Money Blue Book

I try my best to live a healthy and reasonably frugal life. This doesn’t mean that I spend all of my time counting pennies but I do have a mental calculator to keep track of spending as it relates to the income I bring in. I enjoy being financially organized and efficient in how I use my limited resources to maximize the value I get back. But I have my priorities and when I am with friends, family, or loved ones, I don’t mind splurging for them. My frugal lifestyle is mostly for me and I try to limit the practice when I am around others so it doesn’t rub off the wrong way.

Frugality Sees Value, Cheapness Sees Cost

Frugality is a very positive trait but many people often mistaken it for it’s evil cousin, cheapness. Frugality and cheapness are two different things. Frugal people understand true value and have the ability to evaluate finances by taking into consideration past, present, and future needs. Cheap people don’t really care about value and prefer not to spend money for the sake of not spending money.

For example, if I can buy paper towels in bulk and after factoring in the time value of spent money I decide that I will save more money in the long run by spending a little bit more today, frugality dictates that I make the more expensive purchase now that will provide greater value cumulatively in the long run. Cheapness would probably dictate that I not buy it at all or try to borrow paper towels at the expense of someone else.

Cheapness is a very negative trait to have. Unlike frugality, cheapness neglects value and doesn’t take into full consideration of past, present, and future needs and wants. It only desires to save money for the sake of conserving money for the short term. Frugality has an air of sensibility that helps one make smart and efficient choices, while cheapness causes negativity and can sap the life and spirit out of any spending situation.

I Spend a Lot of Money For Lunch But Still Consider Myself Frugal

For lunch I usually eat out with friends and co-workers. I consider this a worthwhile time to spend with others and find it more convenient to eat out like everyone else. I am keenly aware that eating out costs substantially more than brown bagging my own lunch but I consider it a worthwhile expense. Shared social interactions are important for me personally and professionally, and I think I get great value out of it.

I frequently have lunch with a friend of mine from way back who also happens to work near my office building in D.C. Whenever we go out to eat lunch together we always take turns paying. We are both smartly frugal but generous at the same time. We never actually had an arrangement to take turns paying – it just sort of happened. Neither of us keeps score of how much each person spends on the total lunch meal when it is his rotation to pay, and we don’t spend any extra time debating perfect fairness. The cost of lunch varies greatly depending on where we choose to eat but we usually avoid unnecessarily extravagant lunches. We don’t keep a running tally since we both believe such costs even out over time.

Shared frugality brings a lot of financial harmony and positivity to our friendship. Generosity always begets more generosity.

I have a moderate perspective on social issues, with a very slight lean towards the liberal left. But I always enjoy debating about interesting issues and enjoy hearing the views of others.

I’m going to talk about a fascinating topic I heard discussed on the Chris Core radio show today. He was talking about the existence of the stealth women vote in regards to Hillary Clinton and how some women are eagerly awaiting the chance to vote Hillary into office for the sake of seeing a women ascend into the nation’s most powerful role. However, the issue was brought up that there are some people out there, most notably women in particular, who resent other women like Hillary for her “Queen Bee” mentality and persona.

What is It?

The Queen Bee Syndrome goes like this. Women who have the Queen Bee condition are usually those who work in supervisory roles or in positions of power. They feel the need to be recognized and demand to be in the center of attention at all times. They regard other women as competition and see them as threats to their ability to enjoy exclusive attention and respect. They desire nothing more than having others fall on their knees to bow before them and lavish them with power, attention, compliments, and envy. Oftentimes, they will treat female subordinates much harsher than male employees. They have particular resentment and disdain for women who work in traditional stereotypical female roles, such as secretaries, models, and housewives.

Genuine Surprise At the Response

The issues raised were quite interesting but I could see how the discussion might be considered sexist by some, and I fully expected a torrent of angry female listeners to flood the radio show’s telephone lines to voice their displeasure and complaints. I was actually secretly hoping for this since I’m a sucker for juicy talk radio.

I was completely surprised at what happened next. A steady stream of female listeners began calling into the show expressing agreement with this theory. The majority agreed that many female bosses had this Queen Bee mentality, which caused great resentment and competition among their female subordinates. Many of the female callers indicated that they preferred having a male boss for the fact they think female bosses are harder on other women because the female bosses see other women as threats for attention. Apparently they don’t view men in this competitive light.

