Blog – Page 119

Homicidal rage burns in their hearts

Because kittens equal ratings. (The original quote from Howard Stern is “Lesbians equal ratings”, but we’re trying to keep things family-friendly here. Which sounds faintly heteronormative. Oh well.)

Welcome to another rousing edition of the Carnival of Wealth, America’s favorite blog carnival. Personal finance posts from around the world, ranging from the brilliant to the substandard. We do it every Monday morning, giving you something to burn your time on while sitting in your cubicle, waiting for the sweet release of lunchtime. Shall we start?

Every now and then, we get a submitter who thinks the Carnival of Wealth is just an unfiltered list of blog posts. An open blues jam, everyone welcome. Why put any effort into a post when the carnival host will run it anyway? This week, Lance at Money, Life & More sends us a useful little nugget entitled “How to Write a Check”. This is the same guy who wrote last week about how he and his girlfriend are “over $100,000” (actually $126,000) in debt, but he’s made progress on it so isn’t that awesome. A couple of weeks before, he told us that it’s important to ask for more whenever you get the chance but not be greedy when doing so, whatever that means.

Seriously, How to Write a Freaking Check.

There are six fields you will need to fill in and I have numbered them in the image below. Follow the instructions that follow the image to learn how to write a check!

It’s not a parody. It’s not self-aware. It’s nothing more than what the title indicates: a lesson on what to write in the date field (the date), what to write in the amount field, etc.

Damn. Now we’re giving this post far more attention than it deserves. You want another pointless, insulting quote? Why not, we’ve come this far:

Here you write out the amount of the check in numbers. For instance you’d write “1,542.63″ without the quotes for a one thousand five hundred forty two dollar and sixty three cent check. Since the dollar sign is already printed on the check you do not have to write another $.

The whole mother-loving post reads like that. And it includes comments from 19 (and counting!) other bloggers, which is far more important than, you know, giving the rest of us something worthwhile to read. Besides, this routine’s already been done by someone else, and better. On a planet where this exists, wasting everyone’s time with the most unbelievably rudimentary of “personal finance” tips isn’t even original. The master has spoken, countless times.

God, what an utter piece of sheep dip this post is. The flies buzzing around it think it’s too putrid to land on. How to write a check. This is what’s out there, folks; what personal finance blogs have devolved into. Writing something that requires research, originality, and assuming that your readers aren’t 4-year-olds is merely optional. Lance is now officially on the clock. The record for consecutive terrible submissions is held by the chick from Newlyweds on a Budget (6), with the guy from GroceryAlerts.ca one behind. But Lance is closing fast.

[pours stiff drink]
[pours another]
[now, Valium]

Would you like to read something not inane? Neal Frankle at Wealth Pilgrim can write. In complete sentences and everything. He asks if you and your spouse should share a checking account. Well, that’s all contingent on whether she knows how to write a check, isn’t it? See above for handy tips on how to pull that off.

It’s going to take more than just a single good post to wash the filth away. From W at Off-Road Finance, Part V in his hexalogy on The Speculative Alternative to Investing. Parts I through IV have been tremendous, and Part V is the most fascinating installment yet.

Nope, still dirty. If Neal’s and W’s posts were a collective 19, the one on how to write a check is still a -20.

Dan at ETF Base to the rescue. He writes about which exchange-traded funds might be worth buying in the event that Mitt Romney becomes president. There are no comments on the post, of course, because leaving a comment would require reading and comprehending it. It’s so much easier to tell a lazy writer that it’s a great idea that he devoted a post to telling people how to write a check. No, we’re not going to let this go, at least not yet.

More gold, possibly platinum. Free Money Finance understands all about financial offense, as distinguished from defense. You need to score touchdowns to build wealth, not just prevent the other team from scoring them. This week, how to find a rental property. Then, once that happens, how to

estimate gross income
develop an income statement
estimate a management fee
set up an LLC to own the property

You mean you have to do work to make money? Can’t I just recycle my Ziploc bags and drive around the neighborhood looking for cheap gas instead?

Yeah, that’ll get you there just as quickly.

(Post about what to do if a collection agent calls you.)

