December 18, 2010
In any season, I think it’s appropriate to think of others, actually, but this is particularly timely for a few reasons. My good friend and fellow blogger J. Money of BudgetsAreSexy.com has been toiling long and hard on this fantastic project called LoveDrop (defunct, now).
It’s a micro-giving network intended to target people in need, one person or family per month, and surprise them with a bundle of financial gifts and other assistance. This started as very much a grassroots campaign, so although it’s not a not-for-profit organization and your contributions aren’t tax deductible, it’s for a very good cause. The project officially launches on January first, but it’s certainly open for people to purchase a subscription and get involved.
The group does have to pay taxes so the ratio of your contributions breaks down as follows: 50% to the recipients, 20% to taxes and 30% to organizational overhead.
Score one for transparency, and ten points to these guys for pursuing their passion of changing the world, one ‘drop at a time!
And to add to the mix, just as I completed the last touches on this post, I heard that LoveDrop co-founder and friend J. had been fired. Frankly, given all the projects in his head that need birthing with so few hours in the day, it couldn’t have happened to a better man. So consider supporting the cause and becoming a member because wouldn’t it be fantastic to help one of our own realize a dream of making the world a better place?
October 30, 2010
Last Saturday, a strange young man knocked on my front door and earnestly asked if I’d take a free trial for a local newspaper for eight weeks to help him go to college. He was just trying to earn a scholarship for college, he said, and he just needed me to sign up, no money needed.
He said he couldn’t leave the sign up form with me overnight because his counselor collected them every day, but all he needed was for me to sign up. He’d take care of the fees himself, and that would earn him a $500 scholarship for college.
When asked which apartment he lived in, he gave an apartment number two floors up.
He did even try the “well, even the guy downstairs who doesn’t speak much English helped me out, he signed up,” waving a filled out form vaguely in my direction. [Translation: he was much easier to convince because he couldn’t understand the implications of what I might be trying to pull.]
Though he seemed nice enough, I was put off by a number of things. The fact I couldn’t place his face, the fact he gave no identification or the school he was with, he refused to leave the paperwork overnight, and the whole deal didn’t really make much sense. None of these were really conclusive signs of anything: I have a terrible memory for faces, don’t recognize half of PiC’s friends and coworkers with whom I’ve been out socially, and if he was an earnest teenager he wouldn’t necessarily know to win suspicious people over by presenting identification. Nevertheless, while I’m a bad people person, I’m also not the easiest person to scam specifically because I naturally don’t have a trusting nature. Even if I had allowed for all of the above and overlooked it (which I won’t), I didn’t like the idea of handing over my name and address to a complete stranger upon solicitation.
I won’t give it someone who seems official conducting a survey, why would I give that information to a kid literally come in off the street?
While there’s not a lot one could do with a simple name and address on the surface of it, that’s always a start if they wanted a name, address and a signature to start an identity theft ring.
The next day, a notice went out that the kid was part of a twosome who was confronted by a building manager and it was revealed that neither of them did in fact live in the building. Their business, then, was even if it wasn’t a scam, at the very least, not legitimate in the sense they were lying to the residents to gain their trust.
Do you think you would have been as bothered by all the little rather intangible things as I was? They were all gut instincts but even I thought they were a bit tenuous at the time.
January 21, 2009
Mmm, I knew there was likely to be quite a few people taking advantage of the free make-up being disbursed due to this lawsuit, but I know someone who is really pushing the envelope, and bragging all over the place about it, to boot.
Having already made her rounds of one mall yesterday with a young teenager in tow, they collected 16 free items, and she plans to make another round of two malls tomorrow with the goal of picking up at least another 32 free perfumes and make-up items.
When someone else in line was told they couldn’t come through the line more than once, she encouraged this person to go through multiple times, belligerently and challenging the sales clerks as if they were in the wrong for enforcing the rules of the disbursement. She herself was looking for a fight, saying that “if the sales clerk picked on her? She would create a ruckus, cause the line to be shut down, and threaten them with a lawsuit for discriminating against her because she’s black.”
All because she has a “right” to collect as much free stuff as she wants. That’s it. As she tells it, she’s not giving the stuff away to charity, to friends, to family, to anyone in “need.” She just wants to get as much as she wants to get.
Um, what?
I’m not sitting here saying that corporate giants can’t absorb the cost of the products, they’re required to give away $175 million worth of make-up after all, it’s the whole point of this giveaway. But threatening a lawsuit? Harassing the sales clerks, glaring at them and giving them the evil eye on someone else’s behalf? Accusing people of racism when it’s got nothing to do with the issue at hand? All because you “need” more free stuff?
That just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There’s real racism out there, and real issues to be talked about. There’s something wrong about using those hot-button words just to enable greed.
