Finding Freedom

My girlfriend’s roommate has a bit of a debt problem.  I can obviously emphathize with her, but based on how frustrated she is making my girlfriend, I find my empathy shrinking every day.

Here’s the story.  The roommate has asthma, and it is serious enough that she, about once a year or so, has to go and stay in the hospital overnight because she just can’t breathe.  Unfortunately for her, overnight hospital stays are quite expensive.  What is also unfortunate for her is that she has chosen not to purchase insurance, and she doesn’t get benefits through her employer.  Because of this, she has accummulated about $60,000 in hospital bills.

She works with a drama group that visits local schools, and provides instructional presentations on aspects of American history, which I both think is a kind of cool and worthwhile job.  However, she only takes home, after taxes, about $300 a week.

Further, a few months ago, her boyfriend was driving her car, and got into an accident.  He was fine, but the car was totalled.  Rather then doing what I think just about anybody would think was prudent based on her situation, that is, try to purchase a used, reliable car for a few thousand dollars, she applied and was accepted for a car loan so that she could buy a brand new Nissan X-Terra.  While it is certainly cool to have a brand new car, this choice added another $30,000 in debt.

On the positive side, she doesn’t have very much credit card debt.  On the negative side, this is probably due to the fact that her credit score is probably very low because she hasn’t really made efforts to pay off her hospital debt.  I remember that she once talked her boyfriend into getting a Best Buy credit card, because she had been denied, so that they could purchase some things from the store.

The only reason I know these things is that she asked my girfriend to look through her finances, and try to figure out a way that she could fix them.  My girlfriend spent a month looking through the finances, and concluded that the roommate should sell her new car, get a used one, and get a second, and possibly, a third job.  This is due to the fact that she brings home $1200 a month, $500 goes to car payments, $500 goes to rent, $100 goes to insurance, and $100 goes to gas every month, which leaves her no money to either live on or to make efforts at paying the hospitals.  Because of this, she overdrafts her checking account frequently, which puts her deeper and deeper in debt.

The roommate’s response has been to do nothing differently.

While I feel badly for the roommate both in that she owes so much money, which can be daunting, and that getting rid of a new car would be a serious admittance of a problem, I feel like there are going to be definiate consequences to her inaction.  While I certainly have no moral authority to throw stones based on my own debt situation, both my girlfriend and I are worried about her because she seems to be lacking any kind of responsibility for her actions.

Have any of you ever been in similar situations, where someone that you care about is living seemlessly recklessly?  Unfortunately, my girlfriend has loaned her about $1500 in rent money, which is money that she is starting to suspect that she won’t ever get back.  Does she have any recourse?  What do you think? 

I recently auditioned for a graduate MFA program in acting.  I think that getting into such a program is a definite step in the right direction in terms of pursuing acting as a career, as much of my training thus far has been from a musical perspective, and therefore, not as much from an acting perspective.

In addition, much of success in acting comes from knowing somebody who knows somebody, etc.  Spending two years with a group of people who are, theoretically, some of the most talented people in the area of acting and therefore, theoretically, the most likely to succeed seems like a great opportunity for future work.

Time will tell whether these and other benefits will provide enough of a positive economic effect to offest the costs of schooling.  I am fortunate that this program, should I get in, will provide a full tuition and a bit of money for living expenses.  However, I would obviously not be able to continue my day job that pays me pretty well.  While I suppose that all advanced degrees rely on a level of talent on the part of the individual getting the degree, it seems like this talent is most necessary in the success of a performing arts degree.

Have any of you had success with graduate degrees from an earnings perspective?  While I am currently finding consistant work, I can’t help but think that more training would be invaluable.  What are your thoughts?

As I am dealing with the self-made burden of slowly demolishing the credit card bill monolith, I’m always looking for painless ways to pay down the balance a little bit more quickly and painlessly.  One method that I have found to be particularly painless is simply adding a couple of dollars to the payment.

This was a bit burdensome at first, because I kind of enjoyed going through my past payments and seeing them all as rounded numbers, such as payments of $60 or $100.  However, I realized that when I added just a couple of dollars to each payment, that extra amount compounds over time, AND I don’t really miss the extra money.

For example, instead of simply paying $100, if I pay, say, $105, than over the course of a year, I will have paid off $60 more bucks than I would have paid off otherwise, and the extra amount is not large enough top throw the rest of my budget out of whack.

