Why Am I Writing A Blog?

This is another post About Me.

Why am I writing a blog?
A lot of bloggers today have quit their job and have pursued blogging as a full time career choice. Other bloggers are weekend bloggers, working when they can to provide their readers and subscribers with new, fresh content. Most bloggers are doing it because they love to write and it is their passion. Their particular topic may not always be their dream style, but they are writing and daily coming closer to their goals. 

Writing because I have always wanted to and love to is not my number one goal. Why then did I choose to pursue this avenue? Was it the money? No, not in the sense that I think this blog will one day replace my primary source of income. I like being an engineer right now. Money would only be a bonus for me and not a primary motivator.

My motivation for writing a blog is primarily to improve my ability to communicate. I enjoy giving presentations and teaching. They are forms of communicating a point or a topic to people. The opportunities to give presentations to large groups of people are limited so I have been looking to other avenues in which I might grow as a communicator. I am hoping that by writing a blog to convey ideas and principles of personal finance that I will grow and learn more about how to communicate better. I also hope to gain and find more opportunities to give presentations and teach from this blogging endeavor.

Why presentations? Why public speaking? Most people are deathly afraid of public speaking. Toastmasters is a club or organization that exists solely to help give people opportunities to become better public speakers and to reduce their fear of standing in front of large groups of people. I feel confident in my ability as a public speaker although I have only attended a couple of Toastmasters meetings. I gained my confidence and my ability through raw experience and feedback. 

I had the opportunity while in college to give a large number of presentations based on class work, senior projects, and my Master's Thesis. I attended every student and professional conference that came my way. The student conferences were the most beneficial to me because the judges always provided helpful feedback. And when there was not formal feedback I would seek it via a more informal method or from a friend or even a fellow competitor.

I hope that this helps to explain why I am endeavoring to write this blog and I hope that you will leave some feedback either by way of the comments or by dropping me an email. Thanks.

Get Help When Trying to Help

I wanted to write a post like this after the recent earthquakes that have devastated the world and inspiring some of us to donate funds to help.  However, I am going to let Luke Erickson from the Idaho Two Cents Newsletter provide today's article.

This is a guest post from the UI Extension by Luke Erickson

Even in this time of economic recession many have donated their time, skills and hard earned cash in the name of Haiti relief. Unfortunately, something else less reputable surfaced in the midst of these somewhat recent events, Haiti relief scams.

History has shown that any time a lot of money changes hands, scammers will crawl out of the woodwork to try to get their sticky fingers on some of it. Whether it’s in the form of individual door to door solicitors, bogus websites, crooks posing as representatives of legitimate charity organizations, or even legitimate charity organizations that have lost their way, scams are all too prevalent.

When considering charity, my advice is not to withhold your donations out of fear or confusion, but to do everything you can to make sure your donated dollars go to the purpose you intend. A great way to check up on a charitable organization is to go to a third party website that rates a charity according to their legitimacy and efficiency at using donated dollars for their intended causes. The most widely known and used include charity watch.org, charitynavigator.org, and give.org.

Each of these websites uses a different methodology for rating a charitable organization, so it’s not a bad idea to use more than one website to help you get an accurate picture of a charity that could potentially receive some of your donated dollars.

“But why go to all the trouble?” you may be asking yourself. Consider the example of a recent report by charitynavigator.org on a large national charity called Feed the Children. According to their report Feed the Children is America’s 7th largest charity based on its private support of close to $1 billion annually. The report states that Feed the Children spends approximately 64% of its cash budget on fundraising, 14% goes toward other miscellaneous costs, and a mere 22% is actually used on program services. Think that’s bad? It gets worse. 83% of non-cash, donated items were categorized as medical supplies, another 7% as books and the remaining 10% as assorted necessities. So, according to the report, Feed the Children does very little to actually feed the children.

A quick visit to their website splashes your computer screen with pictures of sad, dirty Haitian children in need of help. Too bad that only a miniscule percentage of your donation through this “charity” will actually reach those Haitian children. The rest apparently goes to perpetuate a misguided and unorganized billion dollar organization.

