Entries from January 2008 ↓
January 21st, 2008 — Blog, Carnival of Debt Reduction, Debt, Saving
Welcome to the 123rd Carnival of Debt Reduction! If you are a new visitor to The Baglady feel free to look around! Since this is the 123rd edition of this wonderful carnival started by the Mighty Bargain Hunter, I decided to group the thirteen excellent articles this week into the one, two, threes of debt reduction!
Editor’s Picks:
Both of the following two articles offer no nonsense tips on how to reduce your debt. Go ahead and read them!
Tips To Kickstart Your Debt Reduction posted at The Happy Rock.
How to Pay Off Your Debts posted at Funny about Money – “This is the latest in a series explaining Funny’s Ten Money Principles.”
1. Avoid Debt!
Avoiding new debt and charges is the first step towards reducing your debt. Here are quite a few articles focusing on avoiding credit card charges and other various scams.
Lynnae presents My Bank Sent Me a Letter posted at beingfrugal.net – “I received a letter from my bank, along with some convenience checks. My bank told me it pays to use the checks. Pays whom? is my question.”
Steer Clear of Customer Service Credit Card Offers posted at The Truth About CreditCards.com.
Do You Have Too Much Plastic? posted at Millionaire Money Habits – “How many credit cards do you own, and when is enough enough? Discounts, lower fees, better rates, travel perks. Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? The number of credit cards you have may be hurting your credit score. Here’s how to fix that.”
Killer Credit Card Fees and How to Avoid Them posted at Cash Money Life.
Do Not Fall for Rent to Buy Mortgage Loan Schemes posted at Mortgage Loan Calculator – ” In current times of falling home prices in the US and the $1.8 trillion sub-prime mortgage debt that financial banks have to deal with, “Rent to Buy” signs are popping up everywhere to lure consumers into purchasing homes at “cheap mortgage rates.” Rent to Buy is a marketing gimmick used by landlords to lease out their homes and receive rental income, only because they cannot sell their homes in the existing mortgage market. If you are renting, there is little benefit for you to fall for these schemes. The reason is because most Rent to Buy schemes do not result in a purchase. People with bad credit, no down payments and lots of credit card debt also qualify for rent to buy schemes. That’s why you should avoid them.”
2. Make Budgets and Plans That Work
Once you are committed to reducing your debt you would need a plan and discipline to execute your plan. These articles offer stories and advice on how to budget for your goal.
Low-Tech Budgeting posted at DebtFREE-Revolution.
Debt Free posted at Motherhood101Aplus.
At Least Some Expenses You Can Plan For posted at I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… – “Being in debt and having a large expense looming is difficult to navigate. Planning is key!”
3. Shift Your Mindset from Spending to Saving
Once you are on your way to eliminate debt you should shift your mindset from spending mode to savings mode so that you never ever get into debt again!
Risking the Minimal Emergency Fund posted at Me vs Debt.
Small Savings Add Up and Here’s The Proof posted at Saving Advice Blog.
Day 623: If Only People Felt This Way About Keeping Their Money posted at We’re In Debt.
Thank you all for reading this edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction and make sure to submit your articles for the next edition here! If you enjoy reading The Baglady feel free to subscribe to the full feed!
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A payday loan if not paid back soon enough, becomes a bad credit loan. This is the worst form of an unsecured loan. Even cheap loans are better than this situation.
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January 19th, 2008 — Blog, China, Fifteen Years in America, Life, Relationships, United States
This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story written by my dad. If you missed the introduction it’s available here. If you can read Chinese the chapters are available at my family’s blog here. Chapter one is about how my mother got my dad and myself to America. It is sort of long so I am splitting it into several parts. Enjoy and feel free to subscribe to this blog’s full feed if you don’t want to miss anything!
Fifteen Years in America – Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion
Fifteen years ago, I took the plane tickets my wife Helen sent me and took my daughter to Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai. My daughter Xin just turned nine. Perhaps it was because she was going to see her mother for the first time in over a year, she was extremely excited and did not sleep very well the night before. Then she fell asleep in the car on the way to Shanghai. My brother in law Ji Chang and a colleague Wen Hua sent us to the airport. At the airport, Xin woke up and was full of energy once again. She started to play the Gameboy I just bought for her.
As I looked at the Japan Airlines Boeing 737 outside of the terminal’s window, I was overwhelmed by hundreds of emotions. Yes, this is the land that nurtured me for over thirty years, this is where my friends and family live, and this is the place where I worked passionately in my career in education. All of these things were hard for me to let go.
Before I left, my coworkers in my department gave me a farewell party. That night, after everyone said goodbye, I loudly recited a poem by Su Dongpo titled August 15:
How often is the moon bright, I lift my wine to the azure sky and ask.
I wonder what year it is tonight in the celestial palaces?
I am willing to leave with the wind, but I am afraid of the chill
high above those beautiful jade buildings.
The moon dances and casts clear shadows, as if it is amongst mortals
It surrounds crimson towers, and creeps beneath the carved windows,
and shines upon those who cannot sleep.
It should not know hate, but why is it always round when we are parting?
Men have sadness, joy, parting, and reunion
Just as the moon may be dark, bright, round, and incomplete.
This has always been hard to understand fully since ancient times.
I can only hope that we can live long and admire the moon together
even if we are thousands of miles apart.
Su Dongpo is an extraordinary poet, and I have always loved his words. I especially like the passion he expressed in his other poem titled “Lian Ru Jiao – Che Bi Huai Gu”. However, at the time I was about to leave my parents, friends, and colleagues so I felt that Master Su’s poem “August 15th” truly conveyed my feelings. It is truly hard to leave my homeland, and it is hard to understand the sadness in parting, and the joy in reunion at the same time. Even though China’s Mid-Autumn festival uses the lunar calender’s August 15 and it is different from the Gregorian calendar, I know my wife Helen ordered plane tickets for August 15th because of the meaning of reunion attached to this date. Reunion is something every family wants, and Helen is the person who sacrificed enormously for our family’s reunion.
