Strippernomics
The economics of stripping amaze me sometimes. There you are, participating in a friend’s bachelor (or bachelorette, I suppose) party, and you’re being harassed by naked people who want your money because they took their clothes off. But they won’t actually do anything for it that they won’t already do for free (well, maybe with the exception of a lap dance). Why would anyone throw money at these people? How is that fun?
You’re right – I just don’t see the appeal. I get the whole ‘right of passing’ thing that goes along with it being a bachelor party, but couldn’t we find a better way to be debaucherous, other than paying some naked girl to pretend like she is the guy’s girlfriend and not have sex with him?
Now that I’ve ranted a bit, the reason I wanted to talk about this here is that I think this is a brilliant business model, since it literally has people throwing money at you and there is almost no investment on your part, other than a bit of shame and some of your time. I’m not suggesting that people go out and do this for a living, but if you’re looking to make some extra money, it behooves you to consider businesses that require very little or no capital investment.
If you already have a sale-able skill, such as writing or programming, those are perfect because they don’t require you to spend any money to make money in return. I’m sure other skills fit this bill just as well. Maybe the answer to your financial issues isn’t to spend a bunch less money (although that can be good), and rather focus on ways to bring more in every month. Even if that means working at the strip club outside of town…
Sales, lies, and videotape
Last week, I started in on cutting down on big expenditures – by focusing on the big things, you can get big wins that will significantly help your budget. Personally, I tend to make two or three purchases a year that fall into the ’significant’ category, and this weekend I pulled the trigger on one of them. I decided it was finally time to upgrade to a ‘big boy’ bed (moving from a full to a queen – I don’t have room in my house for a king-sized anything, unless it’s a Hershey’s bar). My girlfriend and I went on a bed shopping extravaganza, and I learned quite a bit about mattress shopping that I didn’t know before. Seriously, I think most mattress salesmen were guys who were rejected by the crappiest used car lot in town.
I’ve worked in sales before selling cell phones, so I know that commissioned salespeople don’t have to be smarmy or disreputable to get a sale. I feel like I should be able to trust a good salesman to offer me a fair price that I shouldn’t need to fight for, and I’d be more likely to buy if I was comfortable with them. And they shouldn’t have to make up crap to get a sale – I’d rather he (or she) tell me they didn’t know than pretend they were an expert but in fact were feeding me a line of bull.
What did I learn? First off, mattress retailers are leaning on the semi-recent Supreme Court decision to allow minimum retail prices to try to boost their commissions. I received several versions of “the manufacturer won’t allow us to sell it any lower.” This used to be illegal, but now it’s just immoral. There are two bed companies, Tempur-pedic and Select Comfort, who set their prices like that (and even then you can usually get a discount online or by calling the companies directly). The rest of them don’t – one mattress salesman who was trying to sell me a mattress (very comfortable) told me that he couldn’t reduce the price on the mattress because the manufacturer wouldn’t allow it. Of course, I checked later online and found the same mattress for $500 cheaper than the price he quoted me. Granted, I was not on my negotiating A-game this weekend, but that is unacceptable.
I also had one salesman tell me that the ‘computer had glitched’ and he could still give me Memorial Day pricing. Okay, that’s great if you are willing to extend me last week’s sale price, which is really the same price you always sell the mattress at, just without the haggling, but don’t lie to me.
Also, I discovered that two people should probably not share a bed, because it’s freaking impossible to get something that both of you will love. I am a soft bed sleeper, and my girlfriend is a hard bed sleeper. Suffice it to say, we spent two days going to about 11 different bed stores (including a few department stores) and the only bed we found that we could both agree on was a Select Comfort, and then only because she could make her side of the bed super hard and I could go with a less firm feel.
It turned out that it was also one of the only hypoallergenic beds that either of us liked. So of course I bought one of those. I’ve been a Select Comfort owner for many years, so she didn’t have to twist my arm much. I am willing to pay for quality, and the extra few hundred dollars will make both our lives a lot easier.
Since Select Comfort doesn’t give their salesmen any wiggle room on the prices (or at least both stores I went to stonewalled me), I decided to put my Internet shopping skills to good use and find some coupon codes. Turns out they have a model, identical to the one I tried out in the store, that is being discontinued and is $750 off. Good deal, we’re getting down into the price range of high quality innerspring mattresses now, so I don’t feel so bad about the overage. But I’m not satisfied. I am a current owner and SC offers a previous owners discount on most of their beds, but not for clearance items like this one. However, they do still allow for the ‘new customer’ $50-off codes. Turns out, they will actually accept two of them, so I ended up getting an upgraded bed for $850 off list, which isn’t bad, although I would have loved an even deeper discount. I did buy it on my rewards card, so I should get a few extra percentage back that way as well.
I have some pretty severe Internet shopping tactics that I use when I am looking to make a big purchase. Cashback sites, coupon codes, comparison systems, and the like are all tools of this particular trade. Since the beginning of the year I’ve made a few major purchases, and other than this bed I also got a new $1300 Dell laptop for less than $600. Sometimes it takes a bit of work, but it’s worth it. Want to know the details? You’ll have to check back tomorrow.
Don’t buy into the hype
Gadgets are a guys best friend. Some guys like tools, or cars, or stereos. Me, I like electronics. All electronics.
And I have the crap in my house to prove it.
So when I hear about a new technology for a better, faster, stronger television that might just out-do the monstrosity that is currently sitting in my living room, my ears perk up and I begin to read.
Today I was reading a piece over on cnet about 240 Hz televisions. The idea with these kinds of TVs is that they have less motion blur noticeable during action scenes, and companies like Sony are trying to convince everyone and their cousins they should buy a new TV with this 240 Hz technology, even though every review I’ve checked out basically tells me that they can’t tell the difference between this new technology and the older 120 Hz designs.
They are using an advertising technique that writers of fantastic stories have been utilizing since the dawn of time, hyperbole. The idea behind hyperbole is that they exaggerate the features of whatever this newest, hottest item is and make you want it. And sometimes, I’m a sucker for it, which is why I have stuff in my house that I will never use.
These new TVs perform better on synthetic benchmarks than their older predecessors, but there is no way the human eye can tell the difference. Even CAD monitors (these are monitors that have to be very precise and have response times that are very fast to allow for detailed engineering rendering) don’t perform at this 240 Hz rate. It’s completely unnecessary, like owning a custom made sports car when you never get it over 75 mph.
Do you want to be wealthy? Figure out a way to ignore the hype and only buy what you really need or will really enjoy.
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So, you want to know what's up with the brackets in the name? "Curly brackets (also called braces, or "squiggly brackets") are sometimes used in prose to indicate a series of equal choices" and "Square brackets are mainly used to enclose explanatory or missing material usually added by someone other than the original author, especially in quoted text." So basically, if you really want to be wealthy in life, you have to figure out how to get happy. Since that whole spiel would make a crappy name for a blog, I decided to do something a bit creative with some brackets.
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