Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist - The F.S.A.

Her has replied.

Him too.

There is also a humorous anime post about it as well.

It's good to see that while they fought about it, they have recovered and are taking it in good stride. It looks like they do plan to pay for the wedding in cash, but I still think they should do it cheapo style, but hey, it's not my money.

Like I said on their blog, best of luck to both of you. In your (soon-to-be) marriage, personal finances, and life in general.


Tags: personal finance

There is something of a brouhaha going on over at makelovenotdebt. Read the post, and skim over the extensive comments.

Where do I stand on the issue? I think the sensible thing for them to do is get a cheapo wedding (i.e. city hall), and later in life when they're better off re-marry with a nicer wedding and blow a ton of money on a great honeymoon. That's what my wife and I did/plan to do in the future. Just my two cents on the issue.


Update
________
Here is Miserly Bastard's take on their situation. In his own words: "This post will come off as unnecessarily harsh, but I think there is a lesson that some readers will appreciate".

Tags: personal finance weddings

...about the war on Christians, here's Jon Stewart to remind us:

Yes, the long war on Christianity. I pray that one day we may live in an America where Christians can worship freely! In broad daylight! Openly wearing the symbols of their religion.... perhaps around their necks? And maybe - dare I dream it? - maybe one day there can be an openly Christian President. Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively.

Thanks Jon. We always need to be reminded.

Tags: atheism

Columbia Business School students and Ben Bernanke. It's hilarious.

Tags: columbia business school bernanke

Personal Finance
Miserly Bastard has a great post on the 4% withdrawal rate for retirement portfolios. He ties it into poker, but don't hold it against the guy. Check it out here.

Cellardoor has an early post about Joel Greenblatt's recent book. I like the way he took a look at the book, and the sound advice he gives. Read it here.

Lamoneyguy dissects a recent Money Magazine makeover in a new post. Honestly, it seems these makeovers are hit and miss. Remember the one that wanted the couple to get a 5/1 ARM and cash-out their equity to put it in the stock market. Sheesh. Read his insightful post here.

Lastly, for a little humor, there's Funny Money who has a great money saving idea. Don't wear underwear! Make sure to check out the graph as well. Laugh out loud, here.

Atheism
Over at Daylight Atheism there is a well-written post regarding the "persecution" of Christians. Scratch that, make it the persecution mentality of fundamentalist christians. Thoughtful reading here.

PZ Myers can't wait for the new Ann Coulter book to come out. That is, he can't wait to correct the new Ann Coulter book when it comes out. THe book is entitled godless and from the looks of it, it's just going to be more sh*t. Check it out, here.

Brent Rasmussen who's tag-line is I'm not angry, I just don't agree with you. is going to have to try to explain that one again. Read about it here.

Finally, we come to The Raving Atheist and a post titled "Limitations". It's in response to a question that is essentially the old "god is beyond our finite brain/logic" argument. Check it out, here.

Hope you like the posts above. Read them and read the comments. They usually add to the discussion.

Tags: personal finance atheism

Sitemeter is awesome. I love being able to tell how people are getting to my site, even if it's not the reason I intended. One search that I dervied a sense of satisfaction from was someone who was searching on Yahoo for "why does the escrow on my house increase from year to year" who was directed to my escrow post. This made me think to myself, Wow, I'm actually helping somebody out. How cool is that!.

So as I was saying, I *heart* sitemeter.

Tags: sitemeter

Nintendo has renamed their new console system Wii from Revolution. That's wii as in "we", not Wi-i (as in Wifi without the 'f') or why. Ok, everyone say it with me now:

This is the worst console name ever. This is the worst console name ever.

Perrin Kaplan, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Affairs for Nintendo of America, is on the record as saying:
"A lot of thought went into the name.".

Were they high when they were thinking about this? Sheesh. Hopefully the hardware makes up for the sh*tty name.

Tags: wii nintendo stupid stuff

Article from the Economist entitled: Eat less, live more. It also has the subtitle How to live longer - maybe.

Once again we search for the fountain of youth. Will we ever get there? Probably not. At least this will increase our understanding in the process.



Tags: economist

...and various other tidbits
I've installed sitemeter and as a result I can now say I know why I had an uptick in traffic on Moday...because I had two posts about the same subject: spanking. Yep, I had a lot of people looking for spanking or various other pharases that included spanking. Needless to say, I don't think they got what they came for, but I hoped they learned something about personal finance whie they were here.

