For over two years now I’ve been freely posting how much I make in alternative income. That income largely comes from this website. I am starting to diversify with Lazy Man and Health, but it never seemed to take off as I hoped. That transitions us nicely to the theme of the rest of this article… failure.
I feel like a complete failure today. I’ve been chatting with some other bloggers and they made significantly more than the $2166.22 I did last month - on what seems to be less traffic. I know I shouldn’t compare myself to them, but it’s hard not to. Some of them even have full-time jobs or take care of kids.
Back in college I was in fraternity. We through some parties and probably had a little too much fun. Well it turns out that everyone was having so much fun they weren’t recruiting freshmen to keep it going. One day, one of the of the upperclassmen stood up and said, “Are we going to be a fraternity, or are we just going to play fraternity?” I never forgot that statement. Today, I feel like I’m not the owner of a blog, but just “playing blog.” And it feels like I’m not even that good at it.
For the past two weeks, I’ve had quite the case of writer’s block. I even wanted to break one of the cardinal rules of blogging… posting a post that says, “I’ve got nothing to say today…” If there’s a lower point in a blogger’s career than thinking that, I don’t know what it is.
Now that I’ve entirely depressed my entire readership, I want to end with some good news. While I have had trouble writing about personal finance and health, I have had good luck writing on another topic (that I’ll leave secret for now). I’m thinking it’s going to be an eBook. I’ve worked through two chapters in two days. Each chapter is broken down into three or four points that could serve as blog posts. So I’m thinking it’s going to be an eBook/blog. It might not be a blog though because I’m not sure I intend to write on the topic for a long time. Anyway, stay tuned…
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Posted by Lazy Man on December 4, 2008 in
Alternative Income
This news is a week old, but I’ve been a little too busy to get it out. It seems like the SEC ordered a cease and desist. I have to admit that reading the legalese is not my specialty. So I don’t really know what it amounts to. If anyone wants to read it and interpret it for me, I’d appreciate it.
That’s not the only bad news for Prosper. Monday Prosper agreed to pay 20 states $1 million dollars. It seems you can follow the progress of this class action lawsuit on this blog.
In other news, Loanio has voluntarily decided to stop accepting lenders and borrowers. Presumably they’ve seen what’s going on with Prosper and what Lending Club has been through. This is why Zopa didn’t operate a pure P2P.
Sometimes I wish the US regulators that are going so hard after these P2P companies would spend more time preventing and fixing the economy.
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Posted by Lazy Man on December 3, 2008 in
P2P Lending
This weekend, my wife added another candle to her birthday cake. Trying to be a good husband, I took her to Sacramento for some good dining and a night away from home. If you ever find yourself in Sacramento, you may want to come back and look at these reviews.
We rolled into town around 1PM, time to catch lunch at Tex Wasabi’s. Tex Wasabi’s claim to fame is being co-owned by Guy Fieri, star of several Food Channel shows. It doesn’t stand out as a special restaurant - in fact my wife passed it dozens of times while working in Sacramento without thinking it was special. She caught his show one night where it was mentioned and we decided we had to give a shot. As a little background, the restaurant is aptly named - it’s a cross between BBQ and Sushi. This is big for the wife and me, because she likes sushi and I like my BBQ. We can both be happy at the same place.
We started off with a Code Red Bowal, a 64 ounce fish bowl drink for adults. I would say that 32 ounces were ice and though it was good, it wasn’t worth the $27. If we had to do again, we would have gone a different route, but it was a celebration, so we splurged. As for the food, my wife had the Crystal roll (a special of the day). She said it was the fantastic - some of the best sushi she’s ever had. I had the BBQ Beef Brisket Sandwich. It was about average - I couldn’t give it more than that. We split a Big Bird on Fire which is chicken in a sushi roll. That was fantastic.
One thing that I have to give Tex Wasabi high marks for is that the service was outstanding. The waiter took care of our every need and the owner (or someone that we presumed to be the owner) stopped by to chat with us a bit. The head waiter even came by for a spell. There were some other intangibles like live music nights and beer pong nights (this is legal in public restaurant?). I have to dock them a few points - though they had a decent beer special for Sunday football, the owner-type guy said that they didn’t have the NFL Sunday ticket to get the games from out of town.