I think that the trick with anything that is difficult is to find some way to make yourself believe that it is simple.  I believe that this trick manages that.  At the very least, it is slowly helping me out from under the pile of debt.

Many of you have probably seen or heard the commercials for Cash Call; they seem to be Gary Coleman’s predominant method of making money right now.  On a whim I went over to their site to check them out. The site seems pretty legitimate; it almost seems like they are just looking to help people out who are down on their luck.

However, in examining what users have said about them, that help that they offer comes at a great price. While I suspected that their interest rates weren’t kind, but I had no idea that they were as bad as they are.

Many of the people are locked into loans with an interest of at least 85%. You read that right; eighty-five percent interest, and that seems to be at the very least.  Some poor people are locked in as high as 99%. 

Can you say preying on those least able to protect themselves? This is horrible, and it makes me sick.

Just out of curiosity, for those of you who use Google Adsense on your sites, how many times per day do you check it?

I find myself checking it several times per day, though I should also include that I check it to see how many page views I’m receiving as well.

Am I sick? Surely at the rate that I’m earning (which could certainly be much better), once per day would be enough.

For people like me who enjoy the arts, and are honestly trying to pursue a career in them, seeing shows is an important part of the growing experience. Attending live theatre is both entertaining and informative as I have the opportunity to see how other people perform. I analyze how they said their lines, with whether or not I think that they delivered them correctly being a focal point.

It sounds snobbish, I know, but I really need to discern what is good from what is bad in order to grow as an actor.

Unfortunately, going to live theatre is among the most expensive hobbies a person can have. So, in my own searching, I have come up with a couple of sites that get you discounted tickets for the shows that you wish to go to.

1) StubHub.com — This site has people who have bought tickets and, for whatever reason, have decided that they are not going to go to a performance. You can sometimes find good prices here, although the tendency in the sellers is to make money. This site is good if you are looking for a show that is hard to otherwise buy for. This site also offers sports and concert tickets.

2) Goldstar Events — This has tickets that are priced at half off, but they are only for specific shows. This site requires you to open a free account to purchase tickets. It is worth it to browse this site for local shows as you may find cheaper seats than you expected, and

3) San Diego Performing Arts League — This site offers tickets for shows that are going in specifically the San Diego area. As this is where I live, this site is very useful to me.

For you other theatre lovers out there, I hope that this short compilation of links is helpful for you to get your theatre fix.

There comes a time in just about every man’s life where he has to consider taking out a loan in order to show his significant other that he cares. This is known as buying an engagement ring. Here are some of the things that I’ve learned as I’ve been looking for this very thing.

The important thing to know is that there are four “C”s to consider when you are purchasing a diamond. They are:
A) Color - How white the diamond is,
B) Carat - How big the diamond is,
C) Clarity - How many physical flaws there are to the diamond, and
D) Cut - What shape the diamond is.

I will cover the little bit that I’ve learned in that order.

A) You color my world. Diamond colors are grouped together, with D, E, and F being the most white, G, H, and I being a slightly yellower, and J through the rest of the alphabet getting substantially yellower. Because the first group is the clearest and most dazzlingly white, they are the most expensive. However, the differences between letter grades are very small visually, but they can have a substantial difference in price.

The moral? A G rated diamond will look just about as clear as an F diamond, but it will likely cost hundreds of dollars less. It should also be noted that the color diamond you get can depend on the color gold of the ring you get. A white gold or platinum ring will demand a more pure white diamond, while you can afford to go further down the scale with a yellow gold ring because the yellow from the ring will make the diamond look yellow anyway, and so even a beautifully clear diamond will appear yellow with that gold ring.

B) Size matters. As the size of the diamond gets bigger, the price grows exponentially. However, because a diamond is rated in the four different areas, you may be able to afford a larger diamond if you give up on some of the other areas.

Also, as is the case with two of the three other areas, if you go slightly below the size that you want, you can save money. For example, the price difference between a 0.98 carat diamond and a 1 carat diamond is, oddly enough, substantial.

C) Clarity is important. The grading scale goes Flawless, Internally Flawless, Very Very Slightly Included (VVS1 and 2), Very Slightly Included (VS1 and 2), Slightly Included (SI 1, 2, and 3), and Included. This measures how many imperfections or scratches there are on the diamond.

As was the case with the previous two, the last rung of one tier is virtually indistinguishable from the first rung of the second tier, but the price is much better.

