Category Archives: Money

Money

LA County is so efficient*

Via Twitter, I alluded to this last week or so, but only got a chance to scan these documents today after finally convincing Trinity to let me blog this. In a nutshell, the county of Los Angeles is so hard up for cash, they’re going after Trinity for a 7-year-old (or older) library fine. And they’re going after him aggressively — I remember having a fine with L.A. County libraries as well, probably since I was a child, but didn’t get collector’s letters like this.

Yes, that first letter did confuse us and we sort of hemmed and hawed to figure out what we were going to do. But then, two more letters arrived! On the same day!

Continue reading →

For sale: Vintage Sanrio Keroppi satchel-style handbag

So, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been cleaning out my closets and drawers. My latest possession to go on the auction block, sort of, is my very old Keroppi bag. The bag is mostly olive-green, with dark green piping, and lime-green stitching and zippers. The bag itself is about 9-1/2 inches wide, 4-1/2 inches deep and about 10 inches tall.

I was initially going to put it up on eBay, but didn’t realize there is now a 35 cent fee to put up a listing. What! Yeah, when I saw that, I was like….OK, might as well put it up on my site to see if anyone is interested.

Oh, and you want to know the back story on this bag? Heheh. It used to be my hymn book bag for when I was in choir. Yes, I know. :)

I’d like to sell this bag for $15 or better. So if you’re interested, let me know. The better the offer, the more I’ll consider eating the cost of shipping, if I need to.

And, if you’re interested in some used rollerblades, I have some for sale on Craigslist.

Damn skippy

The same politicians who have been talking about a need for “affordable housing” for years are now suddenly alarmed that home prices are falling. How can housing become more affordable unless prices fall?

The political meaning of “affordable housing” is housing that is made more affordable by politicians intervening to create government subsidies, rent control or other gimmicks for which politicians can take credit.

Affordable housing produced by market forces provides no benefit to politicians and has no attraction for them.

via IBDeditorials.com: — The High Cost Of Subsidizing Bad Decisions

Reviewing gadgets-for-cash site EZTradein.com

Need cash? You may be considering trading in old cell phones, iPods and other gadgets for cash. Of course, the older and more battered your gadget is, the less you’ll get for it. But seeing as how our cell phones were not super old, and other sites I’d considered were still offering amounts into the teens for my Razr and Trinity’s Samsung slider phone.

I did a lot of research, I’ll have you know. A couple of months ago, I scouted out the best prices I could get for all our items. I had them saved on our widget stickies, all ready to go. However, when I started to try to follow through on these sites, I ran into problems.

Continue reading →

Month of reviews

You read that right. I did not mean month-in-review, I meant month of reviews. It has been a month of both good and bad customer service experiences for me. I’m seriously glad this month is over.

Of course, I can probably avoid all this by just not buying stuff. But, hey. I’m just doing my patriotic duty to help stimulate the economy.

Continue reading →