Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

True cost of buying

If the economy is in the dumps, you know how they can spur spending? Give a tax holiday. Perhaps I’m the only one who thinks about this component? The sales tax is highly salient for me when it comes to big ticket purchases.

Remember in the early days of Amazon they did not charge sales tax? Those were the lucrative times. You can buy a television by the thousands of dollars and save hundreds on tax. Now I think we’re suppose to report that come tax time, but honestly, who the heck did that? Besides, doesn’t sales tax go to the state and city?

Never mind! As an employee of a state (at least until Elon Musk’s DOGE gets around to state public workers), I’m a big fan of the sales tax.

Look at buying a new car. The (let’s just say) $30,000 sticker price is not inclusive of the addition thousands in taxes the buyer must pay. Obviously it’s obscured by the mechanism of spreading it over multiple years in payments. (That’s how they get you!) I tend to look at it holistically: do I want to pay additional thousands to not even for the car itself?

What scares me from a mortgage (not that I can afford a house around here) is the amortization table. The amount of interests alone over a 30 year term is freaking outrageous. It seems more prudent to me to keep renting until I am able to pay a majority portion of a house in cash. Keep that money in investments in the meantime and let those interests come to me, instead of the bank.

The true cost of buying something significant is super important to consider.

Lightweight, baby

At the beginning of a weightlifting hobby, weights tend to feel lighter as you progress upwards. A 25-pound kettlebell used to feel heavy, but now, it can be tossed and pressed in whatever manner with ease. My misunderstanding was that this phenomenon would continue on. That a 35-pounder will feel light in the hand once I’ve use it a sufficient amount of times.

Apparently there’s a limit. I would say that anything under 30 pounds is properly lightweight, Ronnie Coleman style. However, weights heavier than 30 remains heavy in feel no matter how many times I’ve picked up a set of 40 pound dumbbells. The only different from before is that I can move the weights. Sure I can do many reps with one plate on the barbell, but 135 pounds on my back will always feel burdensome.

Of course it’s entirely possible and probably that I am just weak.

I’ve written before how the deadlift translates really well to strength for real-life stuff. Bending over to pick stuff up from the floor is a fundamental movement. (We bend over the sink to wash our faces.) I don’t know if squatting has a functional equivalent in everyday life. The only thing that comes to mind is in the event of a disaster, I have to fireman’s carry an immobilized person with me to safety.

But man do I love barbell squats. Of the big three barbell movements - squat, deadlift, and bench, squatting is the most satisfying for me. It’s also the most taxing. Heavy squats with reps higher than 10 will quickly deplete my cardio stores. I cannot wait for this Accutane treatment to be over with (one more month) so I can return to running outside. I’ve got to increase my cardio so that when I barbell squat, my lungs do not give up before my quadriceps do.

A credit card person

After four years, my Yamaha CP88 keyboard is finally paid off. Why did it take so long? Well, Guitar Center allowed me to open a store card to spread the high initial cost over four years with zero interest. Of course I am going to take that arbitrage opportunity. That lump sum has instead been growing in my investment account.

You offer me free money, I am going to take it every time.

I recently had to buy new tires for the M2. For the occasion I opened a new credit card with Capital One. The company is offering a signing bonus: $200 cash back on a $500 spend within the first three months of account opening. There’s also zero interest for 15 months. That’s just easy money. I paid for the tires on the card, got the $200 as a statement credit, and will pay the amount in full sometime early 2026.

Buy now, pay later - splitting payments over four equally small ones - services like Klarna and Afterpay are showing up more and more on online checkouts. I’ve not use those services before, but if I ever need to split a large payment and take the zero interest arbitrage, it’s an easy decision. Heck, even my bank - Chase - offers a program to split large credit purchases over time, with introductory zero interest offers.

Of course, in order for me to “profit” from these credit opportunities, there has to be a loser on the other side of the trade. And it isn’t Guitar Center, Capital One, or Klarna. The loser is their other customers, the ones who are not paying the balance before interest (and back interest) starts accruing. It’s the credit debtors subsidizing the profiteers.

After paying off the new tires, I will never use that Capital One card again. Therefore, they will never recoup that initial $200 in startup bonus. Not from me directly, anyways.

Right to privilege jail, right away.

Non participation trophy

This YouTube video showed up on my feed. It explains two corporations now dominate the American ski resort market, and it’s made the ski experience terrible. High prices, long lines, and poor working conditions.

I’ve a suggestion: don’t participate.

There’s obviously zero incentive for the companies to change operations when there are still lines. If the high prices aren’t enough of a deterrence, then surely a poor experience should? Perhaps sunk-cost fallacy is in play here. A skier isn’t likely to turn back at the sight of the long line, after paying hundreds for a pass, plus the cost of getting to the mountains.

