I, too, am a child of parents who grew up during the depression (as is my husband). Their attitudes about money have definitely shaped me, though not in quite a negative way. Still it is hard to sort through, sometimes, why some of my younger friends don't seem to grasp the benefits of frugality while they must wonder why I don't grasp the cost of frugality!
Someone taught me an interesting term once: the concept of a counter role model -- people who you realize have somehow influenced you but in a way that you do the opposite of what they have shown you.
You are so right when you say you need to look at the person who is giving advice, whether it is about money, career, children. It is helpful to me to have some older friends so I can see how their story has ended (how their attitudes about spending have shaped their retirement or how their child rearing tactics have helped or somehow hindered their kids' development).
Thanks for sharing and best wishes on overcoming those attitudes.
My worst financial mistake was believing my dad was an authority on personal finances.
Some parents teach their kids about saving, investing and wealth building but what happens when you start life thinking that money is bad?
For the record, my parents were two hard working, intelligent and responsible people who lived their life with integrity. They paid their bills on time and lived frugally. As children, we always had everything we needed and we were happy. My parents have a strange love-hate relationship with money. They have never owned a home of their own, they have never invested in anything other than their life insurance and have never splurged on spontaneous crazy things like a trip to Paris or a big screen TV (scratch that last one, they bought an HD TV last year...).
When I was a teenager, my dad was the single most important person in my life. He was my hero, my teacher and my friend. I respected him and I also feared his disapproval. As such, he had tremendous authority over me and my life choices and I accepted his influence freely and willingly because I knew that he loved me and wanted the best for me.
In retrospect, although I believe he meant well, my father was the worst possible financial advisor ever. It has taken me years to unlearn the lessons he taught me and I'm still discovering deep rooted money issues that affect my daily life. (In his defence, my dad was born during the Great Depression and it profoundly affected his relationship with money...)
Top 5 basic Money mistakes I learned from Dad.
1- Money is dirty. I learned my first money lesson at a very young age. My parents used to go ballistic when I would find pennies in the couch or on the ground. Don't touch that! Don't touch your face... money is dirty! Don't put that in your mouth! .. Do you know how many hands have touched that they would say as they briskly washed my hands and face. (Meanwhile they joke at how my sister used to scratch used gum off the floor and how it would make crunching sounds as she chewed it)
2- We're not made of money... or my personal favorite, you can't have everything you want. I'm a mom now, so I understand what they meant by that but I try to help my son understand that he has to make choices. I also tell him that he CAN have anything he wants but that sometimes, he has to be a little patient or I ask him if he really needs 4 spiderman action figures.
3- An allowance? What's that? My parents didn't believe in giving me an allowance in exchange for the chores I did around the house. The downside : I felt frustrated because my other friends all had their own money to buy gum or a bike, play at the arcade, or whatever while I had to beg my parents for a dollar or two. Plus, I was almost always turned down as my requests were viewed as wasteful. The upside : I started baby sitting when I was 12 and although I still had to argue about what I could buy with my own money, I felt more independant.
4- Being rich is a crime. I remember watching Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous one night and hearing my parents make comments about how disgusting and wasteful it was to live in such opulence. Is it a crime to be wealthy when so many have nothing? I am still struggling with this one.
5- Debt is a part of life. One day, I told my parents I wanted to be a multidisciplinary artist/actor. They stared at me in disbelief. -With a brain like yours why would you want to waste your life like that. You'll never make any money, you'll starve and live a life of misery. A higher education is the only path to personal freedom. (While it may have been true in his time, I've met plumbers and waiters who make more than University grads.) -But Dad, art is my passion. - You will go to University he replied. - Will you help me pay for it? - No. You'll work and get student loans, he said. - But I'll have over 25K of debt by the time I'm done... Don't worry Yanik, Debt is a part of life. Everybody has debt.
Ultimately, I think this was the worst piece of advice my dad ever gave me because it set the tone for how I viewed money and debt for the first 10 years of my adult life.
