Obviously, the only thing they wanted to stimulate was the growth of government.  Meanwhile, unemployment among the sheeple continues to grow.  And I suppose these 25,000 additional government employees will be paid without raising our taxes?

More of your hard-earned money goes down the drain.  What say you?

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Step 1 – Use cash for all your transactions.

Step 2 – Never spend $1 dollar bills.

Done.

What you’re going to do is use cash for everything and save all the $1 bills that are left over from your spending that day.  So let’s say you go to the grocery store and the total is $66.  You give the cashier $70 and you get $4 change.  That $4 can’t be spent now, it has to be set aside for your savings jar.

If the total was $65 and you got a $5 bill back, then you would still be able to use that $5 for more spending and you would save whatever $1 bills come out of the next transaction.  It’s very simple.

There’s More Benefits

Not only are you going to be saving a ton of money with this plan (and without any effort), you’re going to spend less and better see where your money goes.  Whenever you can get in the habit of using cash for expenses, do it. Studies show that people who use cash spend up to 20% less than people who use debit cards or credit cards.

As your cash piles up, make sure to keep it in a safe place.  At the end of the month (or every two weeks) deposit it in a savings account.  Depending on your spending habits this plan can help you save anywhere from $150 a month to three, four, or five hundred dollars a month.  What I like best about it is the sheer simplicity.

Have fun!

Live in the UK? You can find some useful money and debt management advice here.

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The phone conversation didn’t go as planned.

We wanted to order in the car so it would get there around the time when we were planning on arriving.  We’re not familiar with the area my friend lives in, but we had their address.  We decided we’d call information, ask for a Papa Johns in their city (not a huge city by any means), and hope to get directed to the closest store that would deliver (or get lucky and call the one we needed).

My wife called and information connected her.  Here’s the gist of the conversation:

My wife: I’m trying to find a store that can deliver to my friend’s address.

PJ: What’s the address?

My wife: [gives address]

PJ: What’s the name of the neighborhood?

My wife: I’m not sure.

PJ: I can’t help you if you don’t know the name of the neighborhood.

Wife wife promptly hung up and went to call our friends to ask the name of the neighborhood.  I stopped her.  I asked her if that seemed broken to her; that we wanted to buy a product from a business and they couldn’t direct us to a location that could help us even though we had a physical address.

I’m a business owner.  When I run into stupid broken stuff it’s usually pretty obvious to me even though it may not be to other people.  Most people might say, “they must need the name of the neighborhood for some good reason, I’ll hang up, get it, and call back.”

Not me.  You have to boil it down to simplicity.  I want to buy your product but you’d rather make me hang up, get more information, and then call you back even though I gave you better information in the first place.

They broke the connection.  They wanted me to hang up, do the leg work, and call them back.  Do they want my business or not?  I told my wife to call back and suggest that if a potential customer calls and has a physical address but not the name of a neighborhood that Papa Johns should search the address, find the closest store, and direct me to the right location for me!

She called, she suggested, she was berated.  “We can’t do that.  We’re not going to do that.  We don’t do that.”  And not even being civil, but in a tone that sounded like our suggestion was absurd.  My wife hung up on her.  I called back.

I again made the suggestion.  It was the same lady and she got defensive yet again (this was the store manager).  I boiled it down for her.  She still didn’t care.  I asked her why a company in 2009 doesn’t have the ability to look up an address and find a location that can serve it.  “I can’t do that.”  I don’t care what she can and can’t do, I want to know why she can’t.  I asked her if she had access to the internet to use Google maps.  “No.” Why not?  “Because our employees would misuse it.”

So the customer gets punished because Papa Johns can’t keep their employees in check?  This is getting better and better.

What’s the problem?

The Papa Johns website has a store locator on it.  You type in an address and they tell you the closest store.  If you call a Papa Johns and try to do this, it’s impossible.  Why does the physical location need the name of your neighborhood but the website doesn’t?  And what company can’t access their own website from their place of business?

If I call a Papa Johns in Alaska, they should be able to tell me which store will deliver to my address in Atlanta.

It’s obvious isn’t it?

So why does a manager reject my idea to fix a broken policy?  If you work for a company and their policy is obviously broken, don’t defend it!  If your customer has to do leg work to buy from you, that’s broken!  And not only did she not care, she had an attitude like I had asked her to do something only God can do.

