So I am a pretty big fan of The Office and the last episode dealt with the main character Michael Scott’s money troubles. It was quite hilarious because he started working a second job as a telemarketer after work to pay off his credit card debt and declared bankruptcy by screaming loudly “I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!” Then he sought help from the office accountant Oscar and Oscar summed up Michael’s expenses with a chart that looks like the following:

Oscar explains the chart to Michael like this, “the green bar is what you spend on stuff you need — the car, the house. The red bar is what you spend on non-essentials, like magazines and entertainment, things like that. This scary black bar is what you spend on things that noone ever ever needs like multiple magic sets, professional bass fishing equipment.” Michael seemed quite oblivious to this assessment and said, “how did you do this so fast, Powerpoint?”

This episode reminded me of a classic The Onion article titled: . Seriously, people spend a lot of money on completely useless things. Here are a sampling of the most useless things I have seen people buy or advertised on TV:

— This thing is about $5000 per pop and had software bugs that propelled its rider off when the batteries ran out. One of my coworkers actually brought one to work and caused quite a commotion, but she never brought it again.

2. A Personal Breathalyzer — This is arguably useful if you’re a partier and you’re responsibly checking your blood alcohol level after each romp, but if you’re semi-coherent I don’t think you would go check your blood alcohol level. Also, if you’re keeling over I don’t think you need a breathalyzer to tell you that you’re drunk.

3. The Autocool — This is something I saw advertised on TV and what is hilarious about the commercial is that it doesn’t show how much the car cools after the Autocool is installed. It has a thermometer for the car without the Autocool and registers about 117 degrees, and for the car with the Autocool the commercial doesn’t tell you the temperature and instead just says it’s “MUCH COOLER!!”. It seems that a lot of people are reporting that it’s a useless piece of plastic.

4. — I really really don’t understand the point of these for completely healthy pets. Usually when my dog goes out he really wants to walk and run around. The point of walking a dog is to give it fresh air and exercise. My dog is a little Pekingese that can’t walk for more than two blocks, but there is no way we will get him a stroller. He really has fun just walking the two blocks everyday.

This is just a small list of things I consider quite useless. I think a lot of people are like Michael and don’t realize that they have spent so much money on “things noone ever ever needs”. Do you have a big black bar like above? What exactly did you buy?

So at the beginning of the year I heard that one of my ex-coworkers left our ex-employer and joined a startup called Instructables in San Francisco. The idea of the site is that anyone can post step by step instructions for making anything and doing anything. So I signed up for the site because my ex-coworker is a pretty cool guy and I wanted to support him. From time to time Instructables sends me newsletters with some quite odd things that people posted. Anyway, here’s my own Instructables newsletter with a collection of tips and do it yourself guides for saving money and saving the world:

1. — This is written by a tightwad who combines the forces of his old deodorants together. I actually did this with my lip balm before, by accident. Basically I left the little jar of it in my car and it all melted. I guess this will work with all kinds of things you can melt.

2. — Very simple Instructable that makes a lot of sense. You really don’t need the water on when you’re putting on soap. This especially works well when you’re in sunny California and it doesn’t get very cold.

3. — If you’re into smoking meat or fish, this is pretty awesome.

4. — This is the guide to homemade sodas. I don’t really drink sodas very often, but it’s still pretty cool.

5. – I’m not sure how this works since I always just pay $10 at the pharmacy as a copay. This could help people who don’t have an insurance plan that covers a lot of drug expenses though.

6. — My hubby actually has a wireless mouse. I wonder if he will let me experiment.

7. — I don’t have a garden, but this contraption is an awesome idea.

8. — I think the people who don’t flush to save water will enjoy this hack. It is true that it’s pretty wasteful to use so much clean water to carry our waste down the drain.

9. — I don’t know if I would make this, but it seems that if you make it in large enough batches it’s worth it. It does take work though.

10. — If you eat a lot of bacon and save the fat then this may be useful to you. It’s a little gross, but it is good fat!

