Glorious Part I of Stephanie’s “How To Live Without Television”

I’m sitting in my living room, a cautious eye on the Time Warner guys that have come out to my house to deliver what I refer to as “the demon signal” (aka cable). I’m not a giant fan of cable to begin with, but Time Warner and I have a torrid past to boot, so I basically loathe the company. But I’m being polite to the install guys, because, hey, it’s not their fault. Also, it wasn’t my idea to put cable in this house.

But the real reason I’m giving you up-to-the-minute updates on my cable installation is to share the details of a rather odd piece of paper that was placed on my dining room table – the work order.

Installation and service fee: $72.80

Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Lame.

Monthly service: $61.56

…

Now, I’m not here to tell you what entertainment you should or should not put your money into. But I’ll run the numbers: if instead of getting cable, my family took that installation fee and invested it, and added that $61.56 every month, and got 8% returns… we’d have $36,849.02 after just 20 years.

I’m just sayin’.

This is a response to the plonkee money competition, which asks…

How does donating to charity improve your well-being, financial and otherwise?

I’m going to make a comparision here, and some people aren’t going to like it: putting money into a charity is just like putting money into your retirement. In both cases, you’re taking money away from yourself to help a stranger that you’ve never met. I, sitting here at age 20, have no idea who 50-year-old or 60-year-old Stephanie will be. I have no idea what she’ll be doing, and what she’ll want to do with her retirement funds. But I hope to give her money, anyways.

And it’s the same with a charity. I have no idea who the breast cancer patients are that I donate to, but I donate to them all the same. And for the same reason as I “donate” to my future self: because that person needs that money, and will be greatful for it. I am trying to create happiness for a stranger.

And they say you can’t buy happiness!

So if contributing to my retirement helps my financial well-being, then contributing to charity does, as well.

Don’t be afraid, this isn’t really my last post! But my friend Sam over at Forest Azuaron put me up to a challenge: write a post as if it was your last. Give one final piece of financial advice.

It’s funny, really, because if I were going to make a final statement, it would be about beginnings. Because that’s really what this is all about. Roth IRAs, interest rates, bank fees, ideas for frugal grocery shopping… none of that really matters, if you never actually start. You can read every personal finance book and blog there is, but if you used all your time to do that, instead of actually looking at your own finances, you wouldn’t actually get anywhere.

Start today. Now. Figure out where you stand: add up everything in your bank accounts and your wallet – count your change! And pull out your latest credit card statements, add up your student loans. Everyone knows, in the back of their minds, what it is they should be doing. Personal finance is common sense. Everyone knows they should be getting rid of their debt, that they should save up for things instead of accumulating more debt, and they should be saving for retirement… these ideas aren’t hidden away in a trunk of knowledge or anything.

People just need that kick in rear to get started on what they’ve been putting off. So, consider this your kick. Go, get out of here, do it right now. Why are you still reading this? Scram!

NCN over at No Credit Needed did an interview for WSB-TV in Atlanta, and they posted the clip on their website. You can check out the 3-minute segment here:

Climbing Out of Debt

Check it out and watch for something familar at the 50 second mark: this website! Also shown are Blogging Away Debt and We’re In Debt.

Seeing your site on TV is definitely a boost!

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?