|
March 2007 - Posts
-
Well, it's only been two days since the beginning of my job search, but I've already made some progress, so I thought that I should give all of you the update on the situation. I have several friend who work at one of our large local grocery stores, and I had heard that there might be some openings for a couple of positions at the store. Just out of curiosity, I happened to go in and heard from one of the managers that there were definitely several positions open and that I should definitely turn in an application. Not wasting any time, I grabbed an application from the customer service desk, quickly filled it out, and turned it in. This morning when I went to get a few groceries, I saw the same manager again, and she appeared to be pleased with the contents of my application and proceeded to ask me about possible start dates and what my availability would be now and once the summer began. Now, I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but it's looking pretty good that I'm probably going to be offered a job at the store. It's not that it's my lifelong dream to work at a grocery store, but it's sure not bad for a summer job...especially when I'm very familiar with the majority of the people who work there and I would be working with a bunch of my friends. I'm sure exactly what I would be doing working at the grocery store, but I would be happy with just about anything...as long as it doesn't involve stocking shelves or working in the cold foods section...I get cold very easily. I think that out of all the options, I would enjoy working on the front end the best. Why, you ask? Well, because I would get the opportunity to work with money. You all know by know that I was the Chief Financial Officer of a small company at my last job, so I'm very capable and comfortable working with currency. I also know that a few of the people who already work in the office at this particular store are going to be leaving town for various reasons throughout the summer months, so I'm sure that they will have hours and opportunities for me to work. I actually heard that there is a semi-managerial position open in the store, and so I'm going to hope for that position. I'm not one hundred percent sure what all would be involved in the position, but I'm sure that I could handle it...and plus, I love the extra pressure and responsibility that would accompany such a position. So anyways, I guess that that isn't all that much to report on the job search that I'm undergoing, but it's better than nothing. I am torn a bit to tell you the truth. I'm not sure if I should wait a few days and see what pans out from this application or if I should look around for more places that are hiring in town. My friends who work at the store seem to think that my getting hired is in the bag, but I'm not one to assume or get my hopes up about things. If you don't get your hopes up, then good news always feels great. If you end up getting your hopes up about something, and then it doesn't end up happening, it's always a huge let-down and very depressing. I hope that the situation ends up solving itself over the next day or two. I'm going to do my best to arm myself with some patience and wait to see what happens. If I don't hear from them in the next day or two, I might stop by the store just to see what's happening. I suppose that I have a little bit of an advantage, since a bunch of my friends work in the office and will probably here about the result, whether positive or negative, before I do.
|
-
Today, I had to start thinking about something that I haven't had to worry about in quite a long time. With the end of the spring semester quickly approaching, it occurred to me that I was going to have to find a job to keep myself occupied and supported for the summer months until the next round of fellowship money kicks in when Fall classes start. It dawned on me that I haven't had to worry about looking around for a job for about two years now. The job I worked at two years lasted until I left Florida to start graduate school, and then of course I've been in school since last August. Before I left my last job, the jobs have just fallen into my lap, so the idea of actually going out and searching for employment in a town that I still don't know all that well is a little bit intimidating. I suppose that in all honesty, I don't really need a job for the summer, since I've been extremely careful about saving my fellowship money, but I really am going to need to get out of the house so I don't go crazy. I do have three little semi-part time jobs that I do already, and I'll keep those over the summer, but they are the kinds of jobs that pay well but don't take up too much of my time. I have a feeling that whatever little job I do find for the summer months to keep me occupied and out of the house is going to be much the opposite of the little jobs that I already have. I'm sure that it will be the case that I will be working a lot of hours for not so much money...but such is the case with summer time jobs. More important than worrying about what kind of job that I will end up with is what I will be doing with my summer in the time that I'm not working. Well, I'll still be working, but just on my own academic bricabrac. I have high hopes for what I can get accomplished this summer in terms of my academic pursuits. As always, I'll have my nose stuck in books and journals for the majority of the time. I also have some preliminary research ideas that I've been planning on exploring a little bit more over the summer months. On top of these things, I have taken on the task of tackling another new African language this summer, in hopes of expanding my horizons and possibilities for research in several other countries in west Africa. In the midst of all this, I'll also be heading back to the old homestead up in central New York to participate in my brother's wedding and my best friend's wedding towards the end of summer. It may sound like a lot of things to do, but if I don't keep myself busy, I'll end up being an unhappy and lazy camper. So for the rest of you Christian students out there...what do you do to occupy yourselves for the summer months. My guess is that you're going to embarking on the same task that I'm just starting today and looking for a summer job, unless of course you are extra responsible and already have a job that you keep during the rest of the school year. I'm actually wondering if that will end up being the case for me after this summer has ended. If I end up being able to keep my job throughout the school year, then next summer it will be all that much easier to just step into working. It's also a great thing to have over the long school breaks like Christmas or Thanksgiving when I would otherwise just sit at home and watch marathons and re-runs of shows that I've likely seen a bunch of times before. I know that a lot of students, depending on the particular field that you happen to be studying end up going off somewhere for summer programs or camps elsewhere around the country. My roommate in particular is a graduate student in music, and he'll be heading off over towards the east coast to teach and play at a summer music camp. Still other students...the luckiest of the bunch...end up taking off to go vacation and/or study overseas for the summer months. I hope to join this lucky club next summer when I head off to do some field work in Africa for a couple of months. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed on that one and of course ask God to smile down on the prospect of that trip. Well, wish me luck on my job search...I'll keep you up on the progress!
