Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

If you drop by here with any regularity, you know I’m a huge fan of my Netflix membership. It’s a good value for me, and here’s the breakdown to prove it.

Plan: 3-at-a-time
Cost per month: $18.35
Cost for the year: $220.20
Number of discs viewed: 95
Cost per disc: $2.32

Number of bonus Watch Instantly items viewed: 35

(These are the numbers I’m presenting even though changing sales tax percentages and gift card amounts modified my own personal cost over the course of the year. It’s just easier to use the most-recent numbers.)

The stats are pretty obvious but to spell it out, this is how this service benefits me:

1. I watch a lot of TV through Netflix. Since I have it, I don’t have to pay for any of the premium cable channels. This saves me about $25 a month.
2. Every disc brings me of at least two hours of entertainment. Within this time period, I don’t have to look for any other distractions. As an hourly rate, it’s only costing me $1.16 an hour for this fun preoccupation. That’s saved me money as well.
3. I’m not locked into a TV viewing schedule or feel the need to catch a movie before it leaves the theaters. This frees up my life and allows me flexibility with plans. I love that.
4. And finally, I like that I can have regular content for this blog.

How was your Netflix experience this year? Is the service worth your while?

Tags: Money by Ms. SP
1 Comment »

Ever since I discovered the joys of reading as a young girl, I’ve dreamed of having a Henry Higgins library in my home. I wanted a room with at least two levels of books, and there would be ladders so I could climb up to go get them.

Now I have a cozy little condo that barely holds a few bookcases. Since moving in, most of my books have been sitting forlornly in the storage space. That is not respecting my possessions.

So in the interest of saving my books and decluttering my life, I decided to start finding new homes for them.

An extremely easy way of doing that is with online used book buyback programs. The process usually is:

1. Go to their website.
2. Type in the ISBN of the book.
3. They will tell you if they are buying that title and at what price.
4. They provide a postage-paid shipping label.
5. You box up your books and send them off.
6. They pay you.

Yay! There is no cost to me, and for those who are curious, you can make a pretty good hourly return on your labor.

Through my process, I can absolutely recommend the following sources:

• Abe Books Payment by PayPal or mailed check. Will provide shipping labels through USPS or FedEx. Accepts books with highlighting and writing on the inside. One of my favorites.
• Cash4Books Payment by PayPal or mailed check. They will add 3% for PayPal payments to offset for those fees. That’s a really nice feature. Will provide shipping labels through USPS only. Accepts books with highlighting and writing on the inside.
• Textbooks.com Payment by mailed check only. Will provide shipping labels through USPS or UPS. Accepts books with highlighting and writing on the inside.
• Powell’s Books Payment by store credit only. Will provide shipping labels through USPS. Books must be clean and in pretty great shape.

Powell’s is very reliable and trustworthy, but they do have the strictest and most limiting sell-back choices. They, however, carry lots of new books and DVDs. I’m using my store credit with them to buy holiday presents.

Another great resource out there is bookscouter.com. This site lets you put in the ISBN once, and it’ll crawl through lots and lots of vendors for you. Everything is listed on one page so you know what your options are.

[This paragraph has been edited out since the glitch it discussed has been fixed.]

One last thing to keep in mind. Stock is always in flux. A book may not be worth any money one day and will be acceptable on the next.

After a certain point though, I just had to cart off the remaining three large boxes to the Salvation Army. Now, I do feel pretty freed up. Lugging books was always the hardest part of moving. At this point, I feel like I can just read and enjoy a book as it is in front of me. I don’t have to worry about cataloging it and making sure I have a place to keep it.

If I want to read it again years down the road, there is always the library or those lovely used bookstores. Perhaps I’ll run into one of my old titles one day in the future.

Do you have any other buyback vendors to recommend?

Tags: Books, Money by Ms. SP
11 Comments »

I often find our imaginary monetary world hard to understand. Since our money is not backed by anything tangible, we get to make it worth whatever we can collectively believe it to be. We operate and depend on a system of mass delusion.

I don’t think the United States will ever get out of debt. Our national debt continues to grow decade after decade. Will we ever be a creditor nation again? I don’t think so. We’re not even pretending to be interested in such a change.

Now there’s talk of another stimulus package—meaning our government is going to give us back some of our money again. When MoneyNing asked what happened to my first stimulus check, I really had to think about it. I couldn’t remember. It didn’t make that big of an impact in my life.

I think I put it towards a credit card bill. I would have paid off the bill in full anyway, but the rebate saved me some money. If the government is looking to pad stats, I suppose I would have to say that I bought something with that $600. Even if I really saved it.

If I got another check soon, I would probably do the same thing. I would spend it? While saving my own money?

See, I don’t understand my own imaginary monetary world too well either.

Do you remember what you did with your first government check? Would you deal with an extra $600 differently this time around?

Tags: Governance, Money by Ms. SP
2 Comments »