The Adventures of LitBoy: Bill Brent's Blog

SWAPPING INSTEAD OF SPENDING TO BUY STUFF

SWAP IT! You may think I'm crazy for saying this, but as long as you own stuff you don't really need, do whatever you can to trade your old stuff at a neighborhood swap meet once a month. Sure, you can use Craigslist for the bigger stuff, if you don't mind total strangers showing up at your house -- possibly to case the joint. Maybe you can meet at at public location instead, such as your workplace -- that can be safer, especially if the security guard is on duty when your buyer shows up.

And there's always eBay. But why should that giant online auction site get such a big cut of your every sale? Yeah, we all procrastinate listing our stuff on eBay, if we ever do it at all. Meanwhile, the freight and postal delivery services raise their rates like clockwork every January, and since the ongoing spike in the price of fuel, usually in between too! Every time they do that, it eats away at your profit.

And what about PayPal? Well, guess what -- that's owned by eBay too. So eBay could be making money off your sale in up to three places: going in the front door, when you probably paid eBay a fee to list it; in the middle of your sale, when your customer goes to buy it with PayPal; and out the back door, when eBay takes its commission from you.

Next, there's the hassle of packing and shipping, and then the concern that your goods might not show up in the same shape they left in. Better know what you're doing when you pack it, or pay a professional shipper! Is it worth much? Maybe you want to buy shipping insurance, too, just in case you are asked to make a refund!

Barter is better. If you can figure out how to trade your stuff for other stuff that you want, this is always a good deal compared to spending your money to get it out that door. Why? Simply because it keeps more money in both your pocket AND the other guy's.

We have been more or less programmed in this culture NOT to haggle about the price of things, and ALWAYS to pay with cash or plastic! To make matters worse, we're all brainwashed to believe that full bags equal happiness! From the time we're old enough to stand up in our cribs, point, and say "I want it!" Clearly, this is not the way to cut costs. Yes, you will have to rethink the way you have done some things up till now. No, it is not as hard as you think.

Look at Craigslist, for instance. No, not in the hook-up-for-sex sections! Seriously, now, you can find online ads where others will be asking for trades rather than cash. Not a lot, but they're in there. There ought to be more. Lately I've even seen folks swapping property for vehicles! In Hawaii, where I live, we have a popular early morning radio talk show with a community announcements section. Plenty of folks here use that call-in time as an opportunity to trade and even give away stuff they no longer want.

Now, if we can make this loose kind of networking work on an island that has under 200,000 total inhabitants, then it has got to be achievable anywhere with a larger population base. Sure, folks on the outer islands of Hawaii have to be a bit scrappier than most, simply because many of us don't have access to some of the services that are easily available elsewhere and taken for granted by others there, such as municipal water and weekly garbage truck pickups. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't learn how to trade goods and services in order to save your money for something you really need it for. There's a reason that "save my money" is such a popular Google search request.

Many of us are also trained to think that "only an expert" can do our negotiating for us. Don't believe it. If you can split a restaurant bill, then you already have the basic skills it takes to drive a bargain that two parties can live with. If not, then take along someone who does. And pay attention when they do it, as knowing how to barter is a valuable life skill. (HINT: Ask for more than what you want, since this gives you some room to bargain with.) If you are a parent, then teach your kids how to haggle, while you're at it.

If you like to meet people, you can throw a yard sale, of course, but why not with the whole neighborhood at once? And why only once a year, the way most of us do it? If you're searching on "save my money" during bad economic times, then stay home and host a seasonal garage sale, or a monthly block sale! Maybe you can even make it across town to swap and sell at another neighborhood sale. Whatever works.

Make it a festive event if you can. Make your own entertainment and save money at the same time! Get a kid you know to videotape the event. Then you can upload your neighborhood block sale, or community association flea market, or homeowner association swap meet highlights to YouTube, so that the rest of us can laugh along with you! It's worth thinking about.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2009.07.14, 12:25 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is the brainchild of writer Bill Brent. If you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation in support of my work. You can send money via PayPal to info [AT] litboy [DOT] com, or better still, use Revolution Money Exchange. Unlike PayPal, RME pays me 100% of your donation. It's quick and easy!


Here's the button for that:

COMMERCE REDUX, or REDUCTIO AD COMMERCIUM

So I had a rather radical response to the events surrounding THIS POST, and I thought I would follow up a bit.

I was all set to go to Traffic Court to fight my speeding ticket, using the strategy outlined HERE and HERE.