|
-
|
Here we go again with the reimbursements...and this time it's big money. As you all know, I'm a very active member of several groups at my university, one in particular of which is going to be hosting a conference for our department at the end of this week. All of the officers of the club have decided to split up the responsibilities for the conference, including scheduling the venue, coordinating with all the presenters, preparing the room, and making sure the refreshments are plenty and delicious. I decided to bite the bullet, and I volunteered to be "the refreshment guy". I didn't realize what exactly that entailed until I started planning things out today. I had to call several different places to order food for both the morning and afternoon sessions of the conference. I never realized how expensive things could get when ordering for large groups of people until I calling around to get some comparison prices. I ended up deciding on ordering about seven dozen bagels and ten tubs of cream cheese in order to keep everyone satisfied during the morning session. Then, I figured that we would have just some cookies and vegetables to snack on throughout the afternoon sessions, since people were going to have about ninety minutes to get lunch in between the early and late sessions. I then remembered that I was going to have to figure out what to do about paper products, drinks, and all the little extras like stirrers, sugar, and cream for the coffee. Luckily, the club already had quite a bunch of paper product things from past events, so it was just a matter of heading over to our office to figure out what we did and didn't have available. Once I had everything inventoried, I headed off to the store to buy what I needed. I was slightly appalled as the cash register beeped and beeped and landing around the eighty dollar mark for the groceries that I needed...including all the vegetables that I was going to later chop up for the vegetable tray. I added that up in my head along with the sixty-five dollars that I was going to be charged for the bagels and the thirty dollars for the two cookie trays...not to mention the ice that I was going to buy on the day of the conference. My quick mental math told me that it was going to end up being somewhere around one hundred and seventy-five dollars...give or take a few dollars. Normally, I wouldn't care much about how much it was going to be, but this time it was different. As it goes with our university, we can't get money in advance for what we need for any of our functions. Instead, we need to pay for things up front, and then submit our receipts for reimbursement from the club financial services office. That means that I was going to have to put that nearly two hundred dollars of my own money up front and then wait for our treasurer to submit my receipts and then wait for the financial services office to approve the amount and mail out my check. Long story short...it's going to end up being about two weeks before I get reimbursed for the money that I'm spending. If it was a different time in the semester, I probably wouldn't even think twice about this dilemma, but since it is coming down to the end of the semester, two hundred dollars is quite a bit. It's also a little irritating to me that no one else in the club volunteered to share the burden of spending this money out of pocket with me...but I'm not exactly one to complain about such things very loudly. I suppose that I just wish that there was another way to go about the whole situation. If only our faculty advisor could approve a particular set amount of money to budget for the events, and then we could get that money out in advance to have to buy supplies and whatever else we need. Then, the left over money could be left in the petty cash box or be redeposited into our account once the event is all over. Sadly, I'm sure that this will be the exact way that things will continue...but I'll know better than to take the whole responsibility of spending money on to my shoulders the next time. I personally think that the treasurer should be actively involved, since that will give him or her a kick in the pants to make sure to get the reimbursement receipts submitted and get the process moving.
