Conundrum: "Manly" Truck vs. "Practical" Truck

I went to a car dealership last night that was roughly 50 miles from my house to check out a truck that met just about all of my needs and was a good price. The truck was blue with an extended cab and 2 wheel drive - everything I deem necessary. After a short drive in the truck it was confirmed: Perfect. So why won't I put down a deposit? I haven't put down a deposit because the sons of bitches at the dealership put a red, Crew Cab(4-door) with 4 wheel drive and bigger tires next to the blue one I came to buy. It made the blue one, which is a pretty standard truck, look like it was a first car for a 16 year old girl. The whole way home I was in torment debating about buying a truck that would require me to take a loan for $3500 more but, in all honesty, is way cooler. Now I am entirely confused. Do I buy the lesser truck which is far cheaper but calls into my question my manhood and could perhaps lead to impotency? Or do I buy the bigger, meathead truck that looks great, will pull chicks but costs more and could result in me renting a flat like a college kid till I am 36?
What a conundrum?

Lesson: Shotgirls are dangerous

I spoke with a friend of mine today about his weekend and he offered me some valuable advice. Shotgirls can be just as lethal as strippers. Apparently, he went to a gentleman's club this weekend and fell victim to the infectious charms of one of the shotgirls. By the end of their 30 minute conversation she had bled him for about 15 shots of alcohol laced sugar water and exactly $45. Ironically enough when he had reached his personal limit of alcohol and likely the states she remembered that "she forgot to say hi to someone at the bar". Poor guy.....really thought he had something there. So the lesson of my friend's meandering is beware of the shot girls. There is a reason they are not on stage - they are the smarts one......relatively speaking.

I hate cars salesmen

I've been going to car dealerships everyday after work, which I equate to having a daily dentist appointment, trying to get a better price on the particular truck I am going to buy. In my pursuit I have encountered a few types of salesmen and I would like to warn you about their styles:

1. The "typical salesman" - This guy will do everything but drug you to get you to sign the deal. He will berate you with idiotic questions like "what do I have to do get your business?" or "how can I make you comfortable enough to buy today?" You can shut the #$@#$ up let me leave!!! That will help. They also use pathetic tactics like talking to their managers loud enough so that you can hear them. I can almost see the idiot laughing and pointing with his super-scum manger because they think they are pulling one over. The best way to deal with these guys is to tell them you have to piss and run out the backdoor.

2. The moron salesman: This guy almost gets me every time. The guy plays (or is) so dumb that you almost feel bad for him. After hearing him talk you begin to think that if you don't buy a car from his family will starve. These guys are usually nice guys but when it comes to getting you to sign the paper they always slip up with something like 3 syllable word that lets you know it is all an act and they are as sleazy as "typical salesman".

3. The lazy loser: I had a dude actually tell me to come back when I am ready to buy because he did not want to work out a quote for me. When he said that I obviously laughed and began to walk out. As I was leaving he jumped up and said "you forgot my card" as if I was ever coming back to that dealership. He gave me some line of bullshit about buying a car being a "fight" and the fight was him and I against "the banks". I'm not sure what he said after that because I left while he was still talking and as I drove by I think he may still have still yammering. What a loser.

I have learned one thing from these visits. I learned that I am complete idiot and had I picked up the phone and called these dopes they would have fell head over feet to give me the same info that I had to "fight" for 25 minutes to get without having to headbutt him to leave his cube.

Money to Burn - Men's Health

There's a fairly decent article in Men's Health about personal finance. Don't get me wrong, there is some lame shit in there but there are a couple of things that may be worth reading. The thing I found most thought-provoking is not available online. There was a sidebar that suggested buying a car that costs over 30K. A car that you will be happy driving in 6 years. I'm not sure such a vehicle exists for me but I am quasi-moron and that was all the persuasion I needed to drop a deposit on a Porsche. Thanks Men's Health!

Money to Burn

Buying a new car

I had every intention of buying a USED car. I sold my car and starting scanning all of the online dealerships looking for a mid-size truck that would lower my monthly payment but not kill me on gas. In the midst of my search it hit me that I am moron. With all of the incentives out there and my family's sad dependence on working in the auto industry I can get a brand new truck for a few grand more than a used. For instance I went looking at a Chevy Colorado, with my GM discount and $3750 in incentives that knocks damn year $6k of the price of the truck. With that said I can get a used Colorado with 30,000 miles for $15K or a new one with 0 miles for around 18K. The GM discount and incentives more than cover the depreciation when I drive off the lot so
I think the decision is easy......the difficult part is finding a lot that still has Colorados.

