Well, I ran across a blog post from Mr. debtbeater about a new money transfer service called “Revolution Money Exchange.”

It seems interesting, after a bit more reading it turns out that their running the business as a loss leader for their RevolutionCard, a visa/mastercard alternative. Basically they think that if people use their service for money transfer, they’ll be more apt to use their Credit Card, and the more people use their credit card, the more $$$ they make.

Basically I’m signing up, connecting it to my bank account, and transferring the $25 signing bonus to my personal bank account. Free $25 ;). If other people start using this, then I may actually use it to send/receive money. As it stands now it’s a free $25.

If you want to sign up, follow my referral link which gives you a free $25, and me a free $10.

—Zach

I am proud to announce that I have recently taken the jump into dog ownership. Recently being two weeks ago. (Has it really been that long?? I’m a failure as a blogger.)

Anyway, I recently acquired a dog which goes by the name of miles. He is a one year old German shepherd/black lab mix, and he is absolutely adorable.

He just spent his first night out of the kennel in my bedroom last night, which was a rousing success.

—Zach

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard (3rd Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-10
Dexterity-12
Constitution-11
Intelligence-16
Wisdom-12
Charisma-15

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard’s strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

—Zach

Quite possibly a testament to Jim Davis’s genius, the fact of the matter is that Garfield is quite possibly 1000 times funnier without Garfield in it. For your viewing pleasure, I present Garfield Minus Garfield.

—Zach

One of debtbeater’s articles referenced snowflaking and provided some pretty good analogies about what snowflaking is and how it works. I’d like to give some more specific examples in regards to the question of building wealth.

Building wealth isn’t about striking it rich. It’s about making small, conscious decisions to either A) spend less or B) save more or C) both. It doesn’t matter if you’re spending $5 less per month, or saving $5 more per month. It matters that you’re doing something. Have the expanded cable package so you can watch some show? Why not see if you can find the shows episodes online at the networks website, or through joost. Cancel the added package that’s “Just $5 a month!” and put that $5 into debt reduction or savings accounts.

One of the hugest advantages of snowflaking is it generally involves a lifestyle change. Winning the lottery will not necessarily leave you rich, when you’re used to spending all the money you make. However if you make a commitment to decreasing spending and increasing savings you’ll slowly but surely come out of any hole of debt you’ve dug yourself into. On the other hand, if you’re already debt free you’ll be able to improve your net worth drastically.

—Zach

My lovely brother recently posted an article about how he’s concerned about how he spends his time blogging instead of more important things like papers, and how dangerous the obsessive stat tracking can be.

While I agree with him in many ways, such as blogging can take up time from other things, I also think it’s not as dangerously narcissistic as it could be.

I don’t write my blog to gloat about how awesome my ideas are, though they are awesome. I write it to express my ideas in a way that is tractable so it can be looked back on in the future. The title of the blog sort of reflects that, “This can change.” I don’t know everything. I never will. I just hope as I’m on this path of discovery I can help either A) other people out there already, or B) myself in the future.

Blogging, like anything, can easily get out of hand. If you notice you’re checking your states every few hours, that’s a little weird ;). Because I administer a far larger web page, I tend to check my google analytics daily as I check that page to determine trends in site usage. Really though, weekly is just as effective; especially considering it’s far more accurate over periods of time for determining trending as opposed to individual day by day or content tracking…

—Zach

To me, one of the most important methods for controlling any aspect of my life, be it spending, wasting time, overeating, etc. is to track it. For spending I have a few little tricks I use to make sure I can keep track of my spending.

