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Credit Card Spending: What’s your first bill in 2008 like?

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Today was the day that my first credit card bill landed on my doorstep with a small thud! Thankfully, for me, the thud was due to the included catalogue, NOT the size of the bill. But with the worsening economy in the US, home to the majority of my readers, the first credit card bills of 2008 couldn’t be coming at a worse time. So, as I peruse my light reading, I can’t help thinking of those for whom things are much worse:

So, how did I do? Let’s see. It seems that in December I spent nearly NT$14,738 on things that I can’t remember (I’ll have to look over the bill from December to see what went on!).

But WORSE, I only paid about $7,179 dollars of the outstanding balance off, meaning that I incurred an interest charge on the remainder – I haven’t done that in months. At 11.5% per annum, that’s about NT$174 (or nearly US$5.00).

The other charges are minimal (all currencies NT$32.5:US$1).

  1. The biggest is my regular insurance/investment product that charges about $2000 to my card every month. I should really blog about that product from Cigna but I can’t make up my mind if it’s a good thing or not.
  2. Then I added a $1000 amount for a regular membership of the local video store, as I was in the middle of watching the DVD series The Apprentice Series 4. Very enjoyable overall, though the final candidates didn’t surprise me at all. We still have a few hundred dollars outstanding so we can rent more movies.
  3. Of course, my mobile phone bill came in at $398 but that was for 2 months, not one. I hardly use it these days at all, even for incoming calls. It helps if I charge it and turn it on!
  4. We also went to Hola in Taipei which is a furnishings store near B&Q, where we were looking at the Roomba. Between these two stores, we bought a new shower curtain, and a few odds and ends: total $1233.

So why didn’t I pay off the bill in full? Well, it was for a stupid reason: I was trying to save a round number to open a new CD. I had planned to open one for NT$100,000 (about US$3,000), but that move cost me more than I’d have earned. I prefered to earn 2.4% per annum instead of paying off a bill that charged 11.5% per annum – how dumb is that: to spend $174 to save an extra $20? Not a smart move.

Have you ever made dumb moves with your credit cards? Let’s hear it here.

Sunday Newsbytes: EeePC, BlogDesk, and good food!

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It’s morning time in the US, late evening in Taiwan.

A Delicious Meal: Needn’t be Expensive to be Delicious
We really didn’t do much today, but we had a lovely dinner last night at one of our favorite restaurants Dante’s (not the coffeeshop by that name), located on the campus of the National Taipei University of the Arts in Taipei City. In fact, we live less than ten minutes’ pleasant walk from the campus, so we go there often.

The meal is quite simple and very affordable: an small but well-prepared all-you-can-eat salad bar with lots of fresh salads, cold meats, and so on. Next to that is the deserts with cakes and fruit. There are also breads, and soup you can feast on. Once you order, you will also get a main course that you can select from pastas at the low end to steaks at the high end. In all, we paid about $1250 for a nice meal for two, including everything but wine. The view over Taipei is quite staggering at night, and well worth the price: you can typically see 101, the Shin Kuang Mitsuokoshi Tower and a lot in between. It’s a fantastic view.

Asus’ Eee PC 701: A hands’ on experience!
Today, we also went to FNAC in Taiwan where I finally had a hands-on experience with Asus’ newest baby: the Eee-PC 701 (in white). It was priced at about NT$11,665 which is about US$360 or so.

Asus Eee PC 701

I came away suitably impressed with the machine, in a number of respects. I found it easy to use, networking was straightforward, it was easy to find the applications, it was a snap to start up, shut down. So, I think this device will be remembered as the device that ‘created’ a whole new generation of small but highly effective smaller-than-laptop internet connected devices. It is truly a wonderful machine… but here’s why I’m not plumping for it just yet:

1. the keyboard and touchpad: in a word, awful beyond belief;
2. the screensize: why not make it 10″;
3. and, the available memory is too small.

A slightly faster processor would help, but in the Linux system it was fast and responsive. The XP model was poky beyond belief. It was great to work in a familiar environment, though the downsides of the XP model really left it wanting more, much more: more memory (1GB), more disk space (at about 350MB), a bigger screen, and some useful productivity tools. In two of the those four areas, the Linux model was easily better. Easily. The XP model would have been quite easy to add software, too, except for the lack of space. The Linux model… well, I couldn’t figure out how to do that, my level of technical Chinese isn’t great yet, so I couldn’t find the right options in the screen.

In both cases, though, one of the biggest disappointments for me was the lack of an English Language model for sale. I was told that Taiwan only had Chinese Language Models (a fact that I doubt!). So, I’m holding off, for now. For NOW! But can I wait for Spring’s new models…? I wonder.

BlogDesk
BlogDesk has been giving me grief, though, and I think I know the reason. First of all, here’s the error message I keep getting and I don’t have a clue what it means… but I tell you, it’s because of the video I keep trying to link to. It’s screwing up this posting as I had to rewrite almost 50% of this entry. Blogdesk caused my PC to emit a string of beeps before it gave this error message.

24 as it was in 1994.

And the Video that’s causing all the trouble: almost like it was intended to create problems similar to the one in the video. Watch it, but I’m just linking to the page, until I can figure out why the code is borking my system! Perhaps it’s a mole inside College Humor.

Happy Sunday

Stockwire.com: A myspace for investors – or just plain ol’good?

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I recently registered for a Microcap website called stockwire.com with the long appellate The MySpace for the Penny Stock investor! So it’s kind of a mouthful! Registration was a real bliss. At first I thought there was going to be an annoying video ad, but the ad/commentary/registration was wonderfully simple and effective. Stockwire.com is a Penny Stock website that is primarily focused on the Micro Cap and Small Cap investor. The forums are small but effective. I love the simple video tutorials, stock profiles, and blog sections. I don’t generally recommend buying over the counter stocks like these because volatility and fluidity are generally issues in penny stocks. In other words you can get seriously burned by lack of information. With any luck, Stockwire.com could help to bridge the information gap with accurate reporting, and discussion in its pages. Naturally, all investors should do their own Due Diligence before purchasing any stock found on this or any other information source!

Sponsored by Stockwire.com.