I wonder if she realizes how much Papa Johns spends on gaining a new customer.  I wonder if she realizes how much work it takes and how many systems are required to get me to call Papa Johns and order pizza over Dominos, Pizza Hut, or any other chain.  If she didn’t, she probably wouldn’t throw all that out the window to defend a broken system and ignore an obvious solution.

So my first attempt at maintaing a relationship with PJ (being nice and calling Papa Johns and making a suggestion to fix their broken policy and ordering system) failed.

My only alternative solution is to not order pizza from Papa Johns.  We didn’t.  That’s what you get; business owners take note.

**Update**

Papa Johns’ feedback system is broken also.  I went to their site to submit this article to them for review and to ask for a response.  Their feedback form has 17 required fields, most of which require personal information such as address and phone number.  You also have to choose a specific store location, state whether you are a customer or employee, and so on.  It took me 5 minutes just to fill the form out and answer the stupid questions.

Obviously, Papa Johns doesn’t really want your feedback.  They provide no email addresses or other ways of electronically contacting them.  **Note that you can conveniently get everything in Spanish without much work though.

Even more broken than I thought.  We’ll see if someone from Papa Johns actually responds to the article I conveniently linked them to.

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I am not stupid. I want to make that clear because I often feel that way when I sabotage my finances and I don’t know why I do it.

I understand financial concepts. I know how to save money and I understand all the good advice that is available.  But despite all that, I find ways to sabotage my finances just when I think I’m going to finally get then in order.

I had finally saved up a $1000 emergency fund that I knew that I needed. I felt relief knowing that money was there and it was important for me to have it there. Then a friend asked me to go on a trip with her. I knew that I couldn’t afford it and that I should say that I couldn’t go. But I did and I spent the entire emergency fund. Even worse, I didn’t even enjoy the trip because the whole time I knew what I was doing was wrong and that I would have to start the emergency fund all over again. But I still did it any way and I can’t explain why.

This is just one example of how I constantly sabotage my finances after making progress on them. I think I may have a financial sabotage gene in my body. Is there anything I can do about it and does anyone else have a similar problem that they are fighting?

It’s a very deep and troubling question.  Unfortunately, the answer isn’t deep at all.  I’m currently writing a six-part series called “The 6 Stages of Personal Financial Transformation” that answers this question directly, so the timing of the question is pretty cool.  If you feel the way this reader does, make sure you look out for that series to get more insight into what stage you’re in and how to eventually make the transformation you’re looking for.

To answer the question without going into all the detail, it’s important to understand that personal finance is a cycle.  The reason you are sabotaging yourself is because you haven’t experienced the great epiphany that comes from reaching your financial nadir (lowest point).  You consciously understand that you’re doing something wrong, but you allow yourself to continue to break the rules because you don’t care enough yet.

There are two ways to care enough: keep making mistakes until you reach a level of depression that forces you to change long-term or exercise your right to choose and utilize your willpower to make it happen.

I will say that most people cannot choose to make a financial transformation.  They think they can, but they end up making short-term progress and then it’s back to business as usual.  This is where you are currently.  It’s the reason you saved up $1000 and then spent it.  You cared more about vacation than about your financial future.

Rest assured that eventually you will get fed up and make the necessary long-term progress you’re seeking.  But most of us don’t want to wait around that long.  So how do you choose to change and prevent it from being a short-term thing?  If there was an easy answer, everyone would be financially secure and stress-free.  The real question is: are you strong enough to choose or are you going to have to wait for the cycle to do it for you?

My suggestion to kick-start progress and fast forward the stages of transformation is to audit your financial history.  Go through the mistakes and missed opportunities in great detail.  Look at where you are and compare it to where you could be.  Anger yourself, depress yourself, and use those feelings as motivation.  Hopefully you’ll catch a long-term ride that eventually becomes the transformation you’re looking for.

If you find a better short-cut, let me know and we’ll both be rich.

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The average bank overdraft fee is $30 (from the first source I found).  I believe it.  I’ve personally never been charged anything under $30.  And the way they pile on the overdraft fees is pretty shady.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, they order the transactions to maximize the fees.  Most of them won’t admit to this, but it’s a little secret that most of us are aware of.

