Friday, January 30, 2009

Phew

Recent Giuliani quote:
"I remember when I was mayor, one of the ways in which you determine New York City's budget, tax revenue is Wall Street bonuses."

I'm glad this man is not our president.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

G1-data=cool+savings

So my diabolical plan worked after all. I have been wanting a smart phone for some time but did not want to pay the extra charges for the data plan. So when the G1 came out I was pretty excited.

First off, when I bought the phone the salesman in the store said you could cancel the data plan after one month. But when I called T-mobile on Monday to cancel the data plan they assured me that the phone would be bricked after I canceled the data plan.

Two days later the phone sill works, and I can access the internet & maps when I am near a wifi point. The only negative I have found is that the twitter client that I am using seams a little buggy. I assume that some of the apps may be programmed to work on the network not through the wifi, so there may be a few apps that don't work properly.

Ps in order to get the text messaging plan back on to my phone I had to tell the website that I did not have a G1. I needs my 400 text's a month......what does that say about me?

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Money

There is a saying that where your money is....there your heart is. For the past year I have been tracking my spending to see where all my money go's. I came up with a few surprises.

Number one on the list.....Housing? Food? Nope Taxes!!!!! Yep, 24.33% of my money went to paying state and federal taxes. (That does not include any sales tax. That would be impossible to track.) That was quite a surprise to me. Paying for wars and bailouts is not a priority for me, but schools and parks.....I'm a little conflicted.

Second on the list was savings (13.81%). This is not much of a surprise to me because I am on an aggressive savings track to buy my first home. Although, when I think about it, the general rule of thumb is to save 10% of your take home pay. I feel that I have gone to some great lengths to get to 13% it's no wonder that most Americans have little savings.

Third, rent 12.92%. I am a little surprised by this number. Living in Boston, I thought it would be higher.

Fourth, giving 9.78% I was hoping this would be a little higher. Something I need to work on.

Everything else was under 7% . This brings some perspective to things like retirement, travel, and entertainment. When budgeting and tracking I tend to be obsessive about these sort of things when in reality they make up very little of my spending.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Starting off the new year

I have been listening to Democracy Now for the past couple of months. This year they have started off with two phenomenal shows. One on Utah Phillips, the orginizer, singer songwriter, storyteller, and general anarchist. And and the other show is a talk by Howard Zinn, historian teacher and writer.

As I listened to these two stories, it makes me think about the type of person I would like to become. Both men speak their mind and stand for justice. Followers of Jesus, in the US, tend to be meek. As if Jesus wanted us to become nice people. Sure we are to love our neighbors, but were also called to stand up for justice. This should, on occasion, put us at odds with those in power in our society.

I recommend giving these two stories a listen and be inspired to cause a little trouble. (Click)