Ten Things I Think I Think (and Personal Finance Links)

1. Big Amazon Purchase – I think I made a good Amazon purchase, but it took awhile to pull the trigger. All weekend I sat and thought whether I was making the right decision with the nearly $400. I probably shouldn’t have thought about it that long since it will save me $23 a month for quite a long time. In 17 months, I should break even and every month after that will be gravy. Regular readers can probably figure out the purchase. For the rest of you, I’ll leave it as a teaser for tomorrow’s article.
2. Best Money Saving Tip – I think that’s my best money-saving tip – sitting and thinking about a big purchase like that Amazon one I mentioned above.
3. Love Hate with Costco – I think I can’t tell whether I love or hate Costco. Two weeks ago, I noticed that the one near me started carrying nd featuring Jimmy Dean D’Lights, which are a healthier fast breakfast alternative. They also offer them at a good price… under a dollar. However, last week they were gone – no longer available. Then they stopped carrying canned dog food. It seems that Costco has moved all the staples so that they can fit in extra impulse buy items for the holidays. Bad form, Costco.
4. Costco Part 2 – I think that Costco near me had an interesting item for sale this week. I noticed that you could buy a case of wine for $7600. I know I live in Silicon Valley where many people have that kind of money because they worked for Google, LinkedIn, or Apple. However, are these people really going to Costco to buy their collectible wines?
5. MLM Article of the Week – I think I’m going to have two MLM articles of the week. It is becoming clear that MLM distributors seem to universally lack any critical thinking skills. Many have started asking me for credentials on articles that only rely on logic and reputable third party sources. So I had to put together a little article for them to read rather than explain it over and over again: MLM Distributors asking for Credentials.
6. Kindle Fire – I think people are way too excited about the Kindle Fire. I got to play with one at a Staples briefly and found it unimpressive. Maybe it’s because it was stuck in a demo mode and going to the browser just seemed to play a movie about the browser. The rest of the device confirmed my fears – it’s essentially a springboard to get customers to buy more products from Amazon. Maybe I’m just tainted by my experience on my Dell and my HP Touchpad, but I like an open computing environment not trying to push me into the maker’s particular “media store.”
7. Movie of the Week 1 – I think that I’d give The Greatest Movie Ever Sold a middle of the road rating, or maybe 2.5 stars out of 4. I typically love Morgan Spurlock’s work (you should pick up The Complete Series of 30 Days if you haven’t seen it), but this movie wasn’t that good. The whole movie is Morgan pitching companies to sponsor his movie. So when a car company sponsors him, he drives to all the other sponsor meetings in that car. Along the way, he exposes a lot about how product placement in movies works, but I was expecting better.
8. Movie of the Week 2 – I think since I did it with the MLM articles, I might as well have two Movies of the Week. I also saw A Very Harold and Kumar’s 3D Christmas. My wife thought it was good. I thought it was worth a laugh or two, but at the price of $15 a ticket (the 3D adds a few dollars) you are better off saving your money unless you a die-hard fan of all the movies. (I loved the first, but thought the second was just average). The movie does a few things to take advantage of the 3D such as throw stuff at the audience, which is the first I’ve seen of that.
9. NFL – I think that I’m excited to be a fan one of the few non-mediocre teams in the AFC. The Patriots (my favorite team) seem to be up there with the Steelers and Ravens. I think the Texans, without their QB is going to fall, and I’m not buying into a rookie QB from Cincinnati taking them deep in the playoffs (though anything can happen). The Ravens have a tough test ahead this Thanksgiving in the 49ers… will be a big game. The Patriots don’t have a winning team on their schedule for the rest of the regular season – they’ll likely be a favorite in every game for the rest of the season. It seems like you can find odds for anything in Vegas. I wonder what the odds of the Patriots being the #1 seed in the AFC are? They’ll need a little help with a Pittsburgh loss to make that happen though.

Personal Finance Links

• Digerati Life shares 14 staycation ideas & ways to save money with local travel.
• My Dollar Plan says create memories with 6 inexpensive experience gifts.
• Money Smart Life gives 14 car buying lessons to help you get a good deal & avoid regret.
• Free Money Finance blogs wealth building from the Old Testament.
• Million Dollar Journey gives 5 reasons why it’s better to rent than to buy.
• Generation X Finance presents resume writing tips to stand out from the crowd.
• Free from Broke with the three best financial moves you can make for your child.
• Studenomics on how risk averse students can prep for a lucrative future in entrepreneurship.
• Len Penzo dot Com presents 7 money skills my immigrant parents taught me.
• One Frugal Girl asks what is the smallest amount of money you would haggle over?