Amazon came through! Both of my packages have been shipped and I received my $30 promotional code in the mail. I now have $35 to buy stuff on amazon. Sweet.

I missed Stephen Colbert's rerun last night. I didn't get home until after 8:30 PM ET and I had to deal with the kids because my wife was so tired. Oh well, I'll have to catch it some other time.

Lastly, son #2 is sick with the flu. He had a fever over 100 degrees and I think I'm coming down with something as well. He woke up at 3:00 AM and as a result, I'm exhausted. My wife decided to stay home and monitor his situation; she's going to keep me abreast of any changes in his situation.



Tags: personal finance amazon stephen colbert

HT: The Raving Atheist, who also has the transript of the interview

Stephen Colbert had Sam Harris on his show last night, and I missed it!

For those whoe don't know, check out my amazon link on the bottom half of the screen to find out who this Sam Harris character is.

I'll try to catch it tonight.

Also, sorry for the lack of regular posts. I have so many ideas for more involved posts than what you've seen in the past few days, but I'm busy at work. Hopefully, I will find some time later to post.

Tags: atheism

I still haven't received my $30 from amazon for buying huggies stuff in Feb. Today is the last day that I was supose to get it. Not only that, but they still haven't shipped two of my items yet. The customer service rep thinks that since I technically haven't closed the order, that I technically don't qualify. Somewhat frustrating experience all around, although th CR guy was really friendly and said that if they don't ship it that they'd still honor the $30 if I called back later. We'll have to see.

Anyone else received this offer?

Tags: personal finance amazon

Has someone linked to me or one of my posts recently, like yesterday? I had more than 100 page views and I didn't update or participate in any carnivals. I tried to search but I didn't see anything. I checked my blogroll and the only change I saw was that I received the coveted * from Madame X. Truly an honor.

Just let me know, I like to try and thank those who link to me, regardless of whether you disagree with my point of view. Thanks.

Tags: blogging

Yesterday I was in New York on business. I made notes to myself so I could relate the interesting things I noticed and an embarassing moment in the men's bathroom. Oh, the things I do for you people.

The Hotel
The conference I was attending was in a really ritzy hotel. The words opulent, extravagant, and tons-o-cash came to mind when I first entered. Several people were taking pictures of the chandeliers, and of various other aspects of the hotel.

Honestly, I felt out of place. Although I was wearing business attire I felt like I was wearing a straw hat, overalls, and no shoes. Then, there was the embarassing moment in the bathroom.

The Bathroom Incident
I got there really early so I went to grab some starbucks (from the in-hotel starbucks nonetheless) to wake myself up a little bit. After draining my drink, I had to use the bathroom and went in search. When I found the bathroom, there was a guy there to help out. He took my coat as I was carrying everything in my hand ("Let me take your coat sir"). When I was done he turned on the water for me and got me some hand-soap ("Let me get that for you sir"). When I finished washing my hands he got me the towels and my coat ("Here you go sir").

During all of this, I was thinking to myself Sh*t, this guy is going to want a tip, and he deserves one too...but I have absolutely no cash on me..

Indeed, when the time came for me to leave, there he was with outstretched hands, and there I was with no cash. Cheeks burning, I mumbled my sincerest gratitude and hastily left. I was so embarrased. I just stiffed this old, latino man from a tip he rightfully deserved.

All this was taking place right before the conference was starting, I checked my jacket pocket and my bag for any money, but all I had were 5 pennies. So I pushed it out of my mind and sat down for the first presentation.

During the first break, I almost ran outside trying to find an ATM. Then I rememebered, Damn it. The only Citizens Bank is in like Yonkers, NY. What am I going to do? I don't want to pay $5 bucks in ATM fees for a $1 tip. Quick, find a CVS!!!.

I walked for 15 minutes before I finally found a CVS. I quickly grabbed a candy bar and waited in line to get my cash-back. I got to the register, slide my debit card...

...and it was promptly denied. Dismayed, I tried again and again to no avail. The damn machine would not take my debit card.

Dejected, I returned to the hotel feeling guilty and embarrassed. The second part of the presentation had already began so I sat down and concentrated on why I was there in the first place.

I still feel really bad for stiffing that guy. I'm not really sure why though. I guess I just felt guilty because he provided a service, and was rightfully expecting to receive compensation for that service that I did not provide. Should I still feel this way now?

