Protocol?

So, not having posted here since November, I’m pretty sure anyone stumbling upon naked finances will realize it is in hibernation, but, what’s the proper protocol? Maybe a closed sign? Gone fishin?

(Only 39.99 and it could be yours!)

Seconding that, kbluem.

Lord, beer me strength.

 

(re: http://kbluem.blogspot.com/2007/08/only-thing-that-is-getting-me-through.html )

By the arm – now go buy some TPFD t-shirts!!

drew & natalie dee are hilarious – support their hilariousness:
http://toothpastefordinner.com/megastore.php

Financial Crusaders Break It Down.

Financial crusader robyn is now attending the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. What does this mean to you, avid nakedfinances reader, or stumble-upon interweb surfer? Sadly, naked finances will be stagnant for the greater part of the semester.

If you are interested in photography, bookmaking, stuff making, etc., I will hopefully have www.postart.ca revamped soonfully.  be working ad infinitum on postart.ca and posting at robynmakestuff.wordpress.com

Robyn’s Photography featured in DMQ Review

Quick note, as time is tickin, in a Pink-Floydian manner.

I am the featured visual art maker (misspelled name notwithstanding) in DMQ Review, an excellent online art and poetry magazine, edited by the most excellent Sally Ashton.

Check it out!

Starring: Ramona Quimby, Sally J. Friedman, It’s me Margaret, Jillian Jiggs and Penelope Trunk.

FINALLY, a Yahoo Finance expert worth reading.

“That’s when we realized we had to totally shift our lifestyle to accommodate our work choices. We made big decisions. We stopped being friends with people who could only order $70 bottles of wine at dinner. We didn’t go to the beach because we didn’t have a car to get there, and besides, beach passes were too expensive.”
continue reading Penelope Trunk’s article “My So Called Financial life”

On first glance, Penelope Trunk is everything that Rich Dad, Poor Dad (a.k.a. Robert Kiyosaki) tries but fails to be: witty, entertaining, and seemingly worth reading. Plus, her name sounds straight out of a Judy Blume book. I’ll see if she stands up after a second reading. From my brief scan of her posts, I would recommend her blog over her Yahoo Finance articles.

Update on my elusive 401(k) article :
It has unofficially been laid to rest, rather than put to bed. I kept nodding off while typing it out and decided it was much too boring to post. I can send you a personalized email version (ooh, personalized interweb experience!) if you can’t stand not reading it. But I’m warning you, it is a snoozer.

Up next: You know, you backpedal any faster, [Rich Dad, Poor Dad], you’re going to moonwalk right to that wall.

(Seems like it should be “through that wall” but I’ll trust the powers that be, since the higher internet authority doesn’t have it memorably quoted.)

If anyone caught it…

Sorry about the brief weird-graphic interlude.

nakedfinances is back to its old self.

No financial thoughts for the day..other than: HOLY CARP! Have you seen the value of the Canadian dollar lately? (94cents USD!!) Wow. Guess there will be a lot of flying south for the summer holidays.

Up soon: Google, and 401(k)s (hopefully, finally, about damn time), and more posts about shoes.

Well put, Natalie Dee – Smartie Pants of the Day

nataliedee.com
(click for full-size comic)

Stay tuned – more naked finances coming your way after a word from…
wait, we don’t have any sponsors.
Up next: On Richness (waiting for the Better Title fairy)

Disgruntled student?

Here’s something interesting that WordPress’s (trademarked, I’m sure) awesomeness gives me everytime I log in:

These are terms people used to find your blog:
Search
fraggle rock
MFA for teaching art useless
contest won skill math question phone I
bob barker’s beauties sexual encounters

So… what does this tell us about Naked Finances readers? They like TV from the 80s. They don’t understand that search engines usually disregard terms like “I” and “for”. They seem to be more drawn to the sexy “naked” part of the domain name (barker’s beauties sexual encounters?) than the admittedly less sexy “finances” part.

Also… they don’t seem to have a lot of respect for the degree necessary for teaching art school at the university level. I hope the clever WordPress engine directed them to this post: Who’s Your Rich Daddy?

and more importantly, this post: Teaching the Artists How to Art

But… I know what you really came here for:

Enjoy.

Gettin’ er done since 1981!

Absolutely nothing of importance…just wanted to celebrate the naked finances blov hitting 1981 views!

