Category Archives: Money

Bonfire of the Brands author Neil Boorman’s short film for buy nothing day 2008. Regardless what the government, the economists and the brands say – it is our absolute right to save rather than spend money.

We funded the boom, we funded the bank bailout, now we’re expected to fund the recovery. But we cannot shop our way out of the long term problem: over-consumption contributes to almost all global challenges.

As nice as our luxury lifestyles are, we cannot run away from the problem for much longer.

Visit www.bonfireofthebrands.com for more

While I think she is a little over a top with a few things this is an interesting look at being a consumer and consumption.

A PBS special by Frontline – Secret History of the Credit Card
Its almost an hour in length but a good watch.
I am also a ‘dead beat’ like Ben Stein paying off the one credit card I use, weekly.
What most people don’t know is that credit card companies make money even off us deadbeats, from merchant fees.
Stores that accept credit cards pay fees to the banks for credit card transactions.

An example…
Lets say you buy that new 1TB drive from NewEgg for $239.99.
You pay Newegg the $239.99. Now NewEgg might owe $5.70 for the credit card transaction, 2.25% + $0.30 (transactions fees vary). American Express or Discover would probably add a bit more, maybe another 30 cents.
Might also be a monthly service fee, maybe $10. Depending on the bank and gateway there could be some other nickel and dime fees stores have to pay.
So essentially Newegg is getting $234.29 from you. Merchant fees definitely cut into business’s profit margin and also increases prices.

My biggest beef with the credit card companies, the large ones is the interest rate change. No matter what interest rate a card starts out with, even if it is a ‘for life’ rate, within a year it will go up. I have seen it go up for absolutely no reason. The large companies have it built in after x amount of months the interest rate goes up by y. Its a given.

My suggestion is if you want/need to carry a card get one from your bank or credit union. From my experience my local bank and credit union dont play the interest rate game with their customers.

I got to get me one of those learning machines.

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.
Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.
More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.
That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.
The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips. [.continue.]

One thing the article touches on that I think is a huge problem is the lack of financial education taught in the school system. How to manage your money, how to build wealth, how to make smart decisions with you money. These things are very critical in determining how one lives after school. This is much more important than knowing the periodic table of elements, memorizing Othello or being able to use the Pythagorean Theorem. This is something that should be taught in high school. It isn’t, at least where/when I went and the class should be mandatory for all students. The college I am attending does offer a couple classes about building wealth and managing personal finances, but these are just electives thus being optional. Unfortunately for most people dealing with money is not optional.
For those that cant or wont take a class and need to know how to handle their money better check out Personal Finance for Dummies.

I had the first edition, but gave it to someone last year that got about as much education in school about managing money as I did, which was none.
Fourth edition is out and I am picking it up, probably the best $15 I’ll spend all month.