Wednesday, April 13, 2005
(4:34 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Everything I know about personal finance, I learned from Oprah
When I was perhaps 10, I half-watched an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Her guests were two personal-finance gurus who were giving advice on a variety of topics of concern to the average consumer. Two tips in particular stood out to me on that day, as that episode just happened to be playing in the background as I developed elaborate story lines involving Ninja Turtle, Batman, and GI Joe action figures, greatly aided by the recent acquisition of the Technodrome:
- If you are behind on your credit card payments and have multiple cards, reserve one card for "convenience" use, that is, for expenses that you know you will be able to pay off each month, so that you can still have the convenience of using a credit card without incurring unnecessary finance charges.
- If you have prepaid for an event or have won admission for free, do not let that determine whether you will in fact go. The example they used is someone who has won free tickets to a football game, but it snows and creates dangerous road conditions the day of the game. If you otherwise would not have risked going to the game, do not let the fact that you won the tickets be the deciding factor.
That's my take, anyway!
UPDATE: Someone explain to me why an unjust parking ticket absolutely enrages me. I got another ticket for parking a truck on a residential street. I have been parking on the nearest main thoroughfare, which has a bus route and hits two train lines, moving it twice a day, precisely because I thought it wouldn't be considered a residential street. Now apparently it turns out that that street is a "residential street." Thankfully, the police officer accidentally wrote down the wrong street name on the ticket, so I'm basing my appeal primarily on that.
I would love to get the permit, but I can't get the permit until my past tickets are cleared up; now that I got this ticket, that process will probably be lengthened by months, since it's been months since I heard anything about the other tickets. I'm going to the alderman tomorrow to make sure that I've understood the regulation correctly, because this is ridiculous.
