Month: November 2011

My Black Friday Experience

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We were wanting to get a new flat screen TV on Black Friday to replace our old tube TV. I knew Best Buy had a really good deal on 40″ TV but I also knew it would be almost impossible to actually get the deal. Although I don’t like Wal-Mart they had a couple of good deals on TVs so I decided I’d get a 32″ TV there. They advertised that most of their stuff would go on sale at 10pm and the electronics would go on sale at midnight. I didn’t plan on getting there until a half hour or so before midnight. My son-in-law went there at ten to get some of the other deals and checked on the electronics. You needed a ticket to get the TVs and they had already given out all of the tickets.

I had to make other plans. A quick search online showed me that Target had a 32″ TV available online for only $20 more than Wal-Mart. I went ahead and ordered that. We have to wait a few days for it to be shipped but I am okay with that since it kept me from having to get to Wal-Mart hours earlier to get a ticket to get a TV.

Despite ordering the TV online I still ended up at Wal-Mart for Black Friday. My stepdaughter had been looking forward to going to Wal-Mart with me to get the TV so we ended up going anyway. I ended up waiting around a hour and a half to save $30 on an all-in-one printer. I guess that isn’t too bad of an hourly rate for standing around but I don’t think I’d do it again unless I could sit because my knees can’t take standing around.

I don’t think we did too bad for Black Friday since we bought what we were planning to buy at a good price. We didn’t have to have the all-in-one printer but since it was on sale for less than the price of the included ink we will come out ahead on the deal.

What did you buy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Or did you just stay home?

Book Review: Red Alert

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I received a free review copy of the book, Red Alert: How China’s Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life. I was interested in this book because it discusses how the world’s diminishing amount of natural resources and growing population will lead to a crisis. The focus of the book is on China but it also discusses these issues in general.

The author makes clear in the book that he isn’t demonizing China. China is acting in its own best interest in accumulating commodities that will be in short supply in the future. The commodities that China has are resources that the United States and other countries will be scrambling to obtain. One can’t expect China to share the resources cheaply if at all.

The author states that China produces 97% of the world’s rare earth metals. This is important because these materials are used in the manufacture of cell phones, laptops, TVs, and other electronics. They are also needed for the production of wind energy, solar energy, and electric vehicles. It is somewhat ironic that part of the reason China is able to produce more of these metals needed to produce green energy is that they are willing to deal with the massive pollution that mining these metals causes.

It isn’t just rare earth metals that is the problem though. China is well ahead of the United States in procuring other metals such as copper and iron. Although the metals are plentiful today the author makes a compelling case that demand could outstrip supply in the future and China has taken steps to help ensure that they will have access to the metals they need.

There is another chapter on peak oil and peak coal. The author argues that peak oil has already arrived and that peak coal isn’t far behind. I’m not sure if peak oil has arrived although I do think it will happen in the near future. China’s increasing use of oil and coal will cause demand to accelerate and energy prices to soar. China is preparing for this by investing heavily in alternative energies.

Although China is preparing for scarce resources in the future they do face some problems. One problem is whether they can produce enough food and water for their growing population. Another problem is potential rebellion. One of the reasons that China is able to prepare for long range problems is because they don’t have to worry about getting re-elected. If the people of China face shortages of food and water it could lead to rebellion but that possibility seems unlikely to the author.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there is much the United States can do about the situation. Any attempts to remedy the situation would require that people make some sacrifice now so they can be better off in the future. The American people generally don’t want to do that and most politicians would be afraid to suggest any policies that would demand any sacrifices. You will need to make your own preparations to deal with the future. I’m not sure what those are but I am reading more about peak oil and permaculture and can hopefully come up with a few measures to better weather the future crisis.

Book Review: 18 Minutes

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I requested free review copy of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done because I know I could be much more productive with my time. I’ve researched different productivity methods on the web and read books like Getting Things Done but have not gotten any more productive. I was hopeful this book could change that.

A large part of this book isn’t about productivity techniques but about finding your focus. The idea is that once you find your focus or passion you will be more productive since you will be spending your time on things that are important to you. I agree with this ideas but I think that way too much of the book was spent on the subject of finding your focus.

In the part of the book that actually details a productivity plan the author talks about getting the right things done. One way to determine what is important is with the three-day rule. If anything has been on his calendar for three days he does one of four things. He either performs the action immediately, schedules a specific time to do it, puts it on his someday/maybe list, or just lets it go. On letting an item go the author explains that after a to-do item has sat on your calendar for three days you will sometimes discovering that doing the item just isn’t the priority for you that you thought it was and can be deleted.

The “18 Minutes” the title refers to is a plan for managing your day that should take eighteen minutes. You spend five minutes deciding what the best things to do for the day are and then take them off your to-do list and put them on your calendar for the day. You then spend one minute each working hour refocusing. This is to make sure you don’t get off track during the day. You then spend five minutes at the end of the day reviewing how the day went. The author states that if you make this process a ritual it will make it easier for you to get the right things done.

I can’t say that this productivity plan has made me more productive but that is because I have never tried to implement it. One problem I have with implementing the plan is that the various parts of it are scattered throughout the book and there is no recap of exactly what the plan is. I’m thinking that an ideal productivity book would be a very slender volume but since people wouldn’t want to pay much for a thin book productivity books have lots of extra content.

