My Official Journey as a "Professional" Blogger Begins

Hello Fellow Xangans,

My time with Xanga has been a rewarding one.  When I started blogging back in 2003 with Xanga, I had no idea how much I'd enjoy writing or if I was any good at it.  I have to thank Xanga for fostering in me a love of writing that I never knew I had.  From writing to just a few friends and meeting dozens of new ones... to being featured several times to even writing officially for revelife as one of the original "arboreal" writers... it has been a wonderful journey.

I have now decided to go out on my own and become one of the hoard of personal finance blogs out there.  I have to credit Xanga for giving me a world of experience and a wonderful community from which this seed was planted.  I never would have had the courage to do anything like this without the positive feedback from my many friends here in Xanga.  I will never forget my experience here.

I will likely return here whenever I feel the urge to write about something non-finance related, but please drop by my personal finance blog if you have a moment.  To show my appreciation to the Xanga community, if you come to the site and have a specific topic you'd like for me to address, I will try my best to do so (leave a comment in the "about" page).

Here are some of the recent articles I have already written:

Roth IRA as Emergency Savings - You Can Have Both

Five Minute Method to Estimate Your Emergency Savings Requirements

Should You Itemize Your Deductions?

Really Simple Ways to Slay the Energy Eaters in Your Home

Why Is Your Bank Calling You to Refinance Your Home?

The Pros and Cons of Medical Flexible Spending Accounts

Donating Stock:  How to Make Your Giving Worth More

One Way to Curb Your Dining-out Spending

Beware of the "Gold" Buffalo Coin

Leave a comment and say "Hi! from Xanga!"  I'd love to hear from you.

Dear Charlie...

Dear Charlie,

The closest your stone-hearted father came to tearing up in the last month was while watching a Google Chrome commercial called "Dear Sophie" (look it up in your future version of YouTube), so I was inspired to totally rip it off.  If you don't cry while watching it, you definitely inherited my tin-man-ness ("Wizard of Oz"... look it up; it was a "book"... look that up too).

If all goes according to plan, a month from today we will meet for the first time.  If you're like your "better-two-hours-early-than-5-minutes-late" mother, you'll be here in a few days.  We are so excited for that day, whichever it may be.  Mom really has low pain tolerance, so don't dilly-dally when you're ready to come out. We have so much to share with you.  I also have a lot of questions like, "who were you punching and kicking in there repeatedly for four months?" and "why did you need so much cheese when you knew your mommy was lactose intolerant?"

Your name is officially going to be Charles Jacob Kim, but we'll just call you Charlie.  We chose that name because we want you to experience the same joy of having first generation Koreans butchering the pronunciation of your name as I did growing up.  People might call you "CJ", which is fine... but you're not allowed to go by "Chuck" unless you become a professional athlete.  However, since you've inherited 50% of your athletic ability from me, this is quite unlikely.  Sorry.

I can honestly say that my greatest fear is that despite hearing all my life that I will be a great father someday, I will somehow fail you... that I will be so obsessed with being right or being just that I forget to be loving.  I can already imagine the yelling matches we will have over the way your hair is cut or because you want to get your adam's apple pierced or something like that.  I'll probably send you to your room without dinner but ask your mom to sneak you some food behind my back.  So I'm not as mean as I might seem.

I want you to grow up strong but not be unyielding.  I want you to know what is right but not to let that overshadow knowing what is merciful.  I want you to be successful but also know that it means nothing without being generous.  How I'm going to teach you these things, I don't know.  I'm still trying to learn them myself.  But mostly I want you to learn about the grace of God.  If you ignore everything else I say except that, I will be happy.  He will love you more than mom or I ever could... which is hard to imagine... because I love you so much already.  Stay warm.

Love,

Mom and Dad.

Cell Phone Companies Are Evil

I've always said that one of my biggest pet peeves is someone, be it the government, mass media, or corporations, taking advantage of the ignorant.  No one does this more than the cell phone companies.  They don't sell phones... they sell data.  Picture this...

