Just because something won’t die doesn’t mean it’s good idea. For those lucky 2 of you in America that never heard of the “No Gas Day” idea, is goes like this: just about every year since 1999, someone has decided that we should try to lower gas prices by boycotting the gas pumps for one entire day. Gas company profits will fall! Prices will drop by 30 cents or more due the sudden decrease in demand! Our consumer outrage will be heard and our demands will be met!

Only, it doesn’t work. It didn’t work in 1999, or 2000, and it’s not going to work in 2007, either.

First of all, I’m not getting down on “hippies” or environmentalists at all. I’ve mentioned before, I’m a staunch environmentalist who has gone as far as not buying anything new in the name of saving the planet (and a significant amount of money). I see the good intentions of a “No Gas Day.” But I also see the insanely flawed logic, and even worse, how detrimental such an idea can be to our long term gas prices.

Sexy, Not Effective
People want to participate in a “No Gas Day” because it’s easy, and it sounds ever so sexy and powerful. “Yeah! I won’t buy gas today, how do you like that, oil man?” But it doesn’t make any real sense. First of all, the average consumer probably doesn’t fill their tank more than once a week, let alone every day. So we can only assume that gas companies don’t measure sales on a daily basis, but more likely, a weekly one. A “No Gas Day” wouldn’t even register a blip on their radar, since everyone will likely fill up their tank some other day that week.

Also, you have to consider the actual way a boycott works. Remember learning about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott in school (or, if you happen to be old enough to remember it yourself)? A one day bus boycott wouldn’t have really made a big difference to the bus companies, because everyone would just be riding again the next day. Sure, they would have lost that much of one day’s profits, but if everything returned to normal the next day, do you really think they would have changed their racial seating policy?

No. Instead, it took a year-long boycott and the intervention of the Supreme Court to change the Alabama law that dictated the bus companies’ policies. Could you give up gas for a year? If you, and many others, could, it might actually make a difference.

There Is Another Way
It doesn’t have to be as extreme as a year-long complete boycott of gas. Sure, that would help. But if you live in the middle of nowhere (like me) and need a car to get anywhere, and haven’t yet figured out how to get your car to run on coffee, you can still find ways to cut back on your gas consumption. Yes, this is the real way to show the gas companies you’re mad as hell and not going to take it any more: slow and steady reduction. Most of this isn’t going to be news to you - you’ve probably heard it all before. But how much of it are you actually doing?

• Carpool, bike, rollerblade, or walk, when you can. Or just stay home!
• When choosing between two fun activities, include the distance you’ll have to drive in your decision-making.
• Make right turns instead of left turns.
• Don’t speed.
• Empty your trunk - extra weight uses more gas.
• When you buy a new car, make fuel efficiency a major priority.
• Combine errands - if you have a bunch of things to do in the same area this week, do them all in one day instead of driving out there multiple times.
• The average American family has more than two cars. Try to drive the most fuel efficient one. (Get used to saying “Let’s take my car - it gets better gas mileage!”)

Tips like these will save your pocketbook in the “now,” as well as help cut down on overall demand for gas in this country, which should lower gas prices and save you money in the “then.” Anybody else have some fuel efficiency tips to add?

The Danger
I really do believe “No Gas Day” is a dangerous idea. People feel like they’re making a difference, but they’re really having no impact. And because they feel like they did good, they can also feel like they’re excused for things like having a gas guzzling SUV that they don’t need, or anything else they might do (but know better). The excuse “Yeah, but I participated in No Gas Day!” is useless, and gives the false idea that a simple stunt can make a real impact. So fill up your tank on May 15th, 2007… but only if you really need gas.

Sources:
Snopes: Pain in the Gas
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on the Net - Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

I flew home on the red eye last night, and I’m battling some wicked jet lag right now. It’s taken me a five hour nap and three hours of staring blankly at my computer screen to get to the point where I feel I can actually write something intelligible. Regardless, this might end up unintelligible anyway.

I’ve agreed to try my hand at hosting the Carnival of Credit Report Stories on Monday, April 30th. If you have a blog and a story about credit, credit scores, or credit reports, please submit it to me using the carnival submission form. I’d really like some good entries for my first carnival!

