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JerseySmarts.com

Reviewing 2007’s Resolutions

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Every year I like to beat myself up by taking a look back at my New Year’s Resolutions from last year and whether or not 365 days have been enough time to accomplish them! So here we go…

Last year I stated that I wanted to pay off my smallest student loan, which was from CitiBank’s Graduate Assistance program.

My smallest loan is $7,500. It might not seem like much to pay that particular loan, but remember that I’ll also be paying nearly $800 each month towards my other loans as well as paying another untold amount for rent, gas for the truck, food, cell phone, charitable contributions, etc.

With interest that loan totaled just under $8,000 and through some belt-tightening and well-placed expenditures I was able to pay off the entire thing! Very exciting. Plus, I also maintained payments on my two remaining, gigantic student loans.

Another one of my comments from last year was about financial freedom. I think that I am on the path towards financial freedom, though it will never be truly attained until those loans are paid off. In the mean time, I’m set to start a 401k at my job and I’ve started to pump up my ING Orange Savings account.

I wanted to increase Usable Web Solutions, LLC‘s revenues by 50% in the last year and though I did not accomplish that goal, I did increase revenues a great deal. I am pleased with the progress that I’ve made with Usable Web Solutions, LLC in the last year. I also commented…

You know the rest. Get in better shape, go to Church more often (even though I’ve been there nearly every Sunday this year and Holy Days), do more in my professional “industry” – same old, same old.

Well, I didn’t get in better shape and I didn’t get to Church as often as I would have liked. I did increase my knowledge base for my profession, but I feel that there is more that I could do in that area. The last year was a trying time where almost everything in my life was changed or shifted to some degree. The smallest of these were friends getting married, finances changing here and there due to unforeseen events, and my living situation coming close to drastically changing when I almost purchased a condo. The largest happening was obviously the passing of my Father. Such a large event in a person’s life is obviously going to shake things up – and things were shaken up for me.

There’s my review of 2007’s goals – I don’t think I did that bad. Check back in the next few days for my 2008 resolutions!

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas, everyone! Here’s hoping that you and yours have a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season. May we all remember the reason behind this season and the reason why we all celebrate today.

Movie Review: Fred Claus

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Boring. Completely boring. Lucky for me, viewing this film did not cost me anything because if I spent ANY money on this train wreck, I would be real hot right now. My apologies go out to my roommate who enjoyed this movie – I didn’t care for it.

The premise of the movie is just absurd. Santa Claus was always a great person – even as a little child. So he becomes a Saint and now his family is sorta frozen in time forever. Weird. But, you see, Santa’s older brother is jealous of his family’s love for Santa. Fast forward to the future and apparently some efficiency expert is looking to shut down Santa’s factory. Absolutely no connection to the premise that Santa is immortal and exists to serve children for eternity. Awkward. And it goes on like this with the rest of the movie – new premises popping up all over the place.

What the hell does an efficiency expert have to do with the North Pole? That is one of the dumbest plots for a Christmas movie that I’ve ever heard! That’s worse than Santa with Muscles!

That said, I could see the appeal to casual Christmas movie fans or just movie fans. Vince Vaughn does his part pretty well as does Paul Giamotti. How great of an actor is Paul Giamotti? Other than those two, though, I really didn’t find much to like about this movie. I found it to be bland and really written for either small children who are excited to see Santa on screen or people who just want to watch something that takes up a few hours of their lives.

Actually, the scene with the “other” siblings is hilarious. George Clinton, one of the Baldwin brothers, Frank Stallone – pretty funny stuff right there!

And I know that sounds somewhat rough for a review, but as a big fan of Christmas and a big Christmas movie buff – I just couldn’t stomach this one. My suggestion is to not go out of your way to see this movie either now or later. You’ll get a better showing out of The Santa Clause or Bad Santa or It’s a Wonderful Life, etc.

What Will It Take For a Profitable Christmas Season?

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Believe it or not, it’s almost Thanksgiving Day! At the beginning of this month, I bookmarked an article on CNN.com that I wanted to blog about and I just haven’t gotten around to it until now – so forgive me if this information and my opinions are dated!

Over at CNN.com they posted an article talking about how major retailers are luring in holiday shoppers with huge discounts. Well, I combined this article with the great information that I found over at one of my favorite holiday websites – BFAds.net – to come to a general realization: today’s retailers have no idea what the public wants! I’m sure anyone can come to these conclusions on their own, but looking at the “deep discounts” that are listed on the Black Friday advertisements is appalling.

I guess what really gets me is that while there are discounts on a variety of items in each of the stores, you don’t see any of the stores really cutting prices on items that people in my age group would want. For example, Circuit City has great DVD discounts, but not really on the programs that I’m looking for on Black Friday. On the same token, all of the stores have some semblance of a sale on the next generation of video games (Wii, X360, and PS3), but none of them are going out on that limb and reducing the prices $50 or $100 below the competition. Granted, there are some restrictions in terms of how much money the various companies expect to receive with each sale, but isn’t that a basic premise of marketing and advertising? Draw the customer in with a blockbuster, financially-bad deal for company and then make up the difference (and then some) with other sales during the customer’s visit.

Looking through the Black Friday ads it just doesn’t appear that retailers understand this concept. What will it take for a profitable Christmas season? Deep discounts on quality items that will bring shoppers into your specific store. Simple, right?

Well, let’s see how it goes on Friday…

Happy Easter

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Just wanted to wish a Happy Easter to everyone out there! Who would have thunk that we would have thunk it would be snowing on Easter? Funny – it felt closer to Christmas today than Easter!

🙂