I left my parents house when I was 16. I went college and then University; I lived in poverty as a student and racked up a student debt that I am still paying for today. (more than 15 years later)
Later, I viewed credit cards as my safety net. I didn't care about debt because I had accepted that debt was a part of life. Although I was eventually making really good money, I was more interested in seeing money in my account than eliminating my debt. Furthermore, after feeling deprived for all those years, I rebelled (finally) and just wanted to be free to spend MY money (and then my credit) on whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Things were going great till the day I realized I was standing on the edge of a very slippery slope.
As I turned 30 and had my son, I realized I was a slave to my debt and had no real personal freedom. So after going through shock, denial, anger, and depression I decided to make conscious changes to the way I view debt, money and abundance. Having money is good after all!
I'm not playing the blame game...Dad may have planted the wrong seeds; but in the end, I'm responsible for my life and my finances. And so, the most valuable lesson I've learned through this is to check peoples credentials and assets as well as their own personal relationship with money before I accept their advice on how to manage my money. Now, I choose my teachers wisely and work hard at being a qualified teacher for my son.
I didn't link to Dove because I'm slightly put off by their campaign, which I find rather cynical. However, that video is an excellent example of how real faces and bodies are distorted to an impossible ideal.
well, i have done some stupid financial things in the past, ive charged things(clothes, electronics,etc) that i could have paid for cash (maybe 2k worth of stuff that ended up costing me 4k) i "smart bought" a car that was out of my price range that is still hurting me daily... 20k car, rolled over 5k into it, 48 payments @ 412 month with a 14k buy out.... I was also unemployed for over a year because i quit a job without thinkign a head and trying to line a new one up, granted it was a horrible stressiful job, but it payed the bills, while i was unemployed i went back to school to "live off the loans", bad mistake, i know, but this is nothing compared to my worst, most costly, haunting mistake.
And that was borrowing over 80k for undergraduate level college. I was under the impression that it didnt matter, it didnt add up, no matter how much i borrowed i could play it back slowly at my own pace, for say $50 a month. I never expected to have a student loan payment that was equal to my monthly salary... yes, equal to my MONTHLY SALARY!!! how do they expect me to pay for rent? food? gas? electricity?
they dont care, student loan lenders dont take into account that different majors lead into different jobs with different salaries.
My education cost well over 100k, i got grants and schloarships and even worked for a few summers to pay for part of tuition and still i owe 80k.... and for what i dont even have a good job, i dont even make 50k... If someone would have explained to me just how much going to a 25k a year school was going to cost me, how much i would be paying back and for how long i would have seriously considered a state school. Not that I can change anything but if i would have gone to state school my grants, etc would have covered the cost of attendance.
Turn the air duster can up-side down...it will spray liquid.
Has anyone tried this on really small dings? I can see how it would work on large dings because of the large surface area, but small dings would take a lot more force to fix.
I'm a proud Canadian and would like to share with you that we are also under the over-buy, credit card debt, consumerism spell. More is not better. I have often discussed with friends that we live in a society that would rather have two pieces of crap than one quality item. I DO NOT buy products made in China. I simply will not buy into the destruction of their country and our economies! In short I am not part of the problem. Many store owners have told me how proud they are of me for not buying Chinese products. They see first hand the crap that comes into their stores and they don't like it but they must compete with the low prices of the made in China products to stay in business. It is sad really. This little project of mine is one of my biggest challenges. In doing this I have come to realize one fact, I really don't need that much stuff. Want it, yes, sometimes but need it, no way. I have 12 DVD's that I have ready to go to the Goodwill store for charity resale. There is never a shortage of garage sales in my area where I can purchase, if needed, US or Canadian made quality, even used, goods. Fortunately, I can buy locally grown, mostly organic foods. I don't have 50 pairs of shoes but I have good quality shoes and they take me anywhere I want to go in comfort. I am one person but if we all refused to buy Made in China products and paid a little extra for North American made goods, we would all be better off globally. Try it for a week, just don't buy a product Made in China.