Also, if you wouldn’t mind spreading the word about the carnival on your blog, that would be helpful as well. When the boys over at Millionster hosted the carnival, they made this cute chicklet for promoting it:

If you’d like to use it as well, please upload it to your own server. And get those submissions in by 5PM Eastern on Sunday the 29th, please!

The other day, when I was talking about how I save money flying the friendly skies, I mentioned that I can fly out of either Rochester or Buffalo. I do this because the flexibility saves me a ton of cash. On this particular trip, flying out of Buffalo cost about $100 less than flying out of the more convenient Rochester airport. The trouble is, I had to drive 80 miles yesterday to get to Buffalo.

Making the hour and a half journey to Buffalo yesterday reminded me of something I do with my car that’s a little odd - at least for someone in my age bracket. Starting in January, I gave up speeding. And I did it because speeding is expensive.

Sticking to the speed limit can improve your fuel economy by 7-23%. With gas prices what they are, I really don’t feel like paying more for gas than I have to. On the open highway, I stay in the slow lane and put my cruise control right on the speed limit.

I’ve never received a speeding ticket, and I’m really working on keeping it way. I saw a friend pay $800 for one speeding ticket during a road trip of ours. Can you say “ouch?” Not to mention, I have a relative that receives frequent speeding tickets. We compared her insurance rates for her one car, to my sister’s insurance rates for three cars. My speedy relative is paying twice as much on her one car as my sister pays on all three. Just like I don’t want to pay more for gas, insurance is expensive enough as it is without paying six times as much because of speeding tickets.

I have to say, aside from saving me money, not speeding gives me piece of mind. Not only is it safer, but the other day, I passed a State Trooper aiming a radar gun at me. But I didn’t have that fleeting moment of panic that I usually feel when I see a cop on the road, because I knew that my cruise control was set exactly to the speed limit. Better luck next time, Copper!

Well, I’m leaving (on a jetplane) again. For Los Angeles, again. And once again, I’m reminded how much I hate the experience of modern air travel. I might not have any way to combat the tedious (and possibly ineffective) safety regulations, but I have come up with a system to save as much money as possible.

Tip #1: Don’t pay for it. Ok, this really isn’t “advice,” since not everyone has big, doe-y gray eyes like I do. But if you happen to be good at it, get someone else to pay for your flight. I’m not advocating begging, pleading or blackmailing (unless you’re really good at those) - instead, I just wait around until someone else buys me a plane ticket. It happens more often than you might think.

Tip #2: Don’t pay much for it. Although someone else usually pay for my ticket, I’m always charged with the task of tracking down the cheapest ticket. Because I’m exceptionally good at snaking my way around the internet and finding a deal? Probably not. It’s probably more along the lines of “I have a lot of time on my hands to scour websites.”

The best thing to do is use some of the “fare aggregator” websites, which search of the other plane fare websites for you. I have a confession to make: last time I went price checking, I brushed off the best website of all - didn’t even visit it, let alone fill out the search box and look up fares. Funny story, actually. Because the site is named Kayak*, and I can’t swim and thus am deadly afraid of kayaks (the idea of getting flipped over in one and being trapped under water gives me the heebee-jeebees), I didn’t even visit the site. I completely avoided it.

Not so this time, however. I bounded over to Kayak and fell in love at first search. Not only did it find me the lowest fare, but the advanced search options allowed me to both be flexible about dates and airports (I can fly out of Rochester or Buffalo, and land at LAX or Burbank… doesn’t matter to me) in order to find the bestest best fare for me. Win!

I’ve got this cute Kayak site widget, if you want to try it out right now:

The other site I use is SideStep, which didn’t find me the same low fare as Kayak this time, but it’s worth checking both sites every time.

Tip #3: Don’t buy anything at the airport. Seriously, there’s nothing there you can’t buy elsewhere, and probably at a quarter of the price. Be a little prepared, and you won’t need to buy anything in there. I just went to the supermarket and loaded up on Pringles and those little cheddar cracker sandwiches with peanut butter inside them. Bring your own books and magazines - airport bookstores are about the only place you’ll ever see books selling at their list price.

