I took my driving test in 1990, the day I turned 16. I was the only one out of all my friends to ace the test with a perfect 100! The closest they got was a 95 because they didn't properly parallel park (a minimum 5 point ding). My perfect score had less to do with my parking prowess than it did the car I used for the test- my sister's 1985 Honda CRX. For those of you who aren't familiar with the CRX, it was a tiny 2-seater based on the Civic and roughly the same length as the current "smart" car. It could almost park nose-to-curb in a parallel spot! =)
I recently went through this for the first time from Colombia. I came REALLY close to failing the test. Also paypal flagged me, saying they suspected someone else had accessed my account. So I had to change my password, re-verify my account and actually upload an electronic copy of my bank statement to prove that I hadn't be hacked. And I always have to call Bank of America to inform them of my travels, specifically by country and date or they will lock my account and require me to recite my last two charges-- to the penny.
I don't think this is going to get better for travelers anytime soon.
Amen to bargain grocery stores! I shopped at Winco Foods when I lived in Portland, OR. They even gave you 5 cents off for each of your own bags you brought. I miss that place.
LoL! You guys are funny! Iv"e been a PDR tech for 11 years and have tried alot of ways but it all comes down to two things...a skilled paintless dent technician or conventional autobody. In your defense dry ice will work but only on very small dents like dimesize. Try to use it on a very hot day. It doesn't work on bodylines or near the edges,only in the middle of a panel. When you heat a dent with a hair dryer it makes the metal stiffen and it holds the dent in. You only heat a dent up if its an " oilcan" which is a dent where the metal is so stretched the dent will go either way, in or out. In that case you pop the dent out or up and heat with a heat gun then try to tap it as flat as you can. there's a reason why insurance companies only write the check to a bodyshop or a PDR Company and thats because they are the only ways that work so far.
is it true that if a person has a medical bill and its putting a burden on them that his or her minister can go in and explain this to them and get the bill taken care of for that person. if it is please contact me at bettyarbuckle46@sbcglobal.net. i am a minister and i would like to know . thank you.
I have been using Blogger as my free blogging platform for a few months now. I do want to move on to having my own domain. Thanks for the tips like ProBlogger as well as for images (Creative Commons).
This is akin to saying, "If you want to become financially independent and retire early, then attempting to double your income is a waste of time and effort. Research shows that when people get a raise they simply increase their spending along with it."
Well, OK, but that's fairly misleading. If you had the discipline to avoid lifestyle inflation then doubling your income would sure help toward achieving financial independence.
Exercise works the same way. By itself exercise has some benefits, but the benefits may not be immediately apparent (probably just better mobility and health as you age). Combined with the discipline to count calories and eat a balanced diet, exercise will make you to look and perform better than you ever imagined. Just dieting might keep your from being obese, but it will not make you look like the models or athletes on magazine covers. However, eating AND exercising like a professional athlete or model (i.e. doing more than just walking around) WILL have a seriously dramatic effect. Even if looking like a magazine cover is not your goal, this is still the fastest route to simply being "not fat."
That said, I agree that you don't need to shell out for a gym membership to do this. Most gyms are overpriced and don't really offer much value. You could do better by just running around a high school track and finding a place to do things like pull-ups and dips. When you can run a 6-minute mile and do 20 pull-ups you'll look better than 99% of Americans, no gym membership required.
Yeah, GR has it. This article was titled interestingly, but the content was completely useless. I got the feeling that the impetus for it was that the author had an experience with a 30-year old with a loud ringtone. I was really hoping for actual advice or tips on expenses that can be ditched, or at least reduced, like car insurance.
I count 1 dollar for every five spent on food. I'm quite bad at math so this works for me and it is fast. If the meal is $25 then I leave or write $5 in tip space or on the table. If it is something like $23.75 I will round up to to $25 and leave $5. I if the service is not so good I'll round down to $20 and leave $4. I try to leave not to leave change as part of the tip. Servers are busy enough as it is.
Aside from the tired ‘latte factor’ and ‘pay yourself first nuggets,’ the one that annoys me most is to ‘get rid of the car and use public transportation.’ Commuting 35 miles each way to work each day is actually cheaper—even with gas and maintenance—than using the public transportation available in my area. No, I don’t drive a hybrid—my car is old, reliable, and paid for—but there’s no one to tell me to shut it when I sing along to the radio and the drive lets me gear up or decompress from a long day…
Once, not long ago, having a job was a way to put food in your belly. Period. I think people overestimate how fulfilling your average job needs to be. Our forefathers and mothers understood that working hard was just part of life, and didn't waste so much emotional energy trying to be happy every moment. It makes me sad to see able-bodied, healthy young people wasting so much of their precious youth worrying about such things. Find a job. Pay the bills. Enjoy your spare time (many more hours than even our recent ancestors enjoyed), and stop worrying so danged much. Stick with something longer than a sound byte, like the author of this piece suggests, and you might find contentment in.... being content.