What I need to do is come up with my own productivity plan based on all the productivity tips I’ve read about and then actually do it. You might find “the post on productivity I wish someone else had written” to be helpful if you have struggled with productivity.

This book does have some good information on productivity and the plan could work for you. If you have read lots of other productivity books though I don’t think you will find that this book offers anything much different from the others.

Personal Finance Links – Not So Suite Life Edition

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This hasn’t been a great weekend. I had managed to go twenty years without getting in a car accident but now I’ve been in two this year. To make things worse this accident was my fault. I’m hoping the accident won’t cause my insurance rates to go up since this is my first at fault accident in my life. I’ll have to wait and see.

On the plus side we are spending two nights in Tunica since we were comped a hotel room for two nights. I was surprised to find out that they actually comped us a suite. It is pretty sweet with a couple of big screen TVs and a Jacuzzi tub. I’m not sure how much it would cost if we had to pay for it but I’m sure it is more than I would be willing to pay. Although the room is nice I’m not a big fan of Tunica. They haven’t had the poker games I like and it is in the middle of nowhere so you’re stuck eating at their overpriced restaurants. We’re able to use our reward points to pay for our meals but I would prefer to get better value for our points. I probably jinxed myself by posting how I make money gambling. I’ve lost more in the past two days than I have all year. I tried playing video poker and no-limit poker with terrible results. I’m still up for the year but I came out well behind for this two night stay. I’m going to be much more careful with my gambling in the future.

This month we have traveled to Kansas City, Chicago, Texas, and now Tunica,Mississippi. This has cut into my blogging time. To help keep my commitment to my Yakezie Team 2 members I’m linking to them in this link roundup.

My Multiple Incomes has a post about the best income streams. There are lots of good ideas in the comments.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job wonders “is college worth it?” The answer to that like many things is “it depends.”

Money Crush advises you to prepare for massive success. That is a good thing to prepare for.

Untemplater has tips to prepare for an un-templated lifestyle. I’ve lived most of my life “untemplated” but it is only the last few years that it wasn’t a struggle.

Retire by 40 hosted the Totally Money Carnival. Lots of good posts there.

Squirellers talks about blended families and inheritances. We had cases like this in law school and generally whatever the will says is how the money will be handled. A much worse case than what Squirellers talks about is when a spouse gets remarried but never changes their will and all their money goes to their former spouse.

101 Centavos has a career tip about right vs. wrong. The right thing can sometimes be a grey area.

Broke Professionals shares money tools for a simplified life. These tools can save you some time when managing your finances.

Everything Finance shares three things you need to start a home business. They may not be what you think.

Since I have more traveling to do tomorrow and a couple of Thanksgiving dinners to attend I probably won’t get a whole lot more blogging done this week but next week I should be home all week and hopefully get lots of blogging done.

How I Make Money Gambling

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When you look at my monthly expenses you will see that I don’t spend much on entertainment. One of the reasons our entertainment expense is low is because one of our forms of entertainment is going to the casinos about once a month. And we actually come out ahead on gambling.

It is possible to come out ahead at the casino without being a card counter. My wife plays slots and I play live poker. I’m not an expert poker player, after about fifteen poker playing sessions this year I’m down $154. I don’t know my wife’s losses exactly but I’d estimate them to be less than $100. The way to come out ahead despite by being a losing player is by taking advantage of the casino rewards programs and comps.

We don’t gamble large amounts but we have still received well over $1000 in comps and rewards. There are two strategies that we have followed to achieve this.

Concentrate Your Play at One Casino

We play at Harrah’s or CET properties as they are now known. If you concentrate your play at one casino chain you will likely receive more comps and rewards than if you spread out your play among several different casinos. We play at Harrah’s because they have convenient locations for us and because we have a Diamond card there. The Diamond card allows us have free meals daily in the Diamond Lounge. And even free drinks at some locations. In addition to that it allows you to see two free shows a month in Las Vegas. Those perks saved us a lot of money on our honeymoon. Although Harrah’s works best for us a different company might work better for you.

Take Advantage of Casino Promotions

Casinos will run different promotions throughout the year that allow you to earn extra rewards. Harrah’s had a great promotion this year that paid you $600 in rewards for visiting six different properties and earning at least one point at each of them. With the traveling we had to do for our business and a necessary trip for a funeral we were able to visit six properties without too much extra driving. It takes very little play to earn one point so our combined losses to earn the required points on our casino visits was less than $40. Since we received $600 in casino rewards each we basically made $1200 in rewards for less than $40. We can spend that money on meals, entertainment, and hotel rooms at any of the Harrah’s properties. There won’t always be promotions as lucrative as this but most casinos will have some promotions during the year which should result in a positive expectation for a shrewd player.

Choose Your Games Wisely

This is advice that I’m not actually following right now. I play live poker which is not a good game to play to earn comps. In my opinion the best game to play for comp purposes is video poker. I do enjoy video poker but I haven’t played it too much because I haven’t learned the optimal strategy for all the games. I recently discovered a site, WizardofOdds.com, that gives you some easy strategies to learn that are near optimal. Another site, VpFree2.com, gives you the locations of the best paying machines in the casino. I’m going to divert some of my poker dollars to video poker and see how I do. We have two free nights in Tunica this weekend. I’m going to play some video poker there and I’ll let you know how I did.

If anyone has any questions about earning casino rewards or has tips on earning them please let me know in the comments.