Imagine I'm selling you a car.  The car is cool, sexy, and all your friends will envy you for having it.  Now, here's the best part... I'm willing to sell it to you for only $2000.  In fact, since you already bought a car from us two years ago, you can trade it in and it will only be $1000

You:  AWESOME!  Where do I sign?
Me:  Hold up... first you have to agree to some stuff...
You:  Uh... okay (as your attention is still drawn to that new car smell)...
Me:  First, you have to buy your gas from us... you can buy a month's worth at a time for $200 or pay per gallon at $5 per gallon
You:  Oh, okay... what if I don't use $200 worth of gas in a month?
Me:  It's too bad.  You're paying for the ability to use up to $200 worth of gas.  BUT if you accidentally use more, we charge you $5 per mile you go over.
You:  Well, that doesn't sound so good...
Me:  Well, we have this unlimited mileage plan... it's only $1000 a month.
You:  Only?  I could buy a new car every month for that price...
Me:  Shoot, I was hoping you wouldn't notice that... but think about it... if you go over your limit by 160 miles, it would have been better to just have the unlimited plan.  DUH.
You:  Well, then, I have to get the unlimited plan... I'd be crazy not to.
Me:  Yep, crazy... second, we have this cool feature where if you drive 10x slower, you can see all this beautiful scenery outside your window...  and you can do it all you want for only $50 extra a month.  If you don't want to pay the $50 extra, we can simply charge you $1 for every time you look out your side window.
You:  Wait, you're going to charge me MORE for using the car LESS?
Me:  Yes, but it's really popular... teens do it like 1000 times a day.  Oh, I forgot to mention, if you don't get the unlimited window look feature, EACH TIME someone looks into your windows, we have to charge you $1 as well...
You:  So you're charging them $1 to look at me, and then charge me $1 for them looking at me?
Me: Yes, unless either of you get the unlimited look plan.  Please do.  By you driving so much slower it saves us A LOT of money.
You:  Wait, you're charging me more for saving you MORE money?
Me:  Oh, crap, I wasn't supposed to tell you that part.
You:  Fine, give me the unlimited look plan... sigh...
Me: Don't be sad... you're making me very rich.  Shouldn't that make you happy?
You:  Well, at least I get this really cool car that can drive really fast.
Me: Well, actually, you can't drive really fast unless you also purchase this unlimited accelerator plan... it's only an extra $100 a month.
You:  Well, what if I don't want to drive really fast?  I just like this car... it has a cool radio.
Me: ... uh... why wouldn't you want to drive really fast?  Everyone's doing it... about two or three times a month... usually just to show their friends that they can.
You:  Well, it's getting kind of expensive...
Me:  Well, then we can't sell you this car.
You:  What?
Me: Yeah, since it's impossible for me to conceive of why you would want this car and not want to drive it really fast a couple times a month, I can't sell you this car... but we also have some very nice bicycles...
You:  I didn't come here for a bicycle... I wanted that car for only $1000 that you initially offered!  (pause) Fine, give me the unlimited accelerator plan too.
Me:  Did I mention that you have to commit to buying your gas from us for at least two years?
You:  ... sigh... where do I sign...
Me:  Right here... with my diamond encrusted pen...

So for the low low price of only $28,600 you got the car of your dreams... for two years... when you have to do this all over again... at least to get the coolest new phone... I mean car...