After Tex Wasabi, we checked into our Marriott Residence Inn. Some might find it weird to have a celebratory weekend at such a run-of-the-mill hotel/motel. Since we were only going to be there for one night and not in the room for very long, we didn’t feel the need to spend a lot of money. For our $114 in Sacramento, here’s what we got: a large room, visco-elastic bed, a full kitchen (stove, pots, pans, full size fridge/freezer, etc.), free Internet access, an on-site gym, pool, and hot tub. There’s also free breakfast daily (eggs, potatoes, sausage, cereal, muffins, fresh fruit, etc.) as well as social events Monday through Wednesday at night. I have to give the Residence Inn my highest value rating. I’ve stayed at places upwards of $200 a night that charge you for Internet access as well as breakfast.
After relaxing in the hot tub and heading back to the room to watch a movie (Bring It On sometimes just sucks you in), we went out to Zinfindel Grille for dinner. When my wife is in Sacramento on business, she makes it a point to have a meal there. I was prepared for it to be overhyped, but it delivered the goods. The menu had food in all price ranges. My wife has only ever eaten the $12 small calzone (which was quite big - easily enough for a meal). I wanted to take them to the test and got the $30 Filet Mignon. It was fantastic. For drinks, I chose the white wine sampler. Yes, I broke all the rules ordering white wine with red meat at a place named after a red wine (Zinfandel). My wife when with the red wine sampler. The sample has 3 glasses of different wines - 3 oz. each. For $10 it’s a pretty good value for what amounts to about 2 glasses of wine.
All-in-all, it was a successful weekend. My wife liked her excursion as well as a couple of gifts I got her - one of which I’ll review at a later time.
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Posted by Lazy Man on December 1, 2008 in
Links, Review
I can barely keep up with the blogs I read. Or perhaps you are as Lazy as I am and only come here ever so often. In that case, here’s a quick recap of the top posts from the last month:
- Ask The Readers: Evaluating a Gym Membership
Posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 in Health - Views: (1638)
A few years back, I had a gym membership. I always wanted a place where I can go and lift some weights do a little treadmiling… you know the stuff that I don’t nearly write often enough over at Lazy Man and Health. When my wife and I moved into my current apartment complex I noticed that they had a free gym. It’s not great, but it has 3 cardio machines and a couple of weight stations.
- Matt Furey: 101 Ways To Magnetize Money
Posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 in Book Review - Views: (1120)
Publishers send me books all the time. When I decide to read a book, I earn my Lazy Man moniker by choosing the thinnest book in my pile. Today that book is Matt Furey’s 101 Ways To Magnetize Money a book that you may be able to through in about 60-90 minutes.The first few tips are about putting your mind in the right frame of mind - the power of positive thinking. I think you take it a little too far by leaving reminders like index cards around the house as suggested, but who am I to say.
- Save Money and the Enviroment at the Same Time?
Posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 in Health - Views: (875)
As I write this, it’s Friday night and since I tend not to have a life, I just finished watching Nightline. One of the more interesting segments was about how a group of moms limit their waste to one canof garbage a year. Specifically they had the moms from Enviromom on the show. They admitted that one can of garbage a year is a little aggressive for a beginner, but that one can a month is possible.
- Five Thoughts To My Future Children…
Posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 in Deep Thoughts - Views: (796)
I got the latest edition of Money Magazine yesterday, and Pat Regnier in his The Bottom Line column used the letter to his children as a literary device. It’s not unique (I’ve even written a letter to my high school self in the past), but nonetheless, I thought the idea was worth stealing flattering Mr. Regnier with my own letter to my own children. [Note: I probably wouldn’t use bullets and bolding in a real letter to my children, but I think you’ll find it easier to read.
- Our Early Retirement Plan: Introduction (Part 0)
Posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 in Retirement - Views: (785)
I thought I’d switch things up this week and write about our retirement plan for the future. It’s going to be detailed, so I’ll have an article one day each week. I need to get a few things out of the way:Retirement planning at age 32 is a shot in the dark - Unless you really have tons of money it’s hard to plot a course for where you might be in 10 years. You think you have a plan and something could speed up the target date or slow it down right in a hurry.
