I was just reading some stories about people who are financially well off or say just won/inherited a lot of wealth and as a result so many people came out of the woodwork such as family members they never knew they had or friends that they have never seen in decades. Of course, they all just happen to need something that requires a lot of money and what a coincidence that they bumped into you huh? When you then imply to them that you can’t really help them because of reasons such as you don’t know them too well they then give you the guilt trip and all that other stuff.

I usually hear this all the time where if say someone has $100,000 saved up then somehow them not wanting to lend/giveaway $7000 to you as you really need it makes them a bad person since it should be too little to do any harm to them. Even if we are talking about a smaller figure here for both parties, it’s just amazing that some people feel that it’s okay or perfectly fine to do so as it is not rude or impolite in anyway. As I mentioned before, I think it is really important that when helping others you also learn to take care of yourself as well. That means learning how to say no as well.

For myself, I love to help people as much as I can, but when it comes to just giving say money because someone asks for it and say knows me a little, I have learned to say no and stood by it. A big reason for this is that I am thinking long term as well because I know if I do it for this one person then it is going to attract a dozen more. Ironically, most of the people that I help by say donating or loaning a lot of money are people that don’t ask for it. For me it comes down to how genuine the person/organization is and whether or not my aid would be actually helping the situation overall as oppose to a quick fix solution that will crack again right away. If the person is say a bad impulse shopper, then I would rather help them with that then say wiping out their credit card debt as I’m not really helping them if I know they will end up in the same place again.

I’m sure everyone has experienced something similar in maybe smaller ways and I just thought this is actually another one of those small things that can easily add up. If you think about it too, you won’t be able to help people anymore if you completely drain yourself and your resources to help others. Think about it from a long term perspective when helping others. If it doesn’t make sense then just learn to say no.

I knew that today there was this auction taking place where a computer company of some sort went bankrupt and so all of its remaining valuables were to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The auction was actually taking place simultaneously in-person and online as people were able to bid against each other. I decided to view it online for the experience as I have never actually participated in an auction before.

From watching it, I can honestly say that so many of the purchases were purely emotional it seems. Some items I couldn’t believe sold for so much as you could easily find them elsewhere for cheaper. I took a video clip example of people bidding against each other which is kind of entertaining that you can see here:

I guess if you ever intend to go to an auction for something it is great to bring a person who knows a lot about the items. As an example, I someone purchase seven 1 gig USB memory sticks for $200 as shown here:

I know personally that these kinds of memory sticks can be bought for a regular retail price of around $20-$25 which would be $140-$175. Not only that, but for the auction it was mention that you would have to pay a 15% buyer’s premium on top of the final bid price which makes it even more expensive. I was actually watching this auction with another person as well and he joked that there must have been internal people bidding on items to drive the prices up so that people get caught up in the moment in bidding for things. In many ways I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true too.

There were some crazy purchases though such as a large photocopier that was bought for under $70. The interesting thing I noticed for many items though, which can help you to determine if it is a good deal, is that a lot of people placed pre-bids and for the most part it looked like those guys knew the max to pay for an item to be considered as a good deal from its regular market value. I still say you should participate in these things with a person knowledgeable about the category though. If you really want a deal though, I still think networking with the right people can get you far better deals in the long run.

As mentioned in a previous posting, Canadians are finally getting the opportunity to switch cell phone providers while being able to keep their old numbers as wireless number portability (WNP) has officially started today. I can already see companies coming out in full force to entice people to switch over to their service or offer some kind of retention plan to keep people from leaving.

From what I can see, Virgin Mobile seems to be creating a lot of buzz as their plan states that if you signup as a new customer today, for one day only they will give you full credit for whatever phone you buy. Considering there doesn’t seem to be a contract plan obligation, a lot of people are taking advantage of it.

In the midst of all this though there are some important points of course to consider which I think most people may overlook. When you are looking at a cell phone plan, just because one plan looks cheaper from one provider over the other it may not be the case. Be sure to get all of the hidden charges details as well such as those system access fees which some people think is a government imposed tax type of thing when really it’s not. I wouldn’t be surprised if companies start silently bumping up these kinds of fees to make up for the loss and especially now that people are more likely to move as a result of wireless number portability.

Another way to think about it is to pretend that you were shopping for a cell phone online and saw that one guy had it for $5 cheaper. Many times a company would make up for it by having higher shipping costs. You might think that it is common sense that people would simply do the math to see which one is cheaper, but in many cases people simply buy emotionally. Just keep that in mind when reviewing various offers. The only other thing that I can think of is that if you switch providers keep in mind that all of the features on your old phone may not work with your new carrier and so you should keep that in mind too as you may have to get a new phone. Looks like this is great for consumers in Canada so far though.

Today I received a package that said it came from Intel. I immediately knew that inside was going to be a Windows Vista disc as I purchased a bundle awhile back which only gave a release candidate version of the operating system since it wasn’t out yet. The shipping box it was packaged with was fairly big I thought at first but figured that maybe there were other things in it as well.

Upon opening it, all it had was just two DVDs that were in sleeves. No retail box packaging or anything else as you can see here:

This just got me wondering how this helps a company in any way to justify using such a large package for a tiny item as it seems like an extreme waste and that it probably costs more to ship it due to the size of the box. Not to mention that the person receiving would have to deal with all of the excessive packaging afterwards. The only thing I could think of is that some companies ship items in obscure boxes to throw people off in an attempt to reduce say theft as one would think that it is nothing important. I doubt that was the case for this though.

News about Viacom slapping YouTube with a lawsuit is currently making its way everywhere it seems. I’m surprised more of this hasn’t happened yet, but the lawsuit is basically over copyright infringement issues and how YouTube is a large for-profit company and makes money by using other people’s work to gain traffic and then selling advertising space off of that content. For those who don’t know, Viacom is pretty large too as they own networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon.

As mentioned, I’m surprised that this hasn’t happened earlier. Then again, in some ways I am not too as many times companies only sue others if they feel that the other party is established enough and has deep pockets. I’m sure everyone has seen an example or two of that. Kind of like how some lawyers won’t even take a case if they feel the person they would be going against doesn’t have a lot of money.