some of the bargains from throughout our house.

Money Writers:

• Brip Blap says raise the estate tax to 100%.
• Get tax tips for traders and investors and a free eBook from Digerati Life.
• Frugal Dad gives 33 essential items for your bug out bag.
• Generation X Finance tells you how can file taxes for free – FreeFile and free tax software.
• Million Dollar Journey looks into spousal rrsp loophole?
• Learn how to refer a friend for a job at Money Smart Life.
• My Dollar Plan shows you how to take a property tax deduction without itemizing.
• The Sun’s Financial Diary asks can the Super Bowl help forecast the stock market?

Top PF Posts:

• Free Money Finance posts the relationship between riches and wisdom.
• Mighty Bargain Hunter shows readers how to enlist Gmail to sell your Craigslist items for you and three ways to find a cool deal using Google.
• MoneyCrush asks how does $100 per week in spending money sound to you?
• Darwin’s Finance blogs easy ways to find the best finance blogs.
• All Financial Matters writes madoff vs. social security: which one’s the scam?
• PT Money shares sweet Valentine’s Day gift ideas.
• Get Rich Slowly on outsourcing life: unconventional advice for when you’re financially secure.
• Cheer yourself (up on the cheap) with these ideas from FruGal.
• Save Early says Saving Money in Real Life.
• Poorer Than You asks how big should your emergency fund be?
• Saving to Invest gives 6 reasons you should be inspired to save money.
• Smarter Wallet asks do large banks need government bailouts?

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Financially, I feel I couldn’t me less organized right now. I haven’t done my net worth in a few months. Haven’t asked the wife to do hers in much longer. I also need to look over the cash flow of my web-based business (this website being a sizable component of that), which I haven’t done in the last 2-3 months. I’m hoping that after the long weekend, I can start to finish that up.

Also on the to-do list is to set up an SEP-IRA for last year (I’m looking at you Fidelity). It will be interesting to look at more traditional investments for the first time in a while as I’ve been doing more investing in my businesses. I know I’m going to go with index mutual funds or exchange traded funds to broadly diversify with minimal expenses, but for fun, I will at least look at some blue chips. I don’t know why, but I love to tempt myself.

With that quick financial update out-of-the-way, here are some of the non-financial thoughts I’ve had lately.

• I’ve been spending more time on my MonaVie Scam website. With the help of a few other dedicated people, more and more reasons why it’s a scam keep popping up.
• I didn’t mind the Super Bowl halftime show as much as most people. Yes, The Who is old, and yes they’ve lost a lot on their fastball. However, when I hear the song, my brain kind of fills in the gap between what they are now and what they were. Also, I heard some radio station saying that most people can’t even name a song The Who sing. If you can’t name at least 5 songs The Who sing, I can never talk music with you. And if one of those songs is “Teenage Wasteland…” *sigh*
• I realize that the Super Bowl is being really, really careful not to invite people who might have wardrobe malfunctions, but they are probably going to be running out of artists soon. You’d probably think that the wardrobe malfunction is the most amazing thing to happen on live television during a halftime of the Patriots game, but Joe Namath’s drunken “I wanna kiss you” interview with Suzy Kolber is up there. Those are the only two times I can recall literally fell out of my seat in my life.
• While on the topic of football, I’ve already anointed Janell Wheeler as the winner of American Idol this season. I think they should just cut everyone else on the next show and just name her the winner. Perhaps they can give everyone else a parting gift and invite them back next year. How is Ms. Wheeler related to football? Google her and you’ll find she’s linked to Florida star Tim Tebow.
• In the last two weeks, I’ve become much more portable. I bought an extended battery the Aspire One that I got pre-Black Friday sale. The new battery set me back $40, but it also seems to give me 9-10 hours of juice (though I haven’t put it to the full-test yet). I also bought an extended battery for my Palm Pre. It cost around $20, but lasts twice as long as the battery that came with the phone. I can get very close two days on a full charge now. Thank you Ebay.
• While on the topic the Palm Pre, I can’t figure out why more people don’t buy one. Sprint has really cheap plans. Looks like the only competition should be the Nexus One on T-mobile. I realize it was limited to Sprint which might not work for everyone due to coverage. For those people, Verizon may have better coverage.

