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Fighting Red Light Cameras

April 15th, 2010

As state and local governments struggle to keep up with their reckless spending in this economic downturn, more and more cities are installing red light camera to fine motorists and help bridge the revenue gap in their budgets. It seems like these things are everywhere now, which makes me love this story of how a couple in Florida fought the city over one of these tickets and won. How did they do it? By confirming that the cycle for the yellow light had been set too short according to county guidelines. The husband simply went out the the light where the ticket was issued with a stopwatch and timed the yellow light cycle to find in 15 instances the average cycle for the yellow was 3.8 seconds compared to 4.5 seconds required by law. He was able to get the county to concede the cycle was too short and the ticket was dismissed. How widespread is the issue? This fellow checked a total of 65 intersections in the area and found only 7 lights that meet the requirement.

Not specifically personal finance related, but I thought it was an interesting story to pass along.

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Posted in Automotive, News/Trends

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Texas Powerful Smart Appliance Rebate Fiasco

April 7th, 2010

As our government continues to find new ways to squander taxpayer money, the federal government provided to the states funds for incentives for energy efficient home improvements. Here in Texas that has taken the form of the Texas Powerful Smart Appliance Rebate, which has thus far been a fiasco of Texas-sized proportions.

The program seems relatively simple: you get a rebate for replacing an old appliance with an energy efficient model, and an extra bonus if you recycle the old one. However, because funding is limited you have to reserve your rebate in advance through the state Comptroller’s office, first come first served. They opened the reservation website and phone lines this morning at 7am, and since frustrated Texans have spent hours struggling to get through the system to reserve their rebate before the funds run out. The published 877 number has been unreachable with callers getting busy signals of all sorts, and the website has timed out consistently leaving users to start over even if they get past the initial request page.

Myself, I tried since 7am this morning to get through on both the website and phone number, and after stepping away for an hour for a meeting and restarting I finally got through on the phone at 12:32pm, meaning I wasted about 4.5 hours trying to get through. I only got through because someone figured out that their was an unpublished alternate number at 877-581-1993, which was intended to be the rebate status line but was directing people into the rebate request queue. That line is still presenting callers with a message saying that the call can’t be answered at this time due to high call volume in most instances, but it is occasionally allowing you into the hold queue where you’ll wait about 5 minutes for a representative to process your reservation.

So if you are wanting to get in on this, remember:

  1. Funds are limited. If you don’t get this today, you probably won’t get it.
  2. Information on the program is at http://www.texaspowerfulsmart.org/. However, the rebate request website is at https://www.txrebates.com/. The published rebate reservation phone number is (877) 780-3039, and the unpublished number is (877) 581-1993.
  3. Be sure to get a confirmation number! Without it there is nothing to prove you made the reservation.
  4. You are limited to two rebates per household and one rebate in each appliance category, however you are allowed to request only one rebate during each call or web session.

As of 1:05pm Central, it is reported that 63% of rebate funds have been reserved and $8.1 million remains, so you need to hurry and get in.

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Posted in News/Trends, Rebates

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Why being a devil customer is better than boycotting…

January 13th, 2010

I have seen a lot in the blogosphere of late about the “Move Your Money” campaign, which aims to motivate people to boycott the big banks that were the primary recipients of government bailout money and move their business to smaller community banks and credit unions. This has led to a lot of discussion of boycotts in general, including this great post over at Bargaineering.

But if you disagree with a company’s business practices, is a boycott the most effective means of jabbing a stick in their eye? I would submit to you that it isn’t. You may do the most damage to the offending company by being what Best Buy termed several years ago as a “devil customer”. Best Buy determined that some of their customers who bought high-priced items or overpriced accessories without a sale were “angel customers”, but there was a certain percentage that were unprofitable customers that were considered “devil customers”. Included in the behaviors of the devil customer were taking advantage of price-match policies and only buying loss leader items (items sold below cost to get you into the store with the hope you’ll buy other items at regular price). Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson was quoted as saying, “They can wreak enormous economic havoc.”

So how can this be applied to protest companies you don’t like? Simply be a devil! For retail stores don’t boycott the store, but go there and only buy obvious loss leaders. If it is a store like Walmart with a price-match policy, go and price-match other stores’ loss leaders. Buy nothing that will actually make money for the store - save those items for their competitors and let those stores reap the profit.