The only thing you really have to buy in the airport, maybe, is a drink, since they won’t let you bring one in. But you could always bring in an empty water bottle and fill it at a drinking fountain once you’re through security.

Tip #4: Definitely don’t buy anything on the plane. $5 for the world’s shoddiest pair of headphones? And don’t even get me started on those SkyMall catalogs. You’re being catapulted across the country in a metal tube - now is not the time to be buying lawn ornaments or massage chairs. And if the in-flight movies aren’t free, forget about them. They’re usually not that good anyway, and even if they are, they’re usually edited for content.

Tip #5: Park the car for free. This might be hard to pull off. Since I’m flying out of Buffalo again, it’s particularly hard to find someplace to leave my car for a week, without getting charged $50. Thankfully, I have a friend who goes to college in Buffalo, who doesn’t mind me leaving my car at his place, and giving me a ride from his campus to the airport - in exchange for a plate of brownies.

*Affiliate link.

“From My Reader” is a weekly series, highlighting one of over 30 blogs that I track using Google Reader.

This week, I’d like to highlight one of the smaller blogs I subscribe to - the personal finance blog at KMull.com, which is still trying to find its wings. But that’s ok - you could say the same thing for Poorer Than You. (Unless anyone I went to high school with asks you. In that case, you should tell them about how I run the most spectactular personal finance blog out there, and that you once heard I wrestled a shark while calculating my annual return.)

The thing I love about Kevin’s writing at KMull is the real “personal” side of the personal finance. There’s an awesome story about how his college roommate fell out of bed and broke his finger. Though, you might want to hold off on that story if you just had lunch. Just warning you.

And, of course, there are some good solid financial commentaries on the site. Be sure to run by and check out:
I Don’t Need Credit or Why I Enjoy Making My Life Difficult
Setting Goals
Charge More Than You Can Afford

You keep on writing Kevin, and I’ll keep on reading!

1mil got Millionster up and running again, and tagged me for this Obsessive Thoughts meme. For some reason, I’m compelled to introduce it in pirate speak, so here be the rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. List five of your obsessions.
3. Tag five other bloggers to list their obsessive thoughts.

Arrr! Me limit be only at five obsessions? Alas, here be me attempt:

The Environment
Oh goodness, I’m a tree-hugger. A tree-hugging pirate? Something like that. Few people know this about me, but since January of this year, I’ve been Compacting - a practice where you don’t buy anything new (except food). I recycle almost everything, not just through the recycle bin but also by trying to clean things out and use them again. This drives my mother, who is trying to cut down on the clutter in our home, positively nuts.

Data
To say I have a math mind or a “head for numbers” is putting it entirely too lightly. I track everything that’s track-able. The gas mileage of my car. Website stats. The “trends” section of Google Reader. I check my bank accounts daily. I track all of my spending in not one, but two, Excel documents. My net worth. My mobile phone minutes. How many times I see a film in the theaters (record: 9 times, Serenity). I even log my instant messenger conversations - I have an archive of those going back 7 years.

Joss Whedon
Creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I’m not obsessed with the man himself so much as with all of the things he creates. I’m a fan of Buffy, its spinoff Angel, and the sci-fi action show he created called Firefly, and the movie based off it, Serenity (which, as noted above, I saw in the theater 9 times). Most people would call this my main obsession. They’re probably right. I actually met Joss Whedon, and managed to talk to him three times without drooling all over his shoes.

The Internets
This may be more an addiction than an obsession. I’ve been online, in one way or another, since age 7. My parents actually met online (who else do you know old enough to vote who can say that?)! I really don’t know a life without these “interwobs.” I go through slight withdrawl when I’m disconnected - I can go camping and be just fine without them, but I had some difficulty on a trip to England and Scotland. It’s my number one connection to my friends, and things are only moving more in that direction, with the “social networking” trends and whatnot.

Pirates
Arrrr!

So, five bloggers to tag for this here “confession?” Well, I’ll go with… Finance Guy, Azuaron, Jennifer Lynn, KMull, and just because I really want to know what his obsessions are… Nick. Would you guys care to try your hand at this?

