Posts Tagged ‘financial’
Deficit verses Debt
Posted in Politicson Jan 26, 2010
Some people confuse the terms Deficit and Debt when talking about our nation’s finances. I thought I would spend a second to describe the difference.
When we talk about the National Debt, we are talking about the amount of money that our government owes people, companies, and even foreign nations. This is comparable to a person having a home loan, several car loans, lots of credit card debt, and IOU notes written out to everyone in the neighborhood.
The National Budget Deficit is the amount of money the government spends more than the amount of money the government collects. A person having a budget deficit would likely be putting more debt onto a credit card than payments to pay it off. Every year the government works out the budget, that is, they decide how much money they are going to throw at what. When they’ve spent more money than is collected through taxes, they say, “Oh well, we’ll just take out more loans.” The National budget deficit is the amount by which our National debt increases.
When there is talk about “reducing the deficit,” they aren’t talking about reducing the national debt. They are just reducing the rate at which the government takes out new loans. “Cutting the deficit in half” is saying, “We are only going to take out half as many new loans this year.”
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- Tags: debt, definitions, financial
Couponing
Posted in Adventureson Nov 3, 2009
Recently, Sandy and I have been doing a little bit of couponing. We’re not aiming at taking 80% off our monthly grocery bill, or to get all sorts of random products for free. It is more like a game that we like winning. It is kind of a thrill to get products for free or to see “You Saved 85% Off Your Order Today!” printed on the bottom of the receipt. We are getting kind of good at finding coupons on the Internet to print or combining coupons we find with sales we find in stores.
One of our favorite stores to shop at is King Soopers, which is a Kroger store. King Soopers generally has reasonable prices on products, and they will often have some good sales. Additionally, they will double coupons up to 50 cents, and coupons between 50 cents and a dollar they will increase to a dollar. They also accept eCoupons from shortcuts.com or CellFire, which are loaded onto the King Sooper loyalty card and applied automatically when checking out.
One of my favorite King Soopers promotions is $5 off 10 qualifying items. I think they choose a couple of items on each aisle of the store that quality, causing you to walk up and down all the aisles searching out 10 items which qualify. This promotion is currently underway at our King Soopers, and when you combine the promotion with coupons, we’ve found some good deals. For example, our 10 items might be:
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- Tags: coupons, financial, grocery, King Soopers, sandy
How much is an old computer worth?
Posted in Technicalon Feb 6, 2009
Flickr Stock Photo
Occasionally I get asked how much a particular used computer is worth. Because computer technology continues to increase at a steady rate, computers loose their value quite quickly.
My general rule is that a computer looses about 30-50% of its value every year. A computer which was purchased at the store for $1000 might be worth somewhere around $300 two years later. Particular brands and technologies may loose value faster or slower, but generally, all computers loose their value quite quickly.
For this reason I recommend that no one ever buy a computer with the intent to sell it to someone else later.
I also recommend to most people that they do not buy more computer than they need right now. This means that you shouldn’t buy excessively more memory, speed, or storage because you intend on needing that extra capacity in a year or two. Ignoring this advice, people could buy too much computer that would be worth half as much when they actually need to use it all.
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- Tags: computer, financial, question, worth
A few stock market facts
Posted in Businesson Oct 6, 2008
The following facts refer to the Dow Jones Industrial Average:
- Almost one year ago, the stock market hit an all time high.
- Since then, it has fallen over 29%.
- Today, it closed below 10,000 points. (source)
- And closed about 3.5% lower than where it closed last Friday.
- Which is more than 11% lower than where it closed a month ago.
- This is a 4 year low.
- At one point today, the stock market was down by 800 points.
- Which was the worst intra-day fall since Black Monday in 1987. (source)
- But it rallied near the end of the day, to close with a loss of 370 points. (source)
- This is the 19th largest single-day point loss ever.
- The 1st largest point loss occured one week ago.
- The 1st, 8th, 9th, 17th, and 19th worst single-day point losses have call occured in the last month. (source)
- In the last month, shares of Hewlett-Packard have dropped by almost 9%.
- Shares of Apple, IBM, and Dell have all dropped more.
- The utilities and medial sectors have fallen the most, dropping more than 5% today.
- While the transportation industry has dropped the least with less than a 1% drop.
Update Oct 7:
- On October 7, the stock market dropped another 508 points.
- This is the 5th worst single-day point loss ever.
- Adding today to the list, the 1st, 5th, 9th, 10th, 18th, and 20th worst single day losses have all occurred in the last month.
- It has dropped almost 13% in the last week.
- It has dropped almost 2000 points in the last month, or almost 16% of its value.
- And almost a 33% drop in the last year. Think about that! It has dropped by a whole third in just a year!
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- Tags: economy, financial
Student loans paid off
Posted in Lifeon Sep 20, 2008
I got a letter in the mail which read:
Your student loans serviced by UHEAA have been paid in full… Congratulations on paying off your student loans.
I actually paid it off a couple of months ago, I’m not sure why it took them so long to figure it out. It always feels good to be debt free.
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- Tags: debt, financial
Aerodynamic trucking
Posted in Businesson Jun 25, 2008
Today I passed one of those big trailer hauling semis, and I started to wonder about what it might be carrying. Bread that I might buy at the grocery store? My next couch? Fertilizer for the farm down the road?
Then I started to think about how incredibly not aerodynamic the trailer is. Anyone who has participated in a pine wood derby knows that a big block on wheels isn’t the best way to go. If you’ve felt the wind come off the end or sides of one of these trucks as it drives by, then you have felt the energy that is lost because of the inefficient design of the big box trailer.
I suppose they are made that way because that is the most inexpensive way to make a trailer. But with diesel prices near $5 per gallon, maybe it’s time to re-think that.
If big-rig trucks were more aerodynamic, then they would get better gas mileage. If they get better gas mileage, then that reduces the cost of delivery for the products they are delivering. This, in turn, can keep consumer prices slightly lower. Lower prices helps the economy.
So much of our economy depends on the distribution of goods, that maybe it is time to think uniquely about making our means of distribution more affordable.
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- Tags: economy, environment, financial, gas
Hillary is out of the race and out of money
Posted in Politicson Jun 9, 2008
Hillary Clinton recently ended her bid for the presidency. She has incurred over $20 million of debt from her campaign, the largest presidential campaign debt in history. I guess it’s a good thing that she is out–think of what she would have done had she managed more than just a campaign budget… like the national budget? Scary.
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- Tags: Clinton, financial
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