11. — The hubby’s friend gave us one of these things for our wedding. Now I know what to do with it when we need refills.

12. — Use enewable energy to heat up wieners! The picture is awesome on this one.

13. — Very easy instructable, though I’m not quite sure if it’s cheaper than just buying the Febreze.

14. — This is sort of a propaganda piece for compact flourescent lights, but it’s pretty well written and full of information.

15. — Pretty much all Chinese people in China actually do this and dry their clothes with the power of the sun. We used to do this when we first moved to America and then one night all of our clothes were stolen by some vagabond. My mom was pretty sad and stopped putting clothes outside. If you have a pretty safe yard or patio this is a good way to dry your clothes in sunny weather.

All of these guides should be used with caution. There are some Instructables that are truly frightening and could harm people. I will not list them here but I do enjoy reading them. Until next time, have fun on Instructables and save our planet!

I first heard about cooperative housing when I attended UC Berkeley. has a collection of houses around the campus that are highly coveted by students. There are usually a few openings in these houses each year and they’re quickly filled up. The reason is that they usually had cheaper rent and included food. When someone gets into a coop they like they usually don’t leave for the remainder of their college lives. I actually applied for a couple coops but I did not end up living in one because someone always got in before me. The student coops have a fairly long history in Berkeley and many students went on to found newer coops.

Currently the hubby and I rent an unit in a coop complex. Our landlord is technically the owner of our apartment. The difference between owning a coop apartment and owning a condo is that the coop is structured like a non-profit corporation and each owner owns a share of the corporation. That means they don’t really own the real estate and they pay monthly dues to the corporation for maintenance costs, insurance, and property taxes. What my hubby really liked about the place is that they had a list of rules of conduct. For example, “no person of immoral character may be allowed on the premises” and “no loud noise after 9pm”. We also like the fact that most of our neighbors have a vested interest in keeping the property nicely maintained. So far we enjoy it very much. All the neighbors are quite friendly and the pool and common areas are immaculate and welcoming. It’s also a lot quieter than a normal apartment building so the hubby is sometimes afraid that he’s making too much noise.

I read that cooperative apartments are much more prevalent in New York City and it isn’t as common here in the Bay Area. Coops are usually cheaper than most apartments and condominiums and it seems that the Bay Area should have more of them as an affordable housing option. Buying into a coop isn’t as easy as buying a condo because the coop board of directors can reject a potential buyer based on character and other factors such as the ability to pay the coop fees. Since a coop share is technically not real estate and there are sometimes price limits to reselling the share. For these reasons, coops are not very attractive to house flippers and their prices rise in a reasonable fashion. The rules also make coops a better place to live because at least you know that your neighbors have been pre-screened.

I do recommend cooperative housing over apartments managed by faceless companies because your neighbors are the owners. There is definitely a sense of community when you live in a coop because it is set up to be a shared living space. Some coops grow their own vegetables and bulk buy groceries to share and also maintain the properties themselves. My coop doesn’t do those things but we do share a funny little woodshop, low cost laundry room, and a great pool. The downside is that since coops are not very common in the Bay Area you really need to work on finding one with an opening. I think the hubby and I got lucky since there was only one opening in our coop and we only got it because the person who applied before us backed out.

The following are some places you can start looking for coops:

1. — Sometimes coop listings come up and you need to respond quickly

2. California Association of Housing Cooperatives — No website, but the association’s mission is mostly to provide education to the board of directors of coops in the SF Bay Area. The contact information is:
676 Fulton Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
phone: (415) 922-8911
fax: (415) 922-3431

3. — Provides coop housing for students of UC Berkeley. So if you happen to be going there, you should definitely check it out.

4. – This is a list of coops, but the information isn’t complete. Some coops list their rent and opening schedule on this page. It’s worth checking out.

5. – This is a national site, but it’s full of great information on what coops are and how you can get into one.

