I’ve put together some New Year’s resolution that are financially related that I definitely can attain.

1. Step up emergency savings contributions – Currently I contribute $30 a week to my emergency cash fund. If I step this amount up $5 to $35, that’s an extra $260 annual contribution. Definitely do-able the first week of the year.

2. Pack lunch – I’m extremely lazy or don’t have time but I’ve been buying my lunches everyday I go to work and the costs do add up. I think I spent roughly $200 last month in that damn cafeteria.

3. Rake in the CC bonuses – I’ve got a decent credit score and I should take advantage of that at this point in my life when I’m not looking to do anything that requires a decent credit score (buy a house, car, etc.) The plan is to sign up for a bunch of cards, rake in the bonuses, consolidate the cards, and the end result is a few cards with huge credit lines.

On a side note, Citi recently upped my credit limit again to $10,000 on my first credit card (Citi Dividend). This is a card that I started out with under 2 years ago with a limit of $800. I’ll admit it feels pretty nice to have a huge credit line… and no I was never an authorized user on my parent’s CCs so no help there.

4. Start a vacation fund – I already have a emergency fund, a car maintenance fund (of which I contribute $40/week) for gas and general maintenance expenses, and a xmas fund ($10/week contribution, $500 or so yearly which is plenty for gifts) so why not a vacation fund? I’m going on vacation in January to California to visit my sister and her newborn. Usually these are unplanned expenses so the hit I take from the cost of the airplane tickets and such is pretty rough.

Albert Lord through the entire Q & A session sounded like a extremely nervous fella.

Link to the story on Minyanville here.

Some interesting parts of the CC.

At 22:22

“We’re trying to figure out what your stock is going to be worth and you’ve got to give us some guidance.”

“You should give Steve [McGarry, Managing Director of Investor Relations] a call,” Lord said.

“But you’re the CEO,” the questioner objected.

“That’s right. I’m the CEO,” Lord replied. “Next question.”

At 25:05

“and uh… so when I stand before you in January I will be prepared to take all your questions and I suggest maybe you get there early because you will be going to a metal detector.”

and then…

at 26:40

“Steve, let’s go, there’s no questions, let’s get the f*ck outta here.”

Listen to the unedited CC here (mp3 format).

I have a lot of ink cartridges that can be recycled via Staples’ ink cartridge recycling program. I go about once a week or less to a local Staples and turn in 10 cartriges (which is the max per person per day). You get a $3 coupon per ink cartridge and you can use 3 coupons per day.

Yesterday I decide to bring my girlfriend along and have her turn in 10 cartridges too. The local manager Steve Minadeo told the employee recycling our cartridges that we can only turn in 10 total since we “came in together”.

First off, what kind of logic is this? So if we came in 10 minutes apart there would be no problem?

He also rudely remarked “You guys come here all the time” like that’s a bad thing. I’ve spent approximately $7,000+ net at Staples this year alone and you’re insulting me for being a repeat customer? I filed a complaint to corporate but I doubt anything will be done.

What Staples doesn’t realize is that while they probably are the closest local store to me it isn’t hard to take my business elsewhere online. Which is something I’m considering doing. I’m being realistic in that I’m not a big customer so Staples corporate could care less. The loss of my 7k yearly spending won’t put any noticable dent in their figures. However, if pricks like Steve keep treating customers the way he does I’m pretty sure he’ll cost Staples a decent chunk of business.

At one point in my life, me, my cousin and my brother all lived under the same roof. We all had our own desktop PCs and eventually when the other two moved out they left behind their heavy CRT monitors and desktop PCs.

Most people would throw them out. However, being frugal and a former geek myself, I took the 3 monitors and put them all on one desk. I then took the video cards out of their PCs and into mine (lucky they were both PCI cards since I had plenty of slots)… and viola!

The things you get around to doing when your xBox dies eh?

I now have a 3 monitor setup. So now I’m going back to using my desktop and ditch the laptop for a bit. Hopefully I’ll get a lot more productive in terms of this blog and other projects.

Here’s a snapshot, note the super dusty keyboard from lack of use. The best part was this new and more productive setup costs me $0. The biggest pain though was finding drivers for these old ass video cards that would work.

Here’s a story which involved an elaborate return fraud scheme:

California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced on Monday the arrest of a Texas couple on suspicion of bilking high-end retailers up and down the state, including in the Bay Area, of more than $375,000.

Terrance Malone, 32, and Varee Hayes-Malone, 32, were arraigned Monday in San Diego County Superior Court after being arrested in San Diego on Thursday.

