Lanyrd blew me away from the day it launched. It’s a way to track speakers and attendees of upcoming conferences, but it’s also a social web application. It was the first site/app I used that didn’t require yet another login (it used the then-new Twitter auth). It was the first Twitter-powered app that was instantly …
Category Archives: money
Credit scores are bullshit: part 2
So we've had a lively discussion about my previous post on credit scores, and an industry expert on credit scoring showed up to argue with many here. The New York Times noticed and published his side of the story as well. He urged me on Twitter to try out MyFICO.com which is supposed to be …
Credit Scores are Bullshit
A couple years ago as I was getting a credit report from Experian (I was about to buy a new car and wondered where I stood credit-wise), I signed up for one of their monthly tracking features. I justified this waste of money because I'd had a credit card number stolen and wanted to watch …
Credit card changes before the deadline passed
Late last year, FRONTLINE did a great piece on the credit card industry and specifically covered the passage of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009. The act is a good one, requiring companies to comply with new rules that make rate increases carry a 45 day warning with no retroactive rate …
Continue reading “Credit card changes before the deadline passed”
The New Honesty
Three times in the last week, I've been reminded by a cashier that what I was buying wasn't worth the money: Long Beach Airport, Terminal 3. A single Larabar was $5. Cashier says "you sure you want to get that, it's five bucks" Las Vegas, concession at Interbike somewhere. I grab a Crunch chocolate bar …
A used car scam I once almost fell for
I saw someone I know selling their old car on craigslist and it reminded me of the time I sold my last car using similar means. I almost fell for a couple guys that showed up, test drove the car, then tried to buy it at a vastly discounted price. They were quite persistent and …
Keynote Index Fund
A few months ago I was thinking about Apple’s rise in value after the iPhone and how Steve Jobs does a great keynote every year, and naturally I thought “I wonder if there’s a way to make money off quick investments around the keynotes?” Then I thought “What if you did this every year, for …
Crap I love: Wesabe
After working on my own for a year, this past summer I finally got around to examining my finances. I did what most people do: I got a copy of the latest Quicken, spent a week entering data into it, and then I stared at graphs wondering how on earth my spending always seemed to …
Give yourself a raise
Here’s something obvious and kind of dumb I figured out this week. When you pay off a debt, you suddenly have a lot of extra money in your pocket, especially on an annual basis. I recently finished paying off my student loans and my wife is about to finish hers, and our old car is …
Brilliant!
Amazon is now offering a $79 unlimited 2-day shipping option and I have to say that’s absolutely brilliant. It probably would take only 4-5 items delivered in one year to pay for itself, and make xmas shopping much cheaper. Lots of businesses have programs to reward their heavy customers while still making a profit off …
A Whole Lotta Nothing 