Umbrella

The inspiration for this post I suppose.  It came to me at work after running through the shallow pond outside that they call a parking lot.  Where I sat completely soaked after (yet another) torrential downpour in Texas.  Unlike Michigan, Texas never really has a light rain or drizzle - it is always raining hard with gusting winds.  Needless to say, my $3.49 Walmart umbrella does just about nothing in this scenario.  I have yet to choose just not to use it and make a run/swim for it, but I swear it does very little to keep me dry.  I spend most of the time trying to make sure it stays in “umbrella” form instead of “bucket” form.

Mouse/Keyboard

Spend 6 to 10 hours a day working on a computer, and that little uncomfortably shaped HP mouse and keyboard may work fine for you, until you try an upgrade.  I am convinced that most people don’t upgrade their mouse and/or keyboard because they think that they are fine with there current hardware.  One point for the “Ignorance is Bliss”mindset I suppose.

Cookware

Do NOT touch that $6 frying pan.  Yeah it looks all new and shiny and non-stick, but 6 months down the road, you will be wishing you had sprung for a more durable one.  The non-stick teflon will be wearing off, the bottom of the pan will no longer be flat, and your food just won’t taste the same.  A nice set of cookware will make cooking all the more enjoyable, hopefully offsetting the extra expense by reducing the number of meals eaten out each month.

Shoes

Runners know this, the rest of us, not so much.  Spend a full day on your feet or go running for anything more than 1 mile and you will understand the importance of a good pair of shoes.

Mattress

Tempting as it is to think you should go with the cheap mattress, you really need to splurge a bit.  Spend the extra couple hundred dollars.  We spend thousands on TVs, Cars, and furniture, and yet we spend more time in our beds than any of those other items.  Not to mention, if you end up upgrading your mattress, and using your old one as the guest bed, your guests will love you all the more.

What are some of the items in your life that you have learned not to buy the cheaper alternative of?  Leave a comment below!

We ended up walking away from that house, towards a nicer house.  The last house, we were forced to work with Haliburton’s Relocation company, which became annoying very quickly.  While the (latest) house doesn’t have a pool, it is on the end of a cauldisac and has lots of windows overlooking the park and lots of trees.  So barring any major event, we think this is the house that we will be moving into June 12.

For your photo viewing pleasure:

2008 05 New House

Now, remember, not all of our junk is in it. I took the pictures while the inspector what doing his thing.

See, the last two houses we put offers on, Jenni sent out big mass emails.  She has not done so yet with this one, due to how the other two turned out.

I can say with pretty high confidence that as of this past weekend, Jenni and I have bought a house in Fort Worth!

Woah, it is like we are all grown up with ‘real’ jobs and a house now. Maybe that is a part of the freaking out. We won’t move in till mid June, so we have a bit of time yet. I will post more pictures once we actually move in and make it our own a bit. Right now, the pictures certainly have an old person feel to them seeing as the couple we bought the house from is at least in their 60s. Pool Party at my place this summer!

Per Amanda’s request…

Warning! This product may cause spontaneous air-guitar moves when out in public and one of the contained songs becomes audible. This product is not recommended for those individuals that are easily embarrassed.

I realized this after hitting up Rhar Brewing company for free beer. A guitar hero song came on, and I wasn’t quite sure how I knew the song, but I and a fellow Guitar Hero player both had strange urges to bust some of our best air-guitar moves.

I looked at what was on it. Wings and a pitcher of PBR. I dug deep into the recesses of my memory to think of what I was doing then. What day was that…?

I looked at the calendar. Aha! That was after the Auto Show down at DeVos. I stopped in for the wings and PBR pitcher special - by myself. Haha, no wonder I signed it! I guess the bar tender must have mixed up the cards.

At first I felt bad for whoever’s card it was. Oh well, it wasn’t much money. Then I got to thinking about what happened to MY card… Great, some dude’s gonna have a $50 tab on ME!

I found nothing. I couldn’t believe it!

And that’s how I got my free beer and hot wings.

Sadly, my suspicions of fraud were true - it’s nothing but a hard to kill rumor, and Snopes confirms. I wonder why that rumor was so prevalent when I was younger. Anyone else been exposed to this rumor when they were younger? I guess it’s time to stop stockpiling them.

Rahr & Sons Brewing Free Brew and Tour Breakdown:

The Good

Free beer #1, free beer #2, free beer #3, and free beer #4. Yum. Good music, lots of people, bring a driver - after four of these suckers you are gonna need it.

