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Archive for September, 2007

The Online Grocery Pricer

September 29th, 2007

I’m working on the online grocery price comparison application (no name yet, if you can think of one, let me know… and I don’t want something missing a vowel, please). I’m hoping to have something for people to beta test in the coming weeks. Features planned include the following:

Personal staples
Personal store locations
Optimized shopping list based on store locations you’ve chosen for your shopping trip. Buy items at the store with the best recent price
Price history charts (look at pricing trends)
Adding prices as a community so that it operates as more of a grocery wiki than just a one-person tool
Item tags/categories for faster searches
[hopefully] mobile device oriented so that you don’t have to use it at home but can use it in the store
Find stores in your area with google search & maps if the store isn’t already in the database

What’s missing? Can anyone make a suggestion based on what you’re after? Currently its oriented to the US, but I do hope to make it internationalized in the future.

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Posted in General, Outside the Box

More on Identity Theft with WaMu Debit Cards

September 28th, 2007

[disclosure: I have a relative that currently works at WaMu]

I bank at Washington Mutual for several reasons (the relative that works there is not allowed to serve my family to keep everything above board – I also don’t usually go to the branch where the relative works), but one of them is that I can setup as many checking accounts as I need to. The purpose of this feature is this: I can transfer funds into a checking/debit account and use it for online transactions. If something goes wrong and I somehow get scammed I can close down the account and setup another account. The loss is limited to the amount that I might leave in that account. The upside with the account is this: I can transfer money in and out of it as needed and the money is in the account as I need it rather than floating large sums with higher risk in the case of identity theft for that one account.

Other banks offer this sort of service, too, so I recommend you check with your bank and make sure that you are staying ahead of things by 1) always paying with cash/debit so that you know its money that you have to spend rather than spending ‘pretend’ money on a credit card and 2) only exposing yourself to limited risk when you have to use the card online or in public by only keeping limited amounts of cash in the account.

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Posted in Tips'n'Tricks

Guarding Against Identity Theft

September 28th, 2007

One of the best ways to block identity theft according to the Discover Card mailing I got is to pay them $12.99 a month (sure glad I could keep the penny out of the thirteen dollars). However, I’ve got another theory: dump the cards. Once I pay off this credit card I’m going to dump it. Gone. I’m hoping, like Dave Ramsey, to have a credit score of 0 (zero, zilch, nada, nothing). I’d rather pay with cash.

I’d love to seem them steal the identity of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin [I actually know a guy named Benjamin Franklin, so technically I guess they could take his ID, but it wouldn't be the guy with his face on money - at least yet]. If you pay Discover $12.99 a month for a year you will have spent $155.88. That would be enough money to go have a nice dinner with my wife. That would be enough money to sock away for 20 years in a moderate investment (returning 8%) and get $8,430.59 saved up. If you could get more interest and save longer you’d really have something. Say for example that you got 12% interest for 30 years: $46,803.36. You know that Discover/Novus is going to be using your money for investing while you don’t have an ID theft issue.
I’m going to side with me making money and not risking identity theft by using cash on the off chance that my children want an inheritance.

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Posted in Debt, Foundations, Investing, Retirement, Savings Opportunities, Tips'n'Tricks

Online Security: TWiT Scalds Mint.com

September 28th, 2007

If you have your financial info on mint.com the folks at TWiT (Leo LaPorte, John C. Dvorak in particular) are not suggesting you keep it there due to the potential for online hackers to compromise the data. On their weekly tech podcast TWiT episode 114 they specifically suggest you shut down your account. I use Wesabe.com myself, but the system that Wesabe has in place doesn’t give the website direct access to your financial information you have to upload it yourself and it appears that no critical data is stored off of your computer.

Is Mint dangerous? Their security statements lead me to believe that they’re working hard to keep your financial data safe. However, in the case of all digital data there is risk involved with computers being hacked, hard drives crashing or computers being lost. Any time you work with data that is of value or has some privacy concerns it should be backed up, stored in multiple secure locations, and checked for expiry so that you can destroy it appropriately as soon as it is no longer needed.

I would welcome the folks from mint.com, wesabe.com and any online financial institution to contact me for further discussion so that I can publish an interview here or in a podcast episode.

Update: Both Mint.com and Wesabe.com have contacted me and I’m hoping to get some interview action soon! Thanks to both companies for being so quick and willing! See the comments for Mint’s initial reaction.

