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What Is Frugality? What Are The Best Examples?

Posted by Sean | August 29, 2008 .

Frugality is one of the main topics of discussion on personal finance blogs. Oftentimes, it means trading time for money. Sometimes, a lot of time for a little money. While this can be useful, even necessary, frugality can be so much more.
wikipedia’s definition
Frugality is the practice of

acquiring goods and services in a restrained manner, and [...]

1 Comment

Credit-Based Car Insurance Rates… A Bad Idea?

Posted by Sean | August 29, 2008 .

Shan at The Apostle of the Turtle wonders,

"Is it just me, or is it a stretch to assume that your FICO score—which measures your loyalty to the act of borrowing money—is an accurate barometer for determining how well you drive?"

As I found in By The Numbers: Credit Scores and Car Insurance, most insurers use credit [...]

3 Comments

Surplus Calories Cost Much More Than You Think (But How Much More?)

Posted by Sean | August 29, 2008 .

photo credit: matt1125

via The Frugalista Files, Alabama to hit obese workers with ‘fat fee’
Alabama is giving its employees until 2010 to meet BMI guidelines, or pay an extra $25/month for health insurance.
Here’s what I found interesting:

"Ashmore said research shows someone with a body mass index of 35 to 39 generates $1,748 more in annual [...]

2 Comments

Email Issues

Posted by Sean | August 28, 2008 .

For the longest time, I’d only heard about one rejected email sent to FinancialRamblings. But in the past few couple days, I’ve heard of several incidents. Turns out, my email provider’s spam filtering is highly illogical -and- highly inflexible. I’m currently researching alternatives. In the meantime, if you sent and email and it bounced, you [...]

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Big 3: Squeezing Efficiency From Existing Designs

Posted by Sean | August 26, 2008 .

via Marketplace,
GM, Ford and Chrysler are tweaking their existing models. They’re changing tires, adjusting transmissions and exhaust valves in hopes of getting one or maybe two more miles per gallon.
Better late than never? Hopefully all this tweaking does not upset reliability.

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We Get The Incredible Shrinking Products We Want

Posted by Sean | August 26, 2008 .

This post is from the contrarian category,
where I explore the other side of an issue,
even if I do not agree with it completely.

Call it hidden prices, grocery shrink ray or incredible shrinking products…
manufacturers trying to avoid price hikes by way of creative packaging.
But what is a manufacturer to do if…
99% of people complain [...]

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Should I Replace My Light Bulbs With Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) Today, Or Wait Until They Burn Out?

Posted by Sean | August 25, 2008 .

When doing household financial calculations, the math is easy.
It is the assumptions behind the math where people differ.
Take the question, "Should I Replace My Light Bulbs With Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) Today, Or Wait Until They Burn Out?"
On one hand, you have the waste-not, want-not crowd. You paid good money for the old [...]

11 Comments

Small Changes, Large Results

Posted by Sean | August 25, 2008 .

With all the analysis of expenses and whatnot, I neglect to mention my work, which is interesting — a mix of ecommerce consulting and website publishing.
The ecom work is for a friend’s online store. Within the last year, sales goals they never came close to reaching were shattered, and are now the baseline.
I’d attribute much [...]

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Financial Discovery

Posted by Sean | August 22, 2008 .

I’ve been listening to a lot of financial podcasts and radio shows. It is not as efficient as searching for specific financial information, but I think it serves a different purpose. Summarized here.

"Discovery is when something wonderful that you didn’t know existed, or didn’t know how to ask for, finds you."

How many financial [...]

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Personal Finance Blog Search Engine: “Plan B”

Posted by Sean | August 20, 2008 .

update to this post: Accepting Volunteers for Personal Finance Blog Search Engine
Google’s contributor system is BUGGY (I don’t think it could be that poor by design).
No problem, time for Plan B. For many people, it could be easier than Plan A.
Contributors can email sites to me directly. Although it is alway a good idea to [...]

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