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I really wanted to get two things out today – hence the unusually forced title. Unless you’ve been asleep over the last 3 days, you know that Denny’s is giving out free breakfast today. Like in most cases, you get what you pay for. Last year Denny’s ran a similar promotion. I went by to see if I could grab some free breakfast. The line was around the block. I realized it would have been a better value to go spend my own money rather than just waste two hours of my time in line. From the news this morning, it seems that’s true this year as well. [Note: Sorry, but by the time I’m publishing this, the deal is over on the east coast, and winding up on the west coast.]

The other news that I’m touching on is that my wife and I spent around $1000 on Red Sox tickets for this upcoming year. At least that ticked to 9 games (6 in Oakland against the A’s, and 3 in San Francisco against the Giants). On one hand, it kind of hurts to spent nearly $1000 like that. On the other hand, when we moved from Boston to San Francisco, we knew there would be some pluses and some negatives. I’d put the price of seeing a Red Sox game as one of the positives. In Boston, a single ticket comparable to what we got for each the Oakland games would probably be $250 per game. Viewing it through that looking-glass makes it seem like a much, much better value.

I know much of you are probably saying that spending $1000 on baseball games probably isn’t too bad if it’s budgeted for. However, we don’t have a formal budget. It’s more of a “live your life frugally, so that when things like this come up, they aren’t an issue” type of thing. It’s made me think, that perhaps it’s because I’ve thought about personal finance years ago that I didn’t have to think too much about it now.

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Today, I’m focused on three thoughts.

• In a few hours, I’ll probably be partaking of more calories in one meal than I should have in a whole day… or two days. Many of you will probably do the same.
• Having spent some 90%+ of my life in Boston, I’m a New England Patriots fan. As a New England Patriots fan, my heart is with New Orleans. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? It’s not too hard to root for them. Having been a Red Sox fan for some time, I understand a bit what New Orleans fans are going through. Add to that, what they’ve been through the last 5+ years and I’m one of the least conflicted fans around.
• However, my head says that the Colts will likely win today. The team is so talented that they really only need to put together 10 minutes of solid playing time to put up 21 to 24 points. Then again I guess New Orleans can do that as well. Still, I’m not one to bet against Manning. My prediction is that the Colts win 38-31.

Here are the some personal finance links for this weekend:

Money Writers:

• The Sun’s Financial Diary is also having a giveaway. You could win a compound interest calculator iPhone app.
• Brip Blap talks about our debt to the future and past.
• Digerati Life says be vigilant of car recalls: lessons for car owners.
• Ben of Money Smart Life has three Turbo Tax codes to giveaway to lucky readers. More details: Free Turbo Tax Software!.
• Frugal Dad blogs about a reader’s credit troubles in we owe $80,000 on credit cards – where to start?
• Generation X Finance posts how to avoid and prepare for a tax audit by the IRS.
• Million Dollar Journey says beware of the upsell!
• My Dollar Plan says you can throw a 50th wedding anniversary on a budget.

Top PF Posts:

• Free Money Finance shares the following guest post: why I report my daughter’s babysitting income to the IRS.
• Is the Economy Improving? Views from Everyday Folks
• Smart Money Daily gives 9 Reasons Dave Ramsey Hates HELOCs.
• Get Rich Slowly share this reader tip: Pay your bills as they arrive.
• Mighty Bargain Hunter warns used clothes washers aren’t great deals for everyone.
• Saving Advice explains the difference between living below and within your means.
• Frugal For Life blogs the lay off notice, shock and recover.
• Suburban Dollar shares 3 websites that save me money.
• Wise Bread offers 10 budget-friendly ways to get it right this Valentine’s Day and beyond.
• The Smarter Wallet looks into peer to peer lending sites: Lending Club vs Prosper vs Kiva.

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