Free Money Finance March Madness, Round 2, Posts 21-24

We're now into round two of Free Money Finance March Madness (if you wonder what's going on in these posts, see my article announcing March Madness and/or click on my March Madness category link and scroll down to read all the posts involved in this subject.)

I've listed each "game" (one post versus another) in segments along with the wording provided by the author when the post was submitted. I've also listed a keyword(s) after each post title to make it easy to vote (as a made-up example, you can just comment: Game 1 - Saving; Game 2 - Investing, etc.) Be sure to comment which one you like the best out of each set of two -- you will help determine the winner! Criteria for the best article is somewhat subjective, but you can use these factors as a guide: 1) practicality of the post 2) how interesting/provocative/unique it is, 3) the "personal-ness" of it and 4) its impact on net worth.

Here are today's games:

GAME 11

• Lost Money: How Money Drains Add Up To $175,000 In 10 Years (Lost) - This article gives us some numbers behind the "latte factor" -- how much money are we really frittering away on things we don't really need?  I found the information here the kind of thing that has inspired me to improve my saving and spending patterns, enough to make me cut down our household budget by 25% last year!  I hope this proves helpful to you as well.

VERSUS

• What Makes Kids Happy? (Kids) - This post meant the most to me this year as it got to the whole point of why we crunch numbers - to take care of the ones we love.  It's the story of when my youngest teaches me how being together doesn't cost much at all in an age of rampant consumerism.  It must have touched my readers as well as this was easily my most popular post of the year.

GAME 12

• Why you can't trust real estate agents when buying a house (Trust) - I really liked this post because it was a lot of fun to write and I know it probably helped a few people rethink their relationship with their real estate agent.

VERSUS

• Lower My Bills Cable Bill Edition (Lower) - If you ask 10 people what their cable bill is, you'll probably get 10 different answers and costs that range from dollars a day to obscene. These tips and tricks for handling your cable company and customer service in general will make sure that you don't bleed your wallet dry trying to watch Seinfeld reruns.

Comments

[tom]

Lost
Trust

[John Hutchinson]

Kids

Trust

[Neal Frankle]

kids
trust

[Bible Money Matters]

Lost
Trust

[Aron]

Game 11: Lost
Game 12: Lower

[Chris]

Kids
Trust

[Matt SF]

Lost
Trust

[Santos]

Geme 11: Kids

[Linksep]

That Lost money post is garbage... the numbers they use are in many cases insane...

Example: "Direct TV A basic program can run $100 a month"

Uh, no, "Basic" DirecTV runs $30 (50 Channels +Locals) and middle range runs $55/mo (after promotion period) for 150 channels.

Example: "Car washes Average cost $58 Cost of detailing every 2 months, for one year: $348"

Uh, no, car washes near me run $4-$9 at the gas station. And are we talking details or car washes? A so-called "express" detail (exterior only) runs about $50, but you only need something like that at MOST 2x per year, not every 2 months! (Where I come from a real exterior detail runs $99-$150 depending on the shop and type of vehicle, and the typical customer does that every 6-24 months.)

Example: "Expensive salon visits: fake nails Fake nails cost $500 to $600 Getting them done once a quarter for a year costs $2,000 to $2,400"

Seriously? I'm in the wrong business! My mom has had fake nails for like 25 years... She spends about $25/mo on fills ($25x12mo=$300...) $300 vs. $2,000...yep numbers are way wrong again.

That HAD the potential to be worth reading, but instead they took the main-stream-media approach to writing and simply made up a bunch of outrageous numbers just for a sensational headline...

[buster]

kids
lower

[KTa]

lost

lower

[LD]

kids

lower

[BD]

lower

To Linksep - you are completely ignoring the wide range of 'cost of living' differences across the country AND the fact that some people are (for better or worse) in the habit of paying much larger amounts of money for certain services.

Sure you can go get a $10 box of hair dye at Target, but you can also quickly spend > $200 to have a professional do it at a salon. When it comes to services like this, you get what you pay for.

[David]

Lost

Lower

[RK]

Lower

[Annie]

LOWER LOWER LOWER LOWER LOWER

[Glblguy]

Lost

Trust

[Patrick]

Lost
Trust

[Mrs. Micah]

Kids

Trust - I loved it the first time around...it's a great reminder that business relationships are just that. All parties are looking to make money and that's not wrong, it's just something you need to remember.

[The Wild Investor]

Lost
Trust

[Green Panda]

Game 11:Lost
Game 12:Trust

[Jeff Rose]

Kids
Trust

[jim]

Lost
Trust

[MoneyNing]

Kids
Trust

[rocketc]

Lost
Trust

[Praveen Puri]

kids
trust

[Zachary Scheidt]

Lost
Trust

[Emily@remodelingthislife]

Kids
Trust

[FMF]

These games are now over. The winners are:

Game 11: Lost
Game 12: Trust

Thanks to everyone for voting. Another set of games is out this morning -- be sure to vote!

[The Digerati Life]

This message is in response to Linksep's criticism of my post tagged as "Lost". Just to clarify, I live in Silicon Valley and lots of the rates and prices here are pretty crazy.

The numbers used here are empirical, nothing scientific. Still, the big picture is what counts. That small expenses add up. I hoped that there was a lesson to be learned here, regardless of whether the numbers shown were laser accurate.

Thanks to BD for the clarifications. :)