The price of stamps goes up an entire penny on Monday. If you use a lot of stamps you may consider buying 100 of the Forever Stamps at $41. This will save $1 vs. buying them next week. I know a great many people that will consider this. Some of them will use 20 minutes of their and 80 cents of gas to save that dollar.
I just got back from the post office, I had some other errands to run. I asked the clerk if people were buying more Forever Stamps. She said that they were flying off the shelves. She said that everyone is trying to save a little money. I made a comment about how they’d likely earn more in interest if they put the money in a bank or CD. I don’t think the clerk realized why. In the end, she had more customers to take and I had to be on my way.
If you were thinking about running out to buy stamps, I’d think twice. Is it really worth the savings? I’d rather focus on something bigger. A couple of packages of Ramen noodles isn’t going to make my day.
Posted by Lazy Man on May 9, 2008 in
News
[The following is an excerpt for an article that I have written for Prosper.com. The full article is available at Celebrate Mother’s Day the Way You Think She’d Want You To.]
Local cable has been running a television commercial that simply rips my heart out. A young girl around eight goes into a jewelry store with her dad and her bright pink piggy bank. The dad helps her pick out some jewelry for mom and the commercial ends with everyone smiling and happy. Even though it’s […]
Posted by Lazy Man at Prosper on May 9, 2008 in
Lazy Man Prosper Articles
“I’m the assistant to the traveling secretary. I’m going on the road trips with them! I’ll be on the plane… I’m working in Yankee Stadium! This is a dream, I’m busting, Jerry, I’m busting!” — George Costanza
I’m excited… like George I’m busting. A friend and I have a business idea that we think simply can’t fail. Like of the best ideas out there, it just fell into our lap. We’ve sat down and crunched the numbers about 30 different ways and each time, it’s profitable… very profitable. Our costs could potentially be low. The value we add would be great. The barrier to entry for other competitors is not huge, but it’s enough. That’s about all I can say for now - I’m not going into specifics while we are in stealth mode.
I haven’t felt like this since college. A good friend and I would stay up all night dreaming about business plans. We thought about putting on a mini-Woodstock at our college. We figured there would be no way we couldn’t clear a lot of money. We later found that there were a lot of difficulties in running a concert - we simply didn’t have the industry knowledge to know how much work there was. One of our other ideas was a premium vodka bottle - with cheap vodka inside - sold at a premium price. Our theory was that the bottle would convince people that the vodka inside was actually better than it was. I’m not sure it was the best idea, but you see a similar thing in the wine industry sometimes.
The result of this new business opportunity has me extremely excited. It’s amazing how much energy I’ve found. It’s night and day versus the time I was working full-time looking at another 35 years of the same routine each day.
Maybe the idea will flop. There is always the chance that our potential customers won’t understand the value we can provide. We believe we can build a very compelling case with oodles of independent research. Even in this worst case scenario, I’ll look back to what I’m feeling now and realize how successful it was. The power of a dream is priceless.
Photo Credit: Elfeda
Posted by Lazy Man on May 8, 2008 in
Psychology
The recently expired merger offer from Microsoft to Yahoo got me thinking about two things: what went wrong and what can we learn from it. On a lot of levels the merger makes a lot of sense. Microsoft needs to ramp up their search capabilities to compete with Google. Acquiring Yahoo would give them a boost in the right direction. There are a lot of other parts to Yahoo’s business that would also help Microsoft’s cause. So why isn’t Microhoo up and battling against Google today?
Corporate Culture Clash
Nearly ten years ago, I worked for an Internet media/publishing company. We had a rival in the exact same space. It was Coke/Pepsi, McDonalds/Burger King. Each day we woke up and tried to think up with a way to get their readers. I’m sure they did they same for us. One day we woke up and something had changed… their company had acquired us.
How do you think this turned out? If you said disastrously, you’d get the gold star. We resented them. They had most of the high-level execs. Our social capital was destroyed - each employee had to prove themselves to a new boss. And then there was The Big Project… merging the two companies publishing systems. Each engineer knew that they were digging the grave of their job - each line of code written was a small shovel of dirt.
What is different about Yahoo and Microsoft? I don’t see much as they’ve been corporate enemies for too long
Don’t Get Greedy
Sometimes the best offer is the first offer. Yahoo reportedly thought that Microsoft would raise their first offer. Instead of taking the 40% gain and running with it, Yahoo wanted to stick it out for another 10%.
