Credit Card Post: September 2008 – Was it a big disaster or not?

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After the modest spending of the last few months, I was greeted by a mighty thwack with September’s Bill. The damage was nearly NT$80,000! So what happened? How could it be so high?

Actually, most credit card statements tell a story: this was no exception. It’s a story of three parts.

Part 1: The business

We’ve been on an energy economy drive for the past four or five months, and the benefits are slowly beginning to pay off in lower electricity bills and lower carbon emissions. It’s staggering how little changes in behavior can have such significant effects: lighting choices, replacing older equipment, changing usage patterns, etc.. I don’t have complete stats for 2008, but I was surprised at how we’ve saved nearly 10% of our annual electricity bill, and there is still one major bill to go. Stay tuned!

Replacing A/Cs is perhaps the most notable way to cut energy use. Our oldest A/Cs are nearly 8 years old, and due for replacement, if nothing else because more modern A/Cs are comparatively more efficient. So after replacing one, we bit the bullet and replaced the one in the office (likely the single heaviest use appliance in the entire school). This month we replaced one that had been malfunctioning in the classroom ever since there was a power outage. It had just been blowing warm air, and wasting our money.

  • Damage: NT$48,800 plus installation NT$1450.

Was it worth it? Certainly. Will we save money in the long run? Likely enough to pay for the entire machine! Are our customers/staff happier? For sure.

Part 2: UK Trip

The second part of the story: my unexpected trip to the UK. It was late September when I decided to visit the UK to see my family and friends (an entirely social trip!) but long needed. Maintaining long distance relationships is at best very challenging, at worst almost impossible.

Though, this is the complete list of credit card expenses until September 19th, it was NOT the entire trip expenditure. Woops!

  • Phone Bill: NT$1154 – including national and roaming charges;
  • Nolita Restaurants: NT$6630 – a meal for my friends, Jane and Philip in Hatfield, which was surprisingly reasonable given the restaurant, but didn’t include much alcohol – one was exhausted and one was driving!
  • Boots and Asda: NT$1244 – daily expenses (esp. when I couldn’t cash my traveler’s checks);

Part 3: Online Related Expenses

I finally bought a ‘puter that I could put in my bag. One of the ironies though was that I bought a machine that was made by a Taiwanese company in Shanghai shipped to England and sold cheaper than you could buy in Taiwan at the time.

aspireone blue and white

Mine’s the blue one! Of course, not running Linpus. Sorry!

Enter the Acer AspireOne – Net Book. It’s proved very useful, and I’m seriously glad that I got it. I was able to make calls through SKYPE, surf the Net, listen to music and even do more than just rudimentary blogging on that little 8.9″ screen.

  • Damage: NT$17,310. Of course, being an overseas customer, I may be able to reclaim part of my tax (approx. NT$1800) making the deal even better value for me!

I also paid a writer who is helping me co-author a series of posts on the Dow Jones Indexed Companies. I also paid Google an AdWords activation fee.

  • Total cost for this: NT$1319.

And, finally, after earning points on the airconditioner purchases at Carrefour, bonus points on our credit card bonus points, we also earned a little cash back on some of my purchases: NT$-213.

  • I’m still not exactly sure what purchases triggered this, but still every little helps to reduce the total damage: NT$79,694.

There were no interest or penalties added to this month’s credit cards, and my secondary card had no outstanding purchases at all. oh, and I nearly forgot the NT$2000 life insurance premium that was paid.

It’s funny how credit card expenses can highlight the unfolding stories that compromise our lives. Have a look through your credit card statement? Can you see a story developing there?

  • Oh, and by the way: most frivolous expense trip – Hong Kong Airport Starbucks Americano and water bought with a credit card HK$39.00. Just silly.

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Dead End Blogging: Don’t get screwed, get informed on who pays what, when and how

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In Dead End Blogging , I introduced the concept of the Blogging BlackHole. Today, I’m going to look at the Money PotHoles that you will likely encounter as you drive up Dead End Lane.

We’ll Look After Your Money

There are many sites out there that provide services to bloggers, some for free and some for money. In either case, it is the blogger who decides whether the site is of value or not.

But there are also sites out there that prey off the bloggers, esp. the new bloggers, the ones without much experience… Such sites will purport to provide bloggers with opportunities to earn money by advertising their services on your blog. When a reader clicks on the ads, joins up or purchases a product, the blogger willl earn a sale – Chaching!

Show me the money!

Except in many cases, you the blogger will NEVER see the money. Yes, that’s right. NEVER. Why? Because you failed to reach the minimum cashout limit. For example, if you choose to be an affiliate with a well-known hosting company, you may earn upto $65.00 per sale. Sounds great. However, the minimum payout is $100. Oops! Sorry. Everything will be okay if you make another sale…

Reasonable? Perhaps. But when sites like Google pay cents on the dollar for clicks, it can take months for you to reach the magic payout number of $100. And that’s if the site is honest. Everyone knows that Google undercounts clicks.

Are you all honest, guv?

But what about those other smaller sites, the ones that come under the radar? Affiliate advertisers, content providers, and ad networks? Are they as scrupulous as Google is? Worse, are there sites that take the money and never seem to payout?