|
-
I think that I'm going to go ahead and continue with my television themed series of posts and talk about one of my television guilty pleasures. Having come from a family full of chefs, I grew up watcing a lot of shows on the Food TV Network. It always seemed that someone in my house was watching a show on that particular channel, and when we would travel over to my aunt's house or my grandmother's house, the same channel was likely on the television there too. As a result of all of this food-ie exposure, I've continued to watch this cable channel to this day. I've even gotten to the point where I've seen repeats of most of the shows on the network. Those of you who are familiar with the Food TV Network will readily recognize the name of the Food TV personality Rachael Ray. She's one of those people who you just love to hate on this channel. I believe that she hosts three or four different shows on the network, and although she's always cheerful and full of good ideas, she's got that giggly, semi-obnoxious, always on a caffeine high thing going on throughout every one of her shows. As much as I would like to see her put in a muzzle from time to time, I have to really hand it to her concerning the great ideas that she's had for shows over the years. One of her most famous and widely known shows besides Thirty Minute Meals is the slightly newer Forty Dollars a Day. In this show, Rachael Ray travels all over the country, and in some cases the world, to visit a different city and get by purchasing breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack or drink for just forty dollars. The show documents her trips to various restaurants and keeps track of her spending and deal-finding throughout the day. The reason that I really enjoy the show is that it shows the money-conscious world traveler that it is really possible to do a lot in a city on a little bit of money. Well, I guess you have to go and take into consideration that the forty dollars that she is spending on this show only goes towards her food and not towards the shopping and other attractions that she takes part in while on the trip. Still though, forty dollars for a day's worth of eating in a city that is unfamiliar to you is a prety good deal. The best episodes are when she travels to cities that have always had a reputation for being a little bit on the expensive side. She has traveled to Miami, New York City, San Francisco, Boston, and Las Vegas, and showed that it's very possible to eat well, have fun, and not break the bank. Believe me, having traveled to Miami, New York City, and Boston myself, it is no easy task to find good food for inexpensive prices, especially if you don't want to travel to the outskirts of the city to do so. It always seems to be the case that the closer you get to the really touristy areas of the city, the higher the prices will be. I remember in particular one very horrible experience that I had trying to get a burger at an Applebee's just outside of Times Square in New York City. That is definitely one mistake that I will never make again. My favorite way to save money on food while traveling, which happens to be one of Rachael Ray's money-saving strategies as well, is to check out the little mom and pop, kinda hole in the wall types of places to eat. Some of these little cafes, restaurants, and bistros have the best food in the city or town, and they tend to have daily specials and discounts for hungry travelers. When I traveled to Paris back in January 2006, I managed to find some great like pastry shops (patisseries) in the neighborhood (arondissement) that I was staying in. I even made friends with the little old lady who owned the pastry shop down the street. I would stop by in the evening before the shop closed and get to taste some free samples and sometimes even take some home for snacking the next day. This is the kind of great deal that you really need to look for, especially in expensive cities like Paris that are known for their high priced cuisine. I suppose that these same types of ideas for saving money when eating out can apply in all of our hometowns. I think that for the sake of convenience, a lot of us tend to head back to the same chain restaurants moreso than smaller eateries when we are on the go. I've found in the past that these places, while consistent, just don't offer the same amount of taste and satisfaction in the meal as the smaller places do. I guess that I've always felt that things taste better when you know they're made with love. Since I'm a new resident in a small town, I'm still working on venturing out and trying a lot of new things at a lot of the smaller restaurants in town. I've lived here for nearly nine months, and I've barely had the chance to scratch the surface on finding all the great little places that this town has to offer. That's going to be a fun summertime project for me to undertake. I'm going to have to start making a list of the places that I've already been so that I don't end up there again until I try some of the other great places in town.