Even one seasoned female manager who indicated that she has worked many years in a supervisory role expressed reluctant agreement that the Queen Bee Syndrome was a pervasive affliction in the work place. She remarked that she personality felt an extra responsibility to help other women rise up to her status, but she felt some of the subordinate women felt entitled to this special treatment and resented managers like her when they didn’t provide the extra attention.

Is It a Real Condition In the Workplace?

I found the radio discussion to be utterly fascinating and I began thinking about the type of social interactions I often observe at work. I’ve always thought the opposite was true in the work place – that women tended to give each other extra attention and assistance for emotional and professional support out of mutual sympathy and understanding. I usually see women congregate together and go off in pairs or groups during social and working situations. They even visit the restroom together! Little did I know, they are secretly plotting against one another.

I’m curious to hear what other people think!

As I mentioned in previous posts, one of my hobbies when I have downtime at work or home is filling out online paid online surveys and getting paid for it. One of the welcomed perks of doing these surveys is that you occasionally receive free products to review. So far I’ve received a few large bottles of shampoo and a couple of other personal items (very personal items I must add) to try out and review.

It’s actually quite interesting and I enjoy receiving free stuff. I don’t mind being a guinea pig for these companies. It’s not like the products are toxic or potentially hazardous. Some of them, like the shampoos, are pretty much what you use at home anyway except they might be packaged differently or the texture of the shampoo might be different. But it’s certainly interesting to be able to voice my opinion on products that haven’t been released to the general public. I haven’t received any electronic merchandise to review yet but I’m hoping to get the chance eventually.

Tips To Get the Most Survey Opportunities

Product reviews don’t come too frequently, but the best way to maximize your opportunities and rewards in general is to do the following:

1. Express Interest In Everything – Why yes, I am interested in septic tanks, for example. When you complete your initial profile, remember to indicate interest in every subject matter available. Obviously the company won’t send you a survey or product review if you admittedly aren’t in their target demographics or have any interest with the subject matter. Demographic characteristics not only include age, race, and sex, they also include hobbies and familiarity with a particular product. You can’t do anything about your age, race, or sex, so my advice is to broaden your listed interests.
2. Check Your E-mail Frequently – Once you have registered, survey opportunities are usually sent to your e-mail address. Many of the higher paying surveys are open only to a limited number of participants and are first come first serve. The early bird gets the worm. So if you’re a frequent e-mail checker like me, you’ll always be one of the first to snap up the survey opportunity before it’s gone.
3. Complete the Survey As Soon As You Receive It – After you have registered with a few companies, you will start to see regular survey requests. If you develop a good routine of filling them out quickly, you’ll rack up cash and reward points quicker. There is no point putting them off to complete at a more convenient time since most of the opportunities expire after a certain number of participants have been selected. You will be better off being quick about completing them.

Survey Companies I Use

There are many out there, but here are the ones I use. I have my favorites but I use them all to maximize my opportunities.

• NFO My Survey
• Survey Savvy
• Lightspeed Consumer Panel
• Greenfield Online
• Synovate

I think the Comcast turtle mascots would love the speed of my website. The Slowsky’s like things “slow and easy” – a perfect description of my site right now.

I apologize for the sluggishness in page load time and the occasional appearance of site error messages for the last few days. I just migrated my web hosting to Dreamhost. I thought this would solve the uptime and speed issues I had with Hostmonster, but it looks like I’m having the same problems with Dreamhost as well. It has been a pretty frustrating week to say the least.

Dreamhost doesn’t offer live chat or telephone troubleshooting so sometimes I have to wait a few hours to a day before they respond to my e-mail support requests. The tech guys at Dreamhost continue to be very professional and courteous, and that’s why I’ve been giving them the benefit of the doubt. But at some point, they have to be able to deliver and fix the problem permanently. I really hope they repair the malfunction soon. The company is very likable, but I can only tolerate so much.

Separating Truth From Fiction

Are there any affordable web hosting services out there with truly reliable service? They all seem to guarantee 99% uptime, but always fail to deliver. It’s so hard to get a genuine, unbiased opinion about which company offers the best service. I suspect many webhosting companies pay people to visit websites and forums anonymously to say favorable things about their company, while badmouthing the competition. It’s hard to filter out the junk to get to the truth sometimes.