This post wasn’t necessarily horrible, but it’s the premise that has no place in the CoW. Again, we’re not here to help the lame walk. They’re already lame, and they’re slowing down the rest of us. Besides, taking the analogy as far as it can go, it’s not like they’re multiply sclerotic; they hobbled themselves. The whole purpose of Control Your Cash is to speak to the people who say, “I do everything right. I pay my bills on time, I don’t spend extravagantly. Any moron knows to do that. Now what?” The collection agent shouldn’t be calling you in the first place. If he does, come back and join us when you’re ready. And after you’ve learned how to write a check.

Speaking of which, risk is bad, right? It’s risky! Risk means danger. PKamp3 at DQYDJ.net reminds you to please not be such a pantywaist and embrace risk. That doesn’t mean walking up to a moose and punching it in the face, it means acknowledging that “safe” investments, like bonds, could end up being the biggest risk of all – leaving you with modest retirement savings instead of what you could have amassed by buying stocks. (Post includes a Shakespeare quote and a reference to the normal distribution, because we needed some intellectual rigor in this week’s CoW.)

The United States isn’t the only country where incoming college freshmen, some of the least financially adept people in the world (at least those of them who haven’t read our book), are loaned a relatively gigantic amount of money and given the recommendation not to screw it up. Teacher Man at My University Money explains what you’re getting into if you’re Canadian and apply for a student loan.

Everyone’s favorite Canadian mother-and-son blogging team, Boomer & Echo, remind us that being approved to buy a house and spending money on it are different things. Echo qualified for a $300,000 house, but had his heart set on a $395,000 one. So he did a stated-income loan, went in over his head, got foreclosed on, ran away from his obligations and left his taxpaying neighbors holding the bag.

Just kidding. Echo had a wacky, irregular way of buying a house. Here’s what he did:

we were kidding ourselves if we thought we could afford this house. Instead, we did something unconventional by today’s standard – we waited.

Financial responsibility? Get out! Echo applied it, and it worked. In fact, it always does.

John at Wallet Blog discusses targeted bank accounts for students and seniors. It’s not pandering, it’s marketing! Apparently there’s a difference. Or not.

Last but never least, Liana Arnold at Card Hub introduces us to the prepaid Liquid Card from Chase – or as she speculates, the check-cashing killer. It’s a card for what Liana charitably refers to as “the underbanked”, i.e., people for whom paying $4.95 a month to access their money would be a better deal than what they have right now.

Thanks for coming. Did you catch our Investopedia piece last week? There’ll be another one soon enough. We’re on ProBlogger, Yahoo! Finance and other places too. New post here Wednesday, and Friday, new Anti-Tip of the Day every day. See you then.

“2 more reps, and I’ll let you think there’s a chance that someone like me would ever ask you out.”

We recently discovered this awful place called Planet Fitness, which demonstrates how financial objectives can sometimes get in the way of more important ones. (Yes, we just admitted that some things are more important than money. Not many, mind you.)

We’ll get to the personal finance aspect of this in a second, but first the non-financial parts. Planet Fitness is a gym chain that, while we weren’t looking, opened up over 500 locations across the country (including 3 in our hometown, no less.) The chain recently entered into a sponsorship deal with NBC, where it’ll serve as the home gym for some show about fat people trying to get thin.

Last month we wrote about free riding, and how the unmotivated members of a gym chain (or any other membership business) subsidize the frequent users. Planet Fitness found a way to get even more money out of the clichéd husky bunch who sign up for gym memberships every January 1 and then disappear. Those folks were great for an annual shot of revenue, but there had to be some method of getting them to come back throughout the year without having them run the risk of improving their bodies even slightly.

Planet Fitness’s secret? Pizza! And candy! We are so, so not joking. Get a load of this, and if you think it’s an Onion News Network parody, you wouldn’t be the first:

Here’s a partial transcript (FF to :45):

Member: One of the best parts about the gym is the Tootsie Rolls.
Manager, who looks like he could use a real gym himself: …Let (members) know that fitness doesn’t have to be this serious thing, “Oh my God, I’m going to the gym, like, I’m going to have to work out, it’s going to be awful”, like, you can come, you can have fun, you can reward yourself for what you’re doing here.

