I’ve been saving coins in a huge water bottle almost since I first got to Korea.

Once the water bottle was full, I lugged it to the nearest bank (it weighed quite a bit more than I expected). I figured they could handle it and just give me my bills right???

I found out (through the decent english of the bank teller) that I had to sort the coins so they could pour them into the machine denomination at a time.

That wasn’t what I had planned at all. But it’s way better than them saying “NO!!!” and making an X with their forearms (which makes the hulk angry). I went ahead and sorted them and got my money.

I got a few coins under $200 (USD). I was expecting way less! It was like getting money for not wanting to jingle from my pockets everywhere I went. That’s a win/win!

Why not see the original post on my blog here?
http://www.jermilsadler.com/blog/2009/10/the-easiest-savings-plan-ever/

I’ve read that a billion times so I just posted and posted and waited until that special day. These are the stats from a blog I started purely for profit; not this blog. (Click the picture to see it bigger)

Once you fail at talking your way out of that speeding ticket, your mind goes crazy thinking about how you have to pay this fat fine and how your car insurance will go up because you got a couple more points on your license. Most people figure they’re obviously guilty and the best thing to do is to pay the ticket through the mail and not embarrass themselves by going to court and trying to convince a judge they weren’t speeding even though EVERYBODY SPEEDS!!!

But that’s often the worst thing for you to do!

If you don’t have a buttload of points on your license and you haven’t received a ticket in the past 6 months or so, GO TO COURT!!! Even if you did, you have at least a 1% chance of getting less of a fine and fewer points for the violation.

One million times out of one million, the officer talks to everyone who he/she gave tickets to and asks them about their last ticket. If you’re a decent driver, the officer will give you the opportunity to pay the fine and receive fewer points or no points at all for the violation. And this is simply for SHOWING UP! You don’t have to do ANYTHING else. Well, dress nicely and treat the officer with respect when you two talk.

If the officer doesn’t show up to court that day, you’re completely cleared of all charges. The officer will most likely show up though. I’ve heard that if you ask for as many continuances as you can, the odds are greater that the officer won’t show up.

Also, if there’s anything wrong on your ticket, you can get out of it that way. If it was raining and the officer put sunny, the color of your car is different from what’s on the ticket, if the officer wrote the wrong location… anything simple like that can get you out of the ticket.

You can also talk to the magistrate and try to convince them that the officer is a liar and you weren’t actually speeding. That has never worked for me but I wish you success with it.

The most important thing that you should get from this post is that you should NEVER mail in your payment for the speeding ticket. Just by showing up to court, you have a GREAT chance at getting something less to deal with.

Tuesday night was one of the coldest nights of October in northern Virginia. 40 degrees and high winds blowing almost constantly at about 20 miles per hour. I decided that would be the perfect time to get astonishing night shots in Old Town Alexandria.

When I was done taking pictures for the night, a friend and I walked back to my car.

While walking back to my car, I happened to glance at the sidewalk in front of me. In the middle of a ridiculous windstorm, a 5 dollar bill seemed to be stuck on the sidewalk. I picked it up and it was a normal 5 dollar bill with no fishing line attached to it and no gum keeping it stuck it to the ground. It was all mine!

My friend who was lucky enough to be allowed to witness me make masterpieces said that it was like God paid me to take pictures that night. I looked at it in a similar way because if I wasn’t taking pictures that night, chances of me finding a 5 dollar bill were extremely low.

Either way, it was a great feeling to think that I was getting paid to do what I love. I was thinking about framing it!

When you were in elementary school and you did something bad, the teacher told your parents. Even in elementary school your parents found out somehow. But as you grow up, you are able to do bad things and actually get away with it.

I was thinking about this today and how it becomes possible to get away with doing slightly bad things and the people that MADE YOU don’t find out about it.

First I thought that maybe you get older and smarter and you figure out how to do certain things without authority figures finding out. But I don’t think that helps too much because my parents really only found out about the really big stuff. But the little stuff like riding my bike around the neighborhood with a friend on trash day and kicking trashcans over, they never found out about that.

I would think that I’d be more lax about cleaning up my tracks when, if they found out, I’d have very little to lose. When I told my dad I kicked over trashcans as a youth, he laughed with me.

I think the catalyst to kids being able to get away with stuff is money. When you’re young, your parents haven’t started giving you allowance. So you can’t really get yourself out of any trouble if once it appears. Once you start getting allowance and you decide you want to steal candy from the store, if you get caught, you can offer to pay for it and they may let you go.

Once you’re in high school and you have a car and a part-time job, you can get a speeding ticket, go to the police station, and pay them yourself without your parents ever knowing… at least until it’s time for them to pay insurance again.

I wonder if parents didn’t let their kids have jobs in high school and didn’t give them allowances, would kids act better? Also, would it increase or decrease the lust for money that the majority of this country has today?

I think it would increase the desire for money because the longer you wait to have something, the more you want it once you get it!

If you’re constantly seeing people on the television with money and enjoying their lives while you’re living a boring life in high school, don’t you think that you’d want more and more money once you get it? People are like that now but I think it would be much worse if that were the case.

In summation, I do declare that the love of money is not only the root of evil. It is also what thrusts children into a world where people get away with quite a few of the bad things they do. Money steals your child’s innocence.

