Lazy Man and Money

Google Trends

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Google unleashed a new service called Google Trends yesterday. This makes it very easy to compare what people are searching for on the Internet. If that doesn’t excite you and get the creative juices, I think you are beyond my help. Seriously, there’s got be about 100 ways to monetize this. I spent some time doing searches for local cities to see if there’s a correlation to real estate prices. Whatever that is, I feel like Google Sets should play a role in making sure you have all the relevant data.

If anyone has any other ideas (besides the obvious stock market searches), please drop me a comment.

Fed Raises Rates Again

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For those of you with credit card debt or home owner equity debt look for a bigger payment in the next month or two. I’ve never carried credit card debt, but I do have an Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). So while I’m sure this should encourage me to try to pay off the HELOC quicker than normal, it seems like I could Prosper more by taking a different path.

By my calculations, I’m paying about 5.25% on my HELOC when you count deducting the interest from taxes. The 11.5% that I get after fees from Prosper.com translates to about 8.25% after taxes. That gain of 3% isn’t a lot, because I don’t have a lot of money in there, but maybe I should step it up a bit.

Don’t forget to read my Prosper Review

Baseball Mogul – what’s that have to do with money?

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I play a game called Baseball Mogul. You play the general manager of a baseball club. Your responsibilities are drafting players, trading players, and managing the financials. Provide your team with the right resources and you’ll be winning World Championships. However, make bad trades, and overpay free agents and you’ll make Tampa Bay look good. On it’s own the game is fun, but it takes several steps up when you play it against other people online.

Here are a few of the things you learn:

  • As Robert Kiyosaki would say… Formulas. You probably can’t apply these baseball formulas to earn you a cent, but it gives you practice in developing a working system.
  • Finances. You have to maximize your team’s revenue and be sure that you have enough money to pay the players. It’s not usually the type of game that a George Steinbrenner would succeed with.
  • Negotiating. When you are in the online leagues, you learn a lot about negotiating when you are trying to trade with other players. It’s a life long skill.
  • Marketting. When you are trying to trade your players, you need to market them well.

The game typically costs around $20. It’s a small investment for all the skills you learn. The best part is that you have so much fun, you don’t realize you are learning.

Save Money or Grow Money… How about Both?

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The timing couldn’t be better for Moomin Valley’s “Reflections on PF Bloggers” (via Adventures in Money Making). When I started this blog, I realized that I had two very different influences. On one hand, I just finished Rich Dad, Poor Dad which is about making money. On the other hand, I grew up in household where Sunday morning was for clipping coupons.

So maybe that will be the niche that makes this blog successful. One can dream, can’t he?

[Update: I misjudged Aventures in Money Making a bit. I had figure them to be largely about the growth of money, but on further review there are a few tips on how to get the most of your income.]

Buying a car for fuel efficiency

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My fiancee has recently moved in with me and has made the sacrifice or lengthening her commute from the “get out of bed and slide into work in 10 minutes” to the “break out the iPod because it’s going to be awhile” time of 40 minutes. I have had to commute more than 40 minutes before and it’s not that bad, but losing an hour a day is a shock. I’ve thought about giving in and moving a little closer to her work (I enjoy the 10 minute commute now) when we look for the next home, but I’m not that comfortable moving that far outside of Boston. I’m already further than I really intended to ever be, but with housing prices what they are, it’s necessary.

Here’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She has an SUV that simply guzzles gas like no tomorrow. We can’t really get rid of it, because we always seem to be moving some big thingamajig. My car doesn’t get the greatest MPG, but it’s better. We switched cars a couple of times, but I can tell that’s not something she feels overly comfortable with. She’s mentioned possibly getting a third car for commuting. Seems like it’s not a terrible idea as long as our insurance doesn’t sky rocket and we get the condo to allow us to park a third car.

So this is where I ask for your help. If you could buy a car now as the most cost effective way to travel about 60-70 miles a day, what would you get? I’m eliminating a new cars as it would take too long to recoup the cost of gas when you factor in depreciation. I get the feeling it’s going to be between a 4-5 year old Miata, the first year the Prius was made, or some kind of Kia/Hyundai that gets decent milage.

Give me your suggestions and in a future I’ll run some rough numbers.