It should be noted, however, that the Slightly Included grouping is where the imperfections may be visible to the naked eye. However, you have to be looking pretty closely to see them. Therefore, if you encourage your soon to be wife to gesticulate a lot when she’s talking, no one who sees the ring will be the wiser. I am joking, of course, but seriously, Slightly Included defects are difficult to see.

D) Cut makes it sparkle. There are many different shapes that you can get your diamond cut into. There is the princess cut, which is square, heart shaped, round, oval, among many others. However, what is important to know here is that part of what makes a diamond sparkle is the number of sides that it has. Round diamonds tend to sparkle the most because, due to how they are cut, they have the most sides. In fact, some stores, like Robbins Brothers, offer specially cut diamonds with extra sides that are especially brilliant due to the extra faces to reflect light off of. However, these diamonds are very, very expensive due to the fact that people like shiny things.

So, if you’re like me, and you don’t have a lot of money, but you want to impress and dazzle your fiance, I would suggest getting a round diamond that is G in color that is around 3/4 carat with a clarity rating of VS2 to SI1.

However, at the end of the day, you just have to decide which of these areas are most important to you. Do you just want a huge diamond? Then get a big diamond with a slightly yellower color on a yellow gold ring. Is the diamond’s beauty most important to you? Splurge and go for the VVS with a D or E color, but go for a smaller diamond so that you don’t break the bank.

In the end, it really is (or should be) the love that matters most, with the ring being just an expression of your commitment to that love. With that in mind, choose a good diamond, but remember, as you’re pinching pennies to get there, why you’re doing it in the first place.

My girlfriend just moved to a new apartment. Because she had some things that would not fit in our cars, she needed to rent a U-Haul truck.

In the process of this, I was surprised to learn that there are at least two hidden fees involved with the trucks. The first is that if you want to use the dolly that comes with the truck, it will cost you some extra bucks, and if you want to use blankets provided by U-Haul, it will cost some extra money.

I bring this up just because I would have thought that these would have been gratis in the name of good customer service, but I guess that my thoughts would have been incorrect. Be wary when moving, and even in general, because everybody is looking to make a few extra bucks.

I, like many other little boys, collected baseball cards. As a little boy, I was lured into collecting with the mindset that I could collect things that would one day be worth millions of dollars. I collected pretty seriously for a couple years, but the player’s strike in the early nineties was atrocious and reprehensible in my pre-pubescent eyes, and so I gave collecting up. The greedy players wouldn’t get any more of my money. So, I stuck all my cards in boxes, and I waited for them to increase in value, as the baseball cards of every generation before mine had done.

Unfortunately for me, the time that I started being interested in baseball cards was the same time that the card companies decided to exponentially expand the number of cards produced.
With the huge supply of cards, the demand for these cards has left me with those same boxes full of memories in the form of just about worthless pieces of card board.

However, today, many of the card companies that were spitting out cards as quickly as a fat kid spits out seeds at a watermelon eating contest have now gone out of business. With this being the case, the total supply of cards is starting to be much less than the demand, which may indicate that cards now will perhaps start to be worth the money that the old rookie cards are worth.

However, I suspect that once there is money to be made in the card industry again, those same printers who have gone out of business will re-open their doors to drive down the market price again.

However, for right now at least, I think that there may be some money to be made for the serious collector in baseball cards. Obviously, there are more solid investments, but I think these are certainly a little bit more fun.

What do you think?

For those of you who are still living with roommates, let me encourage you to do something.

If you are like me, if one roommate moves out, you will oftentimes just look for a new roommate because it’s easier to get someone new to move in as opposed to having to move all of your own stuff.

However, when you do have the new person move in, work out a system whereby the new person has to pay some of the deposit. Whether the new roommate pays you or works something out with the landlord is inconsequential; the important things is that he or she pays money for a deposit to live there.

I did not do this. Because I did not make them pay, neither of my roommates cleaned a dang thing as they were gathering and taking their belongings elsewhere.

Believe me, you don’t want to be scrubbing the floor with the smell of Pine-Sol in burning your nose hairs at two o’clock in the morning when you have to be at work that very day, wishing that you had some recourse against your roommates who were either sleeping elsewhere or SLEEPING AT THE SAME APARTMENT YOU WERE OBVIOUSLY STAYING UP LATE TO CLEAN.

Ahem. I apologize for that. I’m just a little ticked, mostly at my own stupidity, although I am slightly ticked at what passes for being a reasonable, responsible person nowadays.

Oh well. At least I’ve got my health, right? And maybe some deposit money?