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Monthly Archives: November 2006

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Is Thanksgiving less expense than 20 years ago?!

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If you are a regular reader you’ll know that I’m currently in Macedonia and James is back at home feeding the cats their Thanksgiving treats and writing on papers.

For those of you who have a bit more sense of normalcy, I thought some findings on Thanksgiving costs might be interesting. Here are some stats that I found on the average cost of Thanksgiving Day dinner.

Perhaps I’m too used to the over inflated food prices seen in DC, but I think these figures aren’t possibly within reality. Keep in mind that these figure aren’t just for you and your significant other, but 10 friends and family. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t imagine hosting a party of 10 for less than the price of dinner for two in DC!

The stats show that the price of a Thanksgiving Day dinner – a 16-pound turkey and the traditional fixings – increased from $31.53 in 2005 to $34.71 in 2006. The total is also higher than the 2004 average, but it is within a few cents of the 2003 and 2002 totals.

The Indiana Farm Bureau survey was first conducted in 1993. Average prices for the full family meal from each year the survey has been conducted are listed below.

1993 – $29.50
1994 – $26.87
1995 – $27.73
1996 – $31.09
1997 – $28.37
1998 – $28.68
1999 – $34.26
2000 – $31.44
2001 – $33.46
2002 – $34.48
2003 – $34.21
2004 – $31.28
2005 – $31.53
2006 – $34.71

According the the American Farm Bureau this year’s national average cost of $38.10 is equivalent to $18.99 in 1986 inflation-adjusted dollars, which means the real cost of the Thanksgiving dinner has declined 34 percent in the last 20 years.

I’m doubtful that many people can keep their expenses so low. I certainly don’t see the price of foods being less than they were 20 years ago! Out of curiosity, how much do you think you spent on Thanksgiving dinner this year? If you want to leave a comment that would be fun!

On a final note, gas price are at 6-week high for Thanksgiving
Average cost-per-gallon hits $2.24, up 3.8 cents from a year ago

The bad news is that we spend our first Thanksgiving married apart, I guess the good news is that we saving money since we aren’t driving or preparing a T-Day dinner!

Enjoy your Thanksgiving!

Miel

Milton Friedman, Economics and the War on Terror

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Hello All!

Since its Milton Friedman week at the DINKS, today’s posting is another interview with the great sage himself. In this interview he is discussing the government immediate response to 9/11 attacks. The video isn’t so hot, so if you want to hear what Milton had to say, I would recommend playing the video, but then minimizing your browser so you can just hear the audio. Otherwise, enjoy!

Best,

James

Milton Friedman on Small Government and Freedom

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In case you haven’t got your fill of conservative theory, you might want to take some time to listen to Milton Friedman’s interview with PBS. In it, Friedman discuss his views on freedom and economics.

While I don’t agree with much of Friedman’s views (for example his views on social security), but anyone who is really interested in money and finance should be familiar with his philosophical position.

Best,

James

Chick-fil-A Madness

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As part of the DINKS mission to bring you the best of personal finance, todays posting discusses Chick-fil-A. As many of you know Chick-fil-A is a fast food joint that sells chicken related food and other junk. BUT: they company has done something smart: when a new restaurant opens they offer free food for a year to the first 100 people in line.

Check out the news stories here and here. Apparently this campaign has been successful in generating a LOT of buzz in local media.

While I’m on this Chick-Fil-A kick, if you sign up for Chick-Fil-A’s mailing list, they’ll send you a coupon for a free breakfast. Click here for the free eats.

Apparently the company does not seem to be publically traded so you can’t easily ride the Chick-Fil-A wave, but you might want to keep an eye on the company for future opportunities, as it looks like someone is doing some smart marketing there.

Best,

James

Pomegranates

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Pomegranates for 10 Denar! or 25 cents!

I’d been craving the fabulous fruit as winter set in, but I just couldn’t get myself to pay a couple of dollars for one. I’m glad I held out, as now I’ve got a plentiful supply for about a quarter a piece!

Macedonia’s tiny capital of Skopje is home to not only a Byzantine fortress from 600 BC, but still has an active market that is more reminiscent of Africa or Thailand than Europe.

I’d guess that I could buy more fresh fruits and vegetables than I could eat in a week for less than $10! I was having difficulty resisting the honey and olive oil. Not sure if I want to carry them to Africa and back. I did fall for a big bag of dried fruit and nuts for under a $1.

