protandim Archives - Lazy Man and Money

Clark Howard is my twin – This weekend he said that he never had a cup of coffee. Ditto for me. Personal finance, geeky, non-coffee drinkers unite!
2 Minute Finance – Personal finance that fits my attention span, sign me up! I think you should look up Bobby Lee’s videos at 2 Minute Finance.
Feeling for Revanche – My heart goes out to Revanche from A Gai Shan Life. Losing a parent is tough.
DSW Clearance is Awesome – We finally got a DSW shoe store in Silicon Valley. I used to love them when I lived in the suburbs of Boston. However, the only one I knew of was in San Francisco, which had no parking and just far too much effort than it was worth. On Saturday I was able to pick up a pair of stylish Reebok Vibes (looks like these shoes and a pair of Keen’s for hiking/nature walks… for a total of $90. The Keens themselves would likely have cost $100 retail. My only complaint was that DSW didn’t open until 11 on Sunday… that just seems absurdly late to me. What about you?
NFL Thoughts – As a Patriots fan, I feel like I’ve been on the roller coaster the last week. Thirty-six hours ago the media was wondering if the Patriots would make the playoffs with the Bills and Jets tied with them for first place. One game later and the media is wondering if the Patriots have won the division with nearly half the season to go. It seems like everyone in the AFC is on a roller coaster though. Pittsburgh comes to mind as a team that started down, but surged… hit the expected tough game with Baltimore and lost only to bounce back. Balitmore lost to Seattle just yesterday. The Texans have emerged as a better than expected team. The afforementioned Bills are going downhill from the rollercoaster. I can’t even get into the Chargers season.
I don’t follow the NFC as much, but it seems like the Packers and 49ers are just rolling along in line to get playoff byes. I can tell you that the locals here in San Francisco are pumped to have the 49ers back playing great football.
Breaking Dawn on Schedule this week – Thanks to the NFL schedulers for putting the Patriots’ game on Monday, I’ll be free this weekend to catch Breaking Dawn, that Twilight movie thing. I would pay double the money if it were just 20 seconds of this still frame. Another side of me feels that I’ve come this far, I might as well finish off the series and earn my merit badge. I was looking at some Breaking Dawn party ideas from my friend’s site and it seems like this one centers around a wedding. They certainly aren’t trying to make this easy on me.

On that note let’s get to the personal finance links:

Top PF Posts:

Digerati Life discusses setting goals: 5 financial milestones to aim for by age 30.
My Dollar Plan presents 8 Extremely Unique Gift Ideas.
Generation X Finance posts say sayonara to these 8 bad shopping habits.
Million Dollar Journey goes over Canada’s most expensive and lowest cost MBA programs.
My Journey to Millions provides travel medical insurance and other travel tips.
Free From Broke writes 20 kids and counting: how to have a large and frugal family.
The Simple Dollar on that “Someday” thing.
Girls Just Wanna Have Funds posts about cold weather, money and energy saving tips.
Mighty Bargain Hunter chats on getting better deals by giving business.
PT Money blogs perfecting the perfect part time job: waiting tables.

My wife and I are doing a little traveling this week. We were at the San Francisco airport on Saturday where we searched out for a place to watch the Bruins-Canucks Stanley Cup Finals. Unfortunately the one with the with the best view of the game was the right next to a flight to British Columbia. There were a few people from Boston like ourselves waiting for our flight, but we were clearly out-numbered. It was a strange being in the United States and thinking, “We couldn’t even pull off a USA chant here.”

In a related note, Alex Burrows of the Canucks is in Boston tonight and I just hope he has Secret Service level security. I don’t really expect any difficulties, but after he bit a Bruins player, somehow avoided league suspension, and single-handedly won the second game there are likely some Bruin fans who may not react friendly towards him. I’m not condoning it, but recognizing that there are people who take sports a little too far and those people exist in Boston as they do everywhere.

Before I get to the links, I want to offer you a chance to win $10. I have a bit of a problem. My favorite hair pomade, one that I’ve used for nearly a decade now seems to have disappeared from store shelves. I say “seems” because I can’t be sure. Why am I not sure? Well, their product lasts so long that a single jar has lasted me multiple years. The name wears off the jar in the first couple of months. So it’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen the name of the product. Here is what I think I know. The brand name is around 6 letters long and starts with M. I think it has a “v” in it and maybe and “n” or a “d”. I think it has a consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, etc. structure. So I thought it was Movano or something like that. Unfortunately I can’t find any mention of anything close on the Internet. Additionally, the product has/had a blue plastic round jar and a silver top – similar shape as most pomades on the market. Anyway, I ask for you help on tracking this product down, even if it is just to confirm that the company went out of business. The first person who can help me resolve this wins $10 payable through Paypal. Feel free to use the comments below on this.

Now we are onto the links:

Money Writers: