Six Brits walk out of a tanning salon...
Happy Monday, and welcome to another Carnival of Wealth. A roundup of personal finance blog posts from around the world. If you want to submit yours, do it here. Read the requirements. They’re not “guidelines”, they’re requirements. For the rest of you, enjoy.
Before we start, everyone’s asking why we disabled comments. We did it because 96% of the comments said nothing of consequence. It’s an experiment. We’ll try it for a while, see if it affects readership. But it won’t. If you want to say something, tweet us. (Or is it tweet “to” us? Is “tweet” a transitive verb?) Okay, now let’s get started:
The accomplished PKamp3 at DQYDJ.net (Don’t Quit Your Day Job) examines the difference between public and private sector wages. The dollar difference is small, the benefits difference larger. You can probably imagine which side holds the advantage.
A new entrant this week is Squeezer at PF Success, who recommends ways to save on gas. We included this because it isn’t the same old hackneyed garbage (shop around, combine errands, inflate your tires until they’re about to burst.) Squeezer also debunks the myth about Giant Retailer A’s gas differing in any way from Giant Retailer B’s.
Echo of Boomer & Echo offers data to prove that there’s no correlation between how big a fee a mutual fund manager takes, and what kind of result you can expect.
Amanda at My Dollar Plan compares refundable tax credits with non-refundable ones, in her trademark brief fashion.
Imagine if every time your doctor checked your blood pressure, she said “Now, the very act of putting the cuff around your arm is going to negatively impact your numbers by a few points.” And that’s how credit scoring works. Jim Wang at Bargaineering compares soft credit checks to hard ones; the latter include things like applying for a card or shopping for a mortgage. The solution? Live at home until your parents die! See, that was easy.
If everyone was as articulate about his subject of choice as Mich at Beating the Index is, well, we’d be a much smarter planet. Did you know natural gas prices are taking a pounding? Mich thinks they’re only going to get lower, and has the data to reinforce his belief. Also, beautiful charts. USA Today-worthy.
Kevin M of Out Of Your Rut guest posts at Christian PF this week, and asks if refinancing your mortgage is always a good idea. It’s amazing how many people don’t bother to look at closing costs or length of term remaining until they’ve already committed to a tantalizingly low new rate. Do the math before, not after (assuming you’re doing it at all.)
Credit card issuers, understandably, are going to be interested in your income before they give you a card. Liana at CardHub points out that that puts stay-at-home mothers in a difficult position. Unless they’ve somehow figured out how to monetize doing laundry and watching Oprah. (UPDATE: Apparently The Oprah Winfrey Show went off the air 10 months ago. How about that.) Get a secured card, or latch onto your money-earning spouse’s.
Someone knock on J.P.’s door and tell him the rookie hazing is about to commence. Another CoW newcomer, Novel Investor decries how American investment strategies have gotten unduly conservative since 2008. As J.P. puts it, “Nobody has gotten rich earning <1% on their money. Yet 8 times more money has been put into savings accounts than into stock and bond funds, since the market crash.” So why are people actively taking steps to avoid getting rich? 4-letter word, starts with “f”.
From our “Preach it, brother” files: John Kiernan at Wallet Blog puts the kibosh on that notion that getting a college degree necessarily helps you earn more money. The oft-cited statistics (“You’ll earn x% more than someone with only a high school diploma”) conveniently lump all college graduates into an amorphous group. Yes, someone with a chemical engineering degree will make more money than a high school graduate who works in golf equipment sales or drives a truck. But we’ll take either of those last two over someone who earns an English literature degree and pours lattes for a living.
Paul Vachon at The Frugal Toad discussed the Home Affordable Modification Program, yet another government construct created to distort the market and prolong the inevitable pain that comes with rewarding people for getting in over their heads “keep hardworking Americans in their homes.” One more time: every last one of these programs costs money. The money comes from somewhere. That somewhere is the pockets of taxpayers who were prudent and diligent enough to have earned the money in the first place. It’s then given to people who weren’t defrauded and weren’t stolen from. They simply bought too much house, and now want someone else to fix the problem. Because personal responsibility, to say nothing of playing the cards you’re dealt, is for suckers.