Taking this concept back to banks, do everything you can to make sure the bank doesn’t make money on you. Move your money elsewhere unless they are paying an extremely high promotional rate that they are likely losing money on. Take advantage of promotional offers to open checking accounts and credit cards for bonus money or other perks, then only use the account enough to qualify for the bonus and avoid services fees and as soon as you are allowed cancel the account. If you do the dollar coin hustle, use an account over there to dump off your coins and make them eat the expense of handling them. Basically do anything that will cost them money but where you won’t incur any fees.

Think of it this way: if you boycott a company, they just don’t make any money off of you. But if you are a devil customer to a company, not only do they not make money off of you but they actually lose money by your having a relationship with them.

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Posted in Banking, Customer Service, News/Trends

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Why I’m not renewing personal finance magazine subscriptions…

December 29th, 2009

Anyone who has known me over the years knows that I usually have a lot of magazines laying around my house. However, this personal finance blogger has made a decision that may surprise many: I am not renewing any of my personal finance magazine subscriptions. I have several reasons for doing this besides eliminating the expense:

  1. I don’t care about their investing advice, which is about a third of the magazines’ content. In any given personal finance magazine, typically the middle third of the magazine is dedicated to columns on mutual fund and stock picks. I don’t even bother reading these columns, mainly because I am a proponent of index funds as opposed to managed mutual funds. Also, in the digital age if you are getting your stock picks from a print magazine you are probably way too late to the game. Think about how many people know about the virtues of these great stocks by the time it makes it into a printed magazine, and if you are reading it in print how many people read it in an online edition before you and how many other people are reading the exact same article you are.
  2. Most personal finance magazine articles are geared towards those with relatively low levels of financial literacy. This may sound very arrogant of me, but one of the things that drives me nuts with a lot of personal finance magazines is that it seems like most of the content is geared towards the Dave Ramsey struggling with the basics crowd with very little geared towards those of us that already have the basics of personal finance down and are looking for ways to reach that next level of financial savvy. This is where I think the personal finance blogosphere is filling a huge gap left by the traditional media. I can learn a lot more from browsing a day’s worth of postings on pfblogs.org than I can from an entire year’s worth of Money magazine in part because…
  3. So much of personal finance magazine content is repetitive. How many times do I need to read that rewards credit cards don’t make sense if I have to carry a balance because of higher interest rates, or that energy efficient appliances can save me money in the long run? These are just a few of the topics that seem to get written about over and over in personal finance magazines. Can’t they at some point come up with some original insight?
  4. So much of the content is available online for free. I started finding recently that by the time my print copy of the personal finance magazines would arrive in the mail and I got the chance to sit down and read them I had already seen most of the content elsewhere. This is because most of the articles in these magazines are posted online on their own websites, often before the print magazine actually hits newsstands or subscriber mailboxes.

Ultimately I think the better financial education can be found online on personal finance blogs and forum, so personal finance magazines only produce unnecessary expense and clutter.

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Posted in Education, News/Trends, Tips

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Seeds: “The Ultimate Barter Item” – Pass the Tin Foil Hat, Please

September 9th, 2009

The actions and proposals of the leftist loonies in Washington has many of us scared for the future, and one of the results of this fear is the rise of survivalism. While I don’t think we are headed for a complete anarchy situation along the lines of “Mad Max”, I do think some common sense preparations for possible trouble ahead would be appropriate. I even discussed this idea last year when oil prices went through the roof. That post can give you some thoughts on reasonable preparations to make, the types of things that are grandparents did - not because they were scared of some threat but because they knew it made sense to prepare for a rainy day. The Survival Podcast and the forums on that site are also a great resource for a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

That said, I heard an advertisement on the radio this morning that I think is going off the deep end. During the Glenn Beck radio show this morning, there was an ad for a product called “The Survival Seed Bank“, which claims to offer enough non-hybrid seeds to plant a full acre crisis garden. But hold on to your tin foil hats, because according to the ad the “global elite” are cryogenically storing non-hybrid seeds in the Arctic. Additionally, seeds are being touted as having the potential to be better investments than gold and silver, and it is claimed that seeds have outperformed gold and silver in this country in the past. The ad ends with a reminder that in a true crisis situation seeds would be “the ultimate barter item.” 