- Oils Well That Ends Well
Posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 in Investing - Views: (782)
I’ve been really surprised that the Dow Jones industrial average continues to drop. The last time it dropped to 8,200 I thought it would be the last chance at those prices. As I write this, the mark is at 7,500 and some indications seem to say that it could go even lower. Despite that, we’ve been buying some index funds with our Zecco account. Specifically we’ve been picking up Vanguard Total Index (VTI) and Vanguard All-World Ex-US (VEU).
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Posted by Lazy Man on December 1, 2008 in
Best of
Has everyone gotten back from the Black Friday sales? I got back from my Black Friday foray a little earlier today. I would have written before now, but I had a little left-over chicken (we opted for chicken rather turkey this year - it’s just a better size for two) and dozed back to sleep.
A couple of years ago, I decided that I was done with Black Friday. I don’t think I went out last year. This year, I decided that it would be worth giving it another shot - on one big condition. I would avoid the big box electric shops (Best Buy, Circuit City) and instead look for something like CVS or Walgreens. My theory: not many people are going to waiting out in line at these places and there are enough of them to thin out the hordes. My choice this year was an out-of-the-way Kmart. It’s not quite CVS, but it’s not Best Buy. They had a couple of perfect gifts for Energy Gal and there’s one 5 minutes from my home.
I showed up around 5:35AM, 25 minutes before it opened. To my surprise there was already a line, around 30 people long. So much for betting everyone to focus on the other stores. Over the next 25 minutes, I played Bejeweled on my Palm Treo. (I may have clocked more hours playing Bejeweled in my time than anyone.) I couldn’t help but think, maybe I should be home using this time to work on the long overdue Lazy Man Gift Guide? Wouldn’t I make more money from ads in that than the money I’d save here in line? It’s probably a close call. In fact wouldn’t almost anyone in this line be better off working an extra hour or two instead fighting the masses for a couple of hours on Black Friday? I’m surprised the woman in front of me didn’t figure that out since she was so proud of herself for figuring out that her Starbucks habit costs her $1500 a year. Here I thought that everyone knew that… I guess I just live in a different world than some others.
This thought of working an extra hour and skipping Black Friday got me really thinking, “Why does Black Friday exist?” It just doesn’t make sense to me.
The Consumer Perspective:
- Wasted Time Equals Wasted Money - Is this really the best use of time? I’m sure for some it’s not bad. The person in front of me this year said that she spent 24 hours waiting in front of Best Buy last year and didn’t get there early enough to get the voucher for the item she wanted. That’s just craziness to me.
- Lack of Sleep - Hey sleeping is good. I know a lot of people who love to sleep in when they get the chance. I don’t understand how that changes when you tell them to wake up at 5AM for a chance at saving a couple of bucks. If people are concerned about their wallet, that’s fine - but there are a lot easier ways to save money.
- Fighting - The news always shows everyone fighting for the initial rush. Someone always gets hurt. I don’t want spend two hours waiting and then have it go to waste by a stampede of people. I don’t want to be part of that stampede.
The Retail Store Perspective:
- Higher Costs of Doing Business - Retail stores have to pay employees more to be their earlier in the morning. They have to set up all the sale items. And when customers trash the place (quite literally), it’s going to cost the stores more payroll dollars in cleaning it up.
- Selling Items at a Loss - They sell the doorbuster items at prices that I can’t possibly make them a profit. Perhaps it’s to get people in the door so that they’ll buy other higher margin items, but does that happen on Black Friday? There’s simply too much commotion. Everyone wants to get out of there as quick as possible.
- Cannibalizing the Own Profits - Pretend that I want to get my wife a digital picture frame for Christmas. There were some deals on them for $50 (one I even saw for $20). If I didn’t catch a Black Friday deal, I would have had to pay $79 - that’s more money in the store’s pockets.
I must be missing something here. Perhaps it is somehow a winning proposition for stores - I just don’t buy it. It seems like it’s mostly frustrating for consumers. It just feels like we should have evolved to solution that at least is a win for one side instead of this lose-lose situation.
P.S. For those interested, I did get my doorbuster items. They had decided to put one them on a shelf that required a ladder to get to - pretty unusual for highly advertised items that are smaller than a breadbox. No one else managed to find them (and I wouldn’t have without help). The other item had about 80 of them even I spent a half hour for the first one. I probably could have shown up pretty late and got both items.
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Posted by Lazy Man on November 28, 2008 in
Smart Purchases
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