Be Smarter About Your Credit

Check out the graphic below to see what mistakes you might be making with your credit and how you can go about fixing those mistakes. via: NextAdvisor

Buy It for Life: Safety Razor

Switching from to a safety razor from you standard disposable razor or razor cartridges is a little like stepping back in time. A safety razor is a much like many classic inventions of the past. It’s a heavy, well built metal machine that can be past down to your children's children, as opposed to the modern disposable variety.

From Wikipedia

A safety razor is a shaving implement with a protective device positioned between the edge of the blade and the skin. The term was first used in a patent issued in 1880, for a razor in the basic contemporary a removable blade is placed (although this form predated the patent). Its edge was protected by a comb patterned on various types of protective guards that had been affixed to open-blade straight razors during the preceding decades. Some safety razors in present-day production retain a comb but the more common protective device is now a solid safety bar. The initial purpose of these protective devices was to reduce the level of skill needed for injury-free shaving, thereby reducing the reliance on professional barbers for providing that service and raising grooming standards. Prior to the introduction of the disposable razor blade by King C. Gillette in 1901, however, safety razor users still needed to strop and hone the edges of their blades. These are not trivial skills (honing frequently being left to a professional) and remained a barrier to the ubiquitous adopting of the be your own barber ideal.

You will also save money switching over to a safety razor. The reduce costs of ownership is due to the fact that an 8 pack of your standard four/five blade cartridge razors can cost over $20. While the cost of a double edged safety razor blade will cost a few pennies at most. How many plastic disposable razors end up in trash every year? How many cheaply made products travel around the globe to be used a couple of times before they are thrown out? How many plastic disposable blade cartridges have you bought and at what cost?

Save money and resources with a product that is built to last generations. Look into a safety razor for less expensive and more comfortable shave, like your grandpa use to.

Update: How to Shave Like Your Grandpa | AoM Instructional

 

Where do you keep your spare change?

I wonder where people keep there spare change? I know some people keep there spare change in some odd or out of the way places.

I keep mine in an old five gallon water bottle. Is that the best place for it? Definitely not, but it does keep it in one place until I have a good amount to deposit in a interest bearing account.

In my car I keep it in an old plastic gum container in the center cup holder for the occasional toll roads.

And yes, your sofa cushions can count as a depository for your loose change.  So where does you change end up intentional or otherwise?  

Do I need an an Emergency Fund?

Do I need an an Emergency Fund? Short answer yes, long answer.... this is where it gets tricky, still yes.

Because life is expensive even when everything goes right. An emergency fund can become a life line for you in case of emergencies. Having access to emergency cash to cover unexpected expenses gives you peace of mind that you are covered if the odd occurrence ever happens.

It also prevents you from digging yourself deeper into a hole by using emergency savings instead using your credit card for emergencies.

Your emergency fund should be liquid and easy to access. Weather you place it in a bank or keep it under your bed, it should take a minimum amount of effort to gain access to.

In an ideal world your emergency fund goal should encompass 6 to 12 months of living expenses. However due to it being an imperfect world a short term emergency fund goal should be $1000-5000. With this amount you can take care of most non-medical emergencies. You also want to ensure that your account constantly at your set goals, so whenever you use funds from your emergency account, replenish it as soon as possible.

Buy It for Life: Cast Iron Skillet

Cast iron skillets are know for their durability and their ability to retain heat. A good and properly seasoned cast-iron will be nonstick and pass down to your children's children. Cast iron can last hundreds of years if cared for, and can even be bought back to life with a little TLC.

A seasoned pan has a stick-resistant coating created by layer oils and fats. The seasoning layer protects the cookware from rusting, provides a non-stick surface for cooking, and prevents food from interacting with the iron of the pan.

Cast iron fell out of favor in the 1960s and 1970s, when teflon-coated non-stick cookware was introduced to the public. However, the durability and reliability of  teflon-coated  pans vary greatly and last only a few months to a few years.

With cast iron skillets, there are two grades of to choose from. The first is where molten iron is poured into a mold which leaves a rough surface. The second is where they take the molded skillet and machine out the cooking surface in order to make it smoother. But that machining process dose increases the price.

Cast iron pans can serve dual-purpose as stove-top fryers and baking dishes. With recipes that call for the use of a cast iron skillet to initially sear or be fried on the stove-top then placed into an oven to finish baking.

With a quality cast iron pan you gain a great buy it for life product that will last lifetimes. 

Story of Stuff

Buy It for Life

Buy it for life covers a wide range of high quality products that are built to last a lifetime. I noticed that most products are not built to last, but to fail after a set amount of time. Planned obsolescence is now the norm and not the exception.

From Wikipedia
Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design is a policy of planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, that is, unfashionable or no longer functional after a certain period of time. Planned obsolescence has potential benefits for a producer because to obtain continuing use of the product the consumer is under pressure to purchase again, whether from the same manufacturer (a replacement part or a newer model), or from a competitor which might also rely on planned obsolescence.

For an industry, planned obsolescence stimulates demand by encouraging purchasers to buy sooner if they still want a functioning product. Built-in obsolescence is used in many different products. There is, however, the potential backlash of consumers who learn that the manufacturer invested money to make the product obsolete faster; such consumers might turn to a producer (if any exists) that offers a more durable alternative.

Estimates of planned obsolescence can influence a company's decisions about product engineering. Therefore, the company can use the least expensive components that satisfy product lifetime projections. Such decisions are part of a broader discipline known as value engineering.

Planned obsolescence creates a class of products that drives unsustainable consumption. Products made in which repairs are comparable to the replacement cost, or designed to difficult to repair. Which leads to products that must be bought multiple times.

So in order to prevent ourselves for getting deeper in debt, buying it for life reduces the amount debt that we compile. This approach requires us to take into consideration our allocation resources which includes time, money, and many other factors. 

You're not your ...

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. Tyler Durden