Here are some facts:

1. They're counting on the fact that you won't use all your minutes so you'll buy more than you will ever need.  They win if you fall short... and they REALLY win if you go over.
2. Texting uses a minuscule amount of data bandwidth.  You use 1000 times more data bandwidth by making a phone call.  By charging you (AND the person you're texting) for texting any amount, they're making the equivalent of a 10,000% profit margin - and charging you for it.  It would be like the corner gas station charging you $3 a gallon for gas normally, but $300 per gallon if you get it a teaspoon at time.  They should encourage you to only text and not make any phone calls... instead they charge you for the privilege of saving them money.
3. There is absolutely NOTHING technology-wise that will keep you from using any phone... including those cool smartphones or app phones... as JUST A PHONE.  They'll try to tell you that they can't work without a data plan, but that's a BIG LIE.  There's also nothing technology-wise to prevent you from downloading those must-have apps directly to your phone from a USB connection to your computer.  Data plans are a waste of money.  With more and more businesses offering free wifi, you could buy a new netbook EVERY YEAR for the price people pay for slow, spotty, and unreliable phone data plans.  Got a data plan to get email?  See texting fact above.  An email is just a slightly larger text.
4. $70 a month is, and will always be, $1680 every two years... and that's before all the hidden fees and taxes that mysteriously pop up on every bill.

AAMOF IDK WTF You Are Saying...

There's this guy at work whose emails are peppered with all this IM/Texting jargon that I have no clue about.  It's so annoying because I have to either ask someone or look up on google what the heck something like "FWIW" means (for what it's worth).  I mean, it may be easier for the writer, but if you take it too far, the reader has to take time to decipher what the heck they're saying... somewhat passive aggressive, I think.

So here's my ROT (rule of thumb).  If 95% of the people out there would know what it would mean, and it has become a part of the common lexicon, by all means use it (e.g. ASAP, FYI, ETC...), but if it's something that looks lazy (e.g. u, ppl...) or is just bad grammar (e.g. ur, u2) or just too obscure (e.g. AAMOF, AFAIK, AMFIGTD...), then just leave it out.  (BTW, if you're looking for AMFIGTD anywhere you won't find it... I made it up.)

Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing?  Maybe I'm just being a cranky old man who needs to get with the times?  You just wait... someday our emails are going to look like this:

IDK, IMHO I'm all for KISS, but WTF?  BION, there R PPL who don't know (W/O looking up an acronym FAQ) what these letters are AKA.  AAMOF, sometimes it's so FUBAR that U have to take a SWAG JIC U or your SO or BFF R not up on MB/IM lingo.  FYI, some PPL like to talk in RL FTF where WYSIWYG.  AFAIK, the reason Y UR writing is B/C U want to communicate ASAP and not 2 B a PITA... CMIIW.  BTAIM, B4 you just tell me to MYOB, look at it W/ the other's POV and correct your MSG SNAFU, K?  It's what NKOTB would do.

HTH, TY & TTYL

BTW... FWIW, I'm mostly J/K.  lawl.

You just watch...

How many of you were able to decipher the above without having to look any of the "words" up?

FYI, I'm going to put the translation in the comments section later

I wonder...

I remember in the old version of the Wheel of Fortune gameshow, they would make you actually shop for the prizes with the money you won on the show... I wonder if they made them do that on purpose so that the companies that provided the prizes would get a "free" commercial in the middle of the show.  I always thought the prizes were lame and just wanted the cash.  I guess I wasn't the only one because now you do just get the cash.  If I ever won on that show back then, I would like to have seen their reaction if when they displayed all those prizes I just said, "Pat, I'll just take it all in a gift certificate because these prizes kinda blow..."

I wonder if all those people they show on "Jaywalking" are actually that stupid or if they're only pretending just to get on TV.  If that's the case, they're actually quite sharp.  If I ever had the chance, I would totally do that...

Jay:  What is the Magna Carta?
Me:  Uh... some sort of Mexican credit card?

Jay:  What is the more common name of the disorder "Acrophobia"?
Me:  Oh, that's easy... the fear of Acrobats!

Jay:  Who is this a photo of?  (shows a photo of V.P. Joe Biden)
Me:  I don't know... he kind of looks like Bob Barker...

Are the people at the DMV rude because people expect them to be and they're just living up to their reputation, or is there actually a level of disgruntledness that Human Resources department at the DMV is actually looking for to get such qualified applicants?  I wonder...