1. Have an “In” portion to your wallet. My wallet has a divider in the middle. I put all my receipts and money people give me in one side of the divider, and the other side has all my cash.
2. Clear your wallet daily/weekly. Every Saturday I take all the receipts and cash in the “in” portion of my wallet, and enter it into a spreadsheet. This lets me categorize things while they are still fresh in my mind.
3. Don’t use cash. Admittedly, some people spend more when they don’t use cash, but for those of you who follow rule two strictly using a credit card unlocks excellent tracking potential.
4. Use online accounts. This way you can see the things you forget to get a receipt for. They also let you see when transactions clear your checking account, and allow you to balance your books weekly as opposed to every month when you get a statement.
5. Balance your books weekly. Simply put, if you balance your books weekly, you’re going to have a far easier time of knowing where your money goes. If you know where your money is going, then you know how to control it better. I generally wake up Saturday mornings, grab some yogurt, start a load of laundry, and balance my books in the time it takes the washing machine to finish.

Of course all the tracking in the world won’t effect change in spending in and of itself, but it is an incredibly powerful motivator when you see that you spend $100 in the last two weeks on eating out (not unfeasible). It also helps you evaluate when you go to swipe your card whether you can actually afford buying that new toy, or if you really should order pizza tonight or have a sandwich instead.

—Zach

In a previous post I mentioned how to make dough simply by using credit cards for your regular spending habits. I came under a little bit of flack in a comment on fivecentnickel. So I figured I’d clarify since my original post missed some important points.

This isn’t about taking on debt to build wealth. This is about leveraging a payment method with some additional benefits. Credit cards offer excellent buyer protection from identity theft, rewards points (in my case 1-3% cash back, with a $50 bonus for getting $200 cash back), and are accepted nearly everywhere.

However, these benefits are immediately negated the instant you don’t make the full payment. As such, I do not view this as taking on debt. If you pay the minimum payment you are, for lack of better terminology, screwed. 20% interest is bad.

Now, 1% cash back isn’t a ton, but we’ll use this as a baseline. Calculating out all my regular expenses, such as heating bills, cell phone bills, groceries, eating out, etc. I spend in excess of $20K per year. If I charge them to my credit card, I wind up with an extra $250 in cash every year. If I write a check, or use cash, I wind up spending the same amount, but get no money back. Plus, it is significantly harder for me to keep track of my cash spending vs. my credit/check spending.

Now, for people who would have a hard time paying off their credit card, or who would tend to overspend with their credit cards, then I would suggest not doing this… But for people who are fiscally responsible, it’s a nice little extra cash infusion you can get every year without doing anything extra.

—Zach

Ok, lame sk8rboi reference aside, my brother has just started a blog. He, of course, completely failed to inform me of anything of the sort, and I just happened to find it in the shared items of my google reader.

My brother is a nurse. Apparently he has more time on his hands, and can write more blog posts than I. If you are at all interested in following the life of a male nurse, considering going into nursing, or just want to read an interesting blog about nursey things, I’d suggest you read this one.

—Zach

So I woke up Wednesday morning. Life was pretty good. Then on my way to work I got a call from Chase, informing me that they needed to talk to me about some unusual transactions on my Freedom Card. They then asked me to press any key on my phone to continue. As I viciously dug about in my coat pocket attempting to find my phone the call hung up because I spent to long. No biggie.

Not giving any personal information on a call you do not initiate is a wise policy. So I called them back when I got to work, and discovered that, yes, some people in California used my credit card to pay for their gas at a 7-11. They then tried to get a $20 cash advance at an ATM. They asked if I recognized these transactions, and I said “no.”

They stated they have already frozen my card, and are reissuing a new one, transfering my balance to the new card, and sending it in the mail.

The flags that triggered it was probably the fact that They used my CC in California. Something I’ve never done before. I live in Michigan, 2/3rds of a continent away. A pointer to people stealing my identity, stay local! I’m far to lame to go some place cool, like California.

All in all a surprisingly painless experience. Just checked my Chase Online account, and the new card shows up already there. All rewards and transactions carried over just fine, and the invalid transactions do not. Pretty good experience, IMHO. It feels good to know that Chase has my back.  The only question that remains is “how many false positives they get?”

—Zach