That's it for now. In part 2, I will make some more observations about New York and my trip.

Tags: NYC tipping

I'm back from my one-day work trip to NYC. I will post some thoughts on my visit later today. Now, I've got to get to work!

Tags: No Tags

I'll be in NYC today for work. No new posts from me as a result. I'll be back Friday, so until then.

Tags: personal

Just when things are humming along nicely and you think that your networth is actually going to have an uptick next month, life has to drop in and say "screw you b*tch, mwahahahahha".

My wife is finishing up her last semester of college and she just found out that we'regoing to have to pay an extra $3000-$4000 for her school fee because of her status as an off-campus student. She took a class during the winter break so she could finish on time and the school is saying that she doesn't qualify for financial aid for the class.

Now instead of using the 0% balance transfers for arbitrage and increasing our emergency fund, we're going to have to go into more debt in order to pay off the fee so she can graduate and actually get her degree. Needeless to say, I am pissed.

Her school's financial aid office is filled incompetent, elitist b*tiches. They turn up their nose at offering her aid when they found out she needed the money for child-care costs as if to say, "why are you at this school if you're having children". Puh-leese, your school isn't all that f*cking great to begin with. So. Very. Aggravating.

Now that I've vented a little, we should be ok. I figure we'll have to go about $4,000 in debt for her fees, and then we'll have $4,000 coming up in July for our child-care costs for a total of $8,000.

My bonus should be able to cover that amount and I'll keep up the surveys and any other forms of passive income I can find and put those little bits towards the debt. Her school is always pissing me off, but you need to roll with the punches. I'll try to crunch some numbers and see how things are going to turn out. Expect more to come soon.

Tags: personal finance

Trying something new with adsense. Seems to slow up the load time so I might get rid of it. Hoping to profit more from the traffic that I've been getting.

Tags: adsense

In my post about if money were no object I mentioned that I'd like to create public service announcements for blacks and atheists. Now, I'm not a media expert (but I do know someone who is), so I don't know if my idea is any good. Either way here's my idea for an atheist public service announcement/commercial:
Opening Scene
Soft inspirational music plays in the background. We see Lance Armstrong sitting on a stool looking at the camera
Lance: Hi, my name is Lance Armstrong and I'm an atheist.
Below Lance we have a caption with his name and his accomplishments, i.e. Lance Armstrong: 7-time Tour de France winner, atheist
Fade to black, music continues. Next we see Cassandra
Cassandra: Hi, my name is Cassandra and I'm an atheist.
Caption reads: Cassandra, wife, mother of two, atheist
Fade to black, next is Penn Jillette
Penn: Hi, my name is Penn Jillette and I'm an atheist.
Caption: Penn Jillette, magician, atheist
Fade to black, finally we come to the FSA
FSA: Hi my name is Frank, and I'm an atheist.
Caption: Frank, father of three, atheist
Fade to black and the there would be a message on the screen that says: Atheist are people too...or something like that.

You get the idea. The last message would have to be changed, of course, seeing as how I couldn't think of anything better.

But imagine if I wanted to have this air during the Super Bowl? Think about the outrage from religious fundamentalist. There's nothing controversial about the commercial at all, in fact, it's pretty boring from what I've described. The idea was to juxtapose famous atheists with everyday people. It puts a face on atheists and makes people realize that we're not just faceless boogeymen/women to be reviled.

The good thing about any kind of outrage is that it would give us more publicity even if the network wouldn't show the commercial. I can see the news stories popping up on CNN now: "Atheist commerical won't be broadcasted during superbowl". Just a thought. What do people think?

Tags: atheism

This month is going to be a good month for not-so passive income. I'll be getting $10 back from fatwallet.com for purchasing a coupon book. I also received a gift certificate to a restaurant when I bought the book, so my wife and I were able to eat some seafood on valentine's day.

I've received $2 from surveydirect just now and I'm expecting $5 from pinecone research in the mail soon.

I received a $5 amazon gc thanks to Jane Dough.

Also from amazon I should be getting a $30 gc from them for buying huggies brand stuff earlier last month.

The cash will be used to pay down our credit cards and the amazon gc will be used to buy replacement toothbrush heads for our electric toothbrush. An excellent month overall.

Tags: personal finance

Originally started by Single Ma.