November 14, 2008
It seems that the average consumers interviewed for this NY Times article, Lower Gas Prices Don’t Make Americans Feel Rich, aren’t taking the relief at the pump for granted. With the increasingly bad economy, and fearful outlook for the future, it relieves me that people aren’t simply reacting to the lowered prices with the same exuberance as we’ve seen in the volatile stock market.
I’m glad. It’s time we were more cautious, paid down debt, and made plans for a rainy tomorrow because I’m afraid that many people are already headed for a rough time of it without such back-ups. Even with all my preparations, saving, and thinking ahead, I don’t feel quite as prepared for a downturn of the proportions that are likely to come. No, the sky isn’t falling, but some days it feels like the ceiling might start caving in, and the floorboards have a decidedly creaky feel to them.
Speaking of temporary reprieves, we just got news of a reorganization in our office, effective Monday. The manner in which this decision was made and the suddenness with which it came to pass took everyone aback, and I’m not convinced that they’re not planning to reorganize us right out the door. Might not happen Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of next week, but it could happen the day after. Or the week after. Nothing’s certain but at least I have an e-fund. And I haven’t tempted Murphy, thank goodness. Either way, it’s not exactly the Christmas present I was hoping for from Santa!
November 9, 2008
Having spent the better part of morning reading a series of rather depressing NY Times articles, I finally found one that was heartening: Barbara Raab’s “Need to Take a Breather? Have a Game Plan” breaks down the important steps to take in order to secure a sabbatical that won’t sink your career and leave you twitching with regrets, and not so incidentally, unemployed.
Balancing on the precipice of a major change for the past several months, or at least preparing to take the plunge while keeping mum about it, has produced much the same jangling nerves she experienced:
Every little thing was on my nerves: every buzz of a BlackBerry, every too-loud ring of a phone. I was going home exhausted for all the wrong reasons. I have never been easy to manage, but I was becoming downright hard to take.
Yep! I keep it bottled up for the most part, but the tensions physically manifest themselves in knotted shoulders, an aching neck, a brilliantly spectacular headache at 9:30 every morning. As my dentist pronounced after a thorough exam: You need a vacation!
Or a sabbatical. I like the idea of taking time off, but I love the idea of taking a significant break that’s not just R&R, but is also a time of refreshing, learning and improving. If only I could keep my health insurance like she did …..
What about you? Would you embrace a sabbatical if the circumstances were right? What would those circumstances be?
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The other articles I read:
On Healthcare, Deported in a Coma, Saved Back in U.S.
On the World Economy, Stunned Icelanders Struggle After Economy’s Fall
On the US Economy, Working Poor and Young Hit Hard in Downturn
On the Business Plan of a new Country Performer, My Music, MySpace, My Life (Actually, not depressing)
On a Different Perspective into PayDay Loans, Check Cashers, Redeemed
September 18, 2008
An acquaintance of mine is planning a trip to Australia this winter. The cost of the business class ticket?
$18,546
*gasping for air*
A coach class ticket for that self-same flight booked in June went for about $4000. That’s … that’s … I think my brain is broken.
People … who … how? I actually can’t even form a coherent thought about this.
Yes, it’s a business trip and the cost of the ticket will be paid for by someone else. My entire system is still outraged by the notion.
August 5, 2008
This article on a recent Superior Court ruling in California caught my eye because I had to pay an early termination fee to cancel my beloved T-Mobile service and start using my iPhone. Originally, the fee was supposed to be taken care of, but the promise was broken, so my pocketbook took a whopping $200 hit. Gr.
Anyway, I got excited thinking that perhaps there was hope yet for getting that $200 back ….
The preliminary, tentative judgment orders Sprint Nextel to pay customers $18.2 million in reimbursements and, more importantly, orders Sprint to stop trying to collect another $54.7 million from California customers (some 2 million customers total) who have canceled their contracts but refused or failed to pay the termination fee.
While an appeal is inevitable, the ruling could have massive fallout throughout the industry. Without the threat of levying early termination fees, the cellular carriers lose the power that’s enabled them to lock customers into contracts for multiple years at a time. And while those contracts can be heinously long, they also let the carriers offer cell phone hardware at reduced (subsidized) prices. AT&T’s two-year contract is the only reason the iPhone 3G costs $199. If subsidies vanish, what happens to hardware lock-in? Could an era of expensive, but unlocked, hardware be just around the corner? It’s highly probable.
If I recall correctly, I think Europe’s way of doing things is far better: They purchase whatever phone they want, and then sign up for service with whatever phone carrier they want. I don’t know what that does to the price of equipment and service compared to ours, but I know that I could have continued on my merry, slow-tech way and saved a whole lot of money!