I’ve heard a few great arguments made lately about how we make liars out of ourselves all the time with our so-called “priorities.” Many of us say “Travel is DEFINITELY a priority for me” or “I’m serious about getting in shape.” But are these things really priorities? And does the time and money you spend on these things really back up what you’re saying.

JD Roth of Get Rich Slowly first brought this to my attention at the World Domination Summit 2012 when he said “It’s not what we say is a priority, but what we actually DO that’s a priority.

Then Steve followed it up nicely on Nerd Fitness by pointing out how messed up we are when we claim we don’t have time to do something that many of us claim we value – exercise.

I found that the same is true for money: How we spend shows our true priorities, not how we hoped we would.

Find Out If You’re a Liar

But how do you know if you’re lying?

Ramit challenged readers to try this exercise::

Write down the following:

1. Where do I think I’m spending my money?
2. Where do I want to spend my money?
3. Where am I actually spending my money?

Look at your results. Many of us claim that we have certain priorities in life, but we make liars of ourselves all the time.

Maybe you don’t even know the answers to some of these questions – and you’re likely wrong about #3 if you never track any spending (trust me, I’ve tested it with myself and friends). It’s stupid easy to get fantastic data on your spending with Mint, so get on it.

Once you’re able to figure out the “how” of what you’re spending money on, see how that matches up with where you want to spend money. For most people, my guess is it doesn’t match up well.

Many of us would probably say something like “Travel is a HUGE priority for me.” Well, how much do you actually spend on travel? How does it compare to what you spend each month or year compared to alcohol, restaurants, cars, rent/housing, entertainment? Now that you look at at,It’s probably pretty low on the list, right?

No one is going to be perfect on where they prioritize their money. But are you getting closer to where YOU want to be with your spending? Or are you moving further away from what you think is most important to you and spending it on what society/others tell you is supposed to make you happy?

What’s the Fix?

It’s definitely a challenge that takes some work to get spending in line with what you consider your priorities. Don’t fool yourself by thinking you’re going to go from spending $300 to $0 a month of restaurants witha  snap decision.

But think about how you would spend your money if you truly had no limitations or bills that you consider necessities to pay each month. Seriously, write it down. Now, start working towards that TODAY.

How do you make changes today? You could focus on earning more, but I like starting with spending differently.

Spending less and mixing up what you’re used to doesn’t mean you have to go hardcore frugal. The point isn’t to cut out everything you love spending money on. It’s really about moving the funding around to other stuff that you just enjoy more.

Example: I HATE just about everything about owning a car, so I don’t own one and devote exactly $0 to cars.

If you’re not thrilled about buying lunch every day at work, don’t do it. If driving around in your brand new car isn’t part of what gets you most excited, sell it. If you’re living somewhere but know that you could pay less for another apartment and be just as happy, move.

Then take the money you saved on these things and put it towards what you care about. If you want to take a trip to Europe, save and buy the ticket. If you love eating sushi every week, find the money and make it happen.

When it comes to making sure money gets spent the way you want, here’s a trick for saving money for travel and other things that aren’t consistent expenses: Automatically put money aside savings. It works!

Just set up a new savings account on ING Direct and have a certain amount taken out of each paycheck to go towards travel or whatever it may be. It doesn’t have to be much – maybe just $20 a week. In a year’s time, you’ll have $1,000 for vacationing.

Once you have this money set aside for a certain purpose, it’s harder to make the same mistakes and excuses that you had before. If it’s in a separate account, you’ll consciously have to remove it and make yourself a liar on spending priorities.

What do you wish you could spend more money on? What’s stopping you from doing it?

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Turbo Tax is among the best tax software out there. But I hate paying for it. Instead, I just use use Turbo Tax free.

I’m a big fan of filing taxes online in general. If your return isn’t too complicated, it can be much cheaper than using an accountant. I hope I don’t even have to point out that using software is much easier than trying to do it pen and paper.

But I wouldn’t call Turbo Tax a huge bargain. Unless you’re using the Turbo Tax Free Edition (which only lets you file a 1040EZ), you’re going to have to pay. It starts at $29.95 for a federal e-file plus a whopping $36.95 per each state added ($66.90 total). If you’re using their “Home and Business” version, the total cost jumps from $66.90 to $110.90. Ouch! Last year, due to moving to a new state, I had two federal returns and really didn’t want to pay more for the extra state, either.

