From the category archives:

how to lose money

#3 DVD’s are Dumb and Dumber

by money on September 6, 2010

Buckraked bums love to hug and show off their “collections” of DVD’s and Bluray’s. When hanging out with these media addicts, you will notice that they often like to bring up discussions about actors by their first names. This of course is because they saw them once at a film festival and are therefore best buds. They always let you browse their “collections” and let you know that they have been arranged either by title, genre, year, or sometimes by actor for the true connoisseur. You can even rent these prized possessions, but don’t forget to sign their take out sheet so they can bug you in two weeks to return the movie.

Unfortunately, there are a good number of DVD huggers in our world. The average size of a movie collection is 114 movies. That is $2,521 with the average cost of a DVD at $22.11. Not too shabby. We looked around to find some of the larger collections that were being displayed like collections of exotic cars.

One bloke by the name of PS3 Linux had an impressive 4000 DVD’s. But the largest we could find was a douche named Rob1 with an ever growing collection of 17,428 DVD’s and Bluray’s. These jokers spent around $88,440 and $385,333 respectively on movies. Talk about buckrakeage!

One true collector named Neal, was kind enough to do some calculations for us:

If I average that each of my 2665 DVD’s is 2 hours long and that I sleep 8 hours a day and spend the other 16 watching movies (doing nothing else, like, oh let’s say…work) it would take me 333 days. But, I do work, sleep, and have a life. Therefore It would take me about 4 times as long to watch all of my DVD’s. Infact, at any given time I can probably count an average of at least 50 discs I’ve never even opened. And one more thing to keep in mind is that I purchase an average of 7 DVD’s a week (or 1 a day). My point being that I believe I have a “small” movie buying problem and that I may NEVER catch up in my viewings.

So what is so wrong with the DVD and Bluray “collections” that are just about everywhere? Answer: They are getting dumb and dumber. Remember CD’s? How lame is it when your grandma breaks out a CD? Why don’t they make iPods with big buttons so old people could figure them out? Why doesn’t anyone realize how idiotic a wall of DVD’s looks? Any why doesn’t the world realize that with a little Hulu and Netflix you will never have to buy a DVD again, waste weekends organizing your “collection”, or trying to impress your friend’s by dropping first names of actors as if you were buds.

For those readers saying, I want to keep a collection of my favorite DVD’s so I can go watch them over and over and over again with popcorn and bon bons. There are much better solutions for you like Windows 7 Media Center or XBMC for PC or Plex for Apple.

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#2 Smoking is Such a Drag

by money on August 30, 2010

Of all the dumb things someone can do to be buckraked, smoking has to be at the top of the list.  Even a 2 year old can tell you that sucking in hot smoke and ash is stupid.  But let’s focus for a second on the financial consequences for those who smoke.

First of all, how much does the average smoker pay for cigarettes in his or her life?  The average cost of a pack of cigarettes is $5.51 as of 2009.  Using the assumption that the average smoker smokes 1 pack of cigarettes a day, in one year he or she would spend $2,011, the cost in five years is $10,056, and the cost during one’s life is $122,680.

Oh yeah, we should mention the obvious that smokers die earlier by an average of 14 years compared to non-smokers.  So we will need to factor in the “savings” of $28,154 the smoker will enjoy by croaking early.  So you really are only looking at a savings of $94,524.

Although there are plenty of other things that will cost you dearly including selling a stinky car, losing a rental deposit for a stinky apartment, and losing chicks due stinky breath and nasty-ass teeth, we really need to factor in the cost of health insurance.  It costs a smoker $462 more for health insurance per year than a non-smoker.  That means we are going to have to tack on another $21,714.  Ouch, this buck can hurt!

So follow Obama’s good example and drop smoking, and the Buck will guarantee that you will be happier with the extra $116,238.

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