Also consider that according to an FBI report, it took less than 24 hours for the first fraudulent emails solicitations sent in the name of Haiti relief, to be identified. Also, according to an ABC news report, 64 new Haiti relief websites appeared within 36 hours of the quake. When donating to emergency relief efforts it’s usually best to go with a long established organization with a proven track record of efficient use of donated dollars. Those charities that pop up immediately after catastrophes should be treated with skepticism.

Also be aware of identity theft as a major problem surrounding charitable donations. Particularly when answering telephone, email or door - to- door solicitations for donations to a charitable cause your number one question should not be, “How will this person or organization use my donated money?” but rather,“Can I trust this person or organization with my information?” Whether it’s your social security number, credit card number, other banking info, or even your name, address and phone number, your first priority is making sure the person on the other end is legitimate and trustworthy.

Sadly, we will never know how much money was donated in the name of Haiti Relief that never actually reached the people of Haiti. The good news is that there are still many legitimate organizations with a proven track record of delivering help in times of crises. Do your best now and in the future to seek these organizations out so that your good intentions are followed by good results.

BB&T Free Checking $100 Bonus

Another new checking account opening bonus. This time it is worth one hundred dollars from BB&T.

$100 from BB&T.  Apply online with offer code: AFJAP
No monthly minimum balance or monthly maintenance fee is advertised on this account.
The fine print reads...

* In order to receive the $100 incentive, new clients must do at least one of the following: 1) Use BB&T online bill payment service to initiate 3 online bill payments (minimum payment of $10) from your new checking account within 60 days of account opening, OR 2) Enroll in and receive 2 recurring direct deposits (minimum of $10) to the new personal checking account within 90 days of account opening. Any accounts not in good standing, closed, and/or with a balance less than or equal to zero at the time we review account eligibility will not receive the $100 incentive. Normal minimum balance opening requirements apply. The $100 account opening incentive will be deposited directly to your account within 4 weeks of meeting the above requirements, and will be reported to the IRS as required by law. Offer expires 6/3/2010

I have not used this bank before, but they seem to be a pretty good bank based on these recent awards. They used to be a S&P 500 Aristocrat up until last year, too.

Favorite Games: Settlers Of Catan

Boardgame anyone? What that does not sound exciting anymore? Monopoly just not as appealing today?

There has been renewed interest in board games thanks to the recent success of some original European designed games and their English language publishers like Rio Grande Games, Mayfair Games, and Days of Wonder.

My first foray into the alternative board game styles was Settlers of Catan. Many people have found several new and exciting boardgames from Europe. A great site to explore more games is BoardGameGeek.com. They offer forums, user add-ons, photos, detailed descriptions, and more.

Settlers of Catan is a great family strategy game. Chances are, judging from its success, you have already played this wonderful game. From the game site,

Compete with your opponents to discover and settle the choicest lands and seaports. Gather resources, trade with friends and foes, and build roads and settlements—all in a quest to be master of Catan.

What can we learn from Settlers of Catan that applies to the world of Personal Finance?

Free Open Source Games

Yesterday's post about free productivity software made me think about the free software that I use most and enjoy most. Free Open Source Games!  We can't always be productive. Sometimes we just need time to unwind and have fun. And sometimes it is just fun to be on top of the world, be the conquering hero, whatever.

With computers always advancing and upgrading I found that some of my favorite games were being left behind. They would no longer run properly on my new machine and I really didn't have the space to keep working relics of an old 486 DX processor, an old Pentium II MMX, etc. But how do you go about playing those old classics?

Look for diehard fans on the internet. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many world wide open source projects exist solely to re-imagine our favorite games from times long before the advent of quad cores and 64bit processors. Here is a link to a list of open source games in all stages of development according to Wikipedia. You will be surprised at the wide range of possibilities. Some are very simply like you can find in your daily arcade downloads and some are behemoths that rival their paid counterparts.

Which ones are my favorites? My favorites stem back to the mid 1990's.

OpenTTD is an open source remake and expansion of the 1995 Chris Sawyer game Transport Tycoon Deluxe. It is an 'Urban planning and simulation game'.You start the game in 1950 with a bank loan of $100,000. It is your job to become a transportation mogul. Use vehicles of the road, rail, air or sea to transport goods, commodities, and passengers. In order for towns to grow they need you to transport them goods from factories which require raw materials. The AI in the original game could be frustrating. As the years progress technology brings you newer and improved methods of transport.