Luckily, I’ve been a longtime user of Tax Slayer instead. It has far fewer features than Turbo Tax (you can’t import tax forms from investment accounts or snap pictures of W-2 forms), but the advantage is it’s much cheaper. Tax Slayer costs only $19.95 for federal plus $7.95 per state. Now that’s a deal!

Here’s how I take advantage of Turbo Tax, but file my taxes with Tax Slayer cheaply.

Fill In All Your Info, and Do Everything But Pay

The benefit of both software: you don’t pay until you file (or print) your returns. Therefore, you can use all the features and calculate your refund before paying a dime. I use Turbo Tax (TT) first simply for the ease of use, then I switch over to Tax Slayer (TS) to compare.

I can take advantage of the following features that TT has before paying anything:

1. Intuitive “wizards” to enter information. TT makes it easy to go to step by step through my whole return and enter the right forms in the right places. It’s very thorough so I don’t miss anything. I find TT more useful as TS has this, too, but it’s not as clear and as well designed, in my opinion.
2. Auto-Import tax forms. I can automatically pull the information from my investment accounts. This is great so I don’t mess up capital gains/losses, which can get a little confusing (I messed up the first time I tried in TS).
   
3. Audit risk. TT tells me that I’m at higher risk for an audit since I’m filing a Schedule C. That’s good to know! (although I sure hope I’m not audited).

There’s probably more features that I missed, too, but these are the most important ones to me.

Reap Your Rewards

After filling everything in all my tax info in TT, I do the same in TS and compare the results. I make sure to input everything from TT based on its helpful suggestions. Hopefully, the refund numbers come out the same. If they do, I feel good about what I entered as I most likely didn’t make typos. If the numbers don’t make, I take a closer look and figure out where I went wrong. Of course if I received a larger refund using TT than TS, I would file with TT as well. But that hasn’t happened for me yet.

It takes me an hour, at most, to fill in my tax info into each software. I find that gathering up documents takes the most time in preparing my taxes, so once I have those in order, it’s not much work to use both Turbo Tax and Tax Slayer. For a little extra time but worth it to save ~$80 and feel more assured that my return is error-free.

Do you use any other tax hacks like these?

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photo by: 401K

Last year, I collected food $148 in food stamps each month. It’s the worst “free money” I’ve ever earned, and I’m happy to say that I’m no longer able to get these benefits.

I’ve read a lot of posts about government assistance lately, and it’s always a hot-button topic (and especially in election years). It’s likely that many of these people writing about programs like welfare, food stamps (now called SNAP), and others have never enrolled or received benefits, and I do have to take their opinions with that in mind.

Why We Need Food Stamps

I’m not going to speak to all government programs, but I do think that it’s important to have some level of the food stamp program. While many of the people receiving them probably aren’t in a life-or-death situation when it comes to getting this assistance, it’s probably not too far off, either. According to FeedingAmerica.org, “In 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 32.6 million adults and 16.2 million children.” It’s scary to consider that almost 1 in 6 Americans fall into this category.

Hunger clearly continues to be a problem here, and presumably food stamps help alleviate this problem to some degree.

The Program Isn’t Perfect

One issue I have with SNAP/food stamps is that eligibility is based most on income and not on wealth and assets. I’m not sure if this is true in all states, but in Connecticut if you make under a certain amount per month (somewhere around $1,300), you’re not required to disclose any of your assets. What you own isn’t count against the assistance you receive.

This essentially means that millionaires can collect food stamps as long as their present income is below a certain limit. Myself and others collecting foodstamps were really bothered by this fact, and it really didn’t make sense as to why this loophole was allowed to stay open.

Another thing I have mixed feelings on is that in Connecticut you can buy virtually any food you want with food stamps. While I think everyone should have access to healthy foods rather than processed junk, I’m not sure that someone should be allowed to purchase organic or luxury foods with food stamps. I’ve seen people doing this a few times at my local Co-Op, and it just makes me wonder if they really need the food stamps since there’s no way that they’re going to be able to afford enough food with their food stamp assistance at the prices they’re paying.

Getting Off Food Stamps

One of the major criticisms that I hear about these government programs is that people may just stay on them forever instead of trying to increase their income or do something else to get their presently bad situation. That’s a valid question, but it’s one that I have a hard time understanding myself.