Over at Get Rich Slowly, J.D. is celebrating Financial Literacy Month. He wants to know if anyone has any financial literacy resources to share, and actually, I do!

The Mint is a financial resource for kids, teens, parents and teachers. The “Kids” section (which is aimed at both kids and teens) offers tons of information, on earning, spending, savings, investing, giving, owing, safeguarding, and tracking money. There’s also a “Try It” section, full of quizzes and quick games to test knowledge. Adults might want to try the quizzes themselves, to see how their own knowledge stacks up!

In the “Parents” section, there’s another set of quizzes, called “Your Financial IQ.” The site recommends taking these quizzes because “research repeatedly reports this fact: children say they learn all they know about money from their parents.” The “parenting guide” offers advice on how to talk to kids about money, how to handle allowances, and what do when kids finally leave the nest.

The “Teachers” section offers lesson plans for budgeting, credit, scarcity, and the stock market. Parents might also give this section a glance, especially if you’re worried these topics might not be covered in school.

One last note about the site: it’s a good resource, well laid out, easy to navigate - but the graphics (photos of people with large heads) creep me out a little. I’m just saying.

The other site I’ve found is the Securities and Exchanges Commission’s Tips for Students and Teachers. Although not as graphical and interactive as The Mint, this one page site covers topics such as “Why Save and Invest?”, compound interest, types of accounts, risk, diversification, credit management, and planning financial security.

At the end of the page, there are several quizzes and calculators to play around with.

If you’re looking for more resources, check out J.D.’s Financial Literacy for All Ages.

I have a pet peeve. Actually, I have more than one of them. My number one pet peeve? People who say “ATM Machine.” But running a close second is when people mistake “credit” and “debt” to mean the same thing.

I shouldn’t get so annoyed about it. Commercials, ads, banks… everyone throws the two words around all the time, and it’s easy to get confused. But if you have any interest in taking control of your own money, you ought to learn the difference.

Credit is the ability to borrow money. Debt is money owed. To give an example, if you knew that you could borrow $1000 from your parents at any time, that would be a line of credit. If you owed your parents $1000, that would be a debt.

Credit is important because it’s one of those “you need it to get it” things, especially if you’re trying to open up a larger line of credit, such as a mortgage.

There are some people that make a point of trying to live without credit. Since credit is the ability to acquire debt, people see it as a temptation. And to be fair, it is. However, I think it’s somewhat foolish to completely abstain from credit, because it’s become so ingrained in our modern lives.

The Dreaded Credit Score
Not only do you need credit to get credit, but you need to prove to creditors that you’re low risk. That you’ll pay them back any of the debt you incur on this line of credit. And unfortunately, you can’t just have your mom write you a note, vouching for you. Instead, creditors will pull up your credit score.

I don’t want to bore you too much, but your credit score is just a number, derived using “secret math,” that shows how responsible you are. A credit score can be pulled not only by creditors, but also by landlords when you’re applying for an apartment, and even by employers when you’re applying for a job. No joke - I just picked up an application for a job at the mall, and it came with a ” Fair Credit Reporting Act Disclosure.”

Since your credit score is so important to so many aspects of you life, you really ought to know what it is. This can get pretty confusing, because there are tons of different types of credit scores. The most common and most trusted, however, is your FICO score. Actually, there are even three different FICO scores, just to confuse you further. That’s because there are three different companies (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) that collect credit data on you and compute your FICO score from it. Lost yet?

Getting Your Score
If you want to grab one of you FICO scores, you can do it for free. MyFICO.com’s ScoreWatch* let’s you see your FICO score, and the credit report that is used to calculate it. It will also tell you what that score means to you, and offers a cool thing called Score Simulator, which will let you see how different actions (such as maxing out your credit cards, or paying off all your debts) would change your score.

ScoreWatch monitors your score and updates it daily. You can get the 30 day free trial, and cancel before the 30 days are up if you don’t want to continue monitoring your score. If you decide to continue on, you’ll be charged $90 for a year of monitoring. I would recommend this to anyone serious about improving your credit drastically over the course of the year. But if you’re simply curious about the score, you probably don’t need it past the 30 days.