Reservation Rewards is a website that has ties with orbitz.com, the travel website. After you order a flight or whatever else, a button shows up on the confirmation page that says you can save $20 on your next travel booking with orbitz if you join Reservation Rewards. They’ll also be so kind as to give you a $10 off coupon every month just for being a lovely and faithful member.

That all sounds swell so far right???

It’s really not swell at all though. Mind if I tell you why??? Of course you don’t!

Here’s what they do.

It’s actually quite sneaky.

If you agree to sign up with Reservation Rewards, they get passed your credit card and address information that you used to book your flight, rental car, cruise, or hotel on Orbitz. Then they charge you $12 a month and offer you tons of stuff that you’ll never use.

You won’t know you’re getting charged unless you actually read the terms of service. And who reads those things these days? It’s usually just words saying you won’t use their site or product for naughtiness. Rarely does it say they will take your personal information from a source you trust and use it for the rape and pillagement of your hard earned funds!

“But what about the $10 off?” you ask. I doubt people are booking something every month to the point where that $10 comes in handy monthly. Also, since Reservation Rewards is charging you $12 to give you $10, why not put that $12 to use on your travel plans???

Doing a google search for Reservation Rewards or Reservation Rewards scam and you’ll see the multitudes of extremely displeased customers that went so far as to post their tales of woe online.

In summation or conclusion or the end, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using orbitz.com. I used them for the two trips that I have coming up. But, I do have a problem with scams. And it you do happen to come across this scam from Reservation Rewards or any other scam that sucks and makes people sad, confused, and scared of the internet, I suggest you run and hide. Or you could search and destroy the evil company that promotes such unrighteous tactics in order to get money.

That’s what I’d do. But don’t listen to me. I’m evil.

Jermil

P.S. Check out my sister’s blog. She’s been blogging since she’s been out in San Diego on an internship and has done some pretty interesting things.

P.P.S. Don’t forget to rustle through the very interesting and delightful automatically generated similar posts found below.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/09/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm

It goes by the name Skyline Automotive located near Bailey’s Crossroads in the great state of Virginia.

Skyline Automotive: The Place That Sucks

The guy that I usually deal with is Victor. He actually seems like a nice guy. He’s really genuine and expresses sadness and concern when he relays to you the extremely overinflated price of your repairs.

I don’t blame young Victor personally. All he can do is punch “busted power steering pump” into the computer and the computer tells him $1100. I don’t know what it takes to change a power steering pump so $1100 sounds fair enough I guess.

But I don’t want to pay $1100. So I decide to take it elsewhere and see what they say.

I took my lovely vehicle to a Chrysler dealer. It’s silly to go to a dealer, you say. It has to be more than $1100, you say.

You’d be wrong.

The price for a power steering pump at a Chrysler dealer was a smidge over $700.

THAT’S A $400 DIFFERENCE TO DO THE SAME EXACT THING!!!

That’s a big enough difference to decide to never to go back again.

That wasn’t the first time…

I could see if that was the only thing that Skyline Automotive tried to bilk me over. You’d say, why is he riffing on this place. They just charge more to do this one thing.

I took my car there a few months ago and they told me I needed a new serpertine belt. Skyline Automotive wanted to charge me about $1000 for it. I didn’t believe in paying that much for something I’ve never heard of before so I took my car to Firestone. They only charged me about $500.

But back to the latest story. Along with this power steering pump, Skyline Automotive told me that my water pump was leaking and it would cost $1200 to replace. That was extremely fishy to me since the water pump was replaced about a year ago. When I took it to the Chrysler dealer, I asked them to check the water pump for leaks or anything. Guess what my friend…

THEY FOUND NOTHING!!!

Skyline Automotive must have seen that they have an extra water pump in the back and decided to try to dump it off on me. Silly boys.

They don’t know what year my car is.

One last thing. My car is a 2001 Chrysler thingamajig. Whenever I go to the lovely Skyline Automotive, they always punch it up as a 2003. I tell them that it’s a 2001 everytime and everytime they tell me no it says it right here that it’s a 2003. Right here meaning in the computer where they punched it in incorrectly the first time I came.

You’d think if all you do is work with cars, you’d know a way to figure out what the year is. Like type the VIN number into their computer. Or look at the OWNER’s MANUAL.

They have the gall to call themselves “The Washington Metropolitan Area’s Most Trusted Automotive Shop”. The audacity of some people.

In summation, stay away from Skyline Automotive unless you love being lied to, cheated, conned, swindled, tricked, flimflammed, hoaxed, given a snow job, fast shuffled, and of course, ripped-off.

Thank you for your time.

I saw a commercial that referenced this site that really hit home.

Go to their videos section and look at the 2nd video entitled “Video Store”. This link might do it.

I spent almost half of the day yesterday researching TV’s and picking out the perfect one for my place. I don’t need a new one but hey… IT’S AMERICA!!! And it was a great deal.

After hours of researching and coveting those lovely 42″ LCD HDTVs, I decided that I reeeeally don’t need one. Even though they are kinda cute and cuddly looking these days.

Today while I was on the treadmill, I saw that commercial that I referenced above. If my mind wasn’t already made up to not get it, that commercial sealed the deal. In those 10 seconds of video, it pointed out how unnecessary it would be for me to get it. Especially since all I watch on TV is 24 and America’s Funniest Home Videos!

So check out the site. It’s actually pretty good. They have a calendar that you can print out that has little ideas that you can do on certain days to get your money right.

Be well.