The Writers Coin

I’m always up for new ways to diversify my investments and for new ways to get my money to work for me. And peer-to-peer lending (instead of lending through a bank, you lend directly to people that want loans) always struck me as a great idea, but I never got over the fear of getting scammed.

What if a lender defaults on his/her payment? Not being covered by things like FDIC insurance or any other body that would protect me is one of those things that keeps people away from P2P.

But I recently got a $50 referral to join Lending Club. It was totally free and that’s the only reason I’m playing around the site now, experimenting with P2P for the very first time.

I’m actually kind of embarassed to be this late to the game because this has been around for a while and I’m only now playing around with it and learning by doing. Fifty bucks isn’t much but it’s something and I’m mainly going to use it to teach me the basics of P2P and to see if this style of lending has a future or not.

If you also want to try LendingClub, I can send you a referral so you can get your free $50 in your account and start playing around with it. Just email me and I’ll send you the link. I’ll get $25 and then you’ll be able to start referring people and making money yourself.

Here’s what it looks like:

Why not try it out for yourself to see what all the fuss is about?

I don’t know when it started, but it’s become so normal to me that it no longer bothers me. I can’t remember when the first joke was made, but now it happens all the time and it barely registers.

The sandwich jokes.

When people at work see you eat the same thing, day in and day out, they get a little frazzled.

“Sandwich again, huh?”

“How’s that sandwich? Better than yesterday’s?”

The other day I was making my sandwich, when it hit me: I’ve probably had the same exact lunch for the past three years: ham and cheese sandwich.

There have been variations, but for the most part the sandwich has stayed the same. And you know what? I’m kind of proud of it.

On Sundays, when M and I go to the grocery store, I’ll buy bread, meat, and cheese. I take all of that to work on Monday and store it in the fridge. Then every day for lunch I make a sandwich for lunch.

But three years is a LONG time. So as I was making my sandwich I thought of how often you hear that tip of bringing your own lunch to work. They always throw out how much money you could’ve saved over a year if you had brought your own lunch.

Well forget could’ve, I said to myself. I want to see what these past three years have done for my wallet. Let’s do the math:

Total savings: $2,059.50.

What about the boredom? I know it sounds terrible—having the same exact lunch every day sounds like torture. But I like the taste and it’s become an easy routine for me to follow. It may not be worth it to some people, and even I’ve thought of changing it up every now and then.

But I guess I’m just too boring for that. And rich—I’m totally rich now.

* Photo by dvs

This post was included in the Festival of Frugality—make sure to check it out.

Sometimes it’s really tough to spot someone that doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about because they’re just really good at hiding it.

But other times it’s so damn obvious it drives me crazy. Take investing—if you’re totally ignorant about it then you can always go to the well with stupid, generic phrases that you don’t really understand but that you hope will give off the right mix of knowledge and prudence.

“Buy low, sell high.”

Every time I hear this I think to myself: “Shut up you ignorant newbie.”

Why does this make me so angry? Because they don’t understand the complexity behind what they’re saying. They think that “Buy low, sell high” is a solid piece of responsible, investment advice. A nugget they can repeat at cocktail parties to sound smart, sensible, and in-the-know (it’s right up there with thinking a stock is “cheap” because the price is “low”).

Almost akin to the most important idiom of personal finance, “Spend less than you ear,” which no one can really argue with.

But “buy low, sell high” makes you look like a total douche because only a speculator believes it. If you’re spouting this left and right, then you’re claiming a whole bunch of stuff you probably don’t even understand.

Like market timing. Which, by the way, is impossible for those of you still listening to cassette players and waiting for MC Hammer to put out another great track. Market timing is bull****—it can’t be done by anyone, regardless of how powerful their computers are or how much experience they have in the market.

You cannot time the market, NO ONE CAN. So how do you expect to put your digestible, easy-to-spout phrase into practice?

“Buy low, sell high! Right guys?”

No. Wrong, guys.

When is low? Was it a month ago when the S&P dipped under 1,000?

Or was it a month later when the S&P plummeted even further down?

Same thing goes for the “high.” No one knows when it is, so shut your trap and stick to what you know, which is obviously not investing.

And to those of you starting off in the world of stocks, I give you this little nugget of advice: if you hear someone repeating this over and over again, they are full of crap. Call them out on it. Ask them when the low is and when the high is and how they know.

If they give you a bunch of valuation metrics, then they might actually know something (even if they’re still wrong). If they blabber on and on about investment basics and principles, they have no friggin’ clue.

Ahem.

I don’t want to just rant and rave here with nothing useful or positive to say, so here’s my advice to those who admit they don’t know enough about the market and even you—yes, you—the person who spouts “buy low, sell high” without realizing how angry you make me and how ignorant you make yourself sound.

Learn.

Read The Intelligent Investor. Read One Up on Wall Street. Read Stocks for the Long Run. Devour everything in Morningstar’s Classroom series. Check out About.com’s section on Investing 101. Read Yahoo Finance and MSN Money every day.

Start paper trading stocks to get a feel for what it’s like to watch a stock without risking your money.

Go out there and learn the meat of it, and ignore the fluff. It’ll make you a better investor and it’ll help keep my blood-pressure down…

When I was in grad school I took an editing class and it turned out to be one of the best things I ever did. All the things I learned there have made me an infinitely better writer.

But it came with a downside: I am now one of those people that seeks out typos and weird sentence constructions everywhere he goes. And when I find them, I LOVE to point them out (and yes there are typos here at The Writer’s Coin—I’m aware I can’t catch them all). Oooh, look at me! I’m the writer pointing out all of your mistakes!

Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s annoying. And sometimes you have to step back and laugh at how some people have butchered the English language.

Honey, I know you’re scared, but the sign says we have to…

Sounds like hockey terminology to me…

I always thought smorking was something else…

It’s funny, sure, but there’s a lesson to be learned here. Every time you make silly mistakes with the English language, it makes you look bad. Whether it’s in an email to your boss or a note to a coworker, bad English makes you look lazy, stupid, and can make you sound like a spammer.

All things no one wants to deal with.

So next time you sit down to write something, give it a quick edit before you send it off into the world. Only good will come of it.

* I’m aware most of these mistakes are probably made by foreigners that don’t know the language very well. I’m not trying to make fun of them, I’m just using these as examples. No offense intended! If you like them, run a search for “Chinglish” and you’ll find some hilarious stuff online.

** This post was included in the Just Write carnival. Head over there to check out more great writing-related posts.