(robyn (author and founder) was born in 1981, so considers this fairly random number an important one.)

and so, in honour of 1981,

from nataliedee.com

The Price is Right, Final Frontier.

(Or “I’m smelly, tired, sick of clapping and screaming, and Bob Barker looks like a wax mannequin of himself”)

Pt. III of III (See Pt. I here and Pt. II here)

We met handfuls of interesting people in line. My most memorable line encounter was with an elderly couple that had lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. If I could have given them the new car, trailer camper, et al, I would have.

And then there was Earl. Earl has one of those inherently tough-but-adorable faces. He got in line at 11:30pm, and spent the following 12 hours campaigning and charming the pants off of everyone in his line vicinity, including TPIR talent scouts.

Yes, talent scouts. I had mistakenly assumed that contestants were chosen randomly, giving me a 1 in 200 or so (0.5%) chance of fulfilling my childhood dream of playing Plinko (or at very least the stupid golf game). Sadly, for my mostly shy demeanor, we were expected to perform, in groups of 10, after staying awake for over 24 hours and sitting in the rain for over 10 hours, for two dry-faced CBS Polo-Shirt Wearers with clipboards. We were asked, in drill sergeant fashion: Name, Occupation, Hometown?

Jen & Steve did a cute honeymooning-Canadians performance, Elliot was a cuddly, witty engineer from Silicon Valley, and I….froze. “Uh, I’m a photographer. From Canada. But I actually live in California. And I’m a student. Of finance.” Frig. I think I even smelled as boring as I sounded. When I saw the tell-tale flicker of “Boring, next.” Pass over Clipboard #2’s otherwise emotionless face, I realized I blew it. No Plinko.

 

Why did Mom have to raise such an honest And trustworthy daughter? Why can’t I be a better liar? I could have adopted bubbly southern Delta Smelta-Phi daughter’s shtick, jumped around, cheered and punched the air a few times, and I probably would have been picked. Maybe we should have laced our 4am coffees with something stronger than half & half.

 

In order to honour the blogger’s (note: I prefer bloviator’s but it hasn’t caught on just yet) code of brevity and succinct, witty posting, I will point-form the remainder of my TPIR observations:

 

• Making crowds of 500 order themselves into numerically organized lines is a really good way to waste an inordinate amount of time.

• Having a single person handwrite all studio audience (and possible studio audience) members name tags is another great time-waster.

• After 12 hours in line, in the rain, it doesn’t matter how funny your t-shirt is, you do not make an attractive audience member (by sight or smell).

• Because of the tired and smelly factor of those who make it into the first few rows of the audience, CBS hires a group of nice-smelling, make-up-wearing actors to fill the only row that is consistently visible on camera throughout the show.

• Having someone yell at you to clap and cheer, louder & louder, for 45minutes of taping, regardless of how ruggedly good-looking he is, is not an effective motivator after about 5 minutes.

• Especially if the guy yells “Oh YEAH!” in a porn-y voice every time a new item comes up for bidding. Side note: your impression of Oh YEAH! will be the most memorable thing you take away from the longest/most exhausting 24 hours of sitting/shuffling/waiting of your life.

• TPIR set looks much smaller in real life than on TV – miniature, even.

• And finally, Bob Barker has to wear a lot of make-up to still appear TV-presentable at 83.

 

 

If Bob has a little place in your heart, despite the sexual assault allegations and chauvinistic fan kissing, tune in on May 16^th, 8pm.

All in all, it was a very tiring, but very fun 24+ hour adventure. Here’s the proof:

Before:
After:

See…still happy, and relatively unscathed.

 

Oh yeah, to tie this back to finances (the purported reason for this site) – gambling and game showing are freakishly similar pursuits. In a word or two: Don’t bother. The chance of a decent return on invest is damn near nil. Unless of course your name is Earl, you manage to charm the pants of the clipboard guys, and as as “thank-you for making our audience go bonkers”, one of the CBS guys rigs the great wheel to land on $1.00 and 5¢ consecutively during your turn. These two spins net Earl $1500 (before taxes, of course) and a standing ovation from the audience (despite their net loss on the day) for a cool 18 hours of work.

Feeling lucky? Go sign up for your company’s 401(k), or open a Roth IRA account. More details in the next post – it’s already half-typed.