|
-
I guess that I'm kind of on a newsfeed kick the past day or so, because today I'm going to write a little bit about another article that I read on msnbc dot com this morning. The article has to do with cellular phone woes that people who use Sprint as their cell provider are experiencing. Apparently, likely unbeknownst to a lot of us who don't use Sprint, the company and the services that it offers are going down the tubes...and fast. I guess that it's not all too difficult to imagine that such a thing might happen, since companies such as these appear to come and go quite frequently as one buys another out and then another pops up shortly thereafter. It seems like the next biggie to bite the dust might be mighty Sprint. The article that I was reading this morning decries some of the horrible practices that the company is resigning to in their attempts to communicate with their customers. The worst out of all is apparently their semi-automated customer service practices. For service calls, customers receive phone calls from the automated service, after which they are forced to navigate through some kind of automated menu (you know the ones that I'm talking about), and then when they are nearly to the end, the system ends up hanging up on them. Top that with the fact that the company is charging customers for these random service calls that end up hanging up on them anyways. If I was a Sprint customer, I'd surely be peeved. I guess that we all have our problems and peeves about our individual cellular phone providers. I've had service from Cingular for at least the last five or six years, and after some initial mixups and mess ups, I have to say that I've been pleased overall with their service. They are sticklers on phone upgrades and renewals, but their customer service staff, both on the phone and in stores has always been top notch. I have heard that people have had issues with some billing practices, and they have been denounced by some for sticking to the nine o'clock pm free call start, rather than the seven o'clock that some companies have adopted. I haven't really noticed much of a problem on either, so I can't really comment about that. There are tons of other providers out there though...some of which are nationwide and some of which are local. I suppose that there are some advantages to each. I tend to prefer the nationwide plans and providers myself, which is much of the reason that I've decided to stick with Cingular throughout the years. The coverage is great, the price is pretty decent, and the plans for long distance and mobile-to-mobile are some of the best. On the other hand, the local providers might provide better prices and deals, but then they charge you an arm and a leg if you leave your local area. I can't remember the last time that I had a roaming charge, but I hear that they still exist on some local networks...and that is just scary. Another great thing about the bigger networks is that many of them, depending on the phone that you happen to own, have the capabilities for use overseas. Most of the time, all you have to do is change the SIM card in your phone when you go overseas, and bam...instant cell phone. I learned this when I traveled to Paris a year ago. At that point, the phone that I had didn't support the overseas calls, but people that I knew there from elsewhere just had various SIM cards that they used as they traveled from place to place. It was admittedly pretty amazing that the system worked so well. It's also kind of funny to walk down the street in Paris and see Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular stores on the street corners in the busy parts of the city. I guess that's what they need for businesses to have a global presence. So anyways, if you happen to be a Sprint customer, you might want to take a few moments and make sure that the service that you're getting is worth what you're paying for it. Also, it's probably better to go talk to someone in person, rather than trying to get in touch with customer service over your network...and if I were you, I wouldn't answer any of those pesky hang-up service calls. Good luck!
|
-
Did you happen to notice the big news about plastic grocery bags in the news today? I would bet that it's not all that often that something as mundane and everyday as plastic grocery bags makes its way to the national headlines, but today it sure did. Why, you ask? Well, as it turns out, the mayor of San Francisco, California, has promoted legislation that would call for grocery stores and convenience to ban the use of plastic grocery bags throughout the city. It appears that the legislation has passed and the ban will proceed in six months time. What really caught my eye about the whole article was the impact that this ban with potentially have on the city's consumption of petroleum. The ban of plastic grocery bags in a city where nearly two hundred million of them are used each year would provide a decrease in petroleum consumption of well over four hundred fifty thousand barrels each year...and that's just the amount for one city in the United States. Imagine the impact that it would have on the petroleum industry should an entire state, like California for example, that has the highest population of the whole country, ended up banning the use of these types of grocery bags. That would be a tremendous decrease in petroleum usage. Likewise, there are many grocery stores that are already decreasing the use or even totally discontinuing the use of brown paper grocery bags as well, in favor of using reusable cloth bags for grocery purchases. Not only would this method cut down on petroleum usage, but it would also save trees. I've never really thought much about all of this grocery bag stuff, but it sure would appear that we waste many resources, although some of them are recyclable, in our everyday grocery purchases. Multiple that by everyone across just our own country, and you can see the numbers start to skyrocket. Now that I think of it, I recall that one of our local grocery stores now asks "is plastic OK?"...rather than the traditional "paper or plastic?". I suppose that stores in this area are less concerned with petroleum consumption and more concerned with saving local trees. I think that there is even a discount grocery store in the area that will no longer provide bags for customers but rather encourages customers to bring their own recycled bags or purchase new bags. By making the grocery bags an extra purchase item, they are hoping to discourage wastefulness and encourage recycling among their customers...while saving themselves a hefty amount of money in the process. So, how do you think that this is all going to go? Do you think that the ban will work out in San Francisco. The article that I read actually cited instances of certain places attempting to carry out similar legislation, but in most cases, the efforts failed. Most grocery and convenience store customers are looking for just that...convenience, rather than consciousness about the benefits of recycling...especially when they are in a hurry. It just seems like a real toss up to me. I would love to see the efforts of such individuals or cities succeed, but I just don't know how feasible the effort is going to be in today's fast-paced wasteful society. I'd love to hear your opinions on the effort and to know whether or not the area that you live in has taken similar strides to combat either high petroleum use or deforestation by resorting to measures such as those that we've been talking about above in this post. It will surely be an interesting comparative study to see which areas of the country have taken particular measures owing to their individual regional or local interests. Write to me!