Yes, because that’s how fitness works. Expending sufficient anaerobic and aerobic effort entitles the subject to consume fuel that makes it harder to further expend said effort. That’s why Usain Bolt has 4 chins and a belly, because after he works out he “reward(s) himself for what (he’s) doing”.

At Planet Fitness, if you do a set of exercises to failure (the only non-pharmaceutical way to tear muscle so it can build back stronger) and drop your weights to the ground, or make the guttural noises that naturally accompany exerting one’s body and recalibrating its limits, doing so will set off an alarm on the gym floor. (Again, you think we’re lying. 5:10 on the video.) The alarm sounds like an air raid siren, is 8000 times more annoying than any grunt could be, and of course is designed to get the attention of the other members who are meandering through their low-impact visits.

Which would be reprehensible on its own, but it’s made far worse given the perfect irony that Planet Fitness bills itself as a (and has even registered the trademark of) Judgement Free Zone®.

This is utter genius. Planet Fitness took a bogeyman – the nonexistent catcalls fat people suffer at the hands of healthy people in real gyms – and turned it into cash. That’s in addition to the other ludicrous things those fat people believe about fitness, including and not limited to:

Getting fit is easy and fun
Quantification means nothing. If you think you’re fit, you are. (It almost goes without saying that Planet Fitness doesn’t have scales, which is like a doctor’s office not having blood pressure monitors.)
A gym that offers its customers pizza and Tootsie Rolls, and doesn’t even charge them extra for it, is sincere about getting its fat members to lose weight.

Planet Fitness’s target audience is convinced that legitimate gyms have created a culture of intimidation. In these members’ solipsistic minds, should any of them walk into a gym where strong and healthy people are working out, those same people will stop what they’re working on to point at and make fun of the pasty and flabby newcomers. (Doubling down on the irony, Planet Fitness offers tanning booths.)

The truth, of course, is that the pasty and flabby newcomers – Planet Fitness’ bagels and butter, as it were – create any culture of intimidation themselves. When they’re surrounded by beautiful people who have worked to sculpt firm physiques, they feel inferior. The Control Your Cash principals have spent much of their adult lives in gyms, and have yet to see anything similar to a reenactment of the Charles Atlas sand-kicking scene. Quite the contrary, in fact. For the most part, the most diligent gym members are only too happy to share their routines with aspirants.

But lies are more palatable than the truth, even without a schmearof cream cheese. Marlboros really are light. Corona really will turn your life into a beach. Lucky Charms really can be part of a complete breakfast. Planet Fitness has exploited this defect in the human mind, this wanting so badly to believe, to the tune of millions of dollars.

A membership is $10 a month (with a $29 signup fee), but that restricts you to a single location. A perversely motivated member could attempt to make it back in pizza. $20 a month ($39 signup fee) lets you travel. These memberships are quoted monthly but assessed annually. Activate 2 alarms, and you risk forfeiting your membership. Cancellation fees start at $58. You have to cancel in person or by certified mail, which for most fat people is going to be more embarrassing than passively authorizing another series of credit card payments.

If you want to be part of the exploitation, buying a franchise requires $500,000 in liquid assets and $1.5 million net worth.

“You get what you pay for” is an ancient observation, but it always fits. If you’re weak (in multiple senses of the word), Planet Fitness will gladly take your money and perpetuate the belief that lets you think you’re doing something tangible for your body while paying for the privilege. Other gyms will give you a venue in which to actually improve/maintain your body. Or if you’re the New Year’s Resolution type, a venue in which to subsidize the folks referenced in the previous sentence.

Exploiting the poor, gutless, naïve, gullible, stupid and self-defeating is part of the human condition. It will never change, and only a fool would think otherwise. Does that mean you have to either exploit or be exploited? Not directly. You don’t have to peddle snake oil, but you don’t have to buy it either. That being said, if other people are going to buy it, you can use that to your advantage. (See our comment about buying Altria stock.) Thus it goes for something as tangential to personal finance as personal fitness. Find out where the dumb people are throwing away their money (at Gold’s, 24 Hour Fitness et al.) and ride on their back fat.

Carnival of Wealth, Kittens Edition

Net Worth And Lipidity

Buy Now!

Looking for something?