Teacher Man at My University Money and his long-time girlfriend don’t want to have kids. Of course he can’t come flat out and say that, because he’s afraid people will call him a monster. So he has to vacillate and say, “Well, maybe not now” and offer secondary reasons for not doing so. (It’s good for the environment, etc. It’d thus be best for the environment if humanity collectively decided to die out.) Or maybe that’s just the Canadian in him, not wanting to ruffle feathers. Anyhow, he offers the convincing economic reasons for leaving the task of reproduction up to other people. Bonus: helpful comments from people who tell him that a) having kids is a personal decision and b) it’s OK not to. And you wonder why we disabled comments on Control Your Cash.
Phil Taylor at PT Money lists a bunch of ways to save money when eating out. He left out our surefire method, which is “date somebody small.” Tiny dining partner = more leftovers and partially eaten entrées.
Phil didn’t know he was going to be part of a point/counterpoint dialogue when he submitted his article, but here we are. Matt at Rambling Fever believes that when you dine out you should dispense with caution and spend as much money as possible, or so it seems.
If you’re one of these frugal diners and tip only 15% of your measly bill, you’re no better than somebody who doesn’t leave a tip at all!
That’s obviously false, but Matt uses hyperbole to argue that spending money in restaurants (or more specifically, not being stingy when you do take the plunge and eat out) helps the economy circulate.
We’re assuming you want our take, which you’re now going to get anyway.
Bad service deserves a bad tip. Also, bad customers deserve bad service. Case in point, the group of 4 idiots we recently saw at a local sports bar who received their check after a couple of hours of drinking, then requested that the waitress go back and give them separate checks. This table couldn’t figure out, or be bothered to figure out, who owed what. Which tied the waitress up for several minutes, while a low-maintenance table of 2 (Hi!) sat there waiting so they could pay, get out, and free up their table for the next customers.
Simple rules for dining out, which we just created:
1. If you’re using a coupon, fine, whatever. But you can’t possibly be so cheap as to think that this excuses you from leaving a tip on what the full price of the meal would have been.
2. Appetizers, and particularly alcohol, have gigantic markups. (Yeah, no kidding.) That doesn’t mean that you should obsess over the restaurant’s cost of goods sold, but rather how the prices affect you. If you’d rather numb a few brain cells with a $6 beer than spend a couple of bucks on a soda with free refills, knock yourself out. If you’d rather do the opposite, the restaurant isn’t at fault for offering cheaper alternatives to alcohol.
3. If you’re just going to order a couple of entrées (“mains”, for our Commonwealth friends), because that’s all you want, don’t apologize for it. The restaurant’s welcome to set minima for how much you have to order. Besides, it’ll probably get you out of the restaurant faster anyway. If you’re a waitress, is it better to get a $6 tip for a half hour of work or a $10 tip for one hour of work?
That being said, be an adult. Don’t be the squeaky wheel who retards the process with irritating questions like “Do you use peanut oil?”, “Are these free-range chickens?”, “Can I get mine cooked in margarine instead of butter?” and “Can I get half chicken and half beef?”
When the hostess seats you, pause your conversation and read the menu. It’s not that hard to pick up where you left off. Figure out what you want as soon as possible so the waitress doesn’t have to make multiple visits and ask “Do you need more time?” And if you know you’re not going to order anything else once your entrée comes, that’s a great opportunity to ask the waitress for the check.
Seriously?
Yes, of course. Why prolong the inevitable? You can still take your time eating, but asking for the check (and having your payment ready to go when it comes) actually gives the waitress something to do when she comes around and asks if there’s anything else she can get you. She can process the check, take your money, and by the time you finish eating you don’t have to wait around for her. You can leave at your leisure, and the next party can be seated all the more quickly.
There. Now you know how to behave at restaurants. Glad we could help. See you next week.