To me, simply earning more was enough of an incentive to get off foods stamps. Sure, I had plenty of food to eat, but I had barely enough money for anything else as it was since I was earning so little money. I couldn’t save any money for the future, I couldn’t afford to go on trips with my income, and I really couldn’t buy anything extra (which prompted me to have a “No Spend” month last February).

I imagine my ability and decision to get out of this lifestyle was a lot easier than it was for others. I had a clear path to a better-paying job. Everyone around me was earning more than me. But I’m doubtful it’s that easy for others, and that’s evidenced in unemployment stats based on education.

No One Can Truly Live on Food Stamps

Unlike other government programs, it’s impossible to live on food stamps alone. You aren’t actually given money, which makes it difficult to cheat the system and buy anything other than food. Plus, it’s only enough to barely buy enough groceries. In that sense I feel like it’s hard to say that people really are abusing the program and that it’s not serving its purpose.

I hope I never have to go back to living on food stamps. To me, getting government assistance like this means that I’m in a pretty bad place financially, and I’d never choose that over working hard and earning enough money to pay for my own food.

What are your feelings on food stamps?

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photo by: eschipul

How many times have you wondered about where you’re donated money goes?

If you’re like me, it’s probably pretty often. We’re often at least somewhat curious how that money is spent and want some assurance that the money is going to the people that need it most. Enter non-profit ratings.

Several sites now rate charities on a variety of factors, but I’ve spent a lot of time poking around Charity Navigator, which has a wealth of information on charities.

Here’s some great information you can find on Charity Navigator to make up your mind about which charities to donate to.

Overall Charity Ranking

Charity Navigator assigns non-profits an overall rating of up to 4 stars based on a variety of factors. This number is available at the top of each charity’s page, so it’s likely the first thing you’ll see. This is a composite of several factors, which I explain in more detail below. But if you’re interested in just a quick look, the overall ranking will give you a decent idea of Charity Navigator’s opinion of that not-for-profit.

Programming Expenses

Programming expenses are among the most important of the non-profit rating components. This is where the bulk of the money should be going (as opposed to other expenses). Don’t get confused: the higher percentage, the better in this category.

The people at charity navigator expect non-profits to spend at least two-thirds of their total budget in this category. They explain this by stating that “We believe that those spending less than a third of their budget on program expenses are simply not living up to their missions. Charities demonstrating such gross inefficiency receive a 0-star rating for their Financial Health.”

The charity I looked up (Enterprise Community Partners), spends about 83% of their expenses on programs, so they pass this standard.

Administrative Expenses

Administrative expenses fall into the non-profit ratings by measuring how much of the budget staff and other related costs consume. It’s defined as “This measure reflects what percent of its total budget a charity spends on overhead, administrative staff and associated costs, and organizational meetings. Dividing a charity’s administrative expenses by its total functional expenses yields this percentage.” Obviously, the lower the administrative expenses, the better.

For Enterprise Community Partners, this percent was just under 15% to put them in the top tier in terms of administrative expenses.

Fundraising Efficiency

Charity Navigator also assigns non-profit ratings based on fundraising efficiency. It’s great if a charity can fundraise a lot of money, but it hopefully doesn’t have to spend a lot of money to bring in these funds.

The site defines fundraising efficiency as “The amount spent to raise $1 in charitable contributions. To calculate a charity’s fundraising efficiency, we divide its fundraising expenses by the total contributions it receives.” Enterprise does very well in this category by spending only 3 cents to raise one dollar.

Working Capital Ratio

Charity Navigator also provides the working capital ratio of each charity to indicate how long they could sustain their expenses based on their current assets. This is generally an indicator of how healthy an organization is.

In the case of Enterprise Community Partners, they have a very healthy working capital ratio of 3.47 years.

Other factors

There are plenty of other factors in the Charity Navigator profile to look at. This includes information found on their Form 990 (which all non-profits must provide to the IRS each year). Other budget and expense information for previous years is shown, too, including the CEO’s salary. (Warning: If you’re wary of CEO compensation, many nonprofit CEOs make low to mid six-figure salaries. I don’t have a problem with that if all the other financials check out, but that’s a debate for another post.)

One last feature that’s helpful is a quick comparison of similar charities and how they rank compared to the one you’re viewing. All these tools make evaluating a charity much simpler than trying to do your own detective work.