Here is my list in no particular order :)

1. Quit my job.

2. Sell current house and move to a location that has great schools for the kids.

3. Fund kids college fund for 10 years of college.

4. Pay off parents house.

5. Fund a scholarship fund at my alma mater.

6. Travel the world for a year or so.

7. Go to Barnes and Noble every day and read for a year or so.

8. Either work as a math teacher in the same school district as my wife, or start our own company where we can always be together.

9. This is kind of random, but I would love to create public service advertising that depict famous black businessmen and women telling black americans that it's ok to be an intellectual. Kind of random, but this is my dream world isn't it!

10. On that same note, I'd like to fund public service announcements for atheists and atheism in general.

11. Live life to the fullest and make a difference in some young people's lives.

12. Maybe run for congress when I'm 50. If I feel up to it.

Tags: personal finance atheism

I applied to three 0% balance transfers with Citi.
1. Citi Premiere Pass Card, 0% bal transfer with a $100 gift card
2. Citi Drivers Edge, 0% bal transfer and good cash-back on gas
3. AT&T Universal, 0% bal transfer

I was approved for all three and it was a fairly painless process. I did have to verify some information due to the lack of a land-line, but nothing too difficult. I received two yesterday, the Universal and the Preimiere Pass. I initiated one balance transfer and I bought something to get the bonus points for the gift card.

Interestingly enough, my minimum payment for the bal transfer is only 1.5% of the balance! That's just insane. This means my carry cost is going to be lower and I'll be able to make more free money that way. But still, that's crazy.

We should be able to net ~$500 from the balance transfers.

Also, my current outstanding credit line for all my credit cards totals $30,901. This includes a home depot card and another store-specific card. That is equal to approximately 40% of my total annual salary including bonus.

Lesson learned: it's way too easy to get into credit card debt.

Tags: personal finance credit card arbitrage

I believe in the sanctity of marriage. Certain people who want to get married should not be allowed to do so. It's unnatural and would pervert what marriage was meant to be in the first place. There should be laws that prevent these individuals from getting married, nothing else will suffice. Think of what their children will have to face? Obviously if these types of individuals were allowed to get married it will be detrimental to their children. Can you imagine what a child would have to face if they belonged to one of those couples? Think about the lasting impact on their lives to grow up in such an unnatural environment.

Plus, where would it stop? Are we going to let people marry their dogs now? That's what it's going to lead to if we allow these individuals to get married.

And it's already taking place. These individuals are allowed to get married now. When did that happen? We, as believers in the sanctity of marriage must put a stop to this.

So join me in writing your congressmen. Let them know where we as americans who believe in the sanctity of marriage stand.

Let them know you do not under any circumstances want black men to be able to marry white women. Tell them that they undermine the sanctity of marriage if they allow such a travesty to take place.

Mapgirl had an informative post on LIBOR here and I left a comment that she found useful so I decided to copy it below. Oh, and here is the definition that she found:

LIBOR is officially the London InterBank Offered Rates. Per the Chicago Fed's Glossary (my newest favorite resource), it's "An international money market interest rate representing the average rate offered by banks for the interbank placements of Eurodollars."

Here is the comment I left (updates in bold):

If you think of the Treasury market as defining a risk-free rate [for] different maturities (3-month, 6-month, etc) then a LIBOR rate helps define a risky rate for different maturities.
[because these banks are lending to each other and that entails risks since they aren't government entities]
This helps banks price risky investments, which is why they use the LIBOR rate in calculating your credit card interest rate.
Also, since they [the banks] fund said credit cards using securitization, it makes sense for them to use the LIBOR rate since the securities they create are indexed off LIBOR.
Just FYI, although it's probably more than you ever needed to know :)

Tags: personal finance libor

I bought a dress-shirt a few days ago. Nothing fancy, just a simple dress-shirt. I paid $19.99 for it, but the fair price is $20.01. I could resell the shirt to someone right now in the original package for $20.01. Not too bad, as I'd make some money and I'm getting the fair price for the shirt.

Now imagine that I wanted to resell different pieces of the shirt to a variety of people.

I could sell both sleeves to a guy in Asia who's looking for sleeves and he's willing to pay me $15 just for the sleeves.

I could sell the collar to somebody in the US for $5.