And remember, help control the pet population; have your pets spayed or neutered.

 

A BRAND NEW Kitsch-en Dinette Set!

Pt. II of III

Canadian friend Jen & her new husband Steve were honeymooning in San Francisco, and had planned a stop in Los Angeles to conclude their trip with a taping of The Price Is Right (TPIR from hereon in, because that’s what all the cool kids call it). They had two extra tickets, if my husband and I were interested – (Based on my last post, you can correctly surmise that I was). As for Mr. Nakedcrusaderrobyn, with a crazy deadline looming at work… Not so much. I called my friend Elliot, who seemed to have a similar penchant for cheesy game shows, we made some t-shirts, packed some snacks, and drove down to Los Angeles on the Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend.

 

The taping was Monday afternoon at 1pm, and Jen & Steve were eager to get in line for tickets (you may recall that we already had tickets, but the first set of tickets didn’t seem to guarantee anything except entrance on to the highly secured (okay, just a fence and a bored-looking security guard) CBS Studio grounds), but after driving 6 1/2 hours, Elliot and I… not so much. (last Boratism, I promise).

 

We arrived at Elliot’s sister’s place (conveniently less than 1 mile from CBS) around 11pm, and Jen & Steve were out near the airport (about an hour drive, round trip). Since they were hoping to get in line around 1am, (they had heard this was the magic number in order to maybe, almost, probably, hopefully guarantee a coveted spot on Contestants Row), and some sort of Thanksgiving weekend parade had backed traffic up all over Elliot’s sister’s neighbourhood, there was not much point in trying to snag a few hours of sleep (which had been our original plan, sleeping bags and pillow in tow). But no biggie, right? We were gonna see Bob-freakin-Barker in t-minus-14 hours

 

We dropped the honeymooners off at 1:30am in front of the CBS studio gates, took the car back to Elliot’s sister’s place (although, in retrospect, if I had known how helpful a rain free shelter on wheels might have been for the following 18+hours, I would have forked out the $10 for parking), and joined them in line around 2am.

 

There were about 15 people in line at 1:30, but the crowd had ballooned to about 40 by 2am. Fortunately, Jen & Steve had secured our spots in line by renting $5 lawn chairs for us from the genius bagel shop entrepreneur across the street from the studio, so we didn’t get too many dirty looks when we joined them. (Thank-you again J&S. Those chairs were the best things, of anything.)

 

Having never stood in line over night for anything, not even tickets to the NKOTB concert I wanted to attend in grade 4 (“But MOM! What could possibly happen to a group of 9-year-olds on the streets of Toronto in the middle of the night?”), I had no idea how to handle the culture and etiquette of Line Standing.

 

Seasoned Line Standers do not stand – they sit – on folded lawn chairs which they stow in their cars, parked nearby. They have blankets. Umbrellas. Snacks. Thermoses of hot beverages. They Know What They Are Doing. We, clearly, did not.

 

There are two main types of Seasoned Line Standers Sitters:

Those who are chatty, hyper, and extremely happy to be standing on a mostly deserted, rainy Los Angeles street at 4am,

And:

Those who aren’t.

The latter category of Line Sitters seem to consider themselves martyr-like for enduring the hardships of night, rain, sleep deprivation, etc., and, naturally, transform themselves into blanket and tarp covered statues.

We are sandwiched between these two personality extremes. Grumpy Statue Camp doesn’t emerge from their blue covers until the line starts to move at 6:00am. Hyper Chatty Camp consists of a mother-daughter team from, cute-drawly-accents withstanding, one of the Southern states. Daughter is on break from her delta-belta-pi university, and they are vacationing in Los Angeles with the hopes (and seemingly sole purpose) of appearing on TPIR. They didn’t know they needed tickets, so by about 9am, and much cheer leading and shrieking, we didn’t see them again.

TPIR – The Final Frontier (aka Pt. III) – will be posted Thursday.

Skill-testing Questions, Contestants Row, and other by-products of the gaming industry

Pt. I (of III)

Due to gambling restrictions and Canadian creativity, an eligibility requirement appears on any game card or contest available to the under age-of-majority in Ontario (Canada).

My first exposure to this eligibility requirement involved a contest for a stuffed toy that looked like a cross between StayPuft marshmallow man and a Popple.