It’s 2 am, and my hubby is playing . He actually made me order three copies to make sure that he got one. One copy is for him and the other two copies are for his friends. Yup, I definitely contributed to raked in for the first day. Video games are entertainment items that we always purchase because the hubby feels like he has to support his industry, and he also enjoys having a collection of games that he can play at anytime. The video game industry have come a long way and is now quite mainstream. Some may say that it’s unfair that the media is comparing Halo 3′s revenues with the revenues of a book or movie because inherently games are more expensive than books and movies. However, I feel that most good games have more entertainment value per dollar than other forms of media, and I will list a few reasons here:

canadian pharmacy generic viagra– Most new video games cost from $30 to $60 and take a fairly long time to play through once. I have had games that I played for 100+ hours and so the cost breakdown is only 30 to 60 cents per hour. On the other hand a movie DVD costs anywhere from $5 to $20 to buy and only takes a couple hours to watch. Movie tickets are even worse because you can only see the movie once for $6 to $12. We could also compare games to musical media. Each compilation CD is about 60 to 70 minutes and sells for $5 to $20, and that works out to be much more than 60 cents per hour. Unless you’re a media pirate and get all your movies and music for free, then games are cheaper for the amount of entertainment you could receive.

canadian pharmacy generic viagra — Okay, not all games have a good replay value, but many games do. I find that I tend to replay games more than I re-watch movies or re-read books. Some games are designed so that they can be played over and over again. For example, on the is designed so that you play it everyday. Some games such as or the Sims are designed so that they don’t really end so that you can spend many many hours discovering new things in them. Music does have a lot of replay value and you can easily listen to a song hundreds of times, but music does not change and you will still be listening to the same song after 30 hours. However, you can play a game in different ways and make different choices when you go through it again. Additionally, in some games your skills improve as you play it more so it becomes even more fun.

canadian pharmacy generic viagra — Movies and books are not very social forms of entertainment. Generally you watch a movie or read a book and do not talk to your friends until after it is finished. The social element of going out to movies is more in the gathering involving food and drinks either before or after the movie. The dine and wine part costs even more money than just the movie ticket. With the networking of all the new gaming platforms games have become much more social than before. With an internet connection, friends could adventure together in games like , or battle against each other in Team Fortress 2. When people bring together their consoles or computers to play they also have a bonding experience that tends to be stronger than just sitting around watching a movie.

canadian pharmacy generic viagra — Compared to other forms of media, games are the most interactive form of entertainment. You could yell all you want at a person in a movie to do something but they probably won’t obey you at all. In a game you can direct a character to climb walls, plant trees, or dance around. The possibilities are endless. It’s quite easy to fall asleep during passive entertainment such as movies because they do not require any input, but unless a game is extremely bad or you’re overly exhausted then it’s quite difficult to pass out during a game.

canadian pharmacy generic viagra– Games are certainly expensive, but one good game can occupy all of a person’s time. Before the hubby and I started dating he was playing . Since he only played that game, he didn’t buy any other games and any other form of entertainment. He paid the subscription fee which was under $20 a month. Then he quit cold turkey because he said he wanted to play other games, and the monthly entertainment expenditures went up quite a bit. There are many games that people play full time, and some of these people make their livings playing and selling virtual items. is a prime example of a game that promotes real money trade. The game has a real exchange rate between the US dollar and the virtual currency called the Linden and players of Second Life have created a multitude of virtual shops and products within the game. The issue of real money trade in games is fairly controversial because many gamers think that it ruins the gaming experience. Many games are now filled with “gold farmers” that only play for money. The point is that people do make money from just playing. It’s probably not healthy to be addicted to one game, but it really cuts down on the entertainment spending.

In my opinion, video games definitely gives you more entertainment bang for the buck. I admit that I am a little biased because my hubby is a gamer and a game developer, but I buy games because I think they’re worth my money. The hubby and many others like him put a lot of effort into crafting hours of fun for the masses. Game developers are often underpaid and I agree with the hubby that we should support them by buying games.