Tip You For What?

I pulled a Dave Ramsey no, no. Those of you who know who Dave Ramsey is, knows that he advises his listeners to avoid credit at all costs. He also says that when you are in debt, you can't afford to eat out. Well Sunday, I ate out. Even though, it was a bad financial decision on my part, I am going to discuss the place I ate at.

It was one of the buffet places. You know one of those places, where you serve yourself and eat as much as you want. I paid better then $11 to have the opportunity to eat some turkey. I just love turkey. This buffet's turkey isn't as good as Old Country Buffet was before they left town, but it was turkey. For $11, I could have bought a turkey breast, potatoes, corn and fixed my own and still had left overs for another meal or two. The part that really bugs me though is a practice that I see at all the buffet places.

That practice; that I begin seeing in recent years, of asking you to tip the "wait staff." I wonder what wait staff. The person that sits a few extra plates on my table? I mean they certainly don't wait on me. I get my own food. What service am I really paying for when I leave a tip.

Now don't get me wrong. When I go to a restaurant and order from the menu, I leave a tip. In fact, I generally will leave a tip in excess of the 20%. I will even get upset, if someone in my party, says they aren't going to leave a tip, because everyone else is leaving a bigger tip. When a waitress (wait person) does an excellent job and is friendly they should be rewarded. However, as I said before, what service am I paying for at a buffet place?

The worst place for this tip thing was at the former Old Country Buffet at Westridge Mall. I would go in there and get my plate of food, then go get my drink and sit down. Then a young lady would come over to my table, and say, "Hi my name is ... and I will be your waitress today." On more then one occasion I wanted to push my plate aside and say, "Oh, I'm sorry was I suppose to wait on you. I will have ..." OCB's food was better than any of the places that remain in Topeka, but their wait staff were less wait staff than the place I visited Sunday.

I have never understood the logic of paying for an overpriced meal and then being asked to tip someone for not waiting on you. It just doesn't make since to me. I will continue to tip at sit down restaurants, where someone actually is serving me, but at a Buffet, where I serve myself, I have a hard time giving even serious thought to tipping there.


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Great Loan Calculator

I found a free online calculator, that will actually allow you to tell it what you are paying each week/bi-weekly/monthly/semi-monthly. Most online calculators tend to only ask for your interest rate and loan amount and tell you what your monthly loan payment is. Well I already know that information, what I want to know is when I will have my loan paid off based on the payments that I am actually making.
For example I found that even though I hope to pay off my car in another year, it will actually be 2.6 years based on my current payments. I would have to have basically pay my entire paycheck for the next year to make my goal of being debt-free by the end of 2008.

In addition, I have found that I can have my credit card paid off by Dec 31, going with the plan laid out earlier this month on this blog. However, if I can come up with an additional $200/month, I can have it paid off next month. That is if I can also come up with an additional one time payment of $40. This ultra fast scenario would save me $2.37 in interest.

I really like this idea, unfortunately the calculator seems to indicate it will be the only small debt that I will be able to get paid off this year. I had been hoping to see 3 loans eliminated this year, but doesn't appear to be very realistic.

However, the other 2 debts should be able to be paid off by May 2008. That means the credit card would be paid off this year in Nov. or Dec, while the home improvement and Fingerhut debts will be paid off early next year, but only if I increase the home improvement payments by $200 in Dec. or Jan. after I have paid off the credit card. If I continued paying the regular monthly payments ($75) it would take an additional year. Casting me an additional $89.48 in interest.

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Debt Elimination Payment Plan
Additional Monthly Payment Applied is 0.00

Month	Credit Card	Amerifirst	FingerHut	Car Loan
10/16/2007	$400.00	$75.00	$75.00	$400.00
11/16/2007	$400.00	$75.00	$75.00	$400.00
12/16/2007	$40.01	$434.99	$75.00	$400.00
1/16/2008	$0	$475.00	$75.00	$400.00
2/16/2008	$0	$63.47	$486.53	$400.00
3/16/2008	$0	$0	$275.42	$674.58
4/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
5/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
6/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
7/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
8/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
9/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
10/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
11/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
12/16/2008	$0	$0	$0	$950
1/16/2009	$0	$0	$0	$950
2/16/2009	$0	$0	$0	$273.85

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Need New Shoes! - Exploring My Options

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my suspected Plantar fasciitis
(heel spurs). Today, I visited the shoe company that the orthopedic person suggested I visit. He said it was the only shoe place he would recommend. Before I went though, I visited another shoe company that it was obvious that the sales associate didn't know what he was talking about. So I said to the friend with me let's check out this Great Plains Running Company.

Since we had already been abandoned, it was no problem getting out of there and down the road to the Great Plains location.

Upon entering the store, everyone was busy, so we locked around and eventually Karen, the stores community relations person came out to help us. She talked with us and then began to measure my feet length and width to find get the proper shoe. Once the measurements were made she showed me the inserts to correct the proration of my feet and unlike the grocery store inserts also cups/supports the heals. She then had an associate help my friend find a pair of running shoes. While he was measuring his (my friends) feet, Karen was busy having me try on several pairs of shoes (with the inserts slide in) to find the most comfortable.

When it was said and done, the decision was that the Brooks Addiction was the best shoe for me. She gave me a card with the information, so that I can return in a couple of weeks, when I get the $100, to get the shoes. We left with the (SuperFeet) inserts in a bag and as I type this, they are now in my cheap crappy shoes. I look forward to getting the better quality shoe, but for now I have some arch support to help begin to correct my bad walking habits.

I would recommend to everyone in the Topeka, KS area to look up Great Plains Running Company. They are the only company that I know of that takes the time to find the shoe for your specific foot needs. Not only that, but they are very professional and know what they are talking about.

Review: America's Marketplace for Real Financial Performance

If you are like me, you have a Sharebuilder account, or perhaps e*trade or Ameritrade, but maybe you are unsure of what stocks to buy. You would like the help of a broker, but refuse to pay those high fees charged at the brokerage firms on wall street. So what are you to do?

Well I found a blog that is being billed as "America's 1st marketplace for real financial performance". This particular blog, is the most exciting marketing blog that I have come across since I become a personal finance blogger. This particular blog includes public posts from a group of investment directors that have agreed to write for the blog.

Over all I think Vestopia has done a great job with their marketing blog. It is very well done and very professional. A great asset, when you are trying to decide what to buy with your ShaeBuilder, e*trade or Ameritrade account. Now you really can decide for yourself, while still getting the advice of distinguished investment directors, without paying those high fees of the full service brokerage firms.