|
-
|
I was at the store this afternoon, and I happened to notice something that I don't recall really paying much attention to before. I was out of milk at my apartment, so I headed to the grocery store to pick some up, along with a few other grocery necessities that I had run out of since the last trip to the store. When I got to the back dairy cooler section of the store, I noticed one of the stock guys taking down the milk price signs and replacing them with new labels with slightly higher prices. At first I didn't think much of it, but then I wondered to myself why the price was changing. I guess that I don't usually pay much attention to the price of things that I buy all the time, because I'm just going to buy them anyways. It never really dawned on me that the price of milk wasn't fairly set, like the price of a jar of tomato sauce for example. Of course, I always pay attention to the fluctuation in prices of things like meat and some fruits and vegetables, because I'm always waiting to stock up on things like chicken or ground beef for the freezer. On the other hand, I will only buy certain fruits and vegetables when they happen to be on sale. Otherwise, many of them are just too expensive to keep on hand all the time. I guess I should have assumed that the prices of dairy items fluctuate as well, but I hadn't really ever thought about it. As I saw the guy changing the price on the milk in the cooler, I began to wonder about the other dairy products and their prices. Do the prices of eggs, sour cream, and shredded cheese change often as well...beside the regular changes due to going on sale? I suppose that when you're just out looking for the sales, you don't often worry about what the true base price of the item is. I wonder how much of it had to do with supply and demand when it comes to milk. I wonder if there are certain months out of the year when farmers jack up the prices for milk because the cows just aren't producing enough. I suppose that it's also probably locally based, since the dairies that supply the milk for certain grocery chains can't be all that far away from where the milk is sold. Well, maybe I take that back. I remember back when I lived in Florida that the milk was always kinda funny. It had a funny taste and it always went bad pretty quickly. I always attributed it to the fact that there weren't exactly dairy farms all over the south...so the milk from came from "distant" cows. I remember wishing for the delicious milk from back home in New York, because I knew that if I were to get in my car and drive twenty miles or so south, I would run into the dairies that were supplying the milk that was in the local grocery stores. MMM...this is crazy...I don't think that I've ever given this much thought to milk in my whole life, but I really do think it's a valid thing to talk about. I mean, like I said before, milk is usually one of those things that most people have in their homes on a regular basis. Therefore, it's kinda like gasoline if you think about it...we all use it, and therefore we are subject to whatever price the "powers that be" want to stick on it...be it the Food and Drug Administration, the grocery stores, or the individual dairy prices. I think that I'm going to have to start paying attention to the price of dairy things like milk just to satisfy my curiosity about these price fluctuations. I wonder which types of dairy products aren't subject to the fluctuations as well. I mean, does the price of yogurt go up and down as well...and is it at the same time as the milk fluctuates? So many questions...anyone out there have any answers or suggestions for me?
