Friday, October 27, 2006

Things I am debating whether it is worth it to spend the money on...

First up - getting a service mark for CashDuck. This would be kind of cool, but I doubt that it would ever actually be useful. Then again who knows? In this age, having the domain name is a prerequisite to naming something, so maybe no one else will name something CashDuck and challenge me for the name. I do know that there is some kind of software package called Cashduck.. I don't think it was written by a US person though. A service mark would cost me about $300.

A Dymo label printer - This I might actually buy if I can find a good price on one. I've decided to keep my Stamps.com membership because I am mailing quite a lot of stuff and it's very useful to have the stamps' amounts automatically calculated. Plus it prints very nice labels for packages and what not. Stamps.com sells rolls of stamps which you can put in a Dymo label printer and have it print one stamp at a time. How cool is that? Plus the stamps can actually be for rather high amounts so I could conceivably use only the roll stamps for all printing. I was a little worried about sending the same sheet of stamps through the printer multiple times, but this seems to be a nice solution. Unfortunately, one of these things will run me at least $80. I am trying to find a used one and see if I can get it down to $50. This would be very useful.

New office chair - I always say I'm going to do this but then I never do. I have one of those extremely standard chairs that cost 50 bucks and only height-adjusts. I'm starting to have some problems with my wrists and elbows, mostly from how I sit at work, but I wonder if it would be poor taste to bring in my own chair there. (My coworker who left was supposed to get a new chair.. how long does it take to order a frigging chair? She never got it and it has never been mentioned again.) I think back to the nice cushy chairs that we had at the test-grading job I did last spring, with adjustable armrests, tall enough back to put your head on, etc.. Probably expensive though. Maybe I should just push for a better chair at work.

Class on financial planning - My university offers several "courses" each quarter on various topics, such as learning to shoot a gun, drywalling, sushi making, etc. I took a knitting course last quarter which was pretty fun and only $30. There's a "financial planning" course this quarter, only one class, which is $25. It might be interesting, or it might be a bunch of bull where the guy (who is himself a financial planner type person) tries simply to convince us that it's all too hard, so we should just save up all our money and let him manage it. He is also running another class, one night for $25, on portfolio management and allocation, which considering how little money I have to invest is pretty useless. I don't think I need to pay $25 for somebody to tell me to diversify and buy a percentage of bonds according to my age.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a DYMO label printer and love it. It comes so handy when I need to print out postage or labels. I brought one awhile back and probably paid $150 for it and still think it was worth it even if they have come out with newer models at lower prices. The nice thing for me in particular was that it tied in with my contact database manager so when I need a label I just look up that record, press one button and get a label in seconds.

johnwilkx said...

For financial advice I still prefere getting it from pf bloggers. I also enjoy using the full resources of the city library and my university's library. All of which is free. I know 25 bucks for a financial course isnt much but unless the financial course has a specific topic (stocks, real estate, taxation) I wouldnt bother with it. The type of class you are talking about (in my opinion) will just tell you to save 10% of your income, diversify your assets, make a budget, etc.

Even I would take a sawing or pottery class because it teaches something exact.

:)

-John

Anonymous said...

To note on Wilks i wouldn't take 100% advice from bloggers. Not every blogger is a professional nor does the blogger have to be, but I believe a financial planning class can show a different perspective. I think books are the best, but aren't book writers just bloggers too?

You seem like you are already financially on your game.

I'd take the sushi class. I took all the boring high math classes and business marketing stuff in highschool and missed out on all the cool home ed classes.

later -P

Anonymous said...

Push for the chair at work. It's a big HR / Ergonomic's issue if you ask and they don't give and you end up with some sort of injury later on due to it.
Therefore, they will probably accommodate you with whatever you need.

Marshall Middle said...

Get a service mark you'll thank yourself later when you have the legal rights to the mark and the royalties start rolling in.

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

I just thought it may be of some interest to you to know, a while back i came across a british labels company who sold me a batch of plain labels at a really low price. If you are at all interested then it may be worth visiting their website so see if you could save some money on your labels.

gonzo said...

I would recommend going for a Zebra or a Printronix 5000r. I have the Zebra 2844 and find it great for printing my barcode labels. Its very user friendly and isn't that expensive.

Hope this helps