It's a lifestyle to me. Not "having" to work to live. Doing what I want when I want (including work, vacation, etc.). And having people to share it with. Without all of that, you may be wealthy, but you're not rich.
I agree with the other commenter, this article does a great job of distinguishing the above mentioned practice from cybersquatting. However, it should also be stated that if the domain name is confusingly similar to a trademark it might be cybersquatting. For example, if you use Niky.com, it might be too similar and might be trademark infringement. The case DaimlerChrysler v. The Net, Inc. very explicitly defines cybersquatting. The case can be found for free at http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4716961749813728681 (see the third paragraph under the "Analysis" heading for the definition of cybersquatting.
In addition to cypersquatting, there is one more academic principle that should be discussed, which is somewhat tangential to cybersquatting. Using another party's tradename in your website's Meta Tags might be trademark infringement. This practice is frowned upon because it either unjustly attracts traffic to your website or it deters traffic from the trademark owner's website. Either way this is found to be trademark infringement. For a more thorough discussion on this, see the article at http://fromthegroundfloor.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/be-careful-with-your-..., but remember to come back to this website because it is very thorough and well written.
-The above information is intended to be academic in nature. It is not legal advice. For legal advice contact a local licensed attorney.
One thing that this article hints at, but does not explicitly state is that we need to use the things we already have access to, but let go to waste. This article mentions using the old coffee machine and the library. What about people with a gym membership they never use? You bought that thing with the intention to go, but day after day you put it off. You have it, so why not use it. Go to the gym instead of going to see a movie. This will save you money, get you in shape, and keep you occupied.
What about all the materials you bought so you could start a hobby several years ago? Do it now. You already have the materials. This will keep you occupied, and you don't have to get more materials.
One commenter wrote about national parks and soaking your feet in a stream. This is a great point. Don't limit yourself to things in your house. Look outside of your house for other free activities--national parks might not always be free, but they're a much cheaper activity/vacation than Six Flags/Busch Gardens/Elitch Gardens/Disney/Universal.
I sum, I take a different view from this article. I say, "save money be having free fun." Being boring might save money, but what fun is that?
You alluded to this when you said that being rich means having a sense of direction, but to me the below is important enough as a call out in it's own right:
Knowing that you can make a difference and leave a legacy when you are gone
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Pericles (Greek statesman of Athens who died in 429 BC).
As we move through the ages and stages of life, we are bombarded by change, yet the life cycle is ever repeating (well at least until 2012 :}).
Understanding what those who came before me did to enable the life I have led caused me to wish to leave something behind for those who come after. Lucky are those who reach this point in time to led a purposeful life, in time to know what legacy they want to leave and in time to work towards leaving it. This to me, has to be part of any definition of richness.
Hopefully your clever and funny post will help some individuals who have been struggling with their finances.
Sometimes a different perspective can be a catalyst for change.
I wanted to clarify that getting an internship is NOT easy. You NEED college credit for ALMOST ALL of them AND they WANT to work with 19 & 20 year-olds. Not people past college age. I am 26, have been in this crisis since I came out of college and saw that I went from helping professors with their manuscripts to ordering lunch for a bunch of executives who thought I was young trash that needed to move up the ladder to have the cush life that they FINALLY earned at their ripe old age of 45. I have suffered from SO many bouts of unemployment, so many times of pure idleness applying to jobs, networking, aimlessly trying to fix whatever it is that I obviously messed up. People love my work but the only places I've gotten in the door are in companies and jobs where I'm often the most educated person, even among management. Pay is crap in your 20s so I don't get where people got this idea of spending all this money on drinking with friends on the weekends when I can only afford to go out twice a YEAR. I found myself desperate and now I'm in grad school studying to be a teacher which is something I absolutely do NOT want to do, but at this point, I'll be almost 30 by the time I graduate and I need to not be such a f****** loser.
Give coupons as gifts "free night of babysitting...free backrub", etc. Does anyone like getting these? IT is awkward to "redeem a coupon, and if it happens to be inconvenient timing for the giver- they feel bad, the redeemer feels stupid and shortchanged, and usually, to avoid this kind of thing, the giver is thanked, hugged, and the coupons thrown in a drawer, to be thrown out later.
The only situation in which this might work is between siblings- I will make your bed fora week...take out the garbage for you...etc., because the parents can enforce fulfillment, thus eliminating any awkwardness or agitation between the 2 parties.