Here’s a quick example:

Let’s say you have $100 in your account.  You go make five purchases with your debt card…

• Breakfast – $10
• Lunch – $15
• Errand – $20
• 2nd Errand – $40
• Crap…out of gas – $50

Ooops, you made a mistake.  You spent $35 more than you had.  Maybe you were in a hurry and weren’t paying attention?  Perhaps you didn’t have your emergency fund card on you?  Oh well, the bank will charge you $30 and you’ll put your paycheck in tomorrow and you’ll be okay in the end.

But wait.  The bank can’t let that slide, there’s money to be stolen made here.

Here’s how the bank orders the transactions:

• Crap…out of gas – $50
• 2nd Errand – $40
• Errand – $20
• Lunch – $15
• Breakfast – $10

That warrants three overdraft charges for a total of $90.  Sly dogs.  For banks, it seems that dishonesty is the best policy.  They claim it’s easier to do it that way.  Are you serious?  No, they’re not serious, they just think you’re stupid.

I thought we were talking about usury?

I’m getting there.

I called my bank one time and asked them why it costs so much to overdraft my account.  The lady explained that it’s because they have to “loan” me the money.  Obviously, this is an accurate representation of the event.  I don’t have the money so the bank pays the charge for me and then charges me a fee.

In the example above, the bank loaned $35.  They charged $90 for that loan.  If we’re talking interest, that’s a loan with a 257% interest rate.  Sometimes, the amount loaned can be as little as $10 and still have the same amount of fees.  That would be 900%.

But it’s a fee, not an interest rate!

Well, that’s true.  But what’s the difference?  Can I escape usury by calling it a “fee” instead of an “interest rate”?  Does semantics protect me from the law?  And even if it’s truly a fee and not a rate:

Usury (pronounced /ˈjuːʒəri/, comes from the Medieval Latin usuria, “interest” or “excessive interest”, from the Latin usura “interest”) originally meant the charging of interest on loans. This would have included charging a fee for the use of money…

Wikipedia confirms that it doesn’t matter either way.

But you’re a free market guy!

Yeah, I am.  But the way the banks go about this is dishonest.  First, they order the transactions from largest to smallest to multiply the fees.  Second, they allow the overdrafting transaction to go through without buyer input (often multiple times–and if I don’t have money, decline the card!).  Third, they use other cheap tricks like holding deposits and other tactics to illegitimately cause you to incur fees.

No, they shouldn’t be charged with usury.

I don’t want the banks to be charged under usury laws.  I brought up usury to help show you how horrendous those fees are.  I brought up the order of transactions to show you how dishonest the bank’s policies are.  What I want from this article is for consumers to WTF^ (that’s blog-speak for wake the %^&* up).

The reason they charge these fees, use these tactics, and show blatant disregard and disrespect for their clients is because you let them. It’s beyond me why organizations like Bank of America and Citi still have any customers.

You let them charge the fees, you let them hold your deposits, you let them b.s. you at every turn.  Why?  You need to understand that in a free market, you vote with your feet.  When people mistreat you, leave! We’re all suffering because we have failed to unite as a group against this nonsense.  I don’t want the government to save me, I want my fellow Americans to WTF^ and get with the program.  Until a majority of the consumers learn to say NO, nothing is going to change.

Fortunately, we have innovative organizations like ING Direct that appear to be lighting up the darkness.  But we could have more organizations like ING if we learned how to punish organizations that misbehave by not accepting the abuse and voting with our feet.  It’s our fault.  Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

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Richard St. John’s 8 Secrets of Success:

If you follow other blogs, you’ll note their recommended reading lists are quite long.  I don’t think most people have the time or patience to go through recommended reading lists so every Friday I offer one easily consumeable article or video that I think you’ll enjoy.  When you see a “recommended reading” article from TMH, rest assured it’s going to be short, sweet, and of great value.

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Johnny has a net worth of $200k.  He currently has a cashflow surplus of $15,000 a year that he is able to invest.

They are both 35 years old.

Who would you rather be?

Jack has a net worth of ten million dollars, but he has 2 million dollars in business debt on a failing business that is eating up his cash flow.

Jill has a net worth of 2 million dollars, no debt, and has a strong business that is creating enough income for her to sustain her lifestyle and invest for the future.

Who would you rather be?

If dad A has a net worth of $1 million but no life insurance or long term care insurance and dad B has a net worth of $500k with half a million in life insurance and a solid long term care insurance policy, who would you rather be the kin of?

