Why Dogs Bite Kids

Yahoo recently ran an article on why dogs bite kids.

• Young children (under 6 years) were more likely to be bitten when a dog felt the kids were threatening to take the dogs' food or toys.
• Older children were bitten when the dog felt the kids were encroaching on its territory.
• Children familiar to the dog were more likely to be bitten while the dog was guarding its food.
• Unfamiliar children were more likely to be bitten while the dog was protecting its territory.

I've heard it suggested that dogs bite to correct younger dogs when they do something wrong. The belief was that the dog felt it had to care for the child and teach it the ways of the household. If nothing else, this study certainly looked at a lot of cases (111)

Reverse Auction

Because I was late on the eBay bandwagon, I thought I'd share the next biggest thing in online auctions. The site is called Oltiby (www.oltiby.com). Many times on eBay, I have gotten caught up in the buying process and bid too much on broken electronics not realizing they were broken. Oltiby is different, it's a reverse auction, which means that you post what you want to buy in detail, and sellers compete against each other to win you as a customer. It works the way capitalism should. At the end, the lowest bidder wins the auction, but you as the buyer have the option of choosing a different bidder from the offers you received.
I think the idea is certainly promising, but I wonder how many buyers can accurately list what they want. The process has great promise for new car sales, where many buyers already check prices with different sellers before buying a car. The one thing eBay has over a reverse auction process is the ability to sell unique items the buyer may not have been aware of before they visited the auction.

Save Money With Credit Cards (pt.2)

I enjoyed the subject so much the first time, that I just had to come back for more. No, actually I never really got to the point of the title on the first post, so I need to type some more. I'll start with a story.
I received a new credit card because my old one was approaching expiration, this meant I had to call and activate it before I could use it. Having decided not to get a landline phone (both of our families are out of state, and it's cheaper to call with cell phones), I had to hang on the line and talk to a person.
I don't mind talking to customer service, except for when I need service. Just activate my card and I'll be on my way thank you. The representative was real nice, but she tried to sell me payment protection insurance. Now, I pay my balance off every month because I don't put anything on the card I cannot pay. you - then why use a credit card fuzzy? why not just skip the evil middle man and pay cash?
me - hold on, and stop interrupting me, I'll get to it later.
Now, where was I? oh yes, the service representative. She was real nice, but like all representatives, was forced to read from a script.
me - I'm calling to activate my card.
s. r. - Ok, would you like to transfer any balances at x% interest. (not her actual words, but close enough).
me - no thank you, I don't really carry a balance on my cards.
s. r. - wow, well that's a great way to live.
me - umm, thanks... (I think, it's hard to take a compliment like this, I just never needed an "emergency" charged to a card, more on this latter)
s. r. (sometime later) - Can I interest you in a payment protector plan? it only costs x % per statement balance...
me - no thanks
s. r. - well, you already said you don't carry a balance, so it wouldn't cost you anything.
me - no...thank...you
This point in the conversation is what I want to highlight. It's fine for an employee to try to sell additional services when they get a chance, but I've read the fine print, and I know it'll cost me something. See, in my book, "carrying" a balance means not paying off the credit card in full when you get the bill. A payment protector plan charges you a percentage of your monthly balance, that is a percentage of what you have charged for the month, regardless of whether you end up paying that statement in full.
So here's my first principle for saving money with credit cards: Know the fine print.
I read about a faithful credit card customer who racked up vast amounts of airline miles on his credit card, only to find out that the airline had changed the rules and began reducing his miles when he hadn't taken a trip in 2 years. Now he had lost all his miles. This brings me to a second principle: Know how the fine print can change.
I strongly discourage you from getting any card with a yearly fee. I would rather get a much higher interest rate than a card with a fee because I don't plan on using it as a loan. Third and fourth principles: Skip cards with yearly fees, and don't use your card as a loan.
This last point is one of the main reasons I use credit cards over cash. Cash back from Discover (up to 5%) and Visa (1%). The discover card start the year by earning 0.25% on the first $1,500 charged, then it starts earning 0.50% on the next $1,500. After you've charged $3,000 in a year, it starts earning 1%. The best part are the cashback bonus specials discover runs. These are special rewards of 5% for specific categories, like gas or restaurants. You have to sign up for the cashback bonus when it comes out though, you don't get it automatically.
Get the type of card that gives cash back, and you could be enjoying discounts on any service or product you normally purchase. It all adds up, and gives a nice bonus every now and then. Fifth principle: Get cash back cards.
Of course, if you forget to pay your card one month, you have interest payments to deal with that will vastly outweigh any cash back, so pay the card off every month. Last, and most importantly, pay them off at the end of the month.