The argument for having some seed to be able to plant a garden is a good one, however I wonder if people who buy this product are buying this for any other reason than fear and if they really know what to do with the seeds they are purchasing. A few things to think about:

  1. Do you know anything about gardening so you could make the most of these seeds? Gardening isn’t as easy as just putting the seed in the ground and watching it grow. You have to know when and where to plant the seeds, and the when varies based on what part of the country you are in. It is often said that your first garden is an expensive venture as so many of your plants fail as you learn how to care for the plants.
  2. Are you planning to use these seeds in the next year or two? If you are planning to store these seeds for the long term, you may be sorely disappointed. Germination rates for most seeds tend to drop off sharply after two years of storage.
  3. Would your family eat all the crops from the seeds included in the package, or would all the seeds even grow? Some seeds just won’t grow in some parts of the country. And if the crop isn’t something your family likes, wouldn’t it be better to put together your own package of seeds based on your family’s tastes?
  4. Do you have the tools and supplies to create and tend a garden? Those seeds won’t do you much good without basic garden tools or a place to plant the seeds.
  5. Is this really the best investment you can make if a crisis is coming? The barter idea just cracks me up. Unless you have a ready supply of everything else you may need to support yourself (including tools, building supplies, hygenie items, etc.), you would be better off buying things you would actually need for yourself rather than buying seeds with the idea you can barter them later.

I’m not saying don’t buy this, but know what you are buying and think any preparations you make through. Don’t just buy this and put it in a closet so you can sleep better at night under the dilussion this will make you ready for the end of the world.

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Posted in News/Trends, Preparedness

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Off-topic: Why government bureaucrats should have no role in health care

September 8th, 2009

I won’t go into a long rant on this, just because this story out of the UK speaks for itself. A premie strong enough to breathe on its own for two hours outside of the womb is deemed to still be a fetus and denied care and dies in his mother’s arms.

Premature baby ‘left to die’ by doctors after mother gives birth just two days before 22-week care limit

Is this what you really want for the American health care system? Somehow I doubt it if it meant you or your child would be left to die because of some cold governmental rules that dictated you weren’t worthy of care.

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Posted in News/Trends

Receipts: The tree-huggers’ nightmare

September 2nd, 2009

Ever run into the grocery store for milk and bread and come out with a two-foot long receipt for your two items? So have a lot of other folks, including our friends at the Wall Street Journal who did a story on the phenomenon. It seems that retailers have found this to be the perfect spot to add promotional messages, coupons, store policies, and seemingly every other useless piece of information they want to get in front of customers. What are my favorite receipt paper wasters?

  • Safeway’s receipt that tells me my status in earning a free Signature Deli sandwich when I have never purchased a single one. Do I need to be constantly reminded that I have purchased 0 out of 7 sandwiches towards my next free sandwich?
  • Home Depot’s receipts that will print the survey invitation every time. Seriously, there are probably about 12 people left in the U.S. that have never made a purchase from Home Depot, so everyone has probably been invited to participate in the survey at least once. At least make it where the invite prints on only a certain percentage of receipts.
  • Receipts that insist on printing the entire return policy of the retailer on the front of the receipt. Couldn’t you just pre-print that on the back, which is usually completely blank?
  • Receipts that insist on printing all of the surveys, promotional messages, etc. in both English and Spanish. C’mon! This is America! Can we just make the assumption that a customer speaks English?

As alluded to in the WSJ article, Walmart is testing out receipts that print on both sides, which I recently encountered at a Sams Club here in Houston. It seems pretty odd at first, but my receipt for eight items had the header and my purchases listed on one side and the payment info and a survey invite on the other. The entire length of the receipt was only about four inches long. Very cool.

The WSJ article does single out CVS receipts as being long, but at least a lot of the extra length on those is coupons which can represent some value to the consumer. However, I would prefer that they cut the coupon so it is easily detached from the end of the receipt, like Target does with gift receipts.

Of course all of this creates tons of paper clutter for those of us that save receipts to track expenses. I’ve been working to clear out a lot of my clutter recently, which will be the subject of another post.

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Frugal Living: Fuel for a Libertarian Revolution?

July 13th, 2009

Frequent readers of my blog will know that I am not exactly happy with the huge growth of government we’ve seen of late, so this post shouldn’t come as a big shock. This was inspired by listening to a recent episode of The Survival Podcast, a favorite podcast of mine that discusses various topics related to sustainable living and self-sufficiency (crazy mountain men barricading themselves in underground bunkers with huge stockpiles of weapons this is not!).  