But then I got cold feet.

Well, not really. I mean, yes, I was scared enough that I was rehearsing at least some bit of my court appearance on a daily basis for weeks. And then I realized it was keeping me from writing. A lot of my creative thought was diverted into how I would stage what would probably end up being a two-minute appearance at the local police station in the town that issued the ticket.

I had backup strategies, even. I was all set to spend an afternoon touring and photographing signage for all the other school zones I could find in Puna and South Hilo districts, thus creating documentary evidence that the stretch of Hawaii State Highway 139 where I was busted did not display sufficient posting for a school zone. Aside from one easily missed speed limit sign, there is NO signage depicting kids in a crosswalk, the words "SCHOOL ZONE", or any such warning. No blinking yellow light. None of that.

But then I learned from the District Court here that I could not subpoena the traffic cop until after the judge had heard my case. In other words, I was not allowed to demand that the officer who had clocked me and pulled me over be brought in for questioning and made accountable, with full documentation supporting his evidence against me, until after an uninvolved third party (the judge) had most likely already ruled against me, based on my testimony at his hearing, which would be, in effect, bearing witness against myself. So I thought, "This system really sucks! And I could be writing instead."

And then I got the wild idea to put away the minivan.

In other words, to simply pay the ticket without:

- enduring bumper-to-bumper traffic on the one-lane highway leading to my appearance at the Kea'au police station on a Friday morning between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m.,
- spending an afternoon taking photos (and then an evening selecting, cropping, and printing the pics via computer),
- continuing to waste valuable writing time rehearsing my appearance,
- and, most importantly, suffering further anxiety and anger attacks.

It embarrasses me a bit to admit that I'd been having those attacks. I wasted my partner's time, and my weekly consultation time with my writing coach at least once on this stupid ticket matter. I tried detachment, afformations, conscious breathing, taking naps, going for walks, and still I felt rage and panic. Helpless anger. So maybe that's a personal limitation, but it's well within the range of ordinary human behavior.

A lot of my outrage had to do with the outrageous fine. If I had been knowingly breaking the speed limit, I don't think I would have felt quite so incensed at having to pay a $172 fine for a harmless infraction. I didn't damage anything or endanger anyone. This was a cut-and-dried case of a local gendarme ringing up the register for the county coffers. Based on my monthly disability income of less than $800, which goes for my rent and utilities, as well as occasional incidentals like, um food, this was a heavy hit to the checkbook.

Garaging the minivan, on the other hand, would allow me to save:

- roughly $100 on the vehicle insurance, given as a refund for the current six-month period,
- roughly $500 per year on fuel costs (averaging $40 per month; no, I don't drive much),
- the annual $500 for my bare-bones vehicle insurance before the inevitable rate increase;
- the annual $100 DMV vehicle fee,
- any risk of an accident in the vehicle.

So that's a savings of roughly $1,200 per year, based on my meager use of the minivan.

The real reason to fight a ticket, as many of us know, is to avoid taking the hit to one's insurance rates. Since I have such bare-bones coverage, mine would not have been too bad, but still would have cost me an additional estimated $330 over the next three years. Plus, the infraction appears on the insurance industry's database for a total of five years, which increases my rates if I want to switch insurance carriers, or need to, such as in the event of a move to a non-covered state.

Now, unlike many of us, I have the luxury of living with someone who drives, has a working vehicle, and already has me listed as a secondary driver on the insurance policy. So it's just a matter of my continuing to minimize my driving trips, pitching in for gas or the like now and then, and I'm covered.

So I paid the ticket at the District Court office in Hilo, using my credit card (might as well rack up a few air miles), just after the card's monthly closing date, so at least I'm getting the maximum cash flow possible before the pay-off hits. Meanwhile, I've already banked my policy cancellation refund check from the insurance company, which covers half the ticket's cost. The same day I got that check, I also made roughly $60 from unrelated, unexpected income. So, in other words, the fine is more or less covered.

The real lesson here extends beyond my rather trivial tale of woe. It's really about how each of us does business with the world, and how you can become more aware of the real cost of doing your business. Better awareness for you equals better choices on how you spend your money.

Now, I'm not saying all of us should rush out and garage our cars – for most of us, that would still be impractical – but it's important to recognize the hidden costs of ownership. Most of us, I believe, give far more of our paycheck to banks and insurance companies than we need to.

