Friday Finance Findings For July 27th
Posted on Fri, 27th July, 2007 by Jeremy
If you happened to read last week’s installment you may have noticed that I was talking about Guitar Hero. Well I’m excited to say that according to UPS my new guitar controller should be waiting on my doorstep when I get home from work. It happens to work out almost perfectly that this coming weekend we have no major plans which will allow me plenty of hours to extensively break in the new axe. So, while I’m mindlessly wasting hours of potentially productive time I encourage you to check out some of the great articles from the past week.
Bonus: I have added a new feature to the site. You should now see the picture of these dice on the far right of every page on the site . It is like StumbleUpon for just this site and each time you click on it you will be taken to a random post here at Generation X Finance. Enjoy!
15 Tips on How to Deal With Car Salesmen and Dealers - This is a great ongoing series that is a must read for anyone who is considering the purchase of a new or used vehicle from a dealership anytime soon. There is some great advice which compliments some issues I have discussed in the past about dealing with car salesmen.
Depreciating Assets as Works of Art - People just love to spend money on assets that become almost worthless in a relatively short amount of time. Unless you do a really good job at creating a work of art and there is a buyer you should probably save your money.
Choosing a 529 Plan - One of the more mysterious of all investment vehicles out there, not all 529 plans are created equal. With so many options it can be a nightmare trying to determine what is best for you or your child, but you don’t have to worry, Lazy Man is to the rescue.
Blockbuster vs. Netflix: Why You Should Sign Up For Both - What a novel idea, use the fierce competition to your advantage. While this can work with the DVD rental market I bet you could apply the same techniques to other highly competitive markets as well.
The Science Behind Money Behaviors - Hey, who says you don’t need science after school? Science plays an important role in everything, even determining how you save and spend your money.
Pay More Than The Minimum On Your Credit Card - This goes without saying, but it bears repeating. Paying only the minimum can be one of the worst financial mistakes you can make.
Pay Off Credit Card Debt or Start Investing? - There are two parts to this equation; the emotional issue and bottom line. Many people just run the numbers and find out which yields the greater return, but for others the emotional rewards for accomplishing one or the other can be more meaningful in the long run.
Adjusting Your Emergency Fund - There are so many rules of thumb out there about how much you should have saved up but much of it is hogwash. Rules of thumb are great, but it really comes down to your specific situation to determine what is appropriate for you and Jim explains how to make those adjustments.
The Savvy Renter and the Slave Homeowner - Some people insist you need to own a home to achieve wealth, others say renting is the way to go. Who’s right? There is no right or wrong answer, but the Money Socket illustrates the situation nicely.
Leverage: Home Appreciation vs. Investments - Financial leverage can be a wonderful thing, but how do you consider appreciation in the value of your home relative to your investments? Nickel explains.
TiVo Won’t Cancel Your Service Even If You’re Moving to the Moon - I don’t like the sounds of this complaint over at the Consumerist since we are really close to canceling (or trying to) our TiVo service and opting for a dish with a free DVR upgrade.
The tool engineer within me cannot resist: regarding the Dice, truly random or just pseudo-random? see random.org for a discussion of the distinction.
Good question, Steve. I simply used an existing Wordpress plugin. It looks like it just uses the rand() function in PHP so you are probably correct in saying it is pseudo-random. But, it is random enough for the needs here at least.
oh ive been told guitar hero is great. I think the 360 version just came out a few months ago so Im looking to buy it.
Sara, you have no idea. I’m a guitarist anyway so I figured I’d enjoy it, but it is one of the most addicting and fun games I’ve ever played. We got it for our 360 back when it came out around April and I’ve put many, many hours into it.
Guitar Hero 3 is just around the corner this October and I can’t wait!
I would like to see a PF blogger’s take on playing video games as a hobby, given that on the surface its kind of a waste of time and money. That said, I am an avid 31 year old gamer and the ridiculous amount of man-hours I have spent playing guitar hero 2 alone, I consider to be worth it, even if I could have paid off my mortgage by now if I had used that time to, say, get a second job in retail or something.
That is a bit of an exaggeration, but any thoughts on this?
Everyone has different hobbies and video games are no different. Yes, it can be expensive and time consuming but if it is something you enjoy you have to afford yourself some enjoyment.
Some people like to restore old cars, others play golf everyday, and some just like to putz around in their garden, which can all be very expensive hobbies. But life is too short to get hung up being too frugal. If something brings you joy and it doesn’t adversely impact your life, knock yourself out.
As with anything it is all about moderation. If someone is in a situation where they are late on their electric bill because they just had to go buy that new game or their relationships are strained because they play games too much then yes, that is a problem.