Save Money with Credit Cards (pt.1)

Many people wish they could pay their credit cards off, cut them up, and say goodbye to debt forever. While this is a great financial goal, I urge anyone considering this step to stop before you cut up your credit rating along with that card. Why should you stop short of cutting up your credit cards? I'll let you know on my next post, but first, several tips and a link to help you get them paid off.
While the main reason you want to pay those cards off may be because you want collection agencies to stop calling, or you've realized it will take decades to pay off the amount you owe, it is important to identify the source of the problem. Admit that all blame does not lie at the feet of the credit card (a silly piece of plastic if you think about it) and you've reached the first step in dealing with your debt.
We are not born with a credit card balance, but so many people have high balances that it seems natural. Let me introduce to you a new way of thinking. Living below your means is a method of financial planning that I learned from The Motley Fool (feel free to visit, I get no kickbacks). In simple terms, it consists of spending less money than you make.
Simple enough in theory, it often has significant ramifications. Because I'm focused on Living Below My Means, I'll forgo the new expensive car that is affordable with my doctor wages, and instead continue to drive my still-reliable though very unimpressive (but paid off) low-end commuter car. What I gain from this sacrifice, is the interest on the expensive car, and the interest I can make on the downpayment I no longer need to make. As a coworker once put it, as soon as your done paying off a loan, the money seems to vanish. Well, what if you ignore that money coming in? Or, better yet, what if you assume that instead of $300/month, your amount due for your loan is $400/month. Don't know where to get an extra $100 per month? How about cutting out a cable bill or having chicken instead of steak? Would you dare go to something as drastic as making your own meals instead of eating out for a month?

Worlds Best Cup of Coffee

A well-liked professor in college introduced me to a wonderful coffee maker while teaching us about a particular quality control method. The method relies on finding characteristics of a product that are important to a consumer, figuring out a scale on which to measure the characteristics and, finally, improving as many of the characteristics as possible, starting with those most important to the consumer. He set out various qualities of coffee: bitterness (or acidity), aroma, temperature, smoothness (a measurement of the particles left), and some methods for measuring each of those characteristics. His daughter was taking classes at the university where Alan Adler teaches, and was introduced to this amazing coffee that she could drink without her normal milk and sugar.
The coffee was an ordinary blend of coffee, but from a very different type of coffee maker. At this point in the class I was attentive because he was slightly off-topic, but I wasn't real excited, as there are many coffee makers out there that I'm sure make a great cup of coffee after all, they can cost several hundred dollars. My ears perked up when he mentioned that it costs only 30 dollars, and can make from 1 to 4 cups of regular coffee or espresso.
On my birthday list for that year was the AeroPress coffee maker. You grab a mug, put one of the filters in the bottom of the press, scoop the coffee grounds into the press, then fill to the line with hot water (not boiling, just hot enough to make tea). You then stir the grounds and water, plunge the water through the grounds and you've got an espresso.
You need to dilute the espresso with hot water to get a regular coffee, or dilute it with stirred milk for a cappuccino. I mostly enjoy being able to make my own cappuccinos and save from buying them at gas stations. You can brew up to 4 espressos, use 1 or 2 for your cappuccino and refrigerate the rest for later.

Why Top Employees Quit

Dumb Little Man is a blog that I frequent, and his article post Why Top Employees Quit is very popular on his site, and for good reason. They analyzed the reasons their top performers left by taking historical data from exit interviews and comparing it to annual reviews. The real gem of the article is the comments section, where people have felt anonymous enough to share personal stories about companies they have quit from or employees they have had quit their companies.
It's good for a business to pay attention to exit interviews and anonymous surveys, as they provide helpful benchmarks for worker satisfaction, but as many commenters pointed out, there is plenty of reason to not be completely honest about your satisfaction levels or reasons for leaving.