You see, the real cost-of-living increases for most Americans over the past three or four decades have come NOT in the area of consumer goods, but in two major areas: INSURANCE (health insurance, mostly) and HOUSING (mortgage payments, largely). You can find out about that HERE, on YouTube, in an informative presentation about the collapse of the American middle class. [NOTE: You can skip the first six minutes, since that is the introduction of the speaker and other formalities.] The speaker is Elizabeth Warren, who teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School.

- Health coverage goes to an insurance company (before I bit the bullet in 2003 and declared disability, I was paying about $600 a month in group coverage), and
- Mortgage payments go to a bank (in my case, I pay housing rent to someone who has a monthly mortgage to pay).

If Americans plan to make it through the next decade or so of economic woes with any semblance of our current quality of life intact, then we need to start looking now at how to cut back on ALL our costs of living, not just the obvious ones. Garaging my minivan seems a bit extreme, but so far, I've been making do without one for a month, and it hasn't significantly affected my quality of my life. On the other hand, once I factor in my estimated rate increase, I'm saving about $1,500 per year by NOT running a vehicle I was only getting minimal use from anyhow. That may not seem like much to someone who considers himself in the middle class, but for someone with an annual disability income of about $10,000, that is huge. I've just slashed my annual cost of living by 15 percent!

That is 15 percent per annum that I can now grow a bit of interest on, and which will enable me to travel from Hawaii to the mainland, whenever I need to. Yes, it would be easy to settle for being "poor," and to state that there is nothing I can do about it. But that's a defeatist perspective. I'd rather reframe my situation and state, "Okay, I'm going to adopt a Southeast Asian Immigrant Mentality." Here are some examples of how I am doing that, and so can you:

- keep rent cheap;
- cut expenses to the bone (especially any recurring ones);
- buy fresh or grow your own (it's healthier and cheaper);
- stay home (don't spend money on "keeping up appearances");
- keep your work ethic strong;
- develop your skills so you can make better money;
- remember that your opportunities here are better than elsewhere;
- eschew instant gratification for the promise of a better tomorrow;
- don't pay retail; shop in the discount markets when it saves you money;
- keep money circulating within your own community.
- and save some for a rainy day, preferably in an interest-bearing account, where it's not too easy to withdraw.

Remember when we used to call this Yankee frugality?

It's worth thinking about.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2008.06.01, 2:55 a.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

20.00 / $200.00 (10.0%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars and my annual goal of $200. Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

But why bother with the coins...

...when they could just build the pawn shops right into the gas stations?

It's so much more efficient.

To view this video, you must: CLICK HERE.

---

Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2008.04.16, 8:50 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

20.00 / $199.90 (10.0%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

OUR SAD COMMERCE

Earlier this week, I spent the entire day, and a fair amount of the night (blessed be insomnia) doing online research to debate a speeding ticket I got in mid-March.

When A Highway Is Not A Highway

I got my ticket on Hawaii State Highway 139, better known as Old Keaau-Pahoa Road. The posted speed limit on that road is 25 MPH, a fact that is easy to miss when you turn off Highway 130 (the main highway, speed limit 55MPH), drive around a 20 MPH bend (see picture 1), and onto a wide straightaway that looks very much like a busy, mixed-use street in California that would have a speed limit of at least 35 MPH. (See picture 2.) In fact, it is difficult to drive on Highway 139 at 25 MPH. In order to maintain such a slow rate of travel on this road, one must use the brake pedal nearly constantly to compensate for the inherent forward momentum of most vehicles.

A school sits quite a distance back from Highway 139, and is therefore hard to see. The single northbound speed limit sign is small and white, and likewise terribly nondescript. By contrast, there are two speed limit signs in the southbound direction, and they are much harder to miss.

The weather was dry and clear. My time of travel was mid-morning. There was not a pedestrian in sight along the entire corridor. Thus, no one was in danger from my rate of travel, which was commensurate with every other car on my side of the highway.

Of course, none of this common-sense judgment counts when you are cited for a speeding infraction. Issuing a ticket for a non-harmful moving violation is an example of an absolute remedy. (Click HERE to see what I think of those.)

So what we have here is the classic speed trap. Now, most of us have been caught in one of these at some point in our driving history, and we've wished that the attending officer would have a heart and let us off with a warning. No such luck, in my case. I was issued a ticket  for driving over 40 in a 25 MPH zone.

And he got me, fair and square, right?

