Endless Gibberish

eBay finally grants me PowerSeller status! It doesn’t mean much besides the fact I get the little icon next to my name and I get a 5-15% discount on final value fees. Considering I paid roughly $90 in final value fees on my last invoice I’ll probably save roughly $4.5 (5%) or $13.50 (15%).

Getting PowerStatus involves selling $1,000+ in sales volume for at least 3 months. I didn’t think I got it since one month I sold roughly $800 or so worth of stuff. Hopefully I won’t lose my status as I don’t plan on selling much this summer.

As everyone has probably noticed, the price of oil has skyrocketed to new highs recently. The main causes have been increasing demand and a weakening dollar. One of the big problems is a lot of people drive like idiots and get poor mileage in their oversized cars. The same guy you see on the news that whines about $4 gas while filling up his Ford F-150 is also the guy laughs at the Prius owners.

Personally I think $4/gallon is still relatively cheap and people will be in for real hurting down the road if they think that’s expensive. So why do I think gas should be more expensive?

Higher prices will curtail demand and force Americans to learn to use gasoline more efficiently. The US government should’ve imposed a $2/gallon tax after 9/11 when everyone was feeling so patriotic. The increase in price would’ve forced people to change their lifestyles and re-consider buying that Hummer. The price of gas then was roughly $1/gallon if I remember and people would have been perfectly fine paying $3/gallon for gas. Another reason is that people blame the oil companies for price gouging when the bulk of profits are enriching OPEC countries. If the higher cost of gas is due to our own taxes, at least it’s enrichening our own coffers.

Begging people to change their lifestyle isn’t going to work. Prices and money are the only tools you can use to influence people’s behaviors.

I finally got around to upping my emergency fund contribution to $35/week. Upon checking my account balance it turns out my weekly contributions of $30/week have added another $1,000 to my emergency fund balance since Sept 07 when my emergency fund hit the $1,500 mark.

I’m setting a definite target amount for my emergency fund. The magic number is $10,000. If I continue at a rate of $35/week contributions it would take 214 weeks or so to accumulate $7,500. Interest accumulation here and there should cut a week or two off.

The most difficult part of saving is not touching the money. I use to have an obsessive habit of checking the balance daily but now I’ll check my balance once a month or so.

Recently I turned 21 and discovered the whole “happy hour” experience. Those unfamiliar with “happy hour” concept can check wikipedia. When a establishment like the Olive Branch can offer $1 mugs and $0.50 pizza slices weekdays 4-7pm… you know i’m there.

There needs to be a collective source for information for all the happy hours that are going on around town for the frugal that like to go out and have a drink. The only decent website I found so far was unthirsty.com but that’s far from a collective source of information as they only list 1 bar by me.