‘Top 10′ Lists

Charity Navigator also includes non-profit ratings in the form of Top 10 lists with a variety of themes. You can simply check out the Top 10 Super-Sized Charities, which includes the Red Cross and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

A more intriguing option is the Top 10 Charities Overpaying for their For-Profit Fundraisers, where you can see that the Disabled Police Officers Counseling Center spends an alarming 91.2% of their budget on fundraising expenses. Yikes!

Aside from finding the bad apples, these lists can be great for finding new charities to donate to, too. If you’re worried about CEO pay, check out the 10 Highly-Rated Charities with Low Paid CEOs.

I should note that not all charities are included in Charity Navigator (the one I appear at is not), but a lot of the largest ones are covered.

Do you check charity ratings before donating? What factors do you look for?

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photo by: Kelly Exton

I’ve made a lot of attempts to talk to people out of Bank of America. It’s something I’m passionate about because I dislike BoA for many reasons. They charge tons of fees (customers pay in the billions each year). They’re service isn’t anything to brag about. They keep getting sued. Their stock keeps falling.

Basically, the only reason I hear that people stay with BoA: “they have ATMs just about everywhere.” That’s a poor reason to do business with a bank, especially one with such a poor track record as BoA. Here’s a few major news stories they’ve been a part of in recent years if you aren’t already convinced that BoA is bad.

BoA agreed to pay $365 million settlement for discriminatory lending

This Yahoo article details the recent (the week of this publishing) and huge settlement that was reached with BoA based on Countrywide loans (BoA acquired Countrywide in 2008).

The settlement was based on the complaint that “Countrywide charged over 200,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers higher fees and interest rates than non-Hispanic white borrowers with a similar credit profile.” This is extremely unethical and really disheartening that racism like this exists even in the banking world.

(Note: Sandy went through a whole lot of frustration dealing with BoA over a Countrywide loan, so be sure to check out her post for more on what she went through.)

The $5 debit fee that never came to be

BoA announced plans to implement a $5 debit card fee out of nowhere in mid-2011. Customers weren’t happy about it at all, and the complaints were so substantial that BoA eventually backed down. (Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re coming back with something similar soon)

That wasn’t before BoA CEO Brian Moynihan proclaimed “they’ll [customers will] understand what we’re doing — understand we have a right to make a profit.” Ah, the words of a man and a company that doesn’t give a lick about it’s customers and is really just staring at the bottom line.

$410 million overdraft lawsuit settlement

BoA agreed to pay a settlement of $410 million in November 2011. This suit came about because it was alleged that “Bank of America processed its debit card transactions in the order of highest to lowest dollar amount so it could maximize the overdraft fees customers paid.”

While $410 million sounds like a lot, it’s actually less than 10% of the $4.5 billion in overdraft fees they collected during this time period. Customers paid a settlement in the case will get a $27 award – less than one $35 overdraft fee despite the average customer paying in the lawsuit paying over $300 in fees.

Bailout funds

BoA took  $25 billion in TARP funds from the US Government in 2009. In fairness, the bank did repay this money in full in December of that year.

Robo-signing

Don’t forget the good old robo-signing scandal of 2010. Bank of America was at the center of that one, and a settlement with  the all 50 states has yet to be reached. It will almost certainly be in the billions of dollars once again. This article has more details on robo-signing, both past and present (and apparently it’s still happening).

The Alternatives Get Better Every Day

To me, it’s really simple to find great alternatives to Bank of America or any of the big banks.

The hardest part is getting yourself to make the switch. But that’s not so hard. Many banks and credit unions will let you open accounts online. Even in person it only takes a few minutes at a branch.

To find a reputable bank of credit union, I often send people to the Move Your Money Project, which maintains a list of banks with good ratings. My post on Adaptu has some advice for what to look for in terms of accounts and fees.

As for me, I currently bank with USAA, PerkStreet, and ING Direct. I haven’t paid any overdraft or monthly fees that the big banks charge, and I was happy when USAA didn’t charge me overdraft fees when I accidentally overdrew on my checking account. If you’re worried about ATM fees, all three of these have free options to use other banks’ ATMs and/or get ATM fees reimbursed.

As far as moving everything over, that’s not so bad either. It takes a little bit of work, but it will be worth it in the long run by saving on fees and cutting down on stress. My post on Adaptu covers the basics on this, too.