There’s a big myth that you should never take the first offer. That’s bovine excrement. If the first offer is a good one, then you should take it. I’m usually not a big fan of Microsoft, but in this instance they did what I would have done… come with the best offer.
Get it in writing
Yahoo said Microsoft never put it’s $33/share offer in writing. I’m dumbfounded that people who run billion dollar corporations would let this stop them. How difficult is it for Yahoo to say, “That $33/share offer interests us. Could you put it writing and we’ll have our people look it over?” I can’t imagine anything easier.
Every now and again someone approaches me about some business opportunity related to this website. The person often want me to call them. I almost universally reject the invite to speak on the phone. I want a written record (even if it’s e-mail) of any potential business deal. If she/he can’t describe the proposal in an e-mail, it’s not one I would be interested in.
In the end, I think Microsoft and Yahoo could work this out - the deal is not over. However, if they can’t work together at this stage, it can’t bode well for a potentially merged company.
Posted by Lazy Man on May 7, 2008 in
Psychology
Chrysler is touting a new promotion that promises to make $2.99 gas available to Americans who buy a new car from them. The timing couldn’t be better. With gas averaging over $4.00 in my area of San Francisco, I can personally say that I’ve witnessed some concerned people. So is Chrysler’s promotion a good deal?
Chrysler’s Offer in Detail
Chrysler is offering a gas credit card. Use the card where you buy gas and your statement will reflect the $2.99 rate (Chrysler pays the difference so the gas station still gets their money). The offer is only for the first 12,000 miles a year for three years. It excludes some vehicles like gas guzzler Dodge Viper, the popular Chrysler Crossfire, and some others. If your gas requires premium, the $2.99 cap becomes $3.29.
Math of Chrysler’s Offer: Two Examples
- Great case - Let’s try to make a compelling case for this offer. Assume that you live in San Francisco and pay an average of $4.25 gas over the next three years. While gas could always jump to $6.00 a gallon, I think this may be realistic given how much it’s already jumped. Let’s assume that you get 20 miles per gallon in the car that you choose to buy. This is low for many of the models, but I’m being conservative. Let’s assume that you drive the full 12,000 miles each of the three years. Given this scenario you’ll use 600 gallons of gas a year or 1800 gallons. Saving $1.26 a gallon leads to $2,268 in savings
- Average case - BusinessWeek offers a good average case example. It assumes you drive a more average car, use all the gas, and that gas prices stay at the national average, $3.61. It’s not exactly an average case as you aren’t likely to use the full benefit and gas prices aren’t likely to stay at today’s national average for three years. Those two may cancel each other out. BusinessWeek’s scenario says that it will save you $858 over the three years.
Buy or Don’t Buy
I imagine very few people will be able to take advantage of the best case scenario. There’s also the risk that if gas prices somehow drop, the benefit goes down greatly. On the other hand, what if this Goldman Sachs analyst’s $200 oil prediction is right? In that scenario, Chrysler may regret it’s offer. I think too many factors have to fall into place for this to pay off. I’d rather negotiate for cash savings at the time of the car’s purchase than take this gamble. However, if this does sound enticing to you, maybe you should also look at Suzuki’s free summer of gas promotion.
Two Better Plans
If you are really worried about gas prices, I would suggest buying a depreciated used car. Saving $2,000 when you are spending $30,000 is not something to celebrate too much. Buying a $30,000 car a couple of years old is still a better deal in my mind. If it has depreciated 30%, you’ll have saved around $10,000.
Five months ago, Generation X Finance told you how to make money with high gas prices. If you read the article and bought Powershares DB Oil Fund (DBO), you’ll notice that your investment has grown about 30%. If you invested $10,000, you’ll have $3,000 in gains - which buys a lot of gas. In my opinion, this is the best way to guarantee yourself low gas prices.
I would suggest that your best plan is combine these two ideas. Buy a used car and use the money you save to invest in oil and other gas related stocks. Oil may seem expensive now, but 10 years from now, we’ll look back at the good old days when we only paid $4.00 a gallon for gas.
Posted by Lazy Man on May 6, 2008 in
Psychology
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