The Writers Coin

Well, we’re finally back with another round of funny posts that have something to do with money.

Feeling a little discouraged today with the meager entries even though I waited a long time for this round of the carnival to go up. But you know what always cheers me up?

A good LOLCat:

On to the stories!

• The David presents Top 43 Songs About Money posted at Pimp Your Finances. An interesting look at some lyrics that relate to money.

• Greg Keene presents He’s a nillionaire! posted at Managing Money God’s Way. Never heard of “nillionaire” before…maybe it’ll catch on.

• Silicon Valley Blogger presents Financial Crisis Stock Charts Set To Polka Music @ The Roundup posted at The Digerati Life. Don’t know how funny this is, but it’s definitely something totally different…OK it’s kinda funny!

• Len Penzo presents Why “Coke Rewards” Is For Suckers posted at Len Penzo . Com. Len has a serious problem and he needs help to get off his version of smack.

Thanks again to all who submitted!

(I’ve stopped asking myself this question and am now a BBB convert. For more on what happened, check out this story)

M and I registered at a couple of places before we got married, and Bed Bath and Beyond was one of them. Even though most guys say it’s painful, I thought it was pretty fun to take the scanning gun and go hog wild picking out stuff that I wanted.

Not as fun as doing it in Best Buy, but hey—that’s life.

Turns out one of the reasons people register there is because their return policy is so liberal. You can take back anything you want, at anytime, for any reason, and get store credit.

Or cash. That’s right—cash. After an experience I had yesterday, which was great from the customer point of view, I’m left wondering how the heck this company manages to stay in business.

The Vacuum

When we were picking out what we wanted to register for, I was in charge of researching a vacuum. So I did my due diligence—after all, that’s what an obsessive person does. I compared and contrasted all the models they had and settled on the best one: a $169 model.

Someone bought it for us and when it came in the mail I was kind of surprised—it was a behemoth. Huge and heavy. So much so that only I could take it out of the closet to use it. Hence, I am was in charge of vacuuming.

Not a problem, I’m progressive like that.

Then yesterday it starts making this awful grinding noise—after only 8 or 10 uses. So I give it a look under the hood and a piece of plastic is broken.

M and I are shocked: it’s practically new and my research said it was a good vacuum. My research and my vacuuming skills go under intense scrutiny.

So I call up Bed Bath and Beyond and ask what my options are, since we have no receipt and no box. I think we even threw the manual out.

Here’s basically what they said:

Just bring it to the store and we’ll give you store credit. Then you can pick out a new one.

Awesome! So we hop in the car and, just in case, bring along about 30 of those $20 coupons you see everywhere.

At the Store

So we get to the store and right away I find a smaller, lighter (this was on my priority list) model that has all the powerful amp and cleaning power our old vacuum has. And it costs about $60 because it’s on sale.  I’m sold.

But we lounge around and start to buy other stuff, as often happens at Bed Bath and Beyond. There’s always something else you can buy there—picture frames, a replacement filter for the vacuum, a gardening can, and some other random stuff.

We go to check out and I sheepishly hand over my stack of expired 20% coupons, which the cashier rings up without even checking. Then she asks me how I would like the remaining $36 of my balance: on my credit card or in store credit. I stammer that my credit card would be great and I hand it over—amazed by the whole thing.

What Gives?

So I walked in with a broken vacuum, no receipt, and a stack of expired coupons and walked out with a new vacuum, a whole bunch of new stuff, and $36 on my credit card.

Again I ask: how does this business model work?

What happens with that broken down vacuum?

I understand that having a return policy that’s this liberal draws in a ton of customers. So that’s great, you get tons of convenience points there, BBB.

But isn’t it a little too liberal? Who are they competing with that they feel they have to offer such cushy terms?

The Motley Fool has an interesting article on the stock. It also agrees that the store no longer has traditional competition, but is now tussling with Wal-Mart and Target. And maybe it’s right—perhaps this kind of coupon craze and liberal return policy is just a way to get people into the store during tough times. And who knows, maybe people are more apt to redecorate since moving is impossible for so many right now (the same way car-part stores are doing brisk business because no one is buying new cars).

No Answer

I’m no expert, but I just can’t understand why the store keeps these policies. Is being so customer friendly going to make me buy there more often? Not really—their competition is gone.

Am I going to take advantage of the policy to suit my needs? Hell yes. That’s what prompted Costco to change their policy, and I’m guessing Bed Bath and Beyond will do the same once the economy steadies itself.

Otherwise, I don’t think they can keep this up. Abusers will continue to walk in and switch out their stuff for newer items just because they can.

Next time I go I’m exchanging my burnt wok for a zebra snuggie.