|
-
Leave it to me to be the writer of a Christian Finance Blog and post something with a faulty mathematical calculation in it. I'm sure that many of you who have read my post from yesterday figured out the real amount that you would end up if you won the one million dollars on Deal or No Deal after all the capital gains taxes would be six hundred fifty thousand dollars and not sixty-five thousand dollars. That was a case of me misplacing a zero somewhere in my head. A good friend of mine pointed out the mistake, and I could only laugh and nod my head 'yes' at my mathematical goof. It's kind of funny how easy it is to make foolish mathematical mistakes like that that you don't even realize are faulty until you or someone else reads what you wrote later on. I suppose that we're all pretty lucky that most of the math that any of us have to do on a regular basis is really very easy. For those you who keep check book registers, I would imagine that some of the most difficult things that you have to do is keep track of outgoing money by doing a little bit of subtraction with borrowing. That's third grade-ish math, so that can't be too bad. Adding things always seemed a little bit easier to me in the check book...both mathematically and mentally. We all love seeing those numbers increase, right? I suppose that mathematics in our lives can get pretty crazy, especially around tax time if we choose to take care of our tax returns for ourselves. I personally like to have someone prepare my return for me...that way I know it's right. I surely don't need any friendly IRS agents breathing down my neck over some careless mistake. But anyways, I'm not quite sure what kind of crazy math you have to do when preparing your own tax return, but I imagine that it's not all that much fun. I mean, maybe it involves a little bit of multiplication or division, but it's not like the United States government expects taxpayers to be solving differential equations to figure out what they owe. Gosh, I was just thinking about when I was a kid, and my mom was trying to teach me how to figure out discounts in the department store. I was always amazed at how quickly she was able to figure out the calculation in her head about how much her shoes were going to be when they were twenty-five percent off of the original price. I'm pretty sure that I still figure out percentages the exact same way as she taught me probably twenty years ago in JCPenneys. I'm sure that there are other ways to figure out percentages differently than how my mom taught me...especially since my roommate has some odd way of calculating them. He does some crazy trick about figuring out the discount by increments of ten percent and then adding up the rest. It always seems way too complicated for me, so I've never really bothered to learn any way other than the one that I've always used. After all, I've never been a big fan of doing math in my head anyways. I know some of you out there are probably very good at adding and subtracting numbers in your head, but I always been a fan of writing things down on paper. That way you can check your work to make sure it's right. That's also why I still use my old graphic calculator from high school for the simplest math calculations, because you can see what you've typed in on the screen and then catch any mistakes that you've made. Anyways, I guess that I've gotten off on a bit of a tangent in my apology for my faulty Deal or No Deal calculation in yesterday's post, but I suppose that the subject that I've been talking about is something that all of you can probably relate to. After all, we've all got to deal with little calculations on a daily basis no matter what we're doing. We've got to figure out our monthly budgets, add and subtract from our checkings and savings accounts, and figure out discounts on our grocery bills. We've even got to figure out what percentage of our credit card balance that we can afford to pay off from month to month. These little ventures into math seem to come at us from all angles and directions.
|
-
One of the most popular shows on television in
recently has been Deal or No Deal with Howie Mandel. I'm not really
one to watch the primetime gameshow type television shows, but my
roommate and several of our friends who happen to come over for dinner
from time to time like to watch it, so I've slowly become used to
watching it. I decided to write about this gameshow tonight as I'm
sitting here watching it, and every time that I watch it, I get more
and more irritated with the greedy people who end up on it. For those
of you who aren't familiar with the game, I guess I should probably
explain a little bit about how it works to you. You see, what happens
is, people get chosen from the studio audience to come up on stage and
play their luck at picking a briefcase that has a one million dollar
amount in it. After the contestant chooses the case they think has one
million dollars, they must then choose, one by one, more cases holding
other amounts between one cent and the one million dollars...after
which a banker calculates the probability of their case holding the one
million dollars and offers them an amount to get them to "make a deal"
and go home. The problem with the show, as I've stated above, is that
people just get so ridiculously greedy when they start choosing their
cases. I guess maybe it might be because I'm just a poor graduate
school, but when the banker calls and offers me thirty thousand dollars
(or some other amount with several zeroes added on to the end of it)
just for choosing five briefcases, I would probably have to take the
deal. In the weeks that I've watched Deal or No Deal, I have seen
plenty of greedy people making really poor decisions on this show. A
lot of people let the prospect of getting one million dollars go their
heads, and I've seen people get up to offers from the banker over two
hundred thousand dollars who have then turned them down and then ended