I could split the rest of the shirt's body into three pieces and sell each piece for $5, $3, and for $1 respectively. That means my total for selling the different pieces of the shirt came out to be $15 + $5 + $5 + $3 + $1 = $29. So now I've made much more money and I'm happy.

Welcome to the world of Securitization and Structured Products.

I've touched on securitization before where I mentioned that credit card companies use it to fund their business. However, credit card companies aren't the only ones who do it. Auto financing companies sell of their loans to the Vanguards, PIMCOs, etc of the world. Mortgages are another huge market where the loans are sold off to make securities.

In their simplest forms, these securities represent a pro-rata share of the underlying economic event. For example, you take $100 billion worth of mortgages and each person gets a sliver of the principal and interest that is paid monthly. This is called a pass-through structure because the monthly payments are passed-through to the investors. That's the simplest type of structure that can be utilized.

The analogy to the dress-shirt above is more like a Collateralized Mortgage Obligation. This is where Investment Bankers (the buyer of the shirts in the analogy) sell different pieces of the mortgage to various investors. It's an example of a structured product because the bankers are structuring the underlying mortgages into something else.

Here's an example of what they do: each time you pay your mortgage, you pay some amount of interest and some amount of principal. The Bankers decides to strip out each of those payments and creates two securities, one that receives only principal and one that receives only interest. They can find two investors that want both pieces and they make more money as a result.

There is a huge structured market. Besides mortgages, other notable collateral types are student loans, auto loans, auto leases, airplane leases, small business loans, and even time-shares!

The end result is a thriving securitization and strutured market where people can sell different types of risks, receive funding from investment shops for their loans, or place bets on almost any conceivable economic event. And if they can't place a bet now, you can be sure that there is some banker out there that will create a new security to allow them to do so.

Tags: personal finance securitization

Here is a belated easter blessing for you, enjoy.

Tags: atheism easter

Here are three carnivals for you on this monday morning. Unfortunately I wasn't able to contribute this time around, bt hopefully I will be able to next time.

Carnival of PF #44

Carnival of Investing

Carnival of the Godless

Tags: personal finance atheism carnival

Here are some posts that you should read

Personal Finance
Mapgirl talks about wanting to give back to her school in the form of a scholarship fund. She's talking about a private high school that she attended. For me, I've talked about giving back to my alma mater which was a private college. I can definitely agree with her sentiment. Good for you mapgirl!

I found another pf blogger in Japan and this time she posited a question about why aren't there more minority pf bloggers. This was similar to my question about where are the black atheists. My readers answered me quite well, and so did her readers. After perusing the rest of CollegeGrad's blog, I've added her to my blogroll.

Atheist
Cassandra reported back about her mission as part of the (childish?) war on easter. I'm a little mixed about what she did. On the one hand I heartily support a fellow atheist for being courageous, but at the same time I wonder if that courageousness could be spent doing something else. In either case, check it out for the comments. The vitrol being directed towards her is somehow not surprising.

This post doesn't have to do with atheism explicitly, but it is an old post from PZ over at Phyrangula titled "The proper reverence due those who have gone before us". Here is a salient quote:

..[a] bone isn't just beautiful operational engineering, it's a trace of a person. It's a melancholy memento of all that's been lost…here is this human being who struggled and loved and dreamed and hurt for sixty years, and all that I had of her was a few exquisitely patterned swirls of hydroxyapatite

Enjoy!

I decided not to pepper the above with a multitue of links even though I could. I wanted to highlight the posts in question because I felt they were worth reading. I hope you find them interesting/insightful as well.


Tags: personal finance atheism

I applied for three 0% bal transfer credit cards and I was approved for all three. That means that I will be arbing the offers soon. Free money, here I come.

Also, my wife received an app in the mail from Discover for a perpetual 0% on the bal transfers as long as you make two purchases a month. This looks potentially promising, so I'm going to see if they'd be willing to change my current discover card to that offer. I need to crunch the numbers and re-read the fine print to see if it's going to be worthwhile. Looking forward to it and glad that I don't have to apply for any loans soon.

Tags: personal finance credit cards

It's 1:00 AM and I'm still awake. I'm having trouble sleeping. Worried about stuff. Just stuff.

Am I making the right decision for my kids? How do I know what is best for them? Hell, how do I know what is best for me?