I collected UPCs from boxes of Kleenex (Scotties brand, actually, so I guess that makes them just tissues) and filled out my name, address and other important particulars in order to win a FREE stuffed Scottie doll*.

And then, I experienced my first instance of consumer heart-break as my seven-year-old self read the following: Contestants must correctly answer a mathematical skill-testing question in order to qualify. Followed by:

(3+4) x (21/ (10-3))+4 _____.

We hadn’t covered order of operations in math yet, and sadly, I never received my Kleenex tissue doll.

My interest in game shows grew-up on the living room floor of my great-grandparent’s bungalow. My older sister, Allison, and I would lie on the teal blue carpet facing the wood-panelled TV cabinet, propped up on pillows snagged from the chesterfield, and watch Bob Barker (who had brown hair at the time, if that helps you carbon-date my story) work his Guy Smiley magic on The Price is Right.

 

 

Barker’s Beauties (who were all blonde, with the exception of Holly, who affirmed my belief that brunettes could be on TV without having to play a role like Janet from Three’s Company) would bring out “the first item up for bid….”, and Papa, Allison and I would shout out our bids while the frazzled looking members of Contestants Row would frantically look over their shoulders into the screaming audience.

I don’t remember how many exercise bicycles we won from out spot on the living room carpet over the years, but I was able to tell you the ($USD) price of hamburger helper and a jumbo pack of vitamins long before I could successfully answer the skill-testing question required to win any contests in Canada. (Thank-you, Papa, and American Daytime TV).

So, imagine my excitement when I found out: #1 – that Canadians were actually allowed to appear on The Price Is Right (I was under the impression you needed a social security number, a southern accent, or some other proof of American-ness in order to win…A NEW CAR), and #2 – that my friend Jen had two extra tickets to a taping of The Price is Right. Finally, a chance to see Contestants Row, up close & personal, in all its plywood and flashing lights glory.

In order to keep you all in suspense – Part II will be posted Tuesday.
If you email me with the correct answer to the STQ, I’ll give a sneak peek of II & III.

If you were told there would be no math on this exam, and prefer to bide your time in less arithmetic ways, then hop on CBS’s DIY bandwagon and make your own Bob Barker tribute tape. Do people still call them “tapes”, if VHS and all things magnetic tape based has gone the way of the d’oi-ya bird?

* Looks like I could still get my Scottie toy. But inflation has edged “free” up to $9.95 +S&H.

Birkenstock monkeys and shoes for people who can afford to not walk.

I have had this link saved in my drafts for months: Click here to read about the chosen footwear of the Crunchy-Granola

There are a lot of Birkenstock monkeys around the Coffee Shop I frequent. Most of them wear socks, but one guy rocks the Birks barefoot, and barefeet kinda gross me out. Say what you want about socks and sandals, but when someone puts their feet up on the bench next to you, and they are unsocked, and you are eating or drinking, it’s gross.

It kills me to think that anyone would think this much about their footwear, (same link, moved to this paragraph for quick reference. See how helpful I am?). I hope the Coffee Shop Birkenstock monkeys wear their weird flat sandals becuase they find them comfortable, and not becuase they want the world to know how much they love the earth and trees and that.

And if so, what do my $12.99 (at Ross) shoes tell the world about me?
(Like the picture, but dirtier, and without the edgy-emo-hipster-skulls —- because 30-seconds of Google image searching is worth 1000 words).

#1. Well, no one knows I bought them at Ross, or how much they cost, so they don’t really say “I’m cheap, but good at finding deals.” Nix this point.

#1. (because the first #1 didn’t really count) They are slip-on, which tells the world – “I’m lazy”.

#2. They are dirty and pretty worn, despite being only a few months old, which says “Hey guys, I walk a lot!”

#3. (becuase what is a list with only two points?) They don’t have high heels, which says “I’m alright with my stubby legs, and p.s. high heels and jeans and walking a lot is just plain stupid.”

Grosser than barefeet-on-a-bench-next-to-you? These.
Grosser than that? Starting them young.

semi-regular postings? ha…

My apologies for not posting anything new in over a month. I have a notebook filled with juicy money meanderings…but they have to be typed, and all the clocks around me have been spinning wildly fast, as of late.