up with two or three thousand dollars in the end...all because of greed
(and maybe some stupidity). So, riddle me this, what would you do when
the banker offers you several thousand dollars on a game show when you
have the opportunity of getting one million dollars if you can conquer
crazy odds. I mean, what is it...twenty-eight cases or something like
that? You end up having to beat those kinds of odds many times over in
order to keep raising the offer from the banker and ultimately end up
with the one million dollars in the briefcase that you chose right off
the bat. Heck, I would take five hundred dollars if I had the
opportunity. My credit card bill could sure use a payment like that
right about now. So anyways, maybe I'm one of the only ones who
sits here in the evening, trying to relax, and ends up watching these
not-so-intelligent people making fools of themselves by turning down
large sums of money in hopes that their single briefcase is holding one
million dollars. Hold up, I've got to calculate the actually
percentage of one out of twenty-eight...ok...that's a three and half
percent chance of the briefcase that you choose first holding the one
million dollars. I guess what makes it worse is the fact that in the
end, you're going to have to pay capital gains on whatever the amount
of money it is that you win. Capital gains (as far as I know) can be
roundabouts forty-five percent of the total amount that you win. So,
that means even if you win a one million dollar amount, you will really
only end up with somewhere around sixty-five thousand dollars after
taxes. Maybe it's this idea in peoples' head that motivates them to
continue to strive for higher and higher amounts. I guess I'm just
torn. Maybe the adrenaline just gets pumping through your veins when
you get on shows like this. Maybe your brain just can't help itself. Well,
I'm pretty anxious to hear what all of you have to say after my rant
about Deal or No Deal. I suppose that this is just another one of
those examples where I tend to think conservatively about money...go
figure. So, why don't you all drop me a line and tell me what you'd do
in this situation. Let me know if I'm crazy or not. Feel free to put
a comment on my Christian Finance blog by clicking on the link under
this post, or if you'd rather, just drop me a quick note at
chris@biblekeeper.com. I hope to hear from many of you soon!
|
-
I was so anxious to tell you all about the craziness of only being able to use cash as a method of payment on the college campus where I was attending my conference, that I forgot to tell you what I actually had to go through in order to get some cash to use. The day before I departed from Indiana on my flight down to Florida for the conference, things just ended up getting pretty busy, and by the time I finally got out of class and made it home to start doing laundry and packing, it never crossed my mind that I needed to get to my bank to use the ATM with no service fee so that I would have some cash for my trip. I don't really like to have cash on me for several reasons. The main reason is that, if I have cash on hand, I'll spend it too quickly, and secondly, cash is so inconvenient in most cases. But anyways, I had fully intended to get some cash from my bank's ATM, but I managed to muss that up. By the time I made it to Indianapolis on the shuttle bus, I remembered that I was going to need some cash for a taxi cab from the airport to the hotel once I made it to Florida. Things were pretty rushed on account of a really bad thunder storm that was making the lights in the airport flicker, so we thought it best to not putz around and get to our gate quickly. Well, by the time we made it through security, I realized that there wasn't an ATM in sight. I looked and saw that the security line was getting longer and longer, so I resolved that I would just hold off and wait until I got to Atlanta for my connecting flight so that I could get some cash. When I arrived in Atlanta, I learned two important things. Number one...there are no ATMs in the Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport that are not owned by Wachovia Bank. Number two...all the Wachovia Bank ATMs are the kind where you slide your card in and out quickly, rather than having the machine take the card internally. These two important fact caused two rather irritating problems in my search for cash. Problem number one...I do not have a checking account through Wachovia Bank, and hence I had to pay a ridiculous three dollar service fee just to use the ATM. Problem number two...as you all well know, my debit card has a magnetic strip issue and so these "in and out" machines would not read the card. This made me nervous at first, but I later used my card with no problem at all to get my sandwich for lunch shortly afterwards. So, once again, I had to resolve to wait and try again once I arrived in Florida. When I finally did arrive in Florida, I found a lone ATM in the entire airport, and realizing that it was going to read my card, I didn't even think twice about the service fee that I was going to have to pay to get my cash. Also note that this was long before I knew that I was going to be having a twenty dollar cab fare coming up and having to use cash only on the campus. Without these two facts in mind, I only got forty dollars out of the ATM...which didn't last me too terribly long. The next day, after having paid for the cab fare, my dinner, and breakfast the following morning, my supply of cash was dwindling again, so I was scouting out another ATM. Lo and behold, Wachovia Bank has some deal with the university I was at, and I was afraid that I was going to have another problem. Luckily, I found an ATM that was an "insert the card" type, and so my card was read just fine and I took out plenty of cash to make it through the rest of the trip. Can you possibly imagine all these problems on account of a stupid little magnetic strip?!
