It’s time for the fightin’ Friday Fi-Ku. Drop in your own personal finance haikus (5-7-5) into the comments below and enjoy some of ours. Yumms!
Speed Racer out
Bummer that oil is high
Best to shop for gas.
Uma Thurman just
Can’t seem to stay out of court
Lawyer makes money!
Cyclone disaster
In Myanmar. Better make
A help donation.
Clinton takes out loan
Obama conservative?
Her house is worth lots.
Almost out of here
School done, blog up, Fi hugz all!
Off to the Journal!
“I don’t mind spending money, but I do mind wasting it.”That was the credo in my house as a kid. Still is. I remember thinking how foolish my parents were for buying me barrels of Disney goods, but now I see the method to their money madness. As cool as it would be to have my own Ms. Pacman set up in my new apartment, I should probably buy some basic silverware first.The line between being monetarily modest and miserably miserly can often be hard to draw. Moolanomy has a short quiz to help you gauge where you are on the spendrum. I got a 30, putting me in the “You’re frugal. Good job!” range. Phew.I can put those fears of growing up into a Scrooge McDuck at rest…for now.For more money quizzes on the web, check out FiLife’s roundup.-Mary PilonIllustration Credit
We’re all about making the most of our time at the office and so is Zen Habits! The always-calming blog has a slammin’ list of 16 ways to keep a razor-sharp focus at work. Some highlights:
2. Take more breaks. More breaks = More productivity. It may sound wrong, but it’s true. Breaks allow us to re-group our thoughts and focus for the task at hand. They also keep us fresh so that we don’t end up burning out after only a few hours work.
So maybe curling into a fetal position under my desk for an afternoon snooze isn’t so weird after all. Sweet.
10. Turn off extra inputs. These are IM and email for me, but we all have our Achilles heel. Completely turn off any distracting piece of technology that you own. Every one of these inputs tries to steal bits of your focus. And they won’t rest until they do.
Let’s expand this - know what your timesucks are. For me, it’s silly blogs and puppies. More common ones include YouTube, Facebook and SuperArcade. If you’re going to lollygag online, at least alleviate your guilt and switch to the Free Rice Game.
We’re particularly big fans of suggestion #16.
16. Clean yourself up. It’s why my track coach in high school made us dress up for big races: you perform the way you feel. And if you feel polished, groomed and ready, you’ll be more likely to be productive. For me this is just taking a shower, brushing my teeth and putting on casual clothing. I used to work all day without taking a shower in my PJ’s, but I never got much stuff done. Let’s be honest here… if you’re dressed really casually, odds are you’ll be working really casually. Just taking the time to clean up a bit before you buckle down for the day is never a bad idea.
Because the only thing worse than being unproductive is being unproductive and smelly.
Read the whole list here.
Behold! Your favorite personal finance news tidbits summarized in 5-7-5 haiku form! Savor and cook up your own in the comment section, if you’re so inclined.
Industrials up
The Neville Brothers return
It’s a come-back week!
-Kristen Sullivan
Sex and the City
PR blitz continues on
Prada still spendy.
-Mary Pilon (more…)
That headline might be Onion-worthy, but according to the Dallas Morning News (via Digg), it’s true.
According to police, Charles Ray Fuller, 21, was arrested on forgery charges for trying to cash a check for $360 billion. Fuller walked into a Chase branch with the check and when the bank called the issuer, she claimed that she didn’t write it, nor did his name appear on the check in the first place. Chase, you may have saved her an overdraft fee! Booya!
Fuller claims that the check came from his girlfriend’s mother to start a record business. And for those of you counting at home, $360 billion could buy you 36 billion copies of Cyndi Lauper’s single “Money Changes Everything” on vinyl. Now there’s a business plan.
PS - Did you know that your computer keyboard is “dirtier than a toilet”?
What’s better than haiku? Fi-ku! For newbies, a Fi-ku is a haiku (5-7-5 syllables) that sums up a personal finance news item of the week. Drop your poetic morsels in the comments below and enjoy some of ours.
Wesley’s in the clink
Always bet on… I.R.S.
Hi, U.S. Marshals!
-Sam Grobart
Suri’s birthday bash,
Cost 100K - oh, my!
College? No problem.
-Mary Pilon (more…)
For those who just couldn’t get enough of taxes and are anxiously killing time before receiving stimulus payments, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis satiates the need more government info about money (or lack thereof). Today the BEA released Personal Income Statistics for 2006. Data nerds rejoice!
Some of this stuff can be a total yawnfest, but here are some of the most interesting bits. Or, dive into the full findings here.
-That thumbnail image might look like Microsoft Excel barfed on America, but it actually indicates the percent change in personal income from 2005-2006. Income is generally lower in the middle of the country (get it? they used a corn color!) and higher on the coasts, which are aptly blue-hued. See a closer image in the PDF file.
- Personal income declined in 2006 in 227 counties, according to the BEA. In all but 5 of these counties farming can account for the entire decline. The largest percentage losses in personal income were in counties in the Dakotas and Texas.
-The earnings gap is still massive. Per capita personal income (personal income divided by population) ranged from $110,292 in New York County, New York to $9,140 in Loup County, Nebraska.
- One of the handiest features about this set of BEA stats is how localized the results are. Search by county here. Data is available for 3,111 counties from 1969 to 2006.
-The percent change from 2005 to 2006 in county personal income ranged from 648 percent in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana to –43 percent in Slope County, North Dakota, according to the BEA. For the nation, personal income grew 6.7 percent.
So although the data was just released today, it reflects 2006 . Things have lately taken a turn for the recession, but the data does provide some insight into the broader contours of wealth distribution in America. Not to mention a glance into a simpler time - when Gnarles Barkley united people with his “Crazy” jams, Britney and K-fed were still together and people thought Pluto was a planet.
In between the recent Popemania and Pennsylvania primary blitzkrieg, you might have heard murmurs about the student loan industry being in a kerfuffle. It’s just one of the many residual effects of this recession business, which means it’s time to hit the books.
Here’s a quick roundup of what you need to know if you have a student loan, are looking to take one out, or are just really into reading about this kind of thing.
-The AP via HeraldNet has a quick-and-dirty FAQ about what the student loan news boils down to for parents and students.
- Here’s a big roundup from the WSJ about how and why private student loan lenders are dropping like flies. Friend of FiLife Mark Kantrowitz offers some nuggets of advice toward the bottom of the article. (more…)
What’s cooler than the week of personal finance news? Summing it up in 5-7-5 haiku form, of course. Here are FiLife’s poetic morsels and feel free to join the slam by scribing your own Fi-ku in the comments box below.
Oh, Ashlee Simpson
Engaged, but is she pregnant?
Maybe she’s faking.
-Mary Pilon
Food costs are surging
Along with everything else
Inflation’s return
-Dave Kansas (more…)
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