5 comments »

Posted in General

Several Sites Link to Other Sites, WMMM Included

September 27th, 2007

So today two different sites did two different things that happened to link to Watch My Money Maker. The Gather Little By Little blog linked as a daily RSS read, and I reciprocate – I read every GLBL post in my RSS reader. The Hustler Money Blog graded a huge number of sites for content quality and newness. This blog ranked lower than I’d like, but I guess that I can shoot for something better next year.

My RSS reads for Personal Finance and Money Management are available as an OPML download.

1 comment »

Posted in General, Go Read This

Money Management Poetry

September 26th, 2007

I love poetry. I don’t read it as often as I probably should. The vivid language, the passion it often instills… its just dynamic and wonderful. So I was thinking that it would be fun to have a clever poetry writing competition. Nothing big, no big prizes, but I desire to get some good financial poetry collected for folks to link to and read. If you’ve got a contribution please post it on your own blog or here in the comments and as I get them submitted I’ll put links to them throughout their publication. I have one stipulation: please keep the poetry clean – keep all of the potty words to yourself and think of some other clever ways to describe your scenario. Got a limerick? Got a Haiku? Got a deep rhyme? Let me know.

Haiku
gentle pressure here
buy this device now, fine sir
put it on credit

Limerick [which mentions financial things but is kinda software related]
There once was a man from Seattle
Whose software I constantly battle
But he’s made him a mint from an OS I resent
That the people eat up like they’re cattle

Thanks to my buddy Jeremy who sent me some poetry to read on my birthday!

1 comment »

Posted in General

Rich as Defined by My Five Year Old

September 23rd, 2007

Change My five year old told me that she was richer than her friend. Rich. I asked her why she thought she was rich and she told me that she had lots and lots of money. Of course her valuation of the various coins she has is probably not right. Each coin counts as one coin – and so if she has four hundred coins then she has four hundred. Not dollars, not cents, just four hundred. I then proceeded to explain to her that wealth is evaluated differently based upon different assets. I have a relative that some would describe as ‘land wealthy’ because the estimated value of his land might be a high dollar amount. I have a friend who has lots of possessions that are worth a lot of money all together.

My daughter’s estimation of being rich and my desire to some day have accumulated some wealth are very, very different scales but the discussion reminds me of the need to teach her about money and personal finance. If she can start out her life with a better sense of financial stability and a plan for her future financial goals she’ll be rich. Not as much, or maybe more, than her friends but hopefully she’ll be able to teach them a thing or two and they can teach her a thing or two as well. Educating my daughters about faith, finances and most importantly my love for them are things I strive every day to do.

2 comments »

Posted in Foundations, Lesson Learned, Money Management

October: The First Month on the Envelope System

September 23rd, 2007

Next month we’re going to switch over to the envelope system to help us keep our spending under tight wraps. There’s no reason for us to accidentally splurge with a few excess expenditures so we’re switching over to make sure we’re on top of things in our budget. We’re also going to keep our focus on the short term, medium and long term goals not losing sight of where we want to be in each of these stages. I’ve started work on the online price book but my wife has also begun a paper based price book for the short term so that we can maximize our groceries. The two major grocery chains near our house are King Sooper (AKA Kroger) and Safeway (AKA Tom Thumb). So far she says that Safeway has slightly lower prices on many of the staple items and that the twenty cents savings per gallon of milk will not make up for hauling our two girls in and out of the car, through the store, and then back to the car again. I concur.

What are your plans to make October a great month for your finances?

2 comments »

Posted in Money Management, Savings Opportunities

Save Money: Get Some Sleep

September 22nd, 2007

I paid $6.75 for some coffee and a bad banana muffin at Starbucks this morning. At 6:00 in the morning. After having gotten up at 4:30. And going to bed at midnight the night before. I was short on sleep and had to stay awake and was victim to the circumstances. I could have had worse, but cheaper, coffee at the Burger King in the airport, but the Starbucks siren called out to me. The muffin on the other hand seemed to look less like cake and more like nutrition. Instead it tasted like funky banana and oily bread. Such is life. I could have saved the money had I gotten more sleep. Lesson Learned.

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Posted in Lesson Learned, Savings Opportunities

You Can Drink a Million Dollars Into Thin Air

September 20th, 2007

I saw a large chunk of cash spent this evening at a bar that I was at for a work function. At $5.00 a pop or more a regular drinking habit could cost cost a daily drinker a million dollars in investment money. Of course you’d need to start early in your drinking assumptions and get higher interest rates, but a regular drinking habit is not any better than a regular smoking habit. If you or someone you know drinks expensive alcohol regularly you could be risking the difference between a great retirement and a paltry scrimping by. Think about the long term ramification of the latte factor or the rum & coke factor.