Carnival of Personal Finance #309
He’d slit your throat for a farthing (a line lifted from Phil Hendrie and/or Rosemary Rogers)
What’s that? You were expecting a list of dry, templated posts for this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance? Sorry, that’s not how Control Your Cash rolls. In honor of Old Hoss Radbourn’s career win total, we’re making #309 an even bigger deal than the last time we hosted the CoPF. Thanks again to Flexo of Consumerism Commentary for throwing us the hot potato. This week’s submissions range from the insightful to the barely readable. We’ll leave it to you to determine which are which.
John Kiernan at Wallet Blog might blame credit card companies for credit card holders’ failure to read their agreements, but he’s got a relevant post this week titled “8 Reasons Why You Should Use a Credit Card”. (The wags say “list” posts are the way to go.) While you won’t learn anything new in this post, you won’t get any bad information either.
Speaking of credit cards, Marjorie at Card Hub recommends that you use a credit card for cosmetic surgery in “Can I Use a Credit Card For Cosmetic Surgery?” We’re sorry…is “Carnival of Personal Finance” shorthand for “Carnival of Personal Finance Atrocious Decision-Making”?
Brandon Crombar at Shared Financial Success reaches into the very bottom of the cliche bag this week to tell us that “financial success is not rocket science.” What’s interesting about this is that financial success is brain surgery.
They say to blog boldly. Mighty Bargain Hunter believes in pacing himself, using the word “consider” repeatedly while telling you how to get your dishes clean if your state is one of the meddlesome few that’s banned the sale of high-phosphorus dishwasher detergent. Here’s another example of his take-no-prisoners prose:
A regular Thomas Paine, him.
ElizabethG, a/k/a Modern Gal, didn’t bother telling us what her submission is about. But we’ll build on what she contributed to the carnival by telling you that she thinks you should prepare for emergencies. Thanks for that.
Alright, time for the good stuff. You know, from personal finance bloggers who actually expand your mind, conduct some research, and say something noteworthy. They’re there, you just have to look for them:
A post that starts with a story and wants us to use our imaginations? That never happens, but it’s happening here. Jason at Live Real, Now takes us both to between-the-wars Italy and a postapocalyptic future to paint a hilarious and potentially depressing picture about how dangerous it can be to take equity out of your house.
Use the phrase “couch du négativité”, and chances are pretty good we’ll put you in this part of the carnival. Lindy at Minting Nickels isn’t the first person to cancel her cable, nor even the first to write about it, but her tale of saving money while not having to resort to reading books is both entertaining and practical. (Also, nice font. Is that Franklin Gothic?)
Revanche at A Gai Shan Life is outspoken, a quality we admire. (Anyone who bashes her idiot brother in her blog is alright by us.) She fulfills the first axiom of personal finance blogging: foreign-born bloggers are the most articulate ones out there. This week she answers a difficult question in a deft manner: How Much Help Should An Adult Child Give Parents?
We discovered Don’t Quit Your Day Job this week, and like what we see. PKamp3 explains why home prices can continue to fall, there’s even some wiggle room on mortgage rates, and the market will never truly be free while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to steal from all of us, buyer and renter alike.
Matt About Money (Bell) treads that difficult line, neither talking over the readers’ heads nor down to them. This week he has legitimate Money Lessons For New Grads. (We’d like to add one: buy this.)
Poor, poor Sandy. The beleaguered landlord at Yes, I Am Cheap has had a bitch of a tenant for several months now. Finally, that relationship is coming to an end. Find out how Sandy did it without being charged with (what would have been justifiable) homicide.
(P.S.: Sandy, keep the security deposit.)
Mike Piper is money. The Oblivious Investor always comes with something unconventional, provocative and worthwhile. We’re glad to recommend his bold assertion that index funds can work in bear markets, too. Seriously, don’t waste your time with most of what’s online. Read his archives instead.
There’s no substitute for cold data. That’s why we love Dividend Growth Investor, who not only lists the best high-yield dividend growth stocks, but explains what they do and what they’ve done.
Bloggers with identifiable personalities are rare, which is why Ryan at The Financial Student is such a pleasant read. He bought trip insurance, sounds like he’s having buyer’s remorse, but probably won’t in the long run.
If you own a blog, you’re running an affiliate program, right? It’s free money! Elle at Couple Money tells us which affiliates she uses. She actually has ethics, only endorsing products she believes in. Meanwhile, we here at Control Your Cash will gladly plug companies that sell Refund Anticipation Loans mixed with heroin if they’ll pay us enough.