I took my driving test in 1990, the day I turned 16. I was the only one out of all my friends to ace the test with a perfect 100! The closest they got was a 95 because they didn't properly parallel park (a minimum 5 point ding). My perfect score had less to do with my parking prowess than it did the car I used for the test- my sister's 1985 Honda CRX. For those of you who aren't familiar with the CRX, it was a tiny 2-seater based on the Civic and roughly the same length as the current "smart" car. It could almost park nose-to-curb in a parallel spot! =)
I recently went through this for the first time from Colombia. I came REALLY close to failing the test. Also paypal flagged me, saying they suspected someone else had accessed my account. So I had to change my password, re-verify my account and actually upload an electronic copy of my bank statement to prove that I hadn't be hacked. And I always have to call Bank of America to inform them of my travels, specifically by country and date or they will lock my account and require me to recite my last two charges-- to the penny.
I don't think this is going to get better for travelers anytime soon.
Amen to bargain grocery stores! I shopped at Winco Foods when I lived in Portland, OR. They even gave you 5 cents off for each of your own bags you brought. I miss that place.
LoL! You guys are funny! Iv"e been a PDR tech for 11 years and have tried alot of ways but it all comes down to two things...a skilled paintless dent technician or conventional autobody. In your defense dry ice will work but only on very small dents like dimesize. Try to use it on a very hot day. It doesn't work on bodylines or near the edges,only in the middle of a panel. When you heat a dent with a hair dryer it makes the metal stiffen and it holds the dent in. You only heat a dent up if its an " oilcan" which is a dent where the metal is so stretched the dent will go either way, in or out. In that case you pop the dent out or up and heat with a heat gun then try to tap it as flat as you can. there's a reason why insurance companies only write the check to a bodyshop or a PDR Company and thats because they are the only ways that work so far.
is it true that if a person has a medical bill and its putting a burden on them that his or her minister can go in and explain this to them and get the bill taken care of for that person. if it is please contact me at bettyarbuckle46@sbcglobal.net. i am a minister and i would like to know . thank you.
Libertarians claim federal income tax payment is voluntary. Punishment for not paying is therefore un-Constitutional. Is there any truth to this?
I have been using Blogger as my free blogging platform for a few months now. I do want to move on to having my own domain. Thanks for the tips like ProBlogger as well as for images (Creative Commons).
This is akin to saying, "If you want to become financially independent and retire early, then attempting to double your income is a waste of time and effort. Research shows that when people get a raise they simply increase their spending along with it."
Well, OK, but that's fairly misleading. If you had the discipline to avoid lifestyle inflation then doubling your income would sure help toward achieving financial independence.
Exercise works the same way. By itself exercise has some benefits, but the benefits may not be immediately apparent (probably just better mobility and health as you age). Combined with the discipline to count calories and eat a balanced diet, exercise will make you to look and perform better than you ever imagined. Just dieting might keep your from being obese, but it will not make you look like the models or athletes on magazine covers. However, eating AND exercising like a professional athlete or model (i.e. doing more than just walking around) WILL have a seriously dramatic effect. Even if looking like a magazine cover is not your goal, this is still the fastest route to simply being "not fat."
That said, I agree that you don't need to shell out for a gym membership to do this. Most gyms are overpriced and don't really offer much value. You could do better by just running around a high school track and finding a place to do things like pull-ups and dips. When you can run a 6-minute mile and do 20 pull-ups you'll look better than 99% of Americans, no gym membership required.
Dandelions a diuretic. Fascinating.
Yeah, GR has it. This article was titled interestingly, but the content was completely useless. I got the feeling that the impetus for it was that the author had an experience with a 30-year old with a loud ringtone. I was really hoping for actual advice or tips on expenses that can be ditched, or at least reduced, like car insurance.
I count 1 dollar for every five spent on food. I'm quite bad at math so this works for me and it is fast. If the meal is $25 then I leave or write $5 in tip space or on the table. If it is something like $23.75 I will round up to to $25 and leave $5. I if the service is not so good I'll round down to $20 and leave $4. I try to leave not to leave change as part of the tip. Servers are busy enough as it is.
Aside from the tired ‘latte factor’ and ‘pay yourself first nuggets,’ the one that annoys me most is to ‘get rid of the car and use public transportation.’ Commuting 35 miles each way to work each day is actually cheaper—even with gas and maintenance—than using the public transportation available in my area. No, I don’t drive a hybrid—my car is old, reliable, and paid for—but there’s no one to tell me to shut it when I sing along to the radio and the drive lets me gear up or decompress from a long day…
Once, not long ago, having a job was a way to put food in your belly. Period. I think people overestimate how fulfilling your average job needs to be. Our forefathers and mothers understood that working hard was just part of life, and didn't waste so much emotional energy trying to be happy every moment. It makes me sad to see able-bodied, healthy young people wasting so much of their precious youth worrying about such things. Find a job. Pay the bills. Enjoy your spare time (many more hours than even our recent ancestors enjoyed), and stop worrying so danged much. Stick with something longer than a sound byte, like the author of this piece suggests, and you might find contentment in.... being content.