I think I’m headed back to gorge on more pomegranates!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Miel

Wedding Glitz

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In honor of Tomkat getting married in my neck of the woods, I thought I’d highlight some expensive wedding madness! We got married back in July and spent a year and a half saving for the big day. Here are a few examples of how stars like to spend their money on the big day:

  • Katie Holmes has a report $3k in lingerie for their big night
  • Melania Truimph wore a $200k dress, it took seamstresses 1000 hours to sew and weighed a whopping 50 lbs!
  • Christina Aguilera’s 5 carat, $80,000 engagement ring
  • Paris Hilton’s 24 carat rock
  • J-Lo’s $7 million dollars worth of wedding day jewels
  • Zeta-Jones and Douglas spent between £1.2 and £1.5 million on their lavish feast catering alone cost £500 pounds per wedding guest and her dress supposedly cost £100,000 pounds.
  • Britney Spears had a gorgeous Monique Lhuillier gown with a trumpet silhouette that cost almost $30,000. Was Fed-ex worth that?!

The expense never stops! At those prices it better be one hell of a party!

Enjoy the weekend!

Miel

Scoring Foreclosed Real Estate

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Everyone is interested in buying foreclosed or distressed real estate. From the average joe to gurus like Robert Allen, getting real estate below market value has magic appeal that seems to pique everyones interest.

Like Odysseus, I hear the siren song and signed onto RealtyTrac.com this morning. RealtyTrac.com is a website which lets you search distressed property listings, and provides access to resources such as agent referrals and financial calculators.

Based on my “extensive” 10 minute review, I reached a couple of preliminary conclusions about the site.

1) Its expensive. The charge is $40.00 a month (well, actually $39.99, but lets call a spade a spade) and the terms of their use agreement are quite strict. Users many not make the information in the site available to third parties, etc.

2) It Has Data Problems: Some of the listings I saw for the greater DC area were out of date. That is to say, the auction date for the foreclosed property had already passed. What this suggests is that for places like Washington DC, where there aren’t a whole lot of foreclosed properties, you might be better off pursing another strategy. On the other hand, if you live in a place like Colorado where there are many distressed properties, the service might be of some use (presumably auctions there will be more frequent and RealtyTracs data will be more up to date there).

That’s all folks! Enjoy your Saturday.

Best,

James

p.s. If you sign up for the sites 7 day trial, be aware that you need to give them 5 days notice of cancellation via email. So, effectively you need to cancel your subscription immediately after signing up.

Salary Negotiations

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So you’ve neared the end of the interview and out comes the question about salary expectations…

I’m here in Macedonia and spent the day doing interviews for our new project here. Salary negotiations are something that are pretty universal in making candidates squirm.

I think sometimes it’s as if the two sides of the table are trying to communicate on different levels. The one side sees this as their big shot at an increase in salary. The other wants to know if they can afford you, and if they want you in the first place.

As an interviewee, the general advice is to hold out and not bring up salary first.

As the interviewer, you just want to cut to the chase.

It’s all a bit of a game really. After spending a day on as the interviewer, here are my thoughts:

  • Take time to think before answering questions, don’t just blurt out the first thing;
  • DON’T just repeat the question back in answer form;
  • DON’T avoid answering the question and move on to another subject;
  • DON’T come unprepared, do your research and then some;
  • Use the interview to learn about your potential employer, this is also your chance to learn about the people you might spend way too much time with!

Happy Interviewing!

Miel

The $10.59 Mistake

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This post is a bit off topic. When I was coming back from the university on Monday night, I lost my cell phone. When I got on the metro, I had the phone, when I got off the subway, it was gone! Its not surprising that the phone was lost, because I was feeling a little fatigued and tired and it must have slipped out of my pocket.

So, after some wrangling with T-mobile, I was able to get them to issue a new telephone. I had to agree to extend my contract for two years and pay $10.59 for the new phone, but all in all I think it was relatively painless.

The one takeaway from this is, negotiate. At first T-mobile wanted to charge me $59.99 and have me fill out a mail-in rebate for $50. Mail-in rebates are totally bogus, so I decided to wait and speak to the manager. Apparently it worked. T-mobile credited me with an instant $50 rebate and I went on my merry way with only a $10.59 charge.

Best,

James

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