If husband A has a net worth of 100 million and works 7 days a week traveling the world for his company with a few weeks of vacation and husband B has a net worth of $300k, owns a business where he only has to work three days a week and can take 2 months of vacation a year and is always home with the kids at some point during the day, who would rather be the wife of?  Which husband would you rather be?

What does net worth have to do with anything?

Comment section is open.

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This boondoggle is the first of many to come. Rest assured there will be more companies and then entire states (it’s not looking good for California right now).

I was going to write about why this is a really bad thing but my friend Tough Money Love beat me to the punch (I’ve been busy working on The Complete Financial Makeover (a free 30 day personal finance course) and a six part guest post series coming soon called “The 6 Stages of Personal Financial Transformation–look out for both of those this month!)

So without further ado, I’m going to let TML explain this one:

Six Things Not to Like About Obama Motors

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This is the Information Age.  Notice I said “information” age not “education” age.  Education as we know it is a broken system.  The only system of education that is valuable in the Information Age and beyond is what I called “aeonian education”.  I believe it’s the only way to protect your value and increase your worth in today’s (and tomorrow’s) market.

Aeonian Education

Aeonian education is eternal education.  It’s continuous from the beginning of your working life to the end of it.  Previous generations could survive with four years of college and decades of hard work in the corporate world.  Tomorrow’s generation will need 40 years of evolving education to sustain value in the marketplace.

What does that mean?

In short, never stop learning, evolving, adapting, and innovating.  Stay on top of the new information as it is released.  You can do this by self-educating (books, blogs, and other similar mediums), apprenticing, experimenting and being the innovator, and consuming.

Self-educating

How many non-fiction books do you read a month?  I typically finish two or three non-fiction books each month.  Most are on business and marketing.  Many are on other subjects I find valuable.  And I try to choose a few on subjects I’ve never dabbled in before.

The point is that self-educating is a must.  Today, you can download a book in 10 seconds from anywhere in the world and learn a hundred new things reading it.  This is precisely why the Information Age is sweeping us over.  Communication has never been this easy.  If you aren’t self-educating, you’re going to be left behind.

And it’s not just books; check out blogs and other types of media.  Universities charge thousands of dollars to teach you irrelevant material.  The leaders of the Information Age provide much of the knowledge you need to stay competitive free in the public domain.  It doesn’t get any easier.

Apprenticing

It’s strange how the circle of life works.  In an age where information travels instantly and electronically, we’re going to need to rely on a system of learning that was creating in the middle ages when none of this stuff existed; apprenticeship.

Today, it’s not going to be a huge university that teaches you the next big thing, it’s going to be someone you know who already knows the next big thing.  Universities can’t keep up with relevant information, much less next big things.  In the Information Age, the next big thing can be learned free or fairly cheap from someone in your network.

My friend is a graphic designer who is with the curve (and sometimes ahead of it).  If I wanted to learn that level of graphic design, he’d teach me much of it free and the rest of it if I did a little work for him or exchanged favors.  Who needs four years of a graphic design school that teaches stuff that was relevant 3 years ago when you have an actual graphic designer sitting next to you willing to show you what’s needed to succeed now.

Experimenting and being the innovator

Always trying to keep up with new innovations in your field is okay, but it takes a lot of work.  It certainly pays better to be the innovator.  And what better way to learn and stay ahead of the curve than to experiment, fail, repeat, and then change the curve yourself by eventually succeeding and creating the next big thing that everyone now has to learn and keep up with?

Consuming

For information you can’t find someone to teach you and that’s not available in the public domain, there’s always a person willing to sell it to you.  After all, this is a marketplace.  It’s cool when it’s free or when someone’s willing to sit down and teach you, but sometimes we have to bite the bullet and go back to being a consumer.

Pertinent information can always be bought.  There’s always a course, seminar, or other form of training and education.  Always.

You can’t afford not to keep up.

Previous generations would get a job and keep it for 40 years.  Today, if you’re not staying ahead of the curve, you’re lucky to keep one for four.  There’s no patience for irrelevance anymore.  Without Aeonian Education you’re worthless or at least on your way to being worthless.  The average person can’t keep up.  This means it’s easy for you to be above average.  All it takes is a decision and persistant focus.

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(if you’re using a reader, you may need to click through to watch this video)

If you’re having trouble with the video, try the direct link.

If you have any thoughts on this Townhall for Hope event, post them in the comments section.  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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