My new role at work is so much better than my old one. I'm actually happy when I pull into the parking lot. But now I'm working 11 or more hours a day. I hardly see my family and by the time I get home it's time to put the kids to bed. My wife's unhappy about the hours and she prefers my old role because at least I would make it home at a decent time.

There are so many things to do around the house. Maintenance costs are a bitch.

I haven't told my parents that I'm an atheist yet. I wonder if my sister has already told them? How do I bring something like that up in a conversation?

Speaking of work, I have so many things to do now. So much programming. I hate Access. But I'm learning so much as well. It was the right career decision to make when I switched roles. I have so many more options now. But options come at a cost.

There are times when I feel woefully inadequate. People often comment that I'm mature for my age. I usually point out that the perceived maturity is out of necessity. What I really want to say is that I don't feel mature at all. I'm trying to handle my responsibility as best I can, but I worry that with my youthful naiveté I'm making all the wrong decisions. Being a parent does that to you. You want to make sure everything is perfect for your child. You question every little thing. Every article that comes out is a cause for concern.
Holy crap! We're not feeding them organic, ultra-fortified onion extract berry-flavored vitamin water that increases their immune system and allows them to get into Harvard! We're terrible parents!

Time to stop. Take a breath. Acknowledge my limitations and realize that the kids are going to be alright. My childhood wasn't perfect, but I'm still a functioning member of society. The kids are going to be alright. Let me go get some sleep.

Back in Jan of this year I decided to change this blog from a pure atheist blog to a atheist/personal finance blog. At that time I was unsure how I would be perceived in the pf blog-o-sphere. Would anyone link to me since I'm openly atheist? Would I even have anything constructive to add to the conversation? You know, I'm pretty cocky for calling myself "financially savvy" when I'm only 22? Are people going to think I'm some sort of flexible spending account?

All in all, the transition to atheist/pf blogger has gone remarkably well. I've learned so much from my fellow pf bloggers and I'd like to think that they've learned something from me. I'd like to think that my pf readers have learned that atheists aren't so bad and that I am countering some of the negative stereotypes that make us the least trusted minority group in the United States.

I still think that there are some pf bloggers who wouldn't link to me because of my atheism, but that doesn't bother me anymore. To each his own. Plus, there are plenty of others who would (and have) link to me as well.

And while some do think that I'm a Flexible Spending Account and I'm sure there are others, that's ok too.

So thank you everyone. I appreciate the comments, the page views, and the link-backs.

Now, enough touchy-feely stuff, back to the atheism and the personal finance.

Tags: personal finance atheism

This is how you know: Ultimate concierge service.

Would you be willing to hire someone like that, given enough money?

I scared myself the other day. I was talking to a co-worker about college costs and he was telling me about a guy that use to work for the company. The guy made very good money in a senior position, had four daughters and had about $250,000 earmarked for his kid's college. All his kids went to expensive private schools and he went through the $250,000 like it was nothing.

That got me scared, so I took a look at how much it's going to cost for my 3 kids to go to college.

Historically, college costs have been rising at about 7% annually, and expensive private schools currently cost approximately $40,000/year. My kids are currently 3, 1, and 0. That means that when my kids go to college, the total cost for their four years will be roughly $1,651,264!

After recovering from fainting, a heart attack, and a stroke, I decided to think about how we could realistically afford $1,000,000 for college.

I remember reading that most people pay for college utilizing three methods (absent of financial aid and scholarships):
1. Savings: we have a 529 plan for our kids and are considering the independent 529 plan, which is a prepaid tuition plan with a list of more than 200 private schools.

2. Wages: My wife and I will be entering our 40s when our kids are starting college. This will be our peak earning years, so we should be able to afford some of the tuition and expenses with our salaries.

3. Loans: I personally want my kids to take out loans to pay for part of their education.
My contention is that it gives them a sense of ownership vs. it's just their parents paying their way for them.
My wife's objection is simply that they wouldn't qualify for the better loans and would have to go with the more expensive private loans. This would be a burden for them when they graduate.
At a total cost of more than $1 million, they are going to take out some form of loans and I expect them to work during the summer in internships like I did.

I'm not as scared of that big number now. I think that with adequate planning we can afford for college in the best/worst case scenario where our kids are going to the most expensive private school in the US. Who knows, maybe they'll get some sort of scholarship.

I'm reminded of that commercial where the parents are putting everything in their kids college fund, and then at the end they buy a boat named college fund. We wouldn't buy a boat, but an extra $1,000,000 in the bank would be nice.

