First was Bears Stearn. Then Fannie & Freddie. And now talk of propping up yet another screw up: Lehman’s. I realize there are broader repercussions should one of these big financial institutions fail, but the reality of apparently having few consequences for bad behavior is just begging to create all sorts of moral hazard.

When I screw up, I get slapped. And deservedly so.

However, when a really big corporation screws up, I – as well as my children, who will be paying for this crap long after we’re gone unless the government realizes that out-of-control debt stays exactly that – again get slapped.

The lesson? Either be very very big, or be very small. The middle class? Fuggit about ‘em…

photo credit: Renegade98

With our own government muddling our minds by telling us that a loan is a credit via the recently passed Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, is it any wonder that Americans seem a bit economically challenged? Oh, sure, at least it’s an interest free loan, but as long as you have to pay it back, it sure is not a credit to this taxpayer.

And yes, I know you could play a little arbitrage and come out with a little extra coin in the end. But you and I both know that the majority of people taking advantage of this are not going to be doing that. They are going to be blowing it on some other thing they cannot really afford but for this $7,500 advance from the government. And then in a couple years they will discover they owe that money back, and be further in the hole than before. Could you please explain the logic in helping those with debt problems by giving them extra debt? All while sacking everyone — including future generations — with a little more debt via a nice little boost to the deficit? (Oh, that’s right, this isn’t a helping hand for citizens — it is for the banks.)

On a personal note, I am so looking forward to answering the inevitable client questions from those who take advantage of this as to why they need to pay an additional $500 in taxes, every year, for the next 15 years…

I propose a new law:

Congress shall enact no new spending legislation during an election year.

Well, what do you know — made it through another tax season almost entirely intact!

photo credit: ninanoelan

Looking at the final tally, it appears we had a bit of a slowdown this month. Which I’m going to blame entirely on my sister, of course. You see, she is getting married in a few weeks, so of course she needed a bridal shower and all that jazz. Which, being my little sister, I didn’t necessarily nudge the host — being my wife — to go cheap on the party favors and drinks and such. C’est la vie. It’s my little sister after all, and this will hopefully be the only wedding she ever has!

Which, of course, means that we’ll probably see a little more slowing this month. Have another gift to get, have to make myself presentable and such, etc. etc. At least I won’t be making a cross country flight or drive for this one!

Anyway, on to the raw numbers. Just a steady chipping away, though there has been some news on the property we’re trying to unload, but that’s a story for another day.

Tired of all those credit card offers you didn’t ask for and don’t want? Feeling guilty about the small forest worth of financial junk mail your mailbox holds on an almost daily basis? Tell ‘em to buzz off!

It’s been some time since I’ve seen a credit card offer, as I decided to opt out many moons ago.

“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.”
— Samuel Butler

Let’s hear it for regressing…

Sorry for the lack of activity! We’ve just been enjoying the month of July having a little frugal (There. PF was mentioned! ) fun. Despite what you city slickers may feel, I think it’s a wonderful thing to own a few acres in the middle of nowhere. Lots and lots of outdoor time just to enjoy some beautiful weather. And what precisely have we been spending our time doing?

• Collecting fireflies with my three-year-old.
• Going on evening walks to clear the ol’ mind.
• Pulling up a few lawn chairs and talking. About nothing, and everything.
• Taking time to catch the sunset almost every day.
• Firing up the grill. Just to roast some marshmallows.
• Feeding a few hundred mosquitoes.
• Even mowing way too much lawn (OK, maybe I am getting a bit too much sun!).

I’ll see what I can do about getting back to complaining about the backhanded practices of credit card companies or my general malaise about the ol’ state of the debt in day or two. But for right now, I think I’m just going to continue enjoying. Maybe go have another marshmallow or two. Mmmm….

Back in March the ol’ home PC decided that it was time to give up the ghost. And, debt-or-no-debt, doing without wasn’t really an option. But I certainly didn’t want to empty a savings account or, worse yet, throw it on a credit card.