7 Stocks you "NEED" to know for today

I love articles like this. It makes it seem like if you had some money to play with you could login to Yahoo, read some articles, and be rich by the weekend. I am interested to find out if stocks that appear in articles with titles like "Stocks to Watch" or a "Hot Stocks" go up and, if they do, if they retain the increase. I am curious to see if the stock is up for the day because of the factors cited in the article or because of the title of the article in which it appears. I'm going to watch these seven stocks today and post their closing price tomorrow.

TradingMarkets.com
TradingMarkets 7 Stocks You Need To Know For Today
Monday March 27, 9:12 am ET
By Brice Wightman

Here are 7 stocks for day traders for Monday:

Luby's (NYSE:LUB - News) reports today after the close; look for $0.16. LUB's Power Rating is 5.

Walgreen (NYSE:WAG - News) reported $0.51, ex-items. The stock is indicated higher. WAG's PowerRating> is 5.

Inco (NYSE:N - News) was upgraded at Citigroup, to Buy from Hold. N's Power Rating is 5.

Sirius (NasdaqNM:SIRI - News) was upgraded at J.P. Morgan, to Neutral from Underweight. SIRI's PowerRating is 4.

Circuit City (NYSE:CC - News) was upgraded at Lehman Bros., to Equalweight from Underweight. CC's PowerRating is 6.

Novavax (NasdaqNM:NVAX - News) was mentioned in Smart Money as a possible bird flu play. NVAX's PowerRating is 6.

Abbott Labs (NYSE:ABT - News) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Prudential. ABT's PowerRating is 6.

TradingMarkets 7 Stocks You Need To Know For Today

Sold a used car via Internet

Ok, so I think I sold my car last night. A guy came to see it and left me a $200 deposit so at the very least I made a couple hundred bucks. I am going to clear around two grand on the sale so I am rather pleased. I just talked to the bank that owns my loan and discovered that I can not pay off the balance with my credit card. I was hoping to use my credit card so I could pick up a slew of points and getting something stupid like a toaster or new blender. Too bad.
I used Autotrader as a marketing plan and I have to say I am not real impressed. It cost $45 and I only received three calls that resulted in two visits. I think the fact I ended up selling it was just a matter of luck. If I were to do it all over again I would put in eBay first. Several people have told me that they have used eBay with great success. The idea behind eBay is not so much to sell it via auction but to attract local people. None of the people I spoke had their reserve price met but the auction resulted in a handful of emails after the auction inquiring about the car. Those emails turned into sales. You can list a car on eBay for a tiny fraction of the cost of Autotrader.com. I'm not saying Autotrader is bad necessarily but I am saying that I would go the eBay route first then if that does not workout pop for the Autotrader add.

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Round Reciprocation

I went out with a couple buddies this weekend and did an analysis of Round Reciprocation. By Round Reciprocation, I mean the idea that when I buy a round of beers for four of my buddies I expect a beer in return from each of those guys. I bought the first round so as to have enough time for all my beers to be reciprocated. Of the four dudes I bought beers for only two reciprocated. The annoying part is that later in the night these non-reciprocators went up to the bar and bought one beer for themselves disregarding the code of reciprocation and forcing me to buy my own. I did some math and realized that if I go out and intend to have four beers one night with this crew I am actually paying for three beers to drink two. A pay to drink ratio of 3:2 is no good. Something else to be aware of is the guy that drinks premium beer when you are buying a round but switches to domestic when he is buying the round. People need to be cognizant of stiffs like this because although it seems petty these things add of up over the length of a bar career.

MIndspeed Technolgies - MSPD

I owned 200 shares of MSPD for about 2 years. The stock did nothing. About 3 or 4 months ago I got pissed and said the hell with it. I sold the shares at $2.13 for a loss of $30 or $40, mostly due to the commisions. Well in typical fashion MSPD is now at $3.74 and climbing. It is absolutely amazing to me. Had I held out a little longer I would be somewhere in the vicinity of 60% profit. My timing is so bad. I was searching articles on www.fool.com , a great site, and found an article in their "Investing Basics" section that was pretty informative. If you're an impatient, chump like me you can skip the first seven steps and read this article.

http://www.fool.com/school/basics/basics08.htm

More Stock Stuff

I sold Watchguard(WGRD) after their boring earnings call. I sold at $3.95 and by the end of the day it was back up over $4.00. My timing is impeccable. SIRI has been killing me all week. It is somewhere below $4.50 but I still can't sell. I feel they have a great product and also excellent leadership. Hopefully they can get it together. I was considering buying more but my man Jim Cramer said

Sirius: "Man, that stock be swimming in red ink ... I see no catalyst. ... But that doesn't mean you should sell it. It just means Don'tBuyDon'tBuyDon'tBuy."