To be fair, I’m not a fan of any of the big banks, and many of them have done similarly awful things like BoA. But it seems that BoA is a lightning rod for negative publicity, lawsuits, and plans that screw people over. Plus, I’m a former BoA account holder, and I closed my account after getting hit with a monthly fee myself.

I’m still glad I made the switch. I rarely feel inconvenienced and I’m happy to know that the banks I keep my money in are there to help me and not nickel and dime me all the way through.

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photo by: Sasha Y. Kimel

I’m a huge Amazon customer. I probably don’t spend as much as some people do, but, of all my shopping, I spend at least half of my money on there. My love for Amazon got so intense I had to cancel Amazon Prime.

When shopping on Amazon, I almost always buy products based on the reviews.  To me, a product with at least a 4.5 out of 5 is almost definitely a great product based on my experience. If reviews are this good, I’ll almost always buy the product without any further research.

If it’s a 3.5 or a 4.0 out of 5, I’ll consider buying, but only after reading some of the reviews to see why people aren’t giving 5′s. Below that, I probably won’t buy it at all and will seek alternatives instead.

I often shop exclusively on Amazon, so I won’t bother researching on other sites. Probably dumb on my part, but I just like the convenience. Now, I’m even more wary of that strategy.

Fake Reviews?

A few times I’ve felt like I’ve noticed sketchy stuff going on in the reviews. For example, some books seem to rack up 5-star reviews within a few hours of being released. “How can that be?” I had to think to myself. So I decided to do some investigating.

A Google search for the phrase “fake Amazon reviews” turns up about 38,000 results. Here are some of my findings:

• This WSJ article is about reviews posted by a DeLonghi employee on her company’s own products. Turns out that she had posted not one but two 5-star ratings on separate espresso makers on Amazon. She and DeLonghi may not have been explicitly breaking Amazon’s rules, but, at the very least, it doesn’t say much for the legitimacy of the reviews found on there.
• In this article from the New York Times, a freelance writer reveals she was paid $10 per review on Amazon. While she wasn’t required to give 5-stars, she was instructed to turn down assignments if she couldn’t give it that many. This article also points out that it’s not limited to Amazon but extends to sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and CitySearch, too.
• Here’s another post on Engadget that alleges that a sales rep. for Belkin was also involved in trying to find people to write reviews for as little as $0.65 each.
• The Consumerist is onto it, too.

Just to see how easy it was myself, I searched for “Amazon review” on Fiverr and got about 280 offers for positive Amazon ratings in exchange for just $5.

I didn’t come across any hard data on how positive ratings affect sales, but various sources said simply that products with higher volumes of positive reviews tend to sell more. That’s no surprise to me.

Lesson Learned

Amazon is trying to cut down on the fake reviews, but I have to imagine they’ve got an uphill battle on their hands. There’s seemingly not much on their site to automatically filter out fake reviewers. While I imagine they do catch some, it seems easy to still slide through their system.

I’ll probably still judge products on Amazon based on the ratings, but I guess I’ll have to be more careful and skeptical than before.

I guess all that’s left to say is the classic phrase: Buyer beware!

Do you buy based on reviews at Amazon? Were you aware of fake ones?

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photo from freelancer:com

Small Business Saturday, which started in 2010 and was created by American Express, encourages holiday shoppers to skip the big box stores and shop at small local businesses instead for a day. It’s clearly caught the attention of a lot of people, as the official Facebook page has over 2.5 million “Likes.” In addition, American Express has some great marketing materials for Small Business Saturday and offers to help these small businesses, too, like $100 in free Facebook ads. Aside from that, I think it’s an important mission and something that I do regularly and not just during the holidays.

Her are some examples of small business I patronize regularly:

- the (new) Elm City Market Co-Op in New Haven: I won’t be shopping there tomorrow since I’ll be out of town, but I think this is among the best options for supporting small, local businesses. Not only is the store member-owned, but a large amount of the products they carry are locally made, too. For example, I bought some great locally roasted coffee last week. They still have apples grown in CT there as well. Aside from the products, the Co-Op offers their employees some of the best wages and benefits around, so I’m happy to support this store. (I’ve definitely scaled back my shopping at Trader Joe’s since this Market opened, too).

- Neighborhood markets. These are great for stopping in to grab stuff in a pinch. There are three of them nearby to my house, and as far as I know they are all family owned and operated. While I try not to shop there all the time since that would cost me quite a bit of money, I’m at least glad that they are all small businesses I can support.