|
-
|
As many of you might already know, I'm back down in Florida for the next few days to participate in a conference pertaining to my field of study at my university. In all honesty, I wasn't exactly ready to leave the comforts of southern Indiana and head back down to the Florida humidity quite yet...but as luck would have it, the conference is going on right now, and of course it only happens once a year. I made it through my day of traveling with minimal hassle, but I forgot how tiring getting up early and traveling all day on airplanes could be. Only when I finally did arrive in central Florida did the headaches begin. Due to the three conferences going on at the university all during the same period of time, everything at the airport and throughout the city (including traffic) was backed up and very busy. It took nearly two hours for me and my colleague who is attending the same conference to get our luggage, get a taxi, and finally make it to our hotel. We both nearly fainted when we learned that it was going to cost us nearly twenty dollars to take the taxi cab from the airport to our hotel. On top of that, it was a van taxi...which meant that there were four of us in the cab and there would be three separate stops. Luckily, we were given a flat rate charge, but still twenty dollars sounded pretty steep. We were thankful that our taxi driver was a very sweet woman who surely kept us entertained with funny stories about her past cab driving experiences while we made our way through the traffic of Gainesville. Our hotel room turned out to be OK for the amount of money that we actually had to pay for it, and it was relatively close to where we needed to be (as we would find out later). I had been to Gainesville several times before, so it was my job to be the tour guide and navigator. The only problem with the whole navigation thing was that I really didn't know where everything for the conference was going to be taking place, short of the fact that it was happening somewhere in a six story student union on campus. When we finally located the student union, we learned that no one working there had any idea about the whereabouts of the preliminary conference proceedings, so we resolved that we would get some food and look for the rest of our Hoosier compatriots after we successfully refueled. So, this is the part where the cash only comes in. We headed to a familiar place to me that we used to have up at school in Tallahassee called Fresh Food on Campus. We were so hungry and looking forward to getting some food. We walked into the little restaurant and learned that this campus does not take any form of debit card or credit cards for payment. They only accepted the university's meal card or cash. Well, for those of us who are used to using our debit card all the time, having cash on hand is kind of a pain. So, we both had to venture around and look for an ATM in order to get cash so that we could eat. There went some more wandering around in the heat. We finally met up with our group although we were thoroughly exhausted. We then had to venture back the mile or so to our hotel in the evening heat. Luckily when we stopped for some supplies at the convenience store on the way home, we were able to save our cash and use our debit cards to make the required purchases. I suppose that having cash on hand takes a little bit of getting used to, especially since I always feel that I spend cash a whole lot more quickly when I have it on hand. Who knows what other adventure this little trip will bring over the next four days...but I'll be sure to keep all of you informed!
|
-
|
The past couple of weeks in my town, my group of friends and I have been taking advantage of a lot of new restaurant grand openings on the streets surrounding our campus. I'm sure that most of us would rather save our money and eat at home more often, but when you're stuck on campus for anywhere between eight and ten hours every day of the week, you've got to sacrifice the money for the convenience of a quick quality meal close to class and the library. It's been a lot easier lately with all of these grand openings, because the restaurants are having a lot of specials that allow students and others in the area to test out the new restaurant's fare while still helping to build a customer base by getting people in the door. One place in particular really had the right idea, as I found out a few nights back. As I was walking to my car after class last week with a group of fellow students, I noticed some hustle and bustle going on in a new restaurant that we've all been anticipating to open. We saw that the restaurant appeared to be training their new staff of cooks and waiters and had placed a preliminary menu for lunch and dinner on the glass doors so that people could see what they were going to offer. We stopped for a moment to take a look and satisfy our curiosity when the door suddenly opened and people greeted all of us and handed us bags containing full meals that they were practicing making...two of them for each of us! We were all very pleasantly surprised and really excited to be able to try out the food from this new restaurant for free even a week before their great opening. When I got home, I eagerly opened the bag to see what I had been provided. I tried a little bit of each of the two dishes and even shared a bit with my roommate so that he could get a taste of the new restaurant as well. One of my other friends who had received free dinner that night as well and I were on our way | |
|