Nothing is going to change if consumers don’t move with their feet and vote with their wallet. McDonald’s didn’t (re)introduce a value menu until enough customers stopped customer-ing. (That’s me!)

Anytime I read about corporations doing this horrible thing or that, I simply go back to: don’t participate. None of us are entitled to anything, other than what’s listed in the United States Constitution. Credit card companies being evil with their interest rates? Don’t get a credit card. So what if Vail has ruined the ski experience? Don’t go! You’re not entitled to a ski weekend.

It’s fine if skiing becomes an exclusive province of the rich. Some things in life just aren’t meant for the lower classes. I would love to buy another Porsche 911. But because I cannot afford one (fuck you, inflation), it’s not for me. I also can’t afford to stay at a Grand Hyatt when I travel. So I don’t.

I know. Right to privilege jail. Right away.

Money cushion

Word on the street is a five dozen carton of eggs at Costco is now a whopping $22 dollars. (Thanks, President Trump!) Those of us reliant on a high protein supply are in shambles. At the two eggs per day rate that I eat (which is kind of low, relatively), I might have to declare bankruptcy.

Elon Musk is taking a figurative chainsaw to the federal payroll. The city of San Francisco is in a massive budget hole. San Francisco State University (my employer) has declared a financial emergency. Seemingly every day another private sector company is shedding jobs. It’s not a great time, is it? We can’t be certain of our job security. And if we are unlucky to be fired, the job hunting market will surely be ultra competitive.

What helps soothe the stress in these uncertain times is to have a cash reserve. (I know, right to privilege jail. Right away!) Those of us with a proper emergency fund, one that can last us an entire year without employment, are sitting comfortable. Of course it would still suck to be out of a job, but not having to worry about covering rent for at least awhile takes away the dread. I will be fine either which way.

The dream is to stop working, right? Short of a lucky windfall, the best way to achieve that is to slowly stockpile the money. Keep it in a savings account for emergencies. Throw the rest into the market (not investment advice, do your own research) so that it can compound. I have a much better relationship with my job when I am not actively looking forward to the next paycheck to cover some debt hole I dug myself into.

Peace of mind in a capitalist system is to have capital. We work so hard in exchange for money. Mustn’t spend it all on TikTok shop!

And it's gone

It was only a matter of time.

President Trump ordered federal workers back to office full-time shortly after inauguration. Last week, San Francisco mayor Lurie ordered city workers back to office full-time. And just yesterday, California governor Newsom ordered state employees back to office full-time. The trifecta is complete. If your salary is paid for by tax-payers, work-home-home is no longer in your vocabulary.

There’s always the private sector, am I right?

As an employee of the State of California, Governor Newsom’s executive order applies to me. Good news for me, I’ve been in-office on a full-time basis since the beginning of 2021. Nothing is changing for me, except seeing more of my colleagues more often on campus.

I can already see HR scrambling to field the many calls from workers asking for an exemption. You need to telecommute because you’re taking care of a sick family member? Well, my mother has been officially disabled for over a decade. Perhaps I should move back home and garner some work-home-home days…

That would be absurd, right? It’s not up to the workplace to acquiesce to choices workers make outside of it. If special dispensation are made - in regards to telecommuting - for children or living far away from campus, then I can definitely make both of those things happen.

Those of us who are already full-time on campus five days a week may or may not be enjoying some schadenfreude at this new development. As far as I know, working-from-home is not written in our contract whatsoever. Therefore, if we really want to talk about fairness…

Welcome back to campus, colleagues!

The peak-end rule

The book Thinking, Fast and Slow by the great Daniel Kahneman details the concept of the peak-end rule. Basically, how an experience comes to end - negatively or positively - biases our feelings towards the entire experience. A television show can have an excellent run of seasons, but the entire series can be tainted if the final season is utterly crap.

Looking at you, How I Met Your Mother.

The tragedy here is in ignoring the majority that came before the end. You still suffered through six hours of hiking, even though reaching the summit gave you tremendous euphoria. The first two years of child-rearing was still full of suck, even though the five-year-old now gives you more joy than you can ever ask for. How I Met Your Mother provided nine solid seasons of laughs; a spoiled 10th season shouldn’t obviate all of that.

The peak-end rule explains why I am unable to look back fondly at my (all too brief) ownership of a Porsche 911 GT3. Because the ending is so crap. Making the decision to sell the car due to life circumstances has tainted the entire year and a half run. It didn’t feel like a good experience because of the action that ended it: I essentially sold my already attained dream car.

It would serve me well to remember that I did have 18 months of absolute fun with the GT3. And cumulatively, that amount of joy is exponentially greater than the pain of that week at the end when I made the decision to sell and sold it. This life of ours is full of chapters, with distinct beginnings and ends. We should try not let the disappointment of something coming to a close wrongly color the entire chapter.

And vice versa.