What is middle class?
The answer, which varies slightly, might surprise you.
May 24, 2005
November 05, 2004
Black Friday
Lists of what may be on sale the day after Thanksgiving are already starting to leak. Plan accordingly!
October 25, 2004
Bush, Kerry would both make social security worse
"By going along with the conventional wisdom that the Social Security trust fund will run out of money if something isn't done soon, both presidential candidates are scaring the American people when they could be reassuring them if they actually studied the issue.
"Here's the bottom line right up front: the Social Security system will remain solvent far longer than is generally expected, so there is no need to tinker with it."
August 20, 2004
Compare prices for retail store sales at SalesCircular
"Select your state to compare prices and features for your local sales and Free Products."
Handy site to see what's on sale in your area.
July 31, 2004
PayPal Litigation Settlement Website
"You have reached the website of the claims administrator for the class action settlement in In re PayPal Litigation, Case No. 02 1227 JF PVT, pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose. On July 12, 2004 the Court preliminarily approved the proposed settlement and directed that class members be given notice of the settlement."
Paypal members should take a look at this and determine if it affects them.
July 30, 2004
MS Money Issue Solution
The JAFT Journal: Microsoft's Response to my Money Issue
I posted the fix as a comment to this entry as a public service for those searching the net for a solution. It's nowhere near as painful as I had feared, yet is still secure.
Microsoft's Response to my Money Issue
"Dear Peter,
"Thank you for using Web Support. My name is Jenny, and I'll be assisting you with your case today. "
So far so good.
"After viewing the case log, my understanding is that when trying to sign into Money with your Passport, you receive an error message similar to the following: "The sign-in name you entered is not associated with this file. Please enter the correct sign-in name or open another file." If I have misunderstood, please let me know."
That's accurate. One can imagine the panic I felt as I couldn't open my financial file, particularly as it contains historical data back at least five years, if not more. The Money-generated backup wouldn't open either. My rotated backup would, but I'd been lax in that area and it's two months old. Shame on me! I reorganized the computer setup a couple of months ago and eliminated the auto backup routine I had. Been meaning to get to it, but hey, my important things are backed up manually, like my Money file! Argh!
"If this indeed is the situation, I would like to apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. We have received feedback from other customers reporting a similar behavior. This matter was immediately reported to the corresponding team for investigation."
Yeah, before I decided to go into hyperventilation mode I checked Google and the MSFT newsgroups. There I discovered that I was far from alone. Although still very annoyed, I felt much better after discovering that it was widespread. Not because I wanted to share the pain, but because I knew that meant that a> it wasn't just me and b> MSFT would work on a fix sooner rather than later.
"Based on their recent feedback, what happened is that on Monday afternoon, we updated one of our servers. This affected the authentication process which caused problems for users who attempted to connect to the server on Tuesday morning."
That jibes with what I've read on the net. I'm amazed that they allowed such a thing to happen, though. What a PR nightmare, assuming this gets more visibility than it currently has.
"I would like to reassure you that we are resolving this issue and it is a top priority for our Product Team."
Well I would hope so! In fact, I'm wondering why the hell it's now five days later and there's no fix. Five days, they know what happened and why it broke, what's the issue? Perhaps this is:
" Please be assured that this error will not affect any of your financial data, and none of your personal information has been compromised. In fact, the result of the situation has been that your information is even more secure."
I laughed out loud at this one. Yeah, it's more secure all right, so secure that the proper owner can't get into it! That's not security, that's, that's, um, er, that's inaccessibility. It's locked and the key has been thrown away.
"Considering the current situation, no action is required on the end user side. Once I receive an update from our Product Group, I will send an email to you immediately. Your patience is highly appreciated."
Good, I don't have to search to see when a fix is posted, they'll email me directly. I'm guessing the delay is because they have to somehow crack the security on the file in order to open it up. This should be interesting. As for my patience, well, I'm doing better than the folks screaming that they're going to move to Quicken, but I'm still in the land of annoyed. However, this is the first issue I've had in 5+ years of use, so I'm inclined to let them fix it and take steps (read 'backups') to avoid such a thing in the future. If it's not resolved by Sunday, though, I'll get annoyed again. 1st day of the month and all.
"Again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and frustration this has caused.
"Best Regards,
"Jenny Zhou
"Microsoft Customer Support Services "
Good closing, appreciated. They've gotten much better since their canned response days. This probably still is one, but at least they hired an actual writer to edit them.
July 01, 2004
A $45,000 Mistake
"While others were making a fortune during the bull market, Motley Fool contributor Tim Beyers was living under a mountain of debt. It took three years, but eventually he and his wife paid off more than $45,000. Here's the story of what went wrong, and how it was made right."
Bottom line, invest in yourself first, and stop being bitter over not buying RIMM at $13. Sigh.
June 29, 2004
Arizonans to get 'refunds' on Microsoft purchases
"A Maricopa County Superior Court judge today gave preliminary approval to a settlement that would require Microsoft give voucher "refunds" to all consumers and businesses that purchased its application and operating system products between 1996 and 2002."
Looks like I'm going to have some money coming.
March 07, 2004
Black AmEx?
Claim: American Express issues a special black card that allows its holders to buy anything.
Status: True.