The So-So

You end up waiting the the beer line for most of the two hours. You pretty much get a beer, get about 1/3 of the way done, then hop back in line so that by the time you are done with your beer, you are at the front of the line begging for more. This is made better by the live music and the social aspect of it all.

The Ugly

Two bathrooms + Hundreds of people + Four Free Beers each = really long lines for the bathroom. To make sure you don’t explode, you need to think ahead when you get that spider sense goes off that it’s tinkle time and jump in line right away.

As for me, I will be joining them. I have never been fond of MySpace, and I find that I encounter several of Simon’s ‘wonderful’ MySpace Experiences, such as:

1. You rarely log in to MySpace except to delete spam friend requests from nude webcam girls.

4. You visit someone’s MySpace profile only to suddenly have music start blasting out of your speakers. (What irritates me most about this is that there is no global “no music” setting within MySpace…)

5. You have to make redundant clicks to perform simple tasks because MySpace keeps taking you to advertisement pages where you have to click on “return to MySpace profile” in order to continue what you’re doing.

6. You visit someone’s profile only to have your eyes bleed because of terrible page layout with non-matching designs and font colors.

Overall, I much prefer the semi-conformity of Facebook - although I tend to think that the advent of Facebook Applications has pushed it down the road of the MySpace Annoyances just a bit more.

Adios MySpace.

Open an online savings & checking account

Lately, my wife and I have moved as much of our finances as we can to non-’brick and mortar’ locations. We have a savings and checking account at ING Direct, and another savings account at HSBC. These accounts are purely online, and offer a much higher interest rate than our local brick and mortar does. Currently, ING’s savings account rate is at 4.1%, and HSBC’s is at 4.25% - much more than the 0.5% than the typical brick and mortar offers for savings accounts.

An online checking account can also give you a decent rate. ING’s is currently 3.15%, as compared to the typical brick and mortar’s rate of 0%. Assuming you have about $5,000 in you regular checking each month, thats a nice extra $157 each year just from cash temporarily sitting in your checking account.

We have set up both of our paychecks to be direct deposited to these online accounts, and once a month, we have an online account transfer funds over to our brick and mortar so we can write our rent check and any other small checks we write each month. All the rest of our monthly bills get automatically deducted from these accounts when they are due. No worries of late fees, and a maximum return on our money while it sits there each month.

Track where your money goes…automatically.

There are some great sites out there that help you see the larger picture of your financial situation. I have been trying out Mint.com lately, and have been pretty impressed with it. You essentially point it to your other accounts (via your online logins and passwords - no worries here though, they use Bank Level Security and SSL 128-bit encryption goodness). You can see your overall financial picture, and it automatically gives your breakdowns of where your money goes each month, as well as advice on how to save more.

If you feel as though you really need to expose your financial situation to peer critique, you can also try out Wesabe. This is similar to Mint, but here you reveal some of your spending trends and choices to the Wesabe community and they can opening critique some of your spending trends and give you (hopefully helpful) advice on how to better your financial situation. While I haven’t tried this one out fully, I can certainly see the appeal.

Don’t be afraid to lend or borrow money online

One of the most interesting concepts I have come across is Prosper. Prosper is essentially a person to person lending site that cuts the middle man (a bank) out of the loop. Think of it as the Ebay of online lending. Users have the ability to create a listing for a loan, and other users then bid to fund that loan. Once the loan is fully funded, the users then bid the interest rate of that fund down. For those that find themselves covered in 15-20% interest rate credit card debt, they can find loans for 9-14%, saving them bundles. From a lender’s standpoint, if they can get a 9-14% return on their money, they are doing great. Lenders typically bid on loans in small increments ($50) to reduce their risk. If a borrower can get 40 lenders to each lend them $50, they can pay off their higher rate credit cards with a lower rate loan via Prosper.

One idea that struck a chord with me is suggested by a Credit/Debt Recovery blog is that concepts like Prosper and Wesabe should be merged into one site that has community critiques of spending trends coupled with individual to individual loans. This would essentially create a form of community credit counseling - and with the current credit crunch, it sure seems like many people could use this.

The Bottom Line

Don’t be afraid to try out some of the online financial services that are out there. You can pay your credit card bills, track your checking accounts, open online-only accounts and spend much less time doing the old fashioned paperwork each month, and end up ahead financially each month. If you have any other suggestions of online finances, let me know in the comments!