AdToll ($6.00) is also holding on to some money that belongs in my bank account, as are a number of other companies: Scratchback ($12.00), TTZ Media ($1), Amazon Affiliates ($21.36), SocialSpark ($20), PayPerPost ($26.50), Linkworth ($35.00)… The current outstanding total from sources that I’m aware of is in excess of $215.00. Not a lot of money, but I’d rather it was earning interest in MY bank account, not theirs.

Even, it seems PerformancingAds is facing similar issues. Transactions booked on PerformancingAds just disappear, despite having registered as a payment. There are no stats to show that an ad has been recorded if you happen to delete the region you created. Oh, and for that booking I had – sorry no payout. My account defaulted to $50 minimum cashout.

Scrooge – you’re hired!

In other cases, there are sites that make even typical CPC rates look generous. The NewsRoom was one that I used to generate interest, earn a little revenue, and add video to my site. Wow! That backfired.

First, the videos weren’t properly archived, although my posts were. I still get a lot of traffic on pages that are several months old. But that’s bad luck, the video footage is often unavailable on old stories. Whoa! Sorry. So now I have to go back and remove the old footage which is often attached to relevant stories.

Secondly, and I’m sure this is against their TOS, I have so far received 25 cents for 157 plays. In other words, they are siphoning off my viewers, for less than 1/6th of a cent per view. I have earned 25 cents in total … and the minimum payout is 100 times that amount. That’s an awful lot of plays by my reckoning. Even John Chow would be raking in just $300 per month on that one.

Lies, Damned Lies and Affiliate Statistics

My affiliate account with two host companies has recorded literally hundreds of clicks, perhaps even thousands, and how many have signed up over the two or three years I have worked these programs. None. Not one. Zero.

I’ve pushed a variety of affiliate programs over the years, as well. I’ve seen consistent success with Amazon Affiliates but other programs seem dubious at best in terms of performance (ie. clickthroughs). But what is to stop an affiliate scheme from deliberately undercounting its clickthroughs? I guess that’s where a new blogger won’t be able to tell. Only an older or more experienced one may know that you need to track the clicks yourself. Don’t rely on the site’s stats alone.

I don’t want to sound negative, but in this series of posts on Dead End Blogging, I do want bloggers to realize that they are at a distinct disadvantage when using a middleman for the transaction. So make sure the middleman you are using has a good reputation, pays out regularly and/or has a low mimimum cashout.

Citigroup – is it sleeping now (NYSE: C)

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This is the sixth installment of my look at the Dow Jones Companies, the thirty finest American companies. Today we’ll be looking at Citigroup. This company is now trading somewhat in the doldrums due to the rather tricky credit crunch. Having already looked at JP Morgan, many banks are under pressure, underwater, could this be the right time to buy into the banking sector?

Citigroup (NYSE: C)

Citigroup is a worldwide financial service with 200 million accounts in more than one hundred countries. It provides a range of financial products to governments, consumers and corporations that includes investments, brokerage accounts, wealth management and consumer banking and credit. It merged with Travelers Group in April of 1998 and as of 2008 is one of the world’s largest banks (having dropped from first place just recently).

Early History

Citigroup began in 1812 as the City Bank of New York. As the company grew and absorbed other businesses and banking institutions, it diversified to include many different financial interests such as insurance companies and brokerage firms. Because of the diversity of its many branches, each balances out the other as financial cycles rise and fall.

Citigroup has historically been a very good investment due to this long-range planning for stability. However, the corporation has been involved in many questionable practices. In 2004, Citigroup disrupted the European bond market by selling billions in bonds and then buying them back cheaply when their trades forced the market to drop.

Would you tell your grandmother?

In 2005 the NASD levied more than $21 million in fines against Citigroup for violating mutual fund sales practices. In 2007, NASD again fined Citigroup more than $15 million for misleading retirees in seminars and not adequately disclosing risks to those investors. The banking institution was also heavily implicated in the Terra Securities scandal which negatively impacted the United States bond market. Just this year, in 2008, the attorney general of California disclosed that Citigroup was guilty of a computerized “sweep” that robbed its customers, mostly poor or recently deceased, and deposited their money in the bank’s general fund without notifying the victims of the robbery.

A Laggard, Really

Citigroup has underperformed for the past half decade, showing losses in nearly every quarter according to the Dow Jones Industrial Average index. Although the diversity of financial products and investments would seem to make Citigroup an excellent choice for a healthy portfolio, its questionable business practices and recent poor decisions should be cause for second thoughts. Whether or not business ethics matter to you as an investor, the recent spate of bank failures combined with Citigroup’s losses in the past few years indicate that a great deal of caution is advisable when considering Citigroup as an investment.

Caution is certainly the word: having grown its dividend steadily for years, the recent losses forced Citigroup to cut its dividend from 54 cents to 32 cents, this bank may warrant careful scrutiny if you should be interested in it. It currently falls at or near the bottom of the Dow Jones, and is of interest to Dogs of the Dow investors. But a look at the charts indicate that it has lost more than 60% of its stock value since the latter part of 2007. It is currently still loss making. Are you willing to take a punt? But then when there are still lots of other profit making banks out there, why would you?