Tags: personal finance college

I am not a mathematician, just a math nerd. This is just an informal "proof" in the loosest possible manner. I'm sure a true mathematician will find it and tear all the things wrong with it to shreds. But hey, it's my blog, so it's my mistakes, and I can live with that. Besides, this is suppose to be fun!

1. Take two sets of infinite natural numbers. Set1 is all natural numbers, i.e. {1, 2, 3, 4...} and set2 is all even natural numbers, i.e. {2, 4, 6, 8}.

2. Define the size operator of a set size({}) to be the number of elements in a set. So size(set1) and the size(set2) are infinite, but the size(set1) != size(set2) (they are not equal). In fact, if the size(set2) = n, then the size(set1) = 2n.

3. Define set3 to be all odd natural numbers, i.e. {1, 3, 5...}.

4. We know that set3 U set2 = set1. (The union of the odd numbers and the even numbers give us all natural numbers).

5. Now, I asserted that size(set2) = n and that size(set1) = 2n. I can also state that (per 4 above) that size(set1) = size(set2 + set3).

6. set3 = set2 - 1 ({2-1=1, 4-1=3, ...})

7. size(set2 - 1) = size(set2) = n (hand waving, hand waving)

Therefore: size(set3) = 2n

You know, I had it worked out in my head a lot clearer than this, but kinda got lost along the way. Either way, what I was trying to get at was that even though we have an infinite set, we can still know some values about that set, mainly that the size of set1 is 2 times the size of set two, even though they are infinite! Isn't that cool.........

Ok, so maybe it's just me. :P

PS You can thank Mark over at GoodMath for getting me back in touch with my inner math nerd.

Update: My size operator wasn't being picked up by blogger, so I changed it to just size().

Tags: math

Here are some of my more notable posts from March:

Atheism
I pondered where are the black atheists? And wouldn't you know it, my readers had some really good answers.
I was able to tie atheism and personal finance into a post for the first time as I discussed my views on giving to charity.

Personal Finance
You can view the evolution of my suggested prosper lending formula.
Formula 1
Refined Formula
Miserly Bastard disagrees with me about prosper, and here is my initial response to his objections. Still need to respond to his second set of objections.

Last in this category is How Credit Cards Make Money. I spent the most time on this post and hardly received any comments. It's an interesting phenomenom in the blogging world, this inverse relationship between time spent on a post and the amount of comments that are left. I'm still proud of the post though, so I hightlight it here.

Personal
In the personal category, I talk about the one time that I dealt with racism.
I'm not one to cry racism at every little set-back big and small (unlike some people) but there was no denying it this time around.

So there you have it. Enjoy!

Tags: personal finance atheism personal

I've recently applied for three new credit cards to begin the process of arbing the 0% offers. I started thinking though, is there a way to turn a purchase into cash? I know how to turn a balance transfer into cash, but how about a purchase, since these have 0% on purchases for 12 months as well.

Initially, I thought about using a gambling site that would charge your CC for a min fee, but I'm not sure if that would work. Any thoughts on the matter?


Tags: personal finance credit cards arbitrage

CNN Money has a new Tycoon in the making and for once it's someone with a sensible plan. I mean, there was one person who financed the down payment of their first property with a credit card! Either way, these people seem sensible and followed the advice that they read in a reputable book. Enjoy.

Tags: personal finance

Here is a great blog I've found recently, and guess what, it's about Math! The inner math nerd in me is loving it and I thought I'd pass it along.

Good Math, Bad Math

Tags: math

Lya has a three part series about her deconversion to atheism. Excellent and informative. Get thee hence! (if that makes any sense)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Tags: atheism

It's come to my attention...
That I am at best a mediocre writer and at worst a really shitty writer. My posts are pitied with grammer mistakes, spelling mistakes, and other various forms of bad writing.

Now, this isn't a class where I'm going to be graded, but I've always felt that my weakness was writing and saw this blog as a way to work on that. I think I've improved a little, but I've decided to take a more active approach.

As a result, you might see my writing change (at least, I'd hope you notice) and my posts might be more humorous or serious or satiric than before. I'm going to be trying a lot of different things out, and hopefully something will stick.

I hope to improve my writing ability and also to improve my reader's experience.