OpenTTD duplicates most of the original game's features but also has numerous additions, including much bigger, or smaller, maps, a multiplayer capability, improved language support, better AIs and ports for several commonly used operating systems. It offers LAN and Internet play via public and worldwide servers for up to 255 players. OpenTTD also includes numerous usability improvements not present in Transport Tycoon Deluxe. OpenTTD also incorporates many features from TTDPatch.
According to a study, of the activity of the 61,154 open source projects on SourceForge in the period 1999-2005, OpenTTD was the 8th most active patch/contribution receiving open source project.




FreeCol is a clone of Sid Meier's Colonization. (The original, not the newly released CIV4 expansion)
FreeCol starts in the year 1492. With a few settlers, the player builds up colonies in the New World, struggling for power with other colonies from rival Europeans. The player gradually builds up these colonies with help from the European king until no help from Europe is necessary, meaning that the colonies can stand alone without any exterior aid, and declares independence from the King and, if the colonies are able to resist the attacks of the royal expeditionary force, victory is obtained.

The player may trade with Europe using various natural resources which are collected by cities or acquired from trade with natives. In each city the player can also build up industrial buildings to convert raw materials into processed goods, which sell for more in Europe, providing a significant economic advance. Some industrial buildings will convert materials into goods useful for running the colony, such as converting wood into Hammers and ore into tools.


 Finding re-imagined games via the open source community is a lot more fun than trying to keep your ancient PC running. Although, I have re-purposed a lot of old PC's in my day, too.

What is your favorite open source game?

Free Applications for your Computer

I am on ZDNet's mailing list and get an email compiled of their latest articles and updates every so often. One article that caught my eye was their list of "Seven great (and free!) applications for Windows 7."  Truthfully, I wondered why it was necessary to include Windows 7 in the title. There wasn't anything on the list that you could not run in Windows XP. And, ironically, most of these programs are coming from open source operating systems like Linux. Why pay for software?

I have found it helpful to see what programs people use to accomplish their work. It gives you an insight to examine the alternatives and decide for yourself if there might be a better way that you simply did not know about before.

I actually found the list of 30 that Trent Hamm, from The Simple Dollar, compiled way back in 2006 to be quite useful. He has since updated it to include a list of 25 for Mac users and recently included an updated list of his nine most commonly used pieces of free software.

I have used a lot of open source software and think that is great. Firefox is the first thing I install on a new machine. I actually still use Microsoft Office - but that is only because I am able to purchase it through enormous company discounts. Otherwise, I would always use OpenOffice. I also use CutePDF and my wife plays around with GIMP to do serious photo editing.

What are your favorite free applications that you use?

US Mint Dollar Coins Free Money Hack Whacked

If you read very many personal finance blogs you are sure to come across several money hacks. Money hacks are loopholes or tricks that are perfectly legal but allow the consumer to gain an edge instead of the banks and credit card companies. Score one for the savvy consumer!

A popular money hack was discovered in June 2008 when the US Mint started promoting the usage of their latest presidential dollar coins. Dollar coins are more durable and stay in circulation longer simply because they do not wear out so easily as a paper dollar bill. Outside of the United States, the usage of low denomination bills is rare and the usage of coins in 1, 2 and 5 denominations is quite common. 

So what is this money hack with the US Mint? They were allowing customers to purchase large quantities of dollar coins and they were shipped free to the consumer. A savvy consumer would use a frequent flyer or similar rewards credit card to purchase them and then simply drop them off at the bank and deposit them to pay off their credit card bill. Lots of points and zero net cost! 

Personally, I was always intrigued by the idea, but never really felt the need. Maybe that is because for the first five series of the presidential coins the limit you could buy was $500 per president. Maybe I did not do it because it wasn't worth the hassle. Apparently, I missed the fact that the latest Sacajawea dollar coin did not have a limit on purchases. It made me think - would I have taken advantage of the system just to get some points on my credit card? I don't know. Would you have? Did you? Was it worth it?

Don't get too excited. The US Mint has finally caught on, based on this LA Times article, and killed the deal. Now the purchases will not ring up as point of sale but as a cash advance on your credit card. Cash advances are really bad on your credit card in terms of fees and interest rates.

What is your favorite way to game the system? Share below in the comments.