In the episode, the host Jack Spirko is discussing some of his philosophies about why he believes in this modern survivalism and makes an observation that while we are seemingly taxed at every turn we are making a choice to be subject to these taxes by our actions. We make the choice to buy the useless crap that we buy on which sales tax is collected from us, income taxes are collected on the profits made by the retailer, the manufacturer, and everyone in between, employment taxes are collected from the businesses and employees that made and sold us this crap, fuel taxes are collected from the shipping companies that transported the raw materials to the manufacturer and the finished product to the retailer as well as from us as we burn fuel to go to the store and buy this stuff, and the list goes on and on and on. And then on top of that our inability to stop buying useless junk (and even seemingly useful items we really can’t afford) requires us to work as hard as we can to earn a paycheck, which is subject to income and payroll taxes. Ultimately our consumerist ways continue to enslave us more and more to the government in the form of taxes, giving government even more power to run our lives and make us even more dependent on what the government is willing to provide for us.

But what if more and more Americans realized that what is now promoted as the American dream is nothing more than a giant hamster wheel in which we work for our government for about half the year, and that with certain changes in their lifestyle they can effectively get off the wheel? By eliminating our worship of stuff we would spend less money and pay less sales taxes, as well as eliminating the taxes that were generated as the stuff made its way through the manufacturing, distribution, and retail channels. By spending less money on stuff we become less dependent on traditional income, meaning we can live on a lower level of income which in turn lowers the amount of income taxes we must pay. The key is a return to a more self-sufficient lifestyle like the one our grandparents and those before them lived. We lessen our dependence on the trappings of modern life and save money as we:

  • Use our land to build gardens that can produce at least some of our own food.
  • Learn to take care of and fix the things we already have instead of just throwing them away and buying new stuff.
  • Distinguish between the things that we need and those we merely want.
  • Live what many would call a frugal lifestyle, using our resources wisely to build long-term peace and happiness rather than short-term pleasures.

More and more people throughout the world have made the decision to depend on themselves, as is evidenced by the exponential growth of The Survival Podcast and other venues like it. In working towards this more self-sufficient lifestyle, these people are also making the decision to be less dependent on the government whether they realize that or not. The interesting thing from a political perspective is that as these people do more for themselves presumably their activity in the traditional economy lessens, and with it so do the taxes generated by their economic activity. This results in lower government revenues meaning government is either forced to reduce spending or to delay a reduction in spending through enacting even more taxes on those still running in the hamster wheel or by issuing more debt. The government could just issue more debt as it always has, although as the world markets slowly recognize that this debt is becoming less likely to ever be repaid the market for even more debt offerings is limited at best, reducing the likelihood of this being a viable option. In this scenario increased taxes will further disenfranchise those still on the hamster wheel and encourage more of them to make the migration to the self-sufficient lifestyle to escape the ever-growing tax burden, which will ultimately come to a head in a demand from the populus to reduce the size of government as the base of taxpayers shrinks to the point they can’t possibly support the high level of government spending. The result is a taxpayer revolt ultimately leading to a smaller government more in line with the libertarian ideal. Of course the politicians could save us the trouble and just reduce the size of government now, but doing so reduces their power and is thus unlikely. But fret not, as at some point common sense will return.

So there is why I believe that frugal living and self-sufficiency is the fuel for a libertarian revolution. As we make decisions in our lives to become more self-sufficient, use our resources more wisely, and reduce our dependence on the government and others, we demonstrate that we don’t need Big Brother to take care of us and can do just fine if government will just get out of the way.

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Posted in News/Trends, Taxes, frugality

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Pictures from the Houston Tea Party

April 16th, 2009

I posted earlier about my attendance at the Houston Tea Party, and here are some of the pictures I took from the event (except for the first that was taken by someone else).

An aerial view from an adjacent building in downtown Houston. I think that is definitely higher than the 2,000 the NY Times reported.

Concerned citizens look on during a speech discussing the actions of the Federal Reserve.

A good crowd – I wonder why no one in the press gave it any real coverage?

One of the best protest signs I saw. If you can’t tell, it is Obama holding a lighter and setting fire to the US Constitution.

The sign in the upper right corner reads, “Republican Leaders: Where are your cajones?!”. But didn’t the press tell us it was the Republican Party promoting these tea parties? I’m confused…

A scroll listing out all of the Congressional earmarks is unfurled. It went from one end of the plaza to the other (the plaza is a full city block) and I’m not sure anyone ever saw the end of it. I hope that poor girl isn’t still rolling it out.

Protesters take their voices down the street to  surround the Houston Chronicle building. Based on the story in the paper this morning, I don’t think the noticed that our group wrapped completely around their offices.

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Posted in About, News/Trends, Taxes

Protesting at the Tea Party!