No. It's completely covert, and completely unfair. The whole vehicle industry is in on the chase. It's all about the money. This sad commerce encompasses everyone from the municipalities to the judicial system to the insurance corporations to the car manufacturers to the law enforcement agencies.

You and I, whom they treat as people (i.e., citizens and customers) when they want to sell us their products or collect our taxes, are actually, in spirit, the pigeons in their sights, the dumb clucks in their slaughterhouse, the innocent ducks in their shooting blinds. Pulling over motorists like us, who have unknowingly run afoul of the law, and penalizing to the tune of $172 for a first offense, is unconscionable.

But that's not where it ends. According to my insurer, it will cost me an additional estimated $330 in increased insurance rates over the next three years if I do not fight this ticket and prevail. So now we are over $500 in total losses.

How cold. But them's the choices.

A rather novel option, and an extreme one which I am likely to take regardless of the outcome, entails removing my plates from the vehicle and tendering them to the folks at Hawaii DMV. This allows me to cancel the policy altogether. It also uncomplicates my life yet again, because when I choose this option, no longer will I have to buy gas for this vehicle, pay its annual registration fee, finance its maintenance, or support Hawaii's hefty insurance premiums. I figure that this can save me roughly $1,500 over the next eighteen months. End of the chase.

So perhaps one absolute remedy deserves another. Any tax that is applied absolutely, regardless of income, is a REGRESSIVE TAX. This applies to the issuance of speeding tickets, a great example of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. When the remedy is handed down to us from on high, as if it were our heads on a platter, an absolute remedy is probably the only way to fight back – from the bottom up. Opt out.

But back to the present case. I have spent over twenty hours this week studying various defenses against the court's upholding the validity of this ticket. It would certainly be easier to pay the $172 and the increased insurance premiums, and get on with my life. For "my life," however, the total penalty is equal to one month's rent, which is also 60% of my monthly disability income.

Now, many people could not afford to take the time off work to go to court and fight this ticket, and their chances of prevailing would be slim at best. So perhaps I should be grateful for the "option" of disrupting my sleep over the next five or six weeks while I rehearse my day in court. Well, no. I'm not grateful for yet another "learning experience" that has nothing to do with safety and security, and everything to do with PREDATORY CONTROL

.

In fact, I was only on Highway 139 because I was running an errand as a favor for a family member. So much for good deeds, eh?

Nah. I'm not  really bitter, just wiser. Society's questionable institutions just keep pushing me further and further beyond the margins of ordinary social reality, and into a strange and lonely limbo. Fortunately, I am content for now to keep my own company. I am also lucky that our family has another vehicle I can use on the rare occasions henceforth when I need to venture out of my reclusive residence here in the forest primeval. So we'll go with that for a while and see how it works out.

Besides, one less car on the road means one less tiny contribution to the oil crisis, and global warming, or whatever you want to call it when GLACIER NATIONAL PARK is well on its way to losing its namesake glaciers and becoming merely a generic "National Park."

But I digress. The real point is, our society will have one less player in the sad game of commerce that passes for our authentic experience. Let the freeze-out begin. May the glaciers prevail

- - - - -

1. My related links:

   (a) UNCOMPLICATE MY LIFE, part 1

   (b) UNCOMPLICATE MY LIFE, part 2

2. Other related traffic citation links:

   (a) This page provides an introduction to laser technology, as used to clock moving vehicles. The TIPMRA site is broad, and apparently one of the few legitimate sites to help prepare a defense against a speeding ticket. Surf around a bit and read at least this and the next two pages. (TIPMRA is "armpit" spelled backwards; thus it's a play on the phrase "the long arm of the law.")

TIPMRA has a for-pay section as well. My own opinion is that TIPMRA has its bills to pay; however, if the basic information you need is widely available on the Web for free, then you should not have to pay for it. Buyers beware any emotionally based appeals to your pocketbook. You're in deep enough already, right?

- NOTE: I paid for what appeared to be the best of these fee-based services and was not impressed. I have since requested a refund of my $19.95. Most of these sites will also try to sell you a radar detector, which will do little if any good to protect you against a laser-emitting device. Plus, they can't really keep the information current and locale-specific anyhow, particularly for laser-based citations, as more and more states grant "judicial notice" to laser citations. ("Judicial notice" means: evidence beyond dispute). It's all spy versus spy, it all costs money, and thus it all will complicate your life. So why bother?