Out in the doesn’t-need-to-be-typed-to-exist world, I have been preparing a show of my photographs. They are up at the Coffee Society, (21265 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 202, across from De Anza College, Cupertino). I’ll have an online version of the show up at the post-art gallery by the end of the week sometime soon.

Telephone repair dudes ROCK!

So… AT&T/SBC/Yahoo or whoever the heck runs our DSL service has been flakey at best for the last two weeks. Sorry I’ve been DOA…I mean ROI…no… what’s the anagram, er… acronym?MIA!!! Yeah. Sorry I’ve been MIA.

Erik…I have a four pager in my notebook (as in blue lined paper, not intel core dual process-whatev) on the pros and cons of Roth IRAs and 401(k)s.

In 30 words or less (ha) until the real article goes online: if your company offers a match on 401(k), sign-up and contribute enough to get the match. Then call Fidelity or Vanguard (or both -yeeee!) and open a Roth IRA account. Deposit $4000 for last year (if you’ve got the cash) before April 15. And set-up automatic investments to fund this year’s Roth IRA (monthly is good – so $400 a month).

Good.

More soon.

xo

nakedcrusaderrobyn

P.S. Yahoo has a kick ass new personal finance tab on their finance page. Check it.

Head’s up, 7-up

Robyn has been out sick. Here’s some reading to keep everyone in good form:

Jim Cramer…Seriously?

JC fits into my file folder of Money Villians. Entertaining, but not to be trusted. Watch the stocks he recommends on air jump…(and then secretly crash a few weeks later).  Highly entertaining… especially for the brokers/brokerages making commissions off of each of these trades.

More soon.

Financial Crusader Term of The Week(ish) – Market Cap

Market Capitalization (Large Cap, Small Cap, Etc)

Market capitalization refers to the market value of a company. If all the shares outstanding are multiplied by the current price per share, you have the market cap of the company.

So, when some dude at the bank (or wherever you get your financial advice) tells you you should “diversify your portfolio”, the Dude means you should invest in a range of different sized (in terms of value) companies.

Simple stated, in North America there are 3 main categories: Large Cap ($5 billion and up), Mid Cap ($1 billion to $5 billion) and Small Cap (less than $1 billion).
So, Microsoft has a Market cap of about $305.6 billion (large cap–some might say giant cap), and Wendy’s has a market cap of about $4 billion (mid cap).

To complicate things, there are different sub categories: Value, Growth and Blend. We’ll talk about those later. But, if life depends on you picking the right mutual funds RIGHT NOW, go with Blend, in Small, Mid and Large.

Dude at the Bank Diversifying means owning small cap, mid cap, and large cap stocks (or mutual funds—see upcoming article) in both growth and value (or blend…which is, yep, you guessed it, growth + value!!…I like to call it “grawlue”).

Than again, if life depends on you picking the right funds right now (RIGHT NOW)…you might want to hire a financial planner. But make sure to ask them a lot of questions. Find out how they make money. Remember, you are trusting them with your money, not giving them your money.

Definition for market capitalization at Free Dictionary, and Investor Words.

Disclaimer: The advice and views on nakedfinances.com are solely those of the writers of nakedfinances.com. Please consult your own broker/advisor before taking any action on any financial issues mentioned. We at nakedfinances.com are all for research and education. Never trust just one person/blog/writer for all of your financial planning questions.

Mutual Funds, Target Funds, 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, and other exciting investment thingies.

So… who wants to learn more? Leave a comment to vote for an article on any of the above investing thingies. I’m reworking the family’s asset allocation (i.e. do we invest in 100% stocks, or a mix of stocks and bonds, and what kind of stocks –small, medium, large?…or short, tall , grande and venti, to gen-xy slang it up a bit), and will write an article on these seemingly dull subjects if I get enough requests.

And in the spirit of full disclosure… I had to look up those starbuck sizes. Thanks quicksilverweb.

(I may spend a lot of time in coffee shops, but I bring my own mug, and don’t really like the burnt-tasting sbux blends. Lately, Coffee Society has been my hipster-spotting, homework-doing swill source. If the library would just let me eat & drink there, I wouldn’t need a rotating favourites list of coffee shops.)

Up next: Financial Crusader Term of The Week

Plato – smartie-pants of the day (yesterday)

“Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.”

(See robyn’s article on Financial Predators)