Photo by NNECAPA

Like most other writers, I procrastinate in a variety of really creative ways to avoid sitting down in front of my desk and actually writing. Sometimes that means sketching out an outline of what I’m supposed to be writing, taking “notes” of ideas, or “thinking” of ways to conjure up a scene.

These little “pre-writing” exercises are nothing more than me putting off the inevitable: the writing.

Not Just for Writing

This goes for anything else you do in life (or try to). Procrastination is such a serious problem for so many people (“battling procrastination” brings back over 400,000 hits on Google) that there are whole books and studies dedicated to studying how it works and what we can do to fight it.

All so we can finally get some things done.

These are some of the tips you’ll find out there:

• Set goals
• Ask for help
• Reward yourself
• Be realistic
• Set a schedule

Some of these work OK and some of them fail every time. But there’s one that works every single time—without fail.

The Article

I had an idea for an article about three weeks ago and I knew it would be around 1500–2000 words long, which is longer than the articles I write here on The Writer’s Coin. So right away I was a little intimidated: this wasn’t going to be so easy.

So I started an outline. Then I set some time aside to write an intro. Then I read a little bit about the topic and jotted down some notes in the magazine I was reading. Then, finally, when I sat down to actually write it, I ended up going over those notes and expanding on them.

After four weeks, I had three different outlines, tons of pieces of paper with notes sketched everywhere, and zero words. And still I thought to myself, “I’ve got to think about this some more before I start to write.”

Classic procrastination denial talk.

Just Do It

Then yesterday something happened. I woke up and instead of falling into all the trappings of blogging and procrastinating (checking email, checking stats, emailing people back, reading other blogs, etc.), I simply sat down to write the damn article.

The night before the inspiration had come to me: just stop messing around and write it all from beginning to end.

JUST DO IT.

An hour and a half and 2,400 words later, the article was finished. I was very happy but also shocked that I had actually, finally done it. No secret strategy, no sneaky exercises—just sit down and do it.

Tomorrow I can edit it, make it better, or start over. But for now, I wrote the first draft and without a first draft, it would never go anywhere.

Next time you start to fall into the procrastination trap, give this strategy your best shot. If you manage to pull it off, I guarantee you won’t fail.

Photo by bbaunach

I’ll be the first to admit that having a blog that talks mainly about personal finance and the art of writing is kind of a strange combination. But that’s me: strange—so it’s a great fit.

So when I see other sites or meet other bloggers that share these two interests, it makes me feel less strange.

Trent over at The Simple Dollar is one of the top PF bloggers out there, and the other day he wrote a post about making goals achievable that was really interesting.

He was trying to give three of his readers some advice on how to achieve their goals by breaking them down into easily digestible steps. One person wanted to learn to play the guitar (which I have failed at several times), another was trying to get an emergency fund started, and the third wanted to start a garden.

But the interesting part for me was how Trent injected himself into the post. To serve as an additional example, he noted how he wants to be a published fiction writer. Then he goes about breaking down what he needs to do to get there:

First he defines the big steps of his goal:

For my goal of writing a novel and some short stories, I need to bone up on my fiction writing. This means prescribing to a steady diet of two things: reading good fiction (to learn technique and style) and practicing my own writing. Thus, my plan should revolve around a steady diet of reading good fiction each day along with focused fiction writing, starting with short stories and later growing into longer pieces.

Then he sketches out the first step he must take:

For me, this could mean spending a Saturday afternoon churning out a complete short story and reading a certain number of short stories written by others. I’ve been reading quite a few short stories as of late by swapping for short story compilations on PaperBackSwap and hitting the library.

Then set some microgoals:

For my goal of writing, I’ll commit to a diet of reading ten short stories a week, writing a strong first draft of one, editing an old one to bring it into better shape, and sharing some of those edited stories with friends and family who can provide some solid feedback.

And finally, the thing I’ve been battling for a long time when it comes to my own fiction, you must set aside the time:

For me, I’ve simply set aside half an hour each day to read a short story and half an hour to write a new one or prod an old one. I found that hour by simply getting more focused in my reading. On a normal day, I would spend two hours or so simply reading for pleasure – now I just have one hour of free reading and an hour devoted to making myself into a good fiction writer.

It all sounds good in theory, doesn’t it? But does it work? There’s only one way to tell: by actually trying it.

If you know anything about Trent and his site, you know he’s got supernatural skills when it comes to making time. It’s the one thing that gives me a lot of trouble but he manages to handle it incredibly well.

I’ve been trying to set aside this time every day, but between this blog, posting over at WiseBread, and keeping up with the PF community, it’s hard to find the time in my morning routine for it.

But I can’t argue with Trent’s logic. It sounds like it could work, and I intend on finding out once and for all.

Photo by Stardust