Back To Basics is going to focus on credit scores and credit reports for a little while, so don’t be worried if this post left you with questions. For now, just check on your credit score, and be careful to protect it. That means no late payments, even on the electric bill!

*Affiliate link.

I don’t want to get political here, but I do want to point out something I came across that is very interesting. There is a group of war protestors who refuse to fund the war through their federal income taxes - so they’ve decided to stop paying those taxes. And they’ve figured out how to do it legally.

The basic idea for this “legal tax refusal” is to get their income below the taxable level - live on $8,450 a year, or less. The group points out that you can raise that number to $12,450 if you contribute to an IRA, but that extra $4,000 isn’t available to be spent.

Anybody, regardless of their political leanings, can glean some important finance concepts from the group:

• It is possible to live on very little, and the group even provides tips on how to do so. These tips are helpful to anyone trying to reduce their expenses, regardless of income.
• Even on a minimal income, it’s still possible, and advantageous, to contribute to a retirement fund.

Do you think you could live on less than $1000 a month?

There is a secret war going on in the personal finance blogosphere. No one talks about it openly, but it the battles break out everywhere. No blog post is safe! No blog post about “Debt Snowballing,” anyway.

If you don’t know the Debt Snowball Theory, it goes like this: in order to pay off all your debts, you rank them all up. You make the minimum payments on all of them each month, and you throw every extra cent you have at the debt ranked highest, until it’s paid off. Then, you “snowball” your payments for that debt into the next highest ranked debt, and continue on down the line.

The war is over how these debts should be ranked. There are two theories, each with valid points, which is why the war will never end.

Theory #1: High Interest - Rank your debts by interest rate, highest to lowest, and pay off the highest interest rate debts first.

Pro: Math-wise, this one wins. You’ll spend less money over time on interest this way.

Con: Your highest interest debts may also be your highest balances, meaning it might be a long time before you actually pay off that first debt. This can discourage some people, making them give up before they even pay off the first debt.

Theory #2: Low Balance (The Dave Ramsey Theory) - Rank your debts by balance, lowest to highest, and pay off the lowest balance debts first.

Pro: It won’t be long before your first debt is paid off, giving you an awesome sense of accomplishment, and encouraging you to continue on.

Con: Math wise, you lose, because you’ll probably pay more in interest this way.

Of course you want to know where I stand in this war. Look, people, I’m a math girl. I love numbers and data. So I’m in the “High Interest” army. But I certainly recognize the benefits of the “other side,” and I’m not going to knock anyone for going that way. In fact, if I had a really low balance debt, I’d probably pay it off first as well, to get it off my mind.

Theory #3: The Annoyance Ranking
I promised you an alternate theory, and here it is: Rank your debts in the order that they annoy you to have to pay, from “most annoying” to “least annoying,” and pay off the annoying ones first. The idea is that when the bills come, there are some bills that make you groan and moan more than others.

Let’s take The Boyfriend for example. He has two debts: his car loan, and his credit card debt. The Boyfriend loves his car to pieces, and doesn’t really mind making his loan payments every month. But his credit card? He hates it with a fiery passion. He curses it while shaking his fist up at the sky.

Basically, his credit card debt annoys the crap out of him. So, accord to my Annoyance Debt Snowball Plan, he should pay that one off first.

Why is this a good plan? Because, like the “Low Balance” theory, it plays to your human psychology. The top debts are making you more unhappy than the bottom debts, so pay them off first. Also, since you’re more likely to be annoyed by high interest debts than low interest debts, it takes the “High Interest” theory into account as well.

This theory is also good for when you have personal debts, especially family debts. These debts may be low balance and low interest, which would normally rank low in a debt snowball. But you probably feel a large amount of guilt over these debts, which would make them annoying. Putting them at the top of the ranking, and paying them first, will help improve your family relations, and perhaps prevent you from being shot in both kneecaps and lit on fire.

Pros:

Be rid of debts that make you unhappy.

Math usually works since high interest debts are more likely to be more annoying.

Con:

Math might not work, may end up paying more interest.

Feel free to add more “pros and cons” in the comments if you think of any!