As featured in The Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, and more!

2005

Taking a Pay Cut Sometimes Pays Off

by Luke Landes

At the moment I’m writing this entry, 85 percent of respondents to an informal CNN Money survey say they’d be willing to take a pay cut if the situation was right, while the other 15 percent would not consider such a move. According to Jeanne Sahadi, who speaks from personal experience, there are situations where taking a ... Continue reading this article…

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Cable Channels a la Carte

by Luke Landes

The FCC now believes that consumers can save money by picking and choosing which cable channels they’d like to receive, with each channel priced separately. Would this new pricing plan change your viewing habits? I’m paying $14 per month for the most basic cable television service at the moment. I’d like to add a few ... Continue reading this article…

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Bite-Sized Nuggets of Advice

by Luke Landes

Business 2.0 has rounded up catchphrases, rules of thumb, and otherwise compressed thoughts by 49 of the most popular leaders in the business world. Regular readers are probably aware of my love for taking a philosophy and expressing its entire scope in ten words or less, if by “love” I mean “disdain.” Thankfully, the feature ... Continue reading this article…

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Review of The Number by Lee Eisenberg, Part 1

by Luke Landes

Over the next week or so, I’ll be taking an in-depth look at a book to be released next year entitled The Number, written by Lee Eisenberg. Before I get to the book, let me explain how the book came into my possession. At the end of October, I blogged about Lee’s article in New ... Continue reading this article…

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Ten Percent of Income Over One Hundred Thousand Dollars

by Luke Landes

Will you take this pledge? Can you assert that you will give 10 percent of your income over $100,000 to charity — any charity? This is what hundreds of people have done, and I’d imagine many more will, at ten over one hundred. We’re making this committment because we think it will help make the world ... Continue reading this article…

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Abortion and Crime – Freakonomics Disputed

by Luke Landes

I have not yet read Freakonomics, but I have heard good things about the book from friends. Apparently one chapter within the book discusses the effect of correlation between the legalization of abortion in the 1970s on and the amount of crime in the 1990s. An article in the Wall Street Journal [free] explains the ... Continue reading this article…

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Will China Make Americans Better or Worse Off?

by Luke Landes

Due to increasing skills and knowledge worldwide as well as labor costs that are a fraction of costs in the United States, there is some fear that the competition will mean less prosperity for people of my generation and younger. The concern is the younger generation may not be able to live as “well off” ... Continue reading this article…

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Carnival Time

by Luke Landes

It’s the first day back at work for me, although I don’t feel like I had much of a vacation. This is despite spending almost an entire week in California spending time with family. Let’s get back into the swing of things with this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by Financial Fruition, which includes ... Continue reading this article…

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Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Strategies

by Luke Landes

Just like for the older Xbox, the new Xbox 360 costs more to manufacture than Microsoft charges for the system. The retail price is $399 (which will eventually be cut down, which is the pattern for video game consoles) but the cost for all of the components is $552.27. Microsoft must believe that people who ... Continue reading this article…

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Happy Thanksgiving!

by Luke Landes

I hope everyone has a happy holiday! There are many, many things I’m thankful for. Sure, it’s great to have a job and have money coming in. Most importantly, I’m thankful for the wonderful, supportive people I’ve met online through this blog as well as through my other blogs. I met my girlfriend through one ... Continue reading this article…

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Gift Giving Among a Circle of Friends

by Luke Landes

I have a group of ten or so friends that comprise the “usual crowd.” We get together for people’s birthdays, movie nights, game nights, that sort of thing. At some point, we’re supposed to get together for Christmas/Hanukkah/etc. There seems to be an avoidance of what to do about the gift-giving arrangement. In the past, ... Continue reading this article…

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Interview With Flexo

by Luke Landes

A few weeks ago, Paul from 10 Questions asked me to take part in an interview. That interview has now been published online, so if you want to learn a little more about me, take a look.

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Dinged Rental Cars, Dinged Wallet

by Luke Landes

At the most, I would rent a car once or twice a year when I find myself traveling to remote cities for friends’ weddings, for example. Luckilly, this has not yet happened to me. According to the New York Times, it’s common for rental car companies to charge mutiple customers for the same dings or ... Continue reading this article…

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Thank Your First Commenter Day

by Luke Landes

In honor of Thank Your First Customer Day, I’d like to thank Darren R. Sussman, who was the first commenter on Consumerism Commentary (out of 1,127 comments), and he commented on the entry entitled, Owning a Home, Owing Money. Here is what he wrote: Well, of course. Buying a house is an investment, and a ... Continue reading this article…

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Regular Rundown

by Luke Landes

* Hedge funds risky to economy. * Fed may be ending rate hikes. * Honda Civic wins Car of the Year. * Out-of-state 529 plans are not tax-deductible. Here’s another reason to reconsider investing in these plans unless you know without a doubt where you’ll be sending your child to college.

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Ben Bernanke’s Only Stock

by Luke Landes

Ben Bernanke has only one stock in his portfolio: Altria Group/Philip Morris/Marlboro [MO]. This has been talked about by Jeremy Siegel, CNN Money, Henry Blodget at Slate, and the New York Times. Altria is included in a few of my mutual funds I hold for retirement. The company is also the biggest portion (4.73 percent) of ... Continue reading this article…

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For Carnival Hosts

by Luke Landes

The badge for the Carnival of Personal Finance is now available, and the hosting guidelines have been updated to include the badge suggestion. Here is the code to use on your website if you’d like to link to the Carnival schedule and information page: <a href=”http://carnivalofpersonalfinance.com/”><img alt=”Carnival of Personal Finance” title=”Carnival of Personal Finance” src=”http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/11/cpf_badge.jpg” ... Continue reading this article…

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HOWTO Excessively Spoil Your Kids, Part 2

by Luke Landes

Last year, I wrote about pricey gifts available for children of those with money to burn. Now that we’re back in the holiday season, I noticed a new article from CNN Money with the latest updates for the upscale gift shopper. While last year’s article mentioned the most expensive toys, this year’s list seems comparatively ... Continue reading this article…

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Carnival

by Luke Landes

The Carnival of Personal Finance has been posted on Frugal for Life who has done a wonderful job as usual. Check it out. I’m currently on vacation in California, and I probably won’t have too many chances to get online, so this will probably be a light posting week for me.

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Downtime, Flight Time

by Luke Landes

Sorry for the downtime Consumerism Commentary readers experienced earlier today. My web service provider was having some router problems, but everything seems to be fixed… for the moment, anyway. We weren’t the only ones with computer issues; the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) had to suspend trading for some time earlier today because of a ... Continue reading this article…

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