Net Worth Update
Current Net Worth: $-2,093

Notable Happenings:
- Negative net worth due to the fact that I updated our car values. Our 1995 vehicle dropped 20% in value!
- I took $1,000 out of our savings to pay down our existing credit card debt. Our balance is about the same from last month, but that represents normal purchases. Our (total and individual card) utilization rate is below 30%, so it's time to start arbitraging the 0% balance transfer offers!
- Our balance is low in our checking account, that's because I haven't been reimbursed from my FSA account for child-care. That's going to be another $1,100.
- Our kids 529 plan had a nice 1.5% uptick. Hopefully that continues as college is only going to get more expensive.

I only get paid on a monthly basis, so budgeting and smart utilization of our credit cards is really important.

Notable purchases:
- $20 for a paper shredder.
- $600 on kids furniture and matresses. Getting their room ready and moving them into it soon.

It's an exciting time in the FSA household. I fully expect our net worth to be positive net month.

Tags: personal finance writing

Post in question

Which was in response to this post

Which mentioned this article

My main premise
1. Parents over-react when dealing with their children

2. If you over-react and spank you risk bodily injury.

3. Herego, I do not spank my kids.

Objections/Clarifications from others
Jim
"I think the key here is discipline, both for the child and for the parent"
Don't spank your kids when you are angry.

Single Ma
"...I believe in matching the punishment with the crime. Some things require positive reinforcement, while others require negative reinforcement or even spanking. I use all of them as forms of discipline, depending on the unacceptable behavior"
Also mentioned not spanking when angry.

Apex - first responese (no website): "Its a rather poor argument to take the extreme of any situation and use that as an argument for the abolition of the entire situation"

Apex - second response: "the child didn't die from spanking but from being wrapped in a blanket and suffocating so that kind of defeats your argument a bit"

"your short response...ignored my central point that the extreme example is not a reason to argue against the use in fair practice" [sorry about that, was unintentional]

Objections/Clarifications from me
1. I should have mentioned that I based my reasoning on my own personal experience. My parents spanked/whipped me with a belt and sometimes it was overdone. It was overdone to the point that I had red welts on my hands that made it difficult to write.

2. That being said, I would just like to point out that I am an immature 22-year-old father. I am starting a new career and I have a new house with a whole list of issues that need to be remedied. I am still trying to find ways to deal with an enormous amount of stress and frustration, i.e. life in general

I feel that I, as an individual, am incapable of spanking my kids all the time for the right reasons and therefore I am not going to spank them. I feel that alternative methods of punishment and discipline will be just as effective or more effective than spanking. I also feel that reconciling with them after I've blown my top and sent them into timeout is less damaging than if I had spanked them.

Apex, you are right when you say that "Pain serves a purpose and it is to correct poor behavior." You also state that: "Timeouts are a form of pain. Removing a desired toy is a form of pain", and I agree with that statement. I feel that those forms of non-physical punishment suffice.


Conclusion of sorts
Honestly, I didn't think the post would generate that many comments. It was something really quick that I threw together.

Seeing as how I spent some time on this post however, I predict very little comments.

Tags: parenting

Read it here

HT: ARB

Tags: atheism

You can work really hard and spend a lot of time on a post that generates no comments.

Or, you can throw something quick together that you think is not controversial, but fail to realize that it is, and it'll generate 3 comments in like an hour.

Blogs are funny that way.

Tags: blogging

After reading this story about a mom who killed her kids while "disciplining" them, I'm reminded why my wife and I do not punish our children by physical means as advocated by the bible. (HT: GIFS)

As much as you love your kids, they are going to piss you off. Most likely it's actually for something they did wrong, sometimes it's because you had a bad day at work. Like any parent when your kids piss you off you go about punishing them.

Now put yourself in that state of mind. You are really, really angry and being a normal human being you want to punish them thoroughly for what they did.

It is precisely at this point where even the most patient and loving parent will over-react. Add to the fact that your form of punishment is physical in nature and naturally you get punishment that borders on abuse.

Now, the parent in the article took it a step further and used PVC pipe and various other methods that most parents wouldn't use. But even with other methods of physical punishment there is the tendency to do too much.

Not to say that you can't overreact with alternative methods of discipline, but at least you don't risk death or bodily injury.

Tags: atheism parenting

15,000 atheists in London rioted after a blank sheet of paper was found on a cartoonist’s desk.

Thanks to this man

Tags: atheism humor