Cramer's 'Mad Money Lightning Round': Domino's Game

I understand that Cramer is not the authority on all things financial just because he is on TV but, I am sure he knows more than me. Plus with his popularity and ability to comment on every stock in the world it is very easy to find some direction. With that said I am going to hold out a bit and hope for a catalyst to drive this position up.

Watchguard takes off without me

In typical fashion Watchguard's conference call yesterday did nothing to help the stock price. I've owned this stock for about 18 months now and I see no sign of improvement. Although they have no debt and seem to be in a decent financial situation the stock price seems to go nowhere. I find it strange because at my present job we use a Watchguard firebox and I think it is an excellent product. Unfortunately, I think I may be in the minority. I'm going to wait and see what happens this morning but I think I am out the door on WGRD!

Potential First Round Upsets

These are the games I see as potential upset games. I'm not saying there are sure things but if you are looking to differentiate your bracket these first round games are possibilities.

• Iona over LSU. - Iona is just better and LSU is slumping at the wrong time
• NC State over California - Playing in the ACC prepares for the tourney
• George Mason over Michigan State- George Mason can lockup people up and I think MSU struggles to score at times

As far as the 8 vs. 9 games - Potentially the best games across the board but can not be categorized as upsets.

• I like GW over UNC-Wilmington depending on the health of Pops Mensah-Bonsu.
• Bucknell over Arkansas - No real reason just go at hunch
• Kentucky over UAB - Too much tradition
• Wisconsin over Arizona - Gotta give the nod to Coach Bo Ryan

My dilema

I am a mid-20's male living in a large metropolitan city. I have been making mid to high $40's salary for the last three years. During that time I lived at home for almost 2 years with nothing but a $334 car payment and the usual small bills like cell phones and gym memberships. The last year or so I have been renting a place with a couple of buddies for $250/month a small portion of my monthly income. YET, I still have not saved much money. In comparison to some of my more money savy friends I feel like a dope. I do have money in my savings, I started a 403B last year, and have some money in my E*Trade brokerage account but I definitely think I should have more. I plan to buy a house in the near future but I am concerned that owning a home will cramp my style and make me a boring, frugal person . My intentions behind starting this blog is obtain some type of financial direction that will allow me to still have fun but also own a home. I figure I'll give it four months and if I don't receive the sought after advice I'll chalk it up as another stupid purchase/investment like my ebay bobblehead business or certifying to become a basketball official.

SIRI

Today I dumped another $250 into my E*trade Brokerage account to buy 50 more shares of Sirius Satelite Radio (SIRI) bringing my total up to 200. I bought my first 50 shares at $3.10 about 3 or so years ago prior to Howard Stern signing on. With the acquisition of Stern my shares soared to $9.00 and I was addicted like a crackhead. The stock then began to level out and eventually hit $5. At $5 I bought 50 more and the stock went to $7.....like a moron I again did not sell and held the bag down to $6.00. At $6.00 I bought 50 more bringing my total to 150 shares with a dollar cost average of $4.88. So when the stock dropped below my cost average I contacted my buddy at Merril Lynch, who had recently explained to me he would punch me if I bought anything else without consulting him and with his approval I bought 50 more. Based on the charts of my financial past I foresee a downward trend similar to when I compiled 500 shares of Calpine Corporation (CPN) and they went bankrupt. Sorry Howard.

Saint Patrick's Day Parade - addendum

Today will be a huge test. At this moment I have already split the price of a 30 pack of High Life Lite and anticipate drinking much of my share. With the wide array of beer tents, beads, shiny trinket salespeople, and other scams designed to sucker fun loving parade goers today has the potential to be disastrous. Hopefully I can get through the day without hitting the ATM again. Details to come.

Addendum:
Everything turned out well. There were no ATM visits, no excessive drinking, and no shiny trinket purchases. Although, I did buy a $5 horn but it was not shiny! I gave it to a kid to make myself feel better or maybe it was because her germ covered lips were on it. Regardless, is that a write off or something? Please advise.