I graduated from college in 2004. Though I'd gone on job interviews, nothing had worked out, and the lease was up on my apartment. I moved back to my parents' house and then I got an email: "We have a three-month contract for you, you'll need to move to California to take the job." This company is pretty well-known in the geek world; they make entertainment products, and breaking into this field is very difficult. (For every job that's available, there are twenty or more qualified people.)
I ended up staying for two years. The company employed a lot of independent contractors, but a major problem was that the accounting department at the company was so resistant to these kinds of arrangements that they wouldn't even begin to process any independent contractor invoices until 30 days after they were submitted. (An improvement on their previous position of waiting 90 days, I guess.)
I had just moved 1,000 miles, I needed to get a place to live, but I didn't have any savings. Worse yet, I didn't get paid in a reasonable fashion during the entire time that I worked for the company. (I went from September 2005 to January 2006 without a single paycheck.) As a result, I ran up huge amounts of credit-card debt, and eventually had to borrow money from my parents, at the end, to pay my rent.
The mistakes that I made were numerous, but two big ones stand out:
1) Taking my slacker then-boyfriend with me, who fleeced me out of $2,000 when we finally broke up;
2) Getting a job as an "independent contractor" and not setting aside any money for self-employment taxes. Never mind that I was living in one of the most expensive areas of the country; never mind that I was always one and often two months behind on being paid. This past year, I owed $3,200 in taxes.
Moral of the story: Working for an entertainment company may sound great, but make sure you have all the facts before you decide to do it. Oh, and don't date losers.
My worst financial mistake is borrowing money to family members.
About 3.5 years ago I borrowed $2,000.- to my sister inlaw and her husband to help them get back on their feet. We made no formal repayment plan, because I believed they would be responsible enough to do it on their own. Oh what a silly girl I was. :)
Over the 3.5 year period the payments were scattered at best. During that time they got their own place, went on 2 vacations, bought a new vehicle, got pregnant, borrowed more money from other people, and various other poor financial decisions. After they became pregnant the payments ceased.
They finally paid me back this past spring with part of their tax refund. The kicker was that they complained, while handing over the check, that there would be no 'fun money' left for them after paying me and others off.
Moral of the story? NEVER borrow money to family or friends, NEVER. Especially when there is a history of very poor financial decisions. The toll it has taken on our relationship has been difficult and has yet to fully recover.
Agreed... I couldn't believe it when I Googled some photographers who had taken pictures for magazines. The before and after pictures of the models really hits you in the gut because they have wrinkles, cellulite, bags under their eyes, not so perfect hair.. yet if you looked in a magazine, you'd start to loathe yourself and what you look like.
I'm definitely getting rid of all of my magazine subscriptions once they run out.
I'm also happy that I'm young enough to appreciate my beauty now, than to regret it when I'm older, and lament how stupid I was to take my looks for granted...
When I was in high school I was flush with money. I had bad examples in my parents and my brothers, who ran up tons of loans, spending all of this borrowed money on vacations. When it came time for me to go to university (a decade later than my siblings), I entered with poor financial savvy. I spent all my hard earned money on ridiculous things, and trips, when I could've started saving it in a retirement savings plan, or used it to pay my tuition. Now I have almost $60,000 in education debt, but thankfully, no credit card debt, and it's going to take me thrice as long to clear all of it if I live like a pauper. And to think, I could've actually paid of all of my loans by the time I graduated, had I been more careful with my earnings (I also worked during University but squandered it on useless things). I treated my own earned money like it was a never-ending fountain, and treated my student loans as an open bank account.
Lesson learned: Before embarking on anything huge like going to University when you're paying for it on your own, or buying a house (in the future), research all of your options, get educated about financing and finances, and check to make sure you can afford it.