April 16th, 2009

The wife and kids are out of town visiting family this week, so I decided it was time to let loose and get a little crazy. Yes, I and thousands of other rightwing extremists attended the Houston Tea Party protest yesterday!

Unless you are watching Fox News or reading some blogs, you may not have even heard about these, so let me give you a quick introduction. Taking cue from CNBC commentator Rick Santelli’s famous “rant heard ‘round the world”, groups of concerned citizens around the country used social networking and the internet to organize modern-day tea parties to protest the current direction our government and our country.

I had never attended a political protest before in my life. For people I talked to in the crowd, most of them never had either. Some were there for a specific reason like the size of government, deficit spending, high taxes, states’ rights infringement, or lack of government accountability. Some were there out of a general discomfort of the actions of our government and elected officials. All of us are sicked and tired of a government and politicians that seem to have no regard for our wishes and whose actions we seemingly have no control or influence over.

Contrary to some media reports, we are not all a bunch of Republican Party operatives. I am just your average 30-year old accountant, working for a living and would almost certainly be classified as middle-class. I have never run for elective office or worked on the campaign of anyone who has. I have never volunteered for any political party or donated money to any party or candidate. Although I am registered to vote as a Republican, I am generally disgusted with both parties and would by no means be considered a party loyalist. In other words, the idea that I am just a tool of the Republican Party is utter crap.

Most of the people there were just average working class folks. I got there about 2 hours into the protest and the plaza was absolutely filled with people. The organizers said on their blog that a total of 8,532 people signed in at their registration table, and there were likely many that didn’t sign in (myself included) that puts their estimate at 10,000. As the rally went on from 4pm under after 8pm, there were likely significantly fewer than that number there at any given time as some early birds left as others just getting off of work arrived. I’d say while I was there there were probably about 5000 people there at any given time. Considering so many people have to work to pay their taxes making it difficult to attend, I think this is a great turnout.

So what did I find interesting about the protest? A few things…

·         When you hear the word protest, you often think of an almost violent affair of unreasonably angry people. That certainly wasn’t the case in Houston. Everyone was incredibly polite, and when the protest was done the discarded signs were all placed in the trash bins so we probably left the plaza cleaner than we found it. This certainly wasn’t an angry, destructive, unruly mob that you would normally associate with a protest.

·         Thankfully there wasn’t a whole lot of representation from the Tin Foil Hat Brigade (conspiracy theorists). Other than one woman who was ranting something about Obama controlling the internet, the closest thing to a fringe position was one guy holding up a sign promoting Texas secession, which in Texas isn’t really a fringe position (heck, even our governor has alluded to the idea in the last week). Not that it is wrong to be suspicious of your government, but spouting off unsubstantiated allegations of the government conspiring against us detracts from the real message and undermines its credibility.

·         I was kind of annoyed by the Fair Tax proponents latching onto the protest. Fair Tax is the concept of replacing the income tax with a national consumption tax. As much as I dislike the current income tax structure, I generally think a consumption tax is a very bad idea, which may be why those people annoyed me.

It was really a great experience, and I would certainly do it again. I will post a few pictures after while.

Before I end this post, let me say a few words about the political nature of many of my recent posts. I realize many of you visit this blog looking for personal finance advice and couldn’t care less about politics. However, what many people don’t realize is that for many middle-class families taxes are your biggest expense. Remember that this includes income taxes, property taxes, social security and medicare taxes, sales taxes, fuel taxes, and many other levies we are forced to pay to support our government. The more our government spends, the more it will likely have to raise taxes to pay for that spending, either now or by issuing debt and shifting the burden to some point in the future. The other alternative is that the government could devalue the currency by putting more dollars into the money supply, leading to high rates of inflation. Either of these scenarios would have deep impacts on the finances of the average family, which is what makes it in my mind a personal finance issue. As I mentioned a few weeks back, there is so much uncertainty in the current environment I have trouble giving traditional personal finance advice just because it seems the rules of the game could change at any moment, making what could seem like a good decision now an absolutely horrible one in the future.  I will work to give personal finance advice that I think could be beneficial no matter what may come, however I will avoid posting advice based on the notion that we live in a static environment and that the rules will be the same in the future as they are today. If you wish to stick your head in the sand and seek out such advice, there are many sources for it online. If you want to hedge your bets a little in case tomorrow isn’t quite what everyone expected, you are in the right spot.

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Posted in About, News/Trends, Taxes

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