Bob’s guest poster at Christian Finances takes us through the history of American money this week: the actual coins and currency. And why the name Salmon P. Chase will stay in my head forever.
It wouldn’t be a carnival without Flexo. The maven behind Consumerism Commentary and this blog’s spiritual leader hits the stage to play a few bars himself, reminding us that diversification should be a strategy, not a means to an end. As Mark Twain said, “Watch that basket.”
(Selection deleted for using the ridiculous portmanteau “staycation”. Try again, slugger.)
Those wacky Canadians with their RHOSPs and their RRSPs and their parkades and their serviettes. Jim Yih at Retire Happy Blog explains another Canadian construct this week, RRIFs.
Oh, and let’s not forget their “cheques”, too. Janet at Credit, Eh shows us a 22nd-century idea whose time has come. The digital wallet. Amazingly cool, but still not as much as hoverbikes would be.
This has less than nothing to do with personal finance, but it was so incongruous we had to accept it. Donna Freedman at Surviving and Thriving tells you more about her condiment-buying habits than you could possibly want to know, and includes the takeaway sentence,
At least that wasn’t bad personal finance advice. For that we have Sustainable Personal Finance, who thinks that spending $850 on a useless trinket is a good way to save both money and ecological resources. (Wedding rings. Sorry to ruin the movie for you.)
Ben’s guest poster at Money Smart Life discusses ways to pay off a mortgage faster, but glosses over the big one: refinancing. Kind of like this.
(Selection deleted for telling readers that to buy car insurance online, you need an internet connection. And you need to have the make and model of your vehicle handy. Come on, insult readers’ intelligence somewhere else.)
Think you know the difference between Roth and traditional IRAs? We’ll bet you don’t, and Tom at Stupid Cents will raise that bet. Brew some coffee, though. Tom doesn’t waste time on energetic prose.
But Tom is James Patterson compared to the linguistic stylings of Bill Holliday, CFP of FFA Financial. He starts with
and it just gets more awkward from there. Not hard to figure out why cat chose the roller-coaster world of financial planning for a career.
Nothing’s certain in the market? Okay, but would you be interested in a company that’s paid dividends annually since the 19th century? D4L at Dividend Growth Stocks lists 10 of them, while helpfully explaining that the 1800s were more than 100 years ago.
(Selection deleted. Seriously, stop using the word “consider”. As in, “Consider growing your own vegetables to save money.” Develop a freaking spine and tell people, “Grow your own vegetables to save money.” I mean, I indeed considered growing my own vegetables. I considered it, and then I rejected it. Consider actually holding and defending a position in your next submission.)
Dave Ramsey’s ideas are only good when they’re modified. That’s why we’ll listen to what Phil at PT Money says about “The Savings Snowball”, an unorthodox way of building wealth (rather than paying off debts.)
“Look at us! We just bought a house!” No one ever says, “Look at us! We just took on a gigantic obligation that will take decades to pay off!” Squirrelers reminds us that you should temper the euphoria of buying a house with the sobering reminder that it’s not just there for show.
Gold is at record highs! No, it isn’t. In constant dollars, it’s selling at about half its 1980 peak. Thanks to Sean Smarty at Growing Money Blog for pointing that out.
(Selection deleted. Another “staycation” post? Now you’re just screwing with us, right?)
Tim Chen at Nerd Wallet reminds us to stop parking our vehicles by the pump, walking into the store, waiting in line, giving the attendant a wad of cash, coming back out, going back in and getting our change. There are these things called credit cards, and Tim sees them revolutionizing the process of paying for gas. This could be big.
Of course penny auctions are too good to be true (“Buy an iPad for a nickel!”), but do you know how they work? Justin Weinger at Money is the Root explains how, and therefore why you should stay away.
Finally, Daniel at Sweating the Big Stuff reminds us to neither spend more than we can afford, nor hoard money we could be enjoying.
Next week, Jacob at My Personal Finance Journey hosts the Carnival. Send your death threats to him, thank you.