- Bike shop. I really love the local bike shop, the Devil’s Gear, which is conveniently located right next to my office. I know the owner personally, and I’m friendly with a lot of the employees there, too. I know that I can often buy a lot of the stuff they sell online instead and at a cheaper price, but I really like the friendliness and convenience of the local stop.

There stores all capture what I like best about shopping local:

1. Relationships – it’s great to get to know the local business owners, and it’s hard to match this with big box stores.
2. Good jobs – these places all provide great jobs for those that live in the community. The employees always seem more cheerful and happy to be working at these shops rather than large retailers.
3. Keeping money local – I feel great knowing that a greater portion of what I spend stays local when I shop local. This article by TIME suggests that about twice as much money stays in the community with shopping local compared to shopping at businesses that aren’t locally owned and operated.

Unfortunately, supporting local businesses seems harder and harder to do, especially depending on where you live. Many towns seem to thrive on this strip-mall layout that includes virtually every type of chain store and restaurant franchise known to America.

In addition, many shoppers complain about the high prices of local stores because these small businesses simply can’t compete with the big stores on the volume of products they move. But I can’t imagine what life would be like without these small businesses. At the very least stores and restaurants would be way more bland and unexciting.

I feel like a lot of people get excited to go to little touristy cities and stop into the small little shops there (several spots in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts come to mind for me). Why can’t these small shops be exciting and appealing all the time?

Will you be supporting any small businesses on Small Business Saturday this holiday season?

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photo by: La Citta Vita

Yup, I was in the Red!

It’s been about 2 months since I quit credit cards. A lot of people thought that I was crazy for doing this, whether it was giving up “free” rewards, losing out on consumer protections, or making life more difficult with car rentals. But I really haven’t missed any of those things in this time. Here’s how it’s gone so far:

1) I over drafted my checking account. This is something that I’ve never done my while life, but I attribute this almost 100% to no longer using credit cards. Why? Because before I would just spend money, whether I had it or not, and not have to worry about balances until it was time to pay the credit card. Luckily, I wasn’t charged any fees for the overdraft, but I have to monitor my checking balance more carefully.

2) I’ve opened a PerkStreet account. After finding out that I can get 2% back for the first three months regardless of my account balance, I just couldn’t resist. I’ve used it somewhat so far, but I haven’t used it as much as I could because I simply haven’t fully-funded my PerkStreet balance from my USAA checking account. I’m not 100% sure I’ll go with PerkStreet long-term, but it’s nice to get some good cash back on debit purchases for now.

3) I’ve thought hard about purchases. Since I’m relying 100% on what’s in my checking account and not on credit, it’s forced me to work harder to budget my money between paychecks. This isn’t something that comes easy to me, but it’s necessary because I typically keep a bare-bones amount (<$500) in my checking account because I like to throw money at debt right away instead. I can no longer put off contemplating whether or not the decision to spend is a good idea. When you’re paying cash, it’s 100% about the present moment rather than realizing it was a bad idea when you’re credit card bill is due.

4) I haven’t made other purchases. Using debit has kept me from making some purchases. When I haven’t had the money in my checking account to make semi-large purchases on Amazon, I’ve taken a few days or more to really think about it. This has been huge for preventing impulse buys.

5) I haven’t run into any trouble without credit. While I haven’t rented a car or anything like that, there haven’t been any situations in the last two months where I’ve been stuck because I didn’t have a credit card. I don’t really buy into all that “consumer protection” stuff too much. I never took advantage of that before anyway, so I don’t think it would make much difference to me now.

6) I spend less time checking credit card balances. I’ve enjoyed not having to compulsively check my credit card accounts regularly, and it’s even better that I don’t have to worry about how to pay the balances on them at the end of each month.

Other than what’s here, living without credit hasn’t affected life too much. I think it’s been better to go without it in the ways listed, and I don’t think I’m missing out on much of anything in living without them.

p.s. – I’m still not going to debate with you whether credit cards are good or bad. I know a lot of people believe in credit cards for their own reasons. I just don’t.

p.p.s. - Quick Debt update: I’m down to about $1,500 in total debt left! This is all student loans, and I’ve been paying about $1,100 a month towards it the last three months (which is about 1/3 of my monthly net income). I’m on track for my goal to pay if off my the end of 2011!

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photo by: zachflanders