I worked while I was in college, so by the time I graduated, I had enough money saved up to completely pay off my loans. Well, I payed them before they started accruing interest, but I later realized that my interest rate was low enough (2.3%) where I could have made more money by placing the funds in an online savings account while paying off the loan monthly. Also, I could have increased my credit score since I had no credit history while attending college.
First, as I have said before, these are ex-conmen recreating classic cons and scams. If you look at any of the videos, you will see that they are TV show presenters quite clearly.
Second, this is a case of deception. If there was a sign posted on each carnival attraction saying 'your odds of winning are 5000-1 against you' then how many people would hand over the cash? Do you think the lottery would be legit if, before the drawing, someone magically drew 6 winning numbers and won millions. Then it was your turn. This is deception. They make it look possible, but it's all a scam. They are not upfront about it, as legitimate forms of gambling are. I agree that it's a business. So is laundering money.
By the way, did you read my piece on blog commenters?
I have found so many wonderful photos through Creative Commons. Excellent bunch of talented folks out there. And Andrea, great article. I intend to use that advice to the fullest.
Somehow, in spite of not having to pay for college, working full-time for a year following college, and going to graduate school with a stipend, I still haven't managed to save or invest a thing!
It makes a good tire boot as well. If your bike tire wears through or gets a big ol' glass-shard shaped hole in it, stick the dollar bill in, then the tube, then reinflate.
I, too, am a child of parents who grew up during the depression (as is my husband). Their attitudes about money have definitely shaped me, though not in quite a negative way. Still it is hard to sort through, sometimes, why some of my younger friends don't seem to grasp the benefits of frugality while they must wonder why I don't grasp the cost of frugality!
Someone taught me an interesting term once: the concept of a counter role model -- people who you realize have somehow influenced you but in a way that you do the opposite of what they have shown you.
You are so right when you say you need to look at the person who is giving advice, whether it is about money, career, children. It is helpful to me to have some older friends so I can see how their story has ended (how their attitudes about spending have shaped their retirement or how their child rearing tactics have helped or somehow hindered their kids' development).
Thanks for sharing and best wishes on overcoming those attitudes.
My worst financial mistake was believing my dad was an authority on personal finances.
Some parents teach their kids about saving, investing and wealth building but what happens when you start life thinking that money is bad?
For the record, my parents were two hard working, intelligent and responsible people who lived their life with integrity. They paid their bills on time and lived frugally. As children, we always had everything we needed and we were happy. My parents have a strange love-hate relationship with money. They have never owned a home of their own, they have never invested in anything other than their life insurance and have never splurged on spontaneous crazy things like a trip to Paris or a big screen TV (scratch that last one, they bought an HD TV last year...).
When I was a teenager, my dad was the single most important person in my life. He was my hero, my teacher and my friend. I respected him and I also feared his disapproval. As such, he had tremendous authority over me and my life choices and I accepted his influence freely and willingly because I knew that he loved me and wanted the best for me.
In retrospect, although I believe he meant well, my father was the worst possible financial advisor ever. It has taken me years to unlearn the lessons he taught me and I'm still discovering deep rooted money issues that affect my daily life. (In his defence, my dad was born during the Great Depression and it profoundly affected his relationship with money...)
Top 5 basic Money mistakes I learned from Dad.
1- Money is dirty. I learned my first money lesson at a very young age. My parents used to go ballistic when I would find pennies in the couch or on the ground. Don't touch that! Don't touch your face... money is dirty! Don't put that in your mouth! .. Do you know how many hands have touched that they would say as they briskly washed my hands and face. (Meanwhile they joke at how my sister used to scratch used gum off the floor and how it would make crunching sounds as she chewed it)
2- We're not made of money... or my personal favorite, you can't have everything you want. I'm a mom now, so I understand what they meant by that but I try to help my son understand that he has to make choices. I also tell him that he CAN have anything he wants but that sometimes, he has to be a little patient or I ask him if he really needs 4 spiderman action figures.
