Big TV Buyer's Remorse

(This is not my TV)

Just because I write about personal finance does make me immune to making stupid decisions.
Last month, after my girlfriend and I had ironed out how we were going to handle our finances I started to really want a plasma TV. Not huge - 42 inches. I had a 27 inch that I have been carting around since college which had some display issues in the 4 corners.

The thing that most of my readers don't know about me, but I am sure my friends have noticed is that when I get something in my head that I want to do, I will become fixated on it. I will talk about it, research it, bounce ideas off people, research it some more, and eventually execute the idea.

Well I had been thinking about getting a TV for about three weeks. I had the buy in from the girlfriend and I had found a really good deal for a 42 inch plasma for $750. March Madness was starting and I was dying to watch my number 12 Wildcats tear it up on the court. The weekend before the tourney we bought the TV. Unfortunately what I didn't take into consideration was the fact that our speaker system would not work with the new TV. We had to buy a new home theatre system and DVD player ($200).

All said and done we spent just shy of $900. This money will be coming out of our joint accounts. In hindsight I think we should have waited to save the money instead of putting it on our AMEX regardless of the fact that it was 0% on purchases for 6 months. It is nice having a new, bright TV but the "new", "wow" factor has worn off and we are now looking at the bill on the statement! That money could have gone to paying off some joint debts we have, but instead they went to a big ole' TV.

The way I look it is that it could have been alot worse...I could be one of those people that got into a house that they couldn't afford!

Cheers,
TMac

[Photo Credit]

Two Damn Dollars

This weekend I was in Washington DC for a franchising convention (thinking that franchising is going to my way to financial independence) with a friend from College. for those that don't know, the DC convention center is just a few blocks from "Chinatown" (I use quotes because the DC chinatown is pitiful compared to other cites).

My friend and I were craving Dim Sum which is where customers order from ladies that push around various a la carte food items like shrimp dumplings and crab balls. My friend and I check out the area an only see two places that are serving Dim Sum. We go into the one which has a "20% Off Dim Sum" sign outside and start ordering. As soon as we sit down we order water and some Shumai and Shrimp Dumplings. I must note at this point that the service was terrible in that we had to work to flag down the waitress to order food seperately since the only cart pusher had disappeared (didn't want to be late to the next seminar). I ordered three dishes off the Dim Sum menu and we started talking about the possibilities of franchising. The food took over 30 minutes to come out (how long does it take to make 4 dumplings) and we only got two of the three dishes we had ordered. By the Way we still had not got any water and we had asked 3 times at this point!

We finally have enough and get the check. I pick up the tab and note that the 20% was not taken off for the Dim Sum purchase. The waitress tells me that it is for cash only purchases. Well this is the first I am hearing of this! My fiend and I begin arguing with this waitress protesting that the sign doesn't say anything about payment type! Finally we get 10% off since it wasn't worth protesting any more since it only would have amounted to a dollar or so. she runs my debit card and I leave her a tip of $2 on a $25 bill. I was going to leave her nothing but my friend talked me out of it. As I put the pen down the waitress rushes over, reaches across me as I talk to my friend, and takes the merchant copy off the table. She then begins to point at the tip amount and says "Only two dollars! You need to make it more." At this point I am so dumbfounded that I am just sitting there in amazement as to what is happening. My friend and I go off and begin to enumerate the reasons while she should have not recieved any TIP at all!

I just can't believe that someone would do something like that and still insist that we raise the tip after telling her all the reasons that we were not going to do so. So strange.

By the way, if you want really good Dim Sum in the DC Metro go here.

[Photo Credit]

Cheers,
TMac

March 2008 Networth Update: Assets: -4.5%; Liabilities: -3%; Networth: +2.3%

Hello All,

I know that March's update is a bit late, but I hadn't even had the time to download my account activity into quicken till Sunday. A whole month's worth of transactions takes quite a bit of time to catergorize!

Anyway onto this Month's Summary...

I had a pretty decent month and didn't even pay that much attention to my finances since the majority of my bills are on auto-pilot. My cash accounts went down a good percentage this month, but this is mainly due to how my girlfriend and I have decided to handle our money and joint expenditures. It could also be in fact that we bought a 42 inch plasma with a sound system just in time for March Madness, but I digress!

I kicked some credit card a$$ last month by paying down over $1300 in credit card debt alone. The other debt accounts were lowered by the same amount that they have been for a long time now since they are fixed payment, low interest loans. I just kind of leave those guys alone, but don't worry student loan your day will come when I unleash the full fury of larger payments like the credit cards are experiencing right now!

Even after the decreased cash flow this month, I still bumped up my overall networth by 2.3% to $-46,167. I am hoping to be able to make.

From now on, I will be including reporting on actual expense catergories. I would have included it sooner, but the numbers are all skewed from the move earlier this year.

(Click on image for larger view)

Cheers,
TMac