One year prior in 1991, Helen was accepted by the Theatre department at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa as a PhD student. When she walked out of Honolulu International Airport, her American penpal Betty asked a friend named Alice to give her a ride from the airport. When Alice asked Helen where she needed to go, Helen had no idea. Before she left China she left most of our savings for our child, and brought only $200 to America. With this pittance she could not even rent a room for two weeks in Hawaii.
Alice took Helen to the International Student Services building at University of Hawaii. In America, most state universities have international student services and their mission is to help international students. They usually have activities and clubs for international students and also help with registration and various Visa processing issues. They also deal with employment and the immigration of relatives. For example, if an international student wants to work off campus they would need the permission of the school. If an international student wants to return to their home country for vacation, they would also need the service to give approval on their I-20 form. At that time the director of the services at the university was an American born Chinese woman named Jennie. She was a very enthusiastic and hardworking director who was very well liked by the students. Perhaps it was because she is Chinese herself, she was especially fond of helping Chinese students. She was extremely surprised when she saw that Helen came into the office with two large suitcases. Even though the international students service helps these students, they are not responsible for finding people a place to live or deal with other personal issues. She asked Helen why did she come to the office and Helen said she has no idea where she is supposed to go, and is just trying to find a place to stay. Jennie asked Helen how much money she had and Helen answered $200. Jennie knew that there was no way Helen could rent anything, so she called a nearby church and asked for help. (To be continued)
Translator’s Note: Su Dongpo is a famous poet from the Song dynasty (around 1000 AD). There are many translations of his poems and this is a translation based on my understanding. The ancient Chinese texts usually didn’t have punctuation so you can intepret it in a lot of ways. August 15th in the Chinese lunar calendar is the Mid-Autumn festival, which is a day for reunion of families. Lunar calendars correspond precisely to the lunar cycle so the 15th of any month is a full moon. The closest thing to this festival in America would be Thanksgiving. During the Mid-Autumn festival families get together to eat mooncakes and watch the full moon. The same festival is celebrated in several other Asian countries.
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January 17th, 2008 — Blog, Career, Life, Mortgage
Well, this morning my computer mysteriously shutdown and would not boot up again. I will try to go home and fix it tonight but it may be that the CPU is dead. I really hate hardware because once it’s dead it’s pretty much dead and I would need to buy a new part (bleh). So there will probably not be much blogging until it is fixed. So I’m here on my lunch hour and I am quickly dropping a couple links to my articles this week on Wise Bread for your amusement:
Five Interview Lessons Learned from Horrible Interviews - This is a sequel to this article: Comical and Craptacular Interviews – Lessons Learned in Silicon Valley Recruiting. Just when you think it couldn’t get worse!
How the Banks were Fleeced – A Primer to Mortgage Fraud - This is a collection of the people who lied and defrauded the banks. It’s pretty boring actually.
Anyway, hopefully I can fix my computer tonight. I also wish I knew as much about cars as I do computers, because then I could save so much money by fixing my car, too.
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January 16th, 2008 — Announcements, Carnival of Debt Reduction
January 15th, 2008 — Career, Oddities, Silicon Valley
Today I was away at an all day company meeting. The good thing about it is that there were a lot of food and drinks along the way, but the bad thing with these long meetings is that they are almost always quite sleep inducing and includes a lot of speakers and very little interactivity. So here are some tips I have to make these meetings a little less painful.
1. Sit Near the Exit - The reason for this is so that it’s easier to get up and go to the bathroom. When a meeting is more than three hours a lot of people go to the john, and getting up and having to say “excuse me” a million times is pretty annoying. Also, when the meeting is over it’s easier to get out of the door!
2. Sit Near the Back - I do this because it’s easier to be not noticed and it is easier to take a nap or play with something I brought. Though, in smaller meetings this tactic doesn’t work very well.
3. Bring Portable Entertainment – Portable entertainment could consist of a novel, a portable gaming device, a computer, or a notebook. In my previous company I was able to get through a good part of a Nintendo DS RPG through a three hour meeting where the executives repeated what they said in the previous meeting. With a computer you can do a lot more things like emailing and instant messaging if there is internet. If there is no internet you can still blog offline.
4. Play Games Like “Bullsh*t Bingo“ – The rules to this games is explained in the link. Basically, you make a list of business buzzwords that people say in meetings like “synergy” or “web 2.0″. Try to get coworkers to make their own lists, and then check off each word as they are said and the winner is the person who has his/her list completed first. Of course, this game requires paying attention to the speakers, but if the meeting is sort of small and you can’t play other games, this is the way to go.
5. Take Naps When You Can – This is a no brainer, when you’re bored you tend to sleep, and sleeping is much more fun than a boring meeting because at least you can dream. Just make sure you don’t snore very loudly and you don’t mind sleeping sitting up.
6. When There is Free Food and Drink, Bring Containers – Today we had a lot of free beer and other drinks, and some people had backpacks. They could have hauled a whole six pack of Guinness home. In my first company a guy always had Tupperware for these events so he could bring food home. My supervisor in my last company would bring a shopping bag and put a whole food tray in it.
Anyway, don’t do any of these things if you are actually a presenter at the meeting and have to sit somewhere near the front. If you are interested in the topic presented then the best option at these meeting is to listen, but if you are an engineer and they are commending the salesmen repeatedly and reading off the sales numbers by every region in the world, then it gets pretty darn boring! Try these things at your own risk!
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