3- An allowance? What's that? My parents didn't believe in giving me an allowance in exchange for the chores I did around the house. The downside : I felt frustrated because my other friends all had their own money to buy gum or a bike, play at the arcade, or whatever while I had to beg my parents for a dollar or two. Plus, I was almost always turned down as my requests were viewed as wasteful. The upside : I started baby sitting when I was 12 and although I still had to argue about what I could buy with my own money, I felt more independant.
4- Being rich is a crime. I remember watching Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous one night and hearing my parents make comments about how disgusting and wasteful it was to live in such opulence. Is it a crime to be wealthy when so many have nothing? I am still struggling with this one.
5- Debt is a part of life. One day, I told my parents I wanted to be a multidisciplinary artist/actor. They stared at me in disbelief. -With a brain like yours why would you want to waste your life like that. You'll never make any money, you'll starve and live a life of misery. A higher education is the only path to personal freedom. (While it may have been true in his time, I've met plumbers and waiters who make more than University grads.) -But Dad, art is my passion. - You will go to University he replied. - Will you help me pay for it? - No. You'll work and get student loans, he said. - But I'll have over 25K of debt by the time I'm done... Don't worry Yanik, Debt is a part of life. Everybody has debt.
Ultimately, I think this was the worst piece of advice my dad ever gave me because it set the tone for how I viewed money and debt for the first 10 years of my adult life.
I left my parents house when I was 16. I went college and then University; I lived in poverty as a student and racked up a student debt that I am still paying for today. (more than 15 years later)
Later, I viewed credit cards as my safety net. I didn't care about debt because I had accepted that debt was a part of life. Although I was eventually making really good money, I was more interested in seeing money in my account than eliminating my debt. Furthermore, after feeling deprived for all those years, I rebelled (finally) and just wanted to be free to spend MY money (and then my credit) on whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Things were going great till the day I realized I was standing on the edge of a very slippery slope.
As I turned 30 and had my son, I realized I was a slave to my debt and had no real personal freedom. So after going through shock, denial, anger, and depression I decided to make conscious changes to the way I view debt, money and abundance. Having money is good after all!
I'm not playing the blame game...Dad may have planted the wrong seeds; but in the end, I'm responsible for my life and my finances. And so, the most valuable lesson I've learned through this is to check peoples credentials and assets as well as their own personal relationship with money before I accept their advice on how to manage my money. Now, I choose my teachers wisely and work hard at being a qualified teacher for my son.
I have three:
1. Not really focusing on my career early on. My earning potential could have been a lot higher now with just a little bit more effort early on.
2. Taking on a home remodeling project without knowing what I was getting into. I ended up $60,000 in debt.
3. Quitting a job without having another one lined up. A year of unemployment later and my savings were nearly tapped out.
Gal
I didn't link to Dove because I'm slightly put off by their campaign, which I find rather cynical. However, that video is an excellent example of how real faces and bodies are distorted to an impossible ideal.
well, i have done some stupid financial things in the past, ive charged things(clothes, electronics,etc) that i could have paid for cash (maybe 2k worth of stuff that ended up costing me 4k) i "smart bought" a car that was out of my price range that is still hurting me daily... 20k car, rolled over 5k into it, 48 payments @ 412 month with a 14k buy out.... I was also unemployed for over a year because i quit a job without thinkign a head and trying to line a new one up, granted it was a horrible stressiful job, but it payed the bills, while i was unemployed i went back to school to "live off the loans", bad mistake, i know, but this is nothing compared to my worst, most costly, haunting mistake.
And that was borrowing over 80k for undergraduate level college. I was under the impression that it didnt matter, it didnt add up, no matter how much i borrowed i could play it back slowly at my own pace, for say $50 a month. I never expected to have a student loan payment that was equal to my monthly salary... yes, equal to my MONTHLY SALARY!!! how do they expect me to pay for rent? food? gas? electricity?
they dont care, student loan lenders dont take into account that different majors lead into different jobs with different salaries.