It's a lifestyle to me. Not "having" to work to live. Doing what I want when I want (including work, vacation, etc.). And having people to share it with. Without all of that, you may be wealthy, but you're not rich.
I agree with the other commenter, this article does a great job of distinguishing the above mentioned practice from cybersquatting. However, it should also be stated that if the domain name is confusingly similar to a trademark it might be cybersquatting. For example, if you use Niky.com, it might be too similar and might be trademark infringement. The case DaimlerChrysler v. The Net, Inc. very explicitly defines cybersquatting. The case can be found for free at http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4716961749813728681 (see the third paragraph under the "Analysis" heading for the definition of cybersquatting.
In addition to cypersquatting, there is one more academic principle that should be discussed, which is somewhat tangential to cybersquatting. Using another party's tradename in your website's Meta Tags might be trademark infringement. This practice is frowned upon because it either unjustly attracts traffic to your website or it deters traffic from the trademark owner's website. Either way this is found to be trademark infringement. For a more thorough discussion on this, see the article at http://fromthegroundfloor.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/be-careful-with-your-..., but remember to come back to this website because it is very thorough and well written.
-The above information is intended to be academic in nature. It is not legal advice. For legal advice contact a local licensed attorney.
This is a GREAT idea! I can't wait to try it. Thanks for sharing!
Cancel cable. Also, go to a one car family and walk/bike everywhere. Great advice but if you are not interested in it, uber frugal people attack!
One thing that this article hints at, but does not explicitly state is that we need to use the things we already have access to, but let go to waste. This article mentions using the old coffee machine and the library. What about people with a gym membership they never use? You bought that thing with the intention to go, but day after day you put it off. You have it, so why not use it. Go to the gym instead of going to see a movie. This will save you money, get you in shape, and keep you occupied.
What about all the materials you bought so you could start a hobby several years ago? Do it now. You already have the materials. This will keep you occupied, and you don't have to get more materials.
One commenter wrote about national parks and soaking your feet in a stream. This is a great point. Don't limit yourself to things in your house. Look outside of your house for other free activities--national parks might not always be free, but they're a much cheaper activity/vacation than Six Flags/Busch Gardens/Elitch Gardens/Disney/Universal.
I sum, I take a different view from this article. I say, "save money be having free fun." Being boring might save money, but what fun is that?
David, well put.
You alluded to this when you said that being rich means having a sense of direction, but to me the below is important enough as a call out in it's own right:
Knowing that you can make a difference and leave a legacy when you are gone
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Pericles (Greek statesman of Athens who died in 429 BC).
As we move through the ages and stages of life, we are bombarded by change, yet the life cycle is ever repeating (well at least until 2012 :}).
Understanding what those who came before me did to enable the life I have led caused me to wish to leave something behind for those who come after. Lucky are those who reach this point in time to led a purposeful life, in time to know what legacy they want to leave and in time to work towards leaving it. This to me, has to be part of any definition of richness.
Thanks! I do hope this article helps people with their finances. :)
Hopefully your clever and funny post will help some individuals who have been struggling with their finances.
Sometimes a different perspective can be a catalyst for change.
I wanted to clarify that getting an internship is NOT easy. You NEED college credit for ALMOST ALL of them AND they WANT to work with 19 & 20 year-olds. Not people past college age. I am 26, have been in this crisis since I came out of college and saw that I went from helping professors with their manuscripts to ordering lunch for a bunch of executives who thought I was young trash that needed to move up the ladder to have the cush life that they FINALLY earned at their ripe old age of 45. I have suffered from SO many bouts of unemployment, so many times of pure idleness applying to jobs, networking, aimlessly trying to fix whatever it is that I obviously messed up. People love my work but the only places I've gotten in the door are in companies and jobs where I'm often the most educated person, even among management. Pay is crap in your 20s so I don't get where people got this idea of spending all this money on drinking with friends on the weekends when I can only afford to go out twice a YEAR. I found myself desperate and now I'm in grad school studying to be a teacher which is something I absolutely do NOT want to do, but at this point, I'll be almost 30 by the time I graduate and I need to not be such a f****** loser.
Ah . . . . not helpful at all. The title is great, but I was looking for legitimate tips.
that's an interesting assortment of online stores.
I'm a geek and NewEgg.com is a great place to get stuff.
Give coupons as gifts "free night of babysitting...free backrub", etc. Does anyone like getting these? IT is awkward to "redeem a coupon, and if it happens to be inconvenient timing for the giver- they feel bad, the redeemer feels stupid and shortchanged, and usually, to avoid this kind of thing, the giver is thanked, hugged, and the coupons thrown in a drawer, to be thrown out later.
The only situation in which this might work is between siblings- I will make your bed fora week...take out the garbage for you...etc., because the parents can enforce fulfillment, thus eliminating any awkwardness or agitation between the 2 parties.