According to prosecutors, the couple defrauded retailers such as Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma and Victoria’s Secret using a complicated scheme involving purchasing and returning items multiple times with multiple credit and debit cards.

Full story

While the scheme itself was interesting, what’s appalling is their arrest warrant gives out so much personal information it sets up the couple for identity theft. Considering they’ll probably be going to prison, it’ll probably go unnoticed for years.

The usual address, date of birth, etc. is freely and intentionally provided on their arrest warrant. However unintentionally their social security numbers are provided also. On the last page of arrest warrant, whatever genius handled them decided to just put a black box over the text. This does not remove the text at all in Adobe. Simply highlighting and pasting the “censored” text somewhere else allows even a 6 year old to figure out their SSNs. Couple this information with their full names, date of births, current residence and you have recipe for identity theft.

edit: Looks like they realized their goof and removed the document entirely.

I only found out about this nifty little device called the Kindle a couple days ago when browsing on Amazon for random things. The device is an e-book reader that goes for $399. The e-books generally go for $10/pop. What’s extremely cool is that the wireless feature of the device uses EVDO so you can download books basically anywhere you get cellular coverage.

If I could afford the device I’d actually get one. The things are sold out and when you place an order you’re simply getting a “place in line”.

The things definitely a hot gift item this year since they’re going for $800-$1000 on eBay(completed listings) which means if you nabbed a few early you’d be sitting on some nice profit potential. The 100%+ reseller profit margin rivals that of other hot items in past years (iPhones, Wii, TMX Elmo, etc.).

A lot of negative reviews on Amazon are kinda stupid in my humble opinion. They complain about the device not being able to replace their laptops and such. The device is designed as a e-book reader, not a PDA! It does exactly what it should does it pretty well.

Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device

I’ll admit one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging much is because I’ve re-discovered the joys of playing on my xbox 360 online late into the night. However a couple days ago I turned on my xBox and got the infamous red ring of death which means multiple hardware failure.

So I called tech support and they’ll be sending me a pre-paid mailer to mail out my xBox for repair. Repair time takes approximately 3-4 weeks. Good news for the couple hundred or so people that read this blog can expect to see more posts. Bad news in that I was just starting to get really addicted to the online multiplayer experience.

Here’s my actual xBox with the red ring of death:

Apparently Microsoft is handling the problem fairly well as the leading cause is believed to be the lead-free solder that’s now used which isn’t as resilient as the older tin solder. Microsoft has reserved over a billion dollars for this problem to spend $100 on every existing Xbox 360 to fix them, or enough to replace every third xBox 360 ever made.

All in all I’m glad I don’t have to put up a fight to get my 360 fixed. Microsoft simply admitted there are faulty units and they’ll fix them. The warranty was also extended 3 years to cover every xBox 360 ever made.

AGLOCO was started by the people who did AllAdvantage back in the dot com days. Seems like history is repeating itself. I got this e-mail earlier from them:

We would like to update you on the status of AGLOCO’s operations. We continue to believe in the AGLOCO concept, but our revenue is currently not sufficient to give Members a meaningful distribution. And though there are increases in membership, the resulting revenue is not enough to support operating costs. As a development team we are unable to continue to use our savings to fund the operations. If any Member would like to pursue continuing the operations of AGLOCO, you may contact us at agloco1@live.com .

We would like to thank every Member for supporting our effort to bring a piece of the Internet directly to the user. We hope that we can find a way to keep the operations going.

AGLOCO Development Team

Good thing I didn’t pay much attention to these guys. Sorry for the lack of posts btw, laziness and work have overtaken me.

Staples had a Black Friday “early bird” sale which started at 6 AM. One of the items featured was the Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 4000 for $27.

I purchased this item(along with others) and the following week when UPS delivered my items I received the Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 4000. So I figured Staples made a mistake because on my invoice it said Microsof WRLS LSR DSKTP 4000. I called up Staples and both CSRs claimed the right item was shipped. The second CSR even rudely put it that she cannot do anything because I ordered the wrong item.

So according to a various discussions I see online it turns out Staples goofed and meant to sell the Optical set for $27 so they just changed everyone’s orders without informing them. So my packing slip and e-mail order confirmation both state me being sold the LASER set but Staples changed the online status of my item to say I was sold the Optical version. I am seriously pissed and the only recourse I have is to return the item.

They could have at least informed everyone that they goofed and would be sending out a different item rather than change all the online descriptions. They could have informed their CSRs of the situation because eventually people would be calling in. The only good thing is Staples isn’t the only game in town when it comes to office supplies.