Comments on: Wow, this is a great article

By: m

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:29:45 +0000

http://nytimesshorts.feedroom.com/index.jsp?auto_band=x&rf=sv&fr_story=00fa401df1f97c0e0a837bf60c799795f0cb32a6

Link to an interesting piece on the NY Times re: L.A. rich kids’ spending habits

By: TTFK

TTFK — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 02:56:04 +0000

http://www.violentacres.com/ just put up an update on Marilyn:

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/105/drunken-arguments-are-rarely-interesting

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:47:59 +0000

How can someone NOT know how to “balance” a checkbook? I never understood the big deal..it is adding and subtracting. How can someone over 6 or 7 years old not handle that?

By: Kitty

Kitty — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 22:01:59 +0000

Bah. Violent Acres is a boring troll. Just look at its other posts – making fun of people’s kids, being grossed out by fat people, disabled people make it uncomfortable, poor people are dumb – so original, so groundbreaking.

By: jayzee

jayzee — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:48:48 +0000

When/if you ever run across the author of the violentacres.com site — tell her she is my hero. She’s is like the “howard stern of blogs.” I love people who are *realists* and who *tell it like it is!*

By: LornaJay

LornaJay — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 21:45:04 +0000

The article was really good, in terms of managing money – I was taught as a child about budgets and savings (ta folks).

However, the rest of the blog is bitter, vindictive and incredibly prejudiced. I was hoping for other interesting comments, but only found a load of spleen about fat people, folk with mental disabilities, etc…..

Sadly, that one’s just fallen off my bloglines list.

By: hypatia

hypatia — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:51:41 +0000

Hey Laura,

Why not save the bridge toll and ride the bus to work? You can even get your bus passes as a pre-tax benefit up to $160 through the federal CommuterChek program. Ask your human resources department or your regional transit agency about it.

By: Vic

Vic — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 19:15:01 +0000

I don’t “balance a checkbook either.” However I do “balance my quicken” religiously.

By: SCapitalist

SCapitalist — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 05:00:22 +0000

Great article. I like how she explains the relative cost of buying clothes. Yes, celebrities do spend a large amount of money on clothes. However, they have a much higher income than the average college student. This should be mandatory reading for all senior high school students.

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 01:52:38 +0000

This author fleshes out a good point very clearly. It hits home. I need my designer jeans like a crack addict needs his pipe, so I get around this by limiting myself to one pair a year.

What frustrates is how working for a company at the “peon” stage costs so much to begin with. Example: The savings I plan to use as a down payment is in an ING fund earning a solid yield of about $60 a month for me. If you forget about the benefits of compound interest for a second that may seem solid—that’s $60 I don’t have to do a thing for. It’s a good start, don’t get me wrong, it would let me move to a third world country and live a pretty solid simple life without working much. But I’m not in a fishing village in rural Botswana I’m a twenty-something in SF who appreciates quality jeans and commutes everyday to her a-little-too-close-to-peon job. That commute costs me $60 in bridge toll a month, so there goes that money.

You get my drift, there’s a bunch of other ways this happens as well making it hard to break out of the grind. I do believe if we’re clever enough and start early enough it’s possible.