My education cost well over 100k, i got grants and schloarships and even worked for a few summers to pay for part of tuition and still i owe 80k.... and for what i dont even have a good job, i dont even make 50k... If someone would have explained to me just how much going to a 25k a year school was going to cost me, how much i would be paying back and for how long i would have seriously considered a state school. Not that I can change anything but if i would have gone to state school my grants, etc would have covered the cost of attendance.
Check out the Dove campaign's Evolution Film for an excellent example of how distorted the beauty industry is.
Turn the air duster can up-side down...it will spray liquid.
Has anyone tried this on really small dings? I can see how it would work on large dings because of the large surface area, but small dings would take a lot more force to fix.
I ever made was marrying a musician who didn't enjoy performing.
I'm a proud Canadian and would like to share with you that we are also under the over-buy, credit card debt, consumerism spell. More is not better. I have often discussed with friends that we live in a society that would rather have two pieces of crap than one quality item. I DO NOT buy products made in China. I simply will not buy into the destruction of their country and our economies! In short I am not part of the problem. Many store owners have told me how proud they are of me for not buying Chinese products. They see first hand the crap that comes into their stores and they don't like it but they must compete with the low prices of the made in China products to stay in business. It is sad really. This little project of mine is one of my biggest challenges. In doing this I have come to realize one fact, I really don't need that much stuff. Want it, yes, sometimes but need it, no way. I have 12 DVD's that I have ready to go to the Goodwill store for charity resale. There is never a shortage of garage sales in my area where I can purchase, if needed, US or Canadian made quality, even used, goods. Fortunately, I can buy locally grown, mostly organic foods. I don't have 50 pairs of shoes but I have good quality shoes and they take me anywhere I want to go in comfort. I am one person but if we all refused to buy Made in China products and paid a little extra for North American made goods, we would all be better off globally. Try it for a week, just don't buy a product Made in China.
How would you categorize this comment?
Mine is a real doozy!
I graduated from college in 2004. Though I'd gone on job interviews, nothing had worked out, and the lease was up on my apartment. I moved back to my parents' house and then I got an email: "We have a three-month contract for you, you'll need to move to California to take the job." This company is pretty well-known in the geek world; they make entertainment products, and breaking into this field is very difficult. (For every job that's available, there are twenty or more qualified people.)
I ended up staying for two years. The company employed a lot of independent contractors, but a major problem was that the accounting department at the company was so resistant to these kinds of arrangements that they wouldn't even begin to process any independent contractor invoices until 30 days after they were submitted. (An improvement on their previous position of waiting 90 days, I guess.)
I had just moved 1,000 miles, I needed to get a place to live, but I didn't have any savings. Worse yet, I didn't get paid in a reasonable fashion during the entire time that I worked for the company. (I went from September 2005 to January 2006 without a single paycheck.) As a result, I ran up huge amounts of credit-card debt, and eventually had to borrow money from my parents, at the end, to pay my rent.
The mistakes that I made were numerous, but two big ones stand out:
1) Taking my slacker then-boyfriend with me, who fleeced me out of $2,000 when we finally broke up;
2) Getting a job as an "independent contractor" and not setting aside any money for self-employment taxes. Never mind that I was living in one of the most expensive areas of the country; never mind that I was always one and often two months behind on being paid. This past year, I owed $3,200 in taxes.
Moral of the story: Working for an entertainment company may sound great, but make sure you have all the facts before you decide to do it. Oh, and don't date losers.
My worst financial mistake is borrowing money to family members.
About 3.5 years ago I borrowed $2,000.- to my sister inlaw and her husband to help them get back on their feet. We made no formal repayment plan, because I believed they would be responsible enough to do it on their own. Oh what a silly girl I was. :)
Over the 3.5 year period the payments were scattered at best. During that time they got their own place, went on 2 vacations, bought a new vehicle, got pregnant, borrowed more money from other people, and various other poor financial decisions. After they became pregnant the payments ceased.