    (b) SPEED TRAP EXCHANGE is a site run as a service by the National Motorists Association (a fee-based membership organization starting at about $3 per month) where visitors can post what they believe are speedtraps. Check out SPEED TRAP LISTINGS to read up on speed traps in your area, listed by state, then click around on the rest of the site. NMA also keeps a blog, which you can read by clicking HERE.

- Read it and weep -- however, forewarned is forearmed.

P.S. "An ounce of prevention" advice: If you get a traffic ticket, start shopping around for competitive rates on your auto insurance. The insurance industry's databases are connected nationwide, so if one company knows you are looking, they all do. So if your insurer knows you are looking for a better deal, it may prevent them from increasing your rate.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2008.03.30, 12:45 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

20.00 / $199.90 (10.0%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

WIN-WIN: Thinking My Way Outside the Economic Box of the American Artist / Entrepreneur

Want to make an easy $25 and help support my work?

Through October 30, Capital One, my savings bank, is offering $25 to anyone I refer using the following code:

AM3Y4KYDF

You can open a High Yield Money Market Account:

- online HERE,
- or by calling 1-800-555-4904

Simply provide the code AM3Y4KYDF when you open an account online or over the phone. I get $15 per referral, so actually, you get the better part of the deal! And CapitalOne pays a great rate on savings accounts regardless of balance, currently 5.00%. More details at: CAPITAL ONE .

Normally I would not make a commercial announcement like this via my blog or email newsletter list, but I have been extremely satisfied with my CapitalOne savings plan. Plus, at this point I am doing my darndest to think creatively about how to stay afloat in the current economy. So I don't mind trading a tiny bit of pride and running the risk of offending someone here in order to help make ends meet. We all know friends, family, and colleagues who've taken a hit. I have, too. So this is one small way I'm fighting back. I don't intend to do this kind of thing very often, but I've decided that Fall, starting this year, is going to be my annual fundraising drive.

Not to worry — I'm not in dire straits at the moment, but you know what they say about an ounce of prevention. And, as a disenfranchised artist in this culture (please note the clever double redundancy in that phrase), I am choosing to be proactive rather than reactive with regard to my financial situation.

Typically, the last year of a President's term is bad for the stock market. I have managed to save a couple hundred dollars each month over the past several years by starting a ShareBuilder plan. Right now, I'm looking at cashing out a couple of very small but somewhat volatile investments while the market is still strong, and placing the proceeds in my savings plan.

Meanwhile, I'm doing my best to paddle against the stream in other ways:

- I'm clearing space by donating items to my local thrift stores and selling the more valuable stuff on eBay starting next week, HERE.

- I have been keeping a tiny little online bookstore at Amazon.com for five years now.

- I'm rewriting MAKE A ZINE!, my very first book (1997), for a second edition release next year from Microcosm Publishing.

- Royalties from my how-to book on sex are lagging a bit, and I'm taking up the slack by helping to produce a second volume of stories from the Literotica.com website.

- Paddle faster. I'm getting older, so I'm trying to work smarter, not harder. However, I just took on a small gardening job, just to make sure I can cover a bill or two.

And I'm still finding time to write:

- I'm a featured contributor to the seven-author anthology, ENTANGLED LIVES, just out on Alyson Publications. Details are HERE.

- I've just completed the first draft of a novel of modest length (about 50,000 words);

- and I'm about seventy percent into a second, longer novel.

- I've just signed a contract for a new short story to appear in a big-time erotic anthology. Due to the publishing industry's volatility nowadays, I don't pre-announce things anymore, so details on that to come, once it goes to press.

Here are some other ways to lend support:

- by donating via the Tip Jar to MY BLOG, RIGHT HERE. The Tip Jar is in the upper left hand corner.

- or by purchasing a gift from me for yourself or someone else via Amazon, HERE.

- or from me via eBay, HERE (opening by Sept. 20).

- And, of course, you can buy a copy of ENTANGLED LIVES, if that's something you would enjoy. You can send me a ten percent commission via Amazon by using THIS LINK.

Finally, any other Amazon.com purchases you make (aside from links via this blog) can also help me out. You can file the following code for future reference and paste it in at the end of whatever Amazon URL you are using:

/tag=billbrentauth-20

...and then reload the page, so that Amazon knows to send me a commission. (Now how's that for trickle-down economics?)

Thanks so much for reading this, and I truly appreciate your support of my work, whether or not you can help with the financial thing at this time.

---

Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.09.13, 8:25 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

53.06 / $199.90 (26.5%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.