I've heard this before and always wondered whether or not it was true. Well, this is a case of rumor turning into reality.
February 12, 2004
Could you add that up for me?
Years back I was saddened to see that the typical clerk was unable to make change without reading the register display. I thought that was absolutely awful, that basic addition and subtraction skills were so far gone that these kids (usually kids, anyway, but not always!) had to resort to the big calculator, i.e. cash register, to figure out how much change I should receive. I couldn't imagine anything worse than not being able to figure out that, for example, a $9.18 charge with a $10 handed to the cashier should result in 82¢ change. Or, another source of annoyance for me, how about when the bill is $9.55 and you give them $10.05 in order to get 2 quarters back? More often than not nowadays you get that deer in the headlight look, where the cashier desperately tries to figure out what to do:
"Sir, it's only $9.55." - I know that, dumb ass, I want two quarters.
"Um, you gave me too much." - Um, so give me back the difference.
"It's 55¢, not 05¢." - Yeah, I got that, but 10 is also bigger than 9, moron.
So, as you can see I don't have much faith in their counting abilities anymore. Well, yesterday at lunch even my low expectations were not meant. Tab was $10.31. I handed the cashier two five's and a single, and then watched her ENTER EACH BILL SEPERATELY INTO THE REGISTER! Yes, you heard that right, she punched in $5, $5 and $1 so that she could discover it totalled $11! She then proceeded to give me my 69¢ change. I was floored, so much so that I even failed to say anything other than thank you. Wow. Now I'm wondering if she was trained that way or, even worse, if the cash register is set up to force bill entry by having "Cash Received" buttons set aside for each denomination. Amazing, simply amazing.
On the positive side, though, she'd have been all over it if I had given her $11.06: Um, let's see, $5, $5, $1, 5¢, 1¢, ok, 75¢ is your change sir.
Printing Postage from your PC
A friend of mine, who knows that I use my PC to print out postage, asked me what I would recommend for her to use in her SOHO. After determining her basic requirements I checked into some of the various offerings. After reviewing the major players, of which there aren't many, I decided that the one that I use, Stamps.com, makes the most sense for her, as well as for anyone else doing non-sorted mailings from their home or small office.
So I checked to see if Stamps.com a> offered an affiliate program and b> that that program gave something more to the people I might refer than if they just went to the site directly. I wanted to provide value on both sides of the equation, so both a and b had to be "yes". If not, then I'd just post a direct link and be done with it.
Well, they were both "yes", so here's my brand spanking new affiliate link, which gives you $5 extra in free postage when you sign up, and gives me a referal fee that I will use to help defray the costs of this site:
Why this one over some of the others? Primarily two reasons - 1> Stamps.com has been around for a long time (I've been using it for years) and was started by the USPS itself, and 2> the integration with Office 2003 is tight. By that I mean that, once you set up Stamps.com, you can print postage within your normal processes. Print envelopes from Outlook and Word, for example, and the postage goes right on at the same time. Very handy!
Feel free to Comment Back if you give Stamps.com a go; I'm interested to see if everyone else finds it as handy as I do! Also, having used it so long, I can probably answer specific questions about it as well.
November 05, 2003
Want an edge in your ebay auctions?
Yup, it's a plug for a tool I've started using. Yup, if you click the link and sign up I'll get three free snipes, but hey, so will you! It's a win-win for both of us. Go check it out!
I've already saved money on auctions, not to mention the freedom of not having to be at my computer when an auction is about to end.
October 24, 2003
8 Simple Rules for Trading
"Too many investors are more concerned with the Do's of investing than the Don'ts. Rick Munarriz takes a look at some lessons you ought to learn as you dip into the stock market's ebbs and flows."
Good advice, good site.
September 26, 2003
Compare prices for retail store sales at SalesCircular
Ever wish you could find a list of the weekly ads online? I know I've gone to the websites of retail stores to look up their ad, but not all of them put their ads online. Fry's Electronics is one in particular that's not online.
Then I found this site. It lists everything on ad in your area for the week. The only downside, for me anyway, is that it lists it by product and not by store. Still, it's a great summary page to help you save some money!
September 24, 2003
A facelift for the $20 bill
"The new note features subtle shades of peach and blue and a new background."
I just now got around to taking a look at the new $20 bill, after hearing stories of how it's "pink", or "doesn't look like real money", or "isn't really a greenback". Tell you the truth, I don't think it looks so bad, particularly compared to some foreign currency I've seen.
September 23, 2003
Can Electronics Retailers Keep Charging?
"Best Buy and Circuit City have soared on the Street, and each expects strong holiday sales. After that, however, gains may be harder."
Best Buy is up 100% this year at $51. One of these analysts has set a target price of $66 for the next year.
September 17, 2003
Rising Utility Costs
Natural gas prices seen rising further
"Where are natural gas prices headed? Energy industry executives surveyed at a conference Wednesday in Houston said they expect prices to continue to move higher for at least the next several years."
If it's not one thing it's the other, it seems. Just as gasoline is starting to come back down comes the predictions that natural gas is headed up.
September 13, 2003
Think long term, save money
When NOT to file a claim - Know your rights
"Some insurers are dumping consumers who file too many or the wrong type of claims. Watch out for these four red-flag scenarios -- the times you should keep your troubles to yourself and pay out of pocket."