Uncommon Cents

As I desperately try to regroup and catch up after many, many weeks of life happening too fast for me, I’m taking a few days off to catch up and run the Great Aloha Run (as well as do a hike). Have a great weekend!

Groupon has been making news everywhere, but unfortunately, not the best news recently.

Groupon’s suffered from concern that while its business is fine and the deal for the consumers are great, the companies offering discounts through them often get hammered financially, despite the great promotion that it offers.

More recently, a Super Bowl ad that was considered racially insensitive and a deal with FTD that apparently ended up being close to worthless for the consumer as FTD’s special Groupon Web site had prices that were raised enough to negate just about all savings from Groupon.

Still, I check Groupon and its workalikes daily and I hope that they are able to rebound from this. I still love you, Groupon!

A little while ago I discussed what kinds of causes I give money to–these are often causes my friends champion. But on a small scale, there are other things I give to that aren’t quite the same.

For example, recently one of my friends had a birthday so another friend used Chip In to have people well, chip in to try to get him an iPad. I think the effort ended up a bit short but it was quite interesting.

It does point out the same kind of thing that snowflaking money does: little amounts of money (this time from many different people) can create a large difference when taken together.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday (by the time this is read it won’t be). Dallas is the host city this year and, like many cities that host large sporting events–or just have professional or major college sports teams–they were banking on a boost to their local economies.

Sadly, for Dallas, this does not appear to be true this year. Poor weather is keeping visitors away from businesses.

Hawai’i is not immune to this either. The Pro Bowl, which, aside from in 2010, has been in Hawai’i for decades, is considered hugely important to the local economy, yet in 2010 the world didn’t end when it wasn’t here.

How much does sports actually contribute to local economies?

I’m a social worker in Hawai’i, so I of course have a tremendous amount of interest in social service funding.

The news that millions of dollars of social service funding by the Department of Human Services has now disappeared does not surprise me, but it does make me sad.

Yes, we cannot fund everything we have been–we simply cannot afford it. But I’m not sure this is the best way to address the crisis we face financially. Add in the fact that many people in my field of work may now e facing unemployment and it’s a huge issue for me personally.

I don’t envy the people making these decisions, nor the ones who are affected by them.

Recently I lost the dust cap on the front hub of my bike, on one side only. It’s a simple piece of rubber that has proved impossible to find a replacement for.

I thought about doing without–which is what I have been doing–as well as buying new wheels or relaxing new hubs. Which would cost a lot more than a simple piece of rubber does.

It’s unfortunate that it’s so hard to find this particular part; repair vs. replace is always a question that I keep trying to come down on the repair side of. But without the parts, it’s hard to do that.

When I can’t find parts for bike repairs–or car repairs or computer repairs or (fill in the blank)–it makes it much more inviting to go new rather than to repair. And unfortunately, going new is often not the best idea. But it’s tough when good parts are hard to find.

One of the practices I am trying to get back to is logging every purchase I make. I used to carry around a composition book to do this, but I’m now using a spreadsheet on Google Docs to log it, hoping that’ll be harder to lose and easier to access through multiple devices.

Yet, I can say one thing: it takes a lot of time to keep up with this log.

I would even call it a financial time sink.

Perhaps that’s part of the beauty of the spending log: if you use one, you spend so much time keeping it up you don’t spend very much.

I’m going to try to stay on track with this.

Cross posted with my other blog, The Athletic Diabetic:

Since I’m interested in health as well as finances, I often look for where the two intersect. One of the places it does is in taking fitness classes.

For what it’s worth, I think that, provided one important caveat is kept in mind, I think classes are fantastic, and that caveat is: as long as you get something out of them.

Some things are better done in a group and being taught by professionals: yoga, swimming, aerobics, zumba. These are activities that are best done with leaders and teachers in my opinion.

And there are people who do better with the social obligations and pressures of a group.

But there are other activities–running, cycling, jumping rope–that can be done solo and don’t require much in the way of instruction.

I believe that if you use the professional services of a fitness class or group, it’s worth every penny, but if you don’t, then it’s essentially a waste of money.

I’m a hobbyist photographer, definitely not a pro, and while I would like to improve, I certainly don’t aspire to make a living at it–or even extra money from it. It’s one of those things I’ll do for fun and for free.

So on Saturday, when I was invited to participate in a Tweetup with some other photographers–two of whom are professionals, and the rest, with various degrees of expertise and experience, are hobbyists, like me–I was thrilled, since I haven’t really gone shooting for a long, long time.

It’s nice to have hobbies; this is one I forgot about, or got too busy for, for awhile. But it’s something I would do for fun and for free no matter what, which makes it one that’s worthwhile.

Here’s the set from this weekend’s shoot if you’re interested.

Recently I Tweeted about buying myself something this past birthday weekend–perhaps something relatively expensive–if I met my time target at the 8K I was running.

And I did meet it.

It’s interesting to hear how many of my friends would say to go ahead and buy some expensive item because I “deserved” it.

Yes, I have enough cash–although it would be a stretch–to comfortably buy, say, a Nikon D7000 or a Serotta frame (used, off eBay). But what if I didn’t?

Would I still “deserve” to get something like that?

And would I “deserve” the debt?

Just a bit to think about.