As I mentioned at least once before, I do a bit of computer tech work, so I was pretty comfortable deciding what was needed and what was not. Just in case you are in the same boat as I was, here’s a few money saving tips on buying that new PC:

• Never buy a top of the line computer. That is, unless you really enjoy paying double what the same system will set you back in six months.
• Most preconfigured systems come with marginally adequate amount of memory at best. There are ways to go cheap on a computer; this is not one of them. Memory is by far the cheapest bang for buck. Get at least one gigabyte of it.
• Unless you are a hardcore DVD or music pirate, a 300 gigabyte hard drive is overkill. Oh, and good luck backing that all up!
• If buying a Dell/Gateway/HP/Compaq/etc. pre-configured system, choose a “without antivirus” option if possible. You can get excellent antivirus protection with the free version of AVG. As a plus, you won’t have to suffer with the spectacular piece of junk that is Norton Antivirus.
• The big money saver? For most people, the bloat that is Microsoft Office just isn’t necessary. There are many, many alternatives that do the job of almost any MS app just as well, if not better, for the much more reasonable cost of zero.
  • For word processing and spreadsheets, OpenOffice is wonderful. As is Google Docs. Or for that matter, ThinkFree. Or WriteBoard. Or EditGrid. Or Zoho. Or… well, you get the point. Let’s just say, there’s a few options.
  • What about email? You’ll have to pry my Gmail account from my cold dead hands. (And if you feel like really integrating what Google offers, Google Apps is really pretty painless to set up.) Yahoo Mail. Or even Hotmail. On the other hand, if a desktop application is your thing, Thunderbird might be your thing.
  • Calendaring? Google Calendar. 30 Boxes. Remember The Milk. Kiko. Yahoo Calendar. Again, lots of options — and seemingly more every few days!
  • PowerPoint? Just say no. Ok, if you must: Empressr. Or Spresent. Or Zoho Show. But really, best yet:
    Just Say No! One more wasted hour sitting through another poorly thought out PowerPoint meeting (which is almost every one) that could have been taken care of more effectively with a simple handout and I may flip out…

Using those tidbits of knowledge, I easily knocked $200+ off an already ridiculously cheap system, and am happier with the end product to boot!

Somehow our story is #94 in Credit Card Lowdown‘s 100 most inspirational personal finance turnaround stories online.

While I appreciate the accolade, I’m not sure if we deserve to be called inspirational quite yet. After all, we’ve went a little off track on the debt end of things. I started the site in early ’05 with $21k in debt; as of this month, we’re sitting on 107k worth.

Debt-wise, at least, a 410% increase over a couple year really isn’t much of a track record… Then again, every bit of that debt was tied up in the purchase and renovation of our new (to us) house, which we are most definitely motivated to clean up as soon as possible. So 100k on a home — probably not the worst debt to have taken on.

But a radically new view of debt than the one held a couple years ago?

Well what do you know, maybe that is inspirational…

I have one house, I drive a Jeep Cherokee, I live very simply. I discovered in life that I have the same joy in divestment as I once got as a young man in acquisition. I have the perfect house. I’m never leaving this house that I’m in. I might trade my Jeep in for some environment-friendly vehicle of some kind. But I’m not into fancy cars. My watch is a Casio. I live very simply, and I’ve discovered that half of the so-called luxuries that people strive for do not provide happiness. My happiness comes from my children, my wife, my house that I love that I live in.

Stewart Copeland is my non-PF PF hero of the day…

(And as a member of Oysterhead, as well as that other little band he was in, he already holds a dear place in my heart!)

Blog Carnivals are a great way to get a bit more exposure to those who might never stumble across your little site, as well as finding new sites to add to your reading list, but forever neglecting to submit anything sure doesn’t accomplish anything…

This week, one of my posts — ‘Apparently I Feel Differently About Debt‘ — appears in two of them:

• First off, I made an appearance on the always overwhelming Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted, minimally (a big fan of simplicity myself!), this week by Matthew @ Getting Green.
• My second showing is in the 91st episode of the Carnival of Debt Reduction, hosted by NCN on his podcast satellite site. (Oh, and helluva job on the PF front in general there, NCN!)

Thanks so much, both of you, for the effort involved in going through all those submissions, and making some sort of sense of them! And if you like a little sporadic publishing (I publish like I used to pay – irregularly – though I’m working on fixing that!), feel free to add my feed to your reader.

…to be blog spammer.

Spam Karma 2 has been doing a phenomenal job taking care of all of the comment spam that comes this way. Though I’m occasionally tempted to turn it off just to get a few hundred actual comments here – would take maybe a day or two based on the reports SK2 sends me.

My contact form is another beast altogether. It’s a little home-spun thing, so nothing gets filtered. But, nothing gets publicly posted either, of course. Because It’s… A… Contact.. Form!

Not a guestbook.

Not a forum.

Just a simple little contact form. You fill it out. It sends what you posted to me as an email. I respond to the message.

Generally, I get a handful of spammers attempting to ‘comment’ via that form every week, and the futility of the exercise always amazes me. But like I said, just a handful.

But today? Today was different. Today, I found 247 spam ‘comments’ waiting in my inbox. From the same IP. Over a span of three+ hours.

It took me less than 10 seconds to select them all and delete. At least my form tied up one of those miscreants for a while. You can thank me later…