They finally paid me back this past spring with part of their tax refund. The kicker was that they complained, while handing over the check, that there would be no 'fun money' left for them after paying me and others off.
Moral of the story? NEVER borrow money to family or friends, NEVER. Especially when there is a history of very poor financial decisions. The toll it has taken on our relationship has been difficult and has yet to fully recover.
Agreed... I couldn't believe it when I Googled some photographers who had taken pictures for magazines. The before and after pictures of the models really hits you in the gut because they have wrinkles, cellulite, bags under their eyes, not so perfect hair.. yet if you looked in a magazine, you'd start to loathe yourself and what you look like.
I'm definitely getting rid of all of my magazine subscriptions once they run out.
I'm also happy that I'm young enough to appreciate my beauty now, than to regret it when I'm older, and lament how stupid I was to take my looks for granted...
When I was in high school I was flush with money. I had bad examples in my parents and my brothers, who ran up tons of loans, spending all of this borrowed money on vacations. When it came time for me to go to university (a decade later than my siblings), I entered with poor financial savvy. I spent all my hard earned money on ridiculous things, and trips, when I could've started saving it in a retirement savings plan, or used it to pay my tuition. Now I have almost $60,000 in education debt, but thankfully, no credit card debt, and it's going to take me thrice as long to clear all of it if I live like a pauper. And to think, I could've actually paid of all of my loans by the time I graduated, had I been more careful with my earnings (I also worked during University but squandered it on useless things). I treated my own earned money like it was a never-ending fountain, and treated my student loans as an open bank account.
Lesson learned: Before embarking on anything huge like going to University when you're paying for it on your own, or buying a house (in the future), research all of your options, get educated about financing and finances, and check to make sure you can afford it.
I worked while I was in college, so by the time I graduated, I had enough money saved up to completely pay off my loans. Well, I payed them before they started accruing interest, but I later realized that my interest rate was low enough (2.3%) where I could have made more money by placing the funds in an online savings account while paying off the loan monthly. Also, I could have increased my credit score since I had no credit history while attending college.
Lesson learned: Not all loans are bad
A few remarks on your comments.
First, as I have said before, these are ex-conmen recreating classic cons and scams. If you look at any of the videos, you will see that they are TV show presenters quite clearly.
Second, this is a case of deception. If there was a sign posted on each carnival attraction saying 'your odds of winning are 5000-1 against you' then how many people would hand over the cash? Do you think the lottery would be legit if, before the drawing, someone magically drew 6 winning numbers and won millions. Then it was your turn. This is deception. They make it look possible, but it's all a scam. They are not upfront about it, as legitimate forms of gambling are. I agree that it's a business. So is laundering money.
By the way, did you read my piece on blog commenters?
"Actually, don't use my name, unless you want to be mobbed by thousands of screaming fans."
Oh damn, and me without my "Andrea, I want to have your babies" placard.
Great article, as usual!
I have found so many wonderful photos through Creative Commons. Excellent bunch of talented folks out there. And Andrea, great article. I intend to use that advice to the fullest.
We are so delighted by Flickr's creative commons pool. Thanks so much for allowing your photos for use in the public domain!
I'm sooo proud you used my photo !!! :-)
(And good article, by the way...)
Probably under For Sale>Barter.
Somehow, in spite of not having to pay for college, working full-time for a year following college, and going to graduate school with a stipend, I still haven't managed to save or invest a thing!
I hadn't thought of using Craigslist to trade the coupons...what channel would this be under?
It makes a good tire boot as well. If your bike tire wears through or gets a big ol' glass-shard shaped hole in it, stick the dollar bill in, then the tube, then reinflate.
Trading entertainment book coupons will definitely help you maximize your savings.
I've used craigslist to do this, and there's also this site:
http://www.tradeentertainmentcoupons.com/ although it isn't very active.