Here’s a chart from a Businessweek article showing how the percentage of people buying a gift card for the holidays is still increasing, while the percentage of people making a holiday return is dropping.

Does this mean that gift cards are no longer considered tacky or lazy? If so, that’ll save me both some time and mental anguish as I hate shopping. I’m hoping to avoid any mall this entire season (so far so good). The negative correlation shown above would suggest that as a whole we aren’t very good at picking out specific gifts anyway! 😉

If you’ve been shopping at Amazon.com for many years like I have, a fun activity is to look at your order history which it appears they keep indefinitely. I have purchases dating as far back as 1999, with many questionable ones sold off long ago on eBay including Palm PDAs, Minidisc players, and those multichannel walkie-talkies that were so popular for a while. However, other items I still have and will hopefully get many more years of use out of them. Again, these aren’t all my best purchases ever, just five examples I bought from Amazon.

KitchenAid Artisan 5-Quart Stand Mixer
This was bought shortly after we got married, and we’ve been using it regularly without any issues for nearly 10 years. We use it to beat eggs and knead dough for pizza, pasta, cookies, and bread. Cooking at home saves us lots of money, so even though it was expensive upfront, the added convenience has definitely been worth it already.

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The U.S. Treasury recently announced that participants in Healthcare Flexible Spending Accounts would now be able to carry over $500 of unused funds into the next year, but only if your employer chooses to allow it. Employers can allow either a 2.5 month grace period after the end of the year or the $500 rollover, but not both. Or they could be punks and offer neither. This could start as early as this year for 2013 funds.

I like the proposal that these “use-it-or-lose-it” FSAs be simply rolled into Health Savings Accounts which are currently only available to those with high-deductible health plans. The infrastructure and administrators (bank and brokerage holding accounts) already exist, and that way people can simply set aside some tax-protected money for health care for an indefinite period without worrying about losing it. Don’t make people predict their own medical expenses, that’s the main reason we need insurance.

Google announced a few days ago that third-party apps will no longer work with Google Voice as of May 15, 2014. I already updated my Obihai post, but this will also affect those people who make voice calls over data with GrooveIP or similar smartphone apps.

The good news is that Google has stated that it wants to fully integrate Google Voice into their own mobile apps so that you can make free voice calls and SMS over data. (Well, I’m not sure about the free part. Given how late it is in the year, I think it will stay free for another year at least.)

The Google Hangouts app for iPhone/iOS has been updated to add free voice calls over WiFi and cellular data (anywhere in the US and Canada) and Google Voice integration. I downloaded it and it worked well. Incoming calls to my Google Voice number rang directly to my phone screen. I can make outgoing calls from inside the Google Hangouts app, and the person I call sees my Google Voice number on their Caller ID. Voice quality was good, although I was on WiFi at the time. So far, SMS/MMS/voicemail are unavailable.

This makes Google Hangouts a good alternative for iPhone owners on the T-Mobile $30 a month Unlimited Data Plan or for those on minimalist pay-as-you-go plans as you can make free voice calls over WiFi. Works on iPod Touch too.

Similar functionality is supposedly coming to Android phones “early next year”. I would hope this means before May 15th.

Can a person live in the US on only $5,000 a year? According to this NBC News article and this Youtube video, Dan Price has been doing it for 20 years. I enjoy these kinds of interviews as they reinforce the fact that we all make choices every day, it’s just that most of them are the “default” choice. I like being presented with people who make different “opt-out” decisions, even if they are extreme. The article uses terms like “intentional poor” and “voluntary poverty”. Why not just “conscious simplicity”? I enjoyed this quote:

I don’t believe in houses or mortgages. Who in their right mind would spend their lifetime paying for a building they never get to spend time in because they are always working?

Lessons and takeaways from Dan Price’s $5,000 a year lifestyle:

• Lifestyle-based income. His rare lifestyle partially funds itself as the “wilderness zine” described in the article is simply a print journal of his own thoughts and activities (remember those things before blogs?). Sponsors also provide things like tents and clothing in exchange for mentions in his journal. A brief search locates his website: Moonlight Chronicles. (It annoys me when articles don’t just tell you these things.)
• Rent. He managed to find a place that only costs him $100 for entire year. I gather that in exchange he also serves as a caretaker for the 2-acre undeveloped plot of rural land in Northeast Oregon. Deals like this are never advertised; nobody lived there and he asked the owners directly. He rebuilt all the fences and helps maintain the property.

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Amazon.com recently announced changes to their Free Super Saver Shipping program. First, the minimum order size for “free shipping” has increased to $35 from $25. Second, it is officially getting slower:

With free shipping, your order will be delivered 5-8 business days after all of your items are available to ship, including pre-order items.

So not only will it take up to 2 weeks to get your stuff, that is only after every single thing is ready to ship. I’ve already noticed their “Free Super Saver Shipping” getting slower and slower. “ParcelPool” seems to be code for “let it sit around until you absolutely have nothing else to do.” Personally, I’m okay with a $35 minimum. But the slower shipping is why I don’t shop at Amazon as much anymore.

Various media outlets have their theories on why this happened – higher shipping costs? Amazon about to record huge losses? Shareholder revolt? My interpretation: The loss-leader party is starting to wind down.

Up until now, Amazon has taken a “loss leader” approach to building up their business. Their margins are razor-thin… In 2012, they sold over $60 billion dollars of stuff yet still lost money. Why?

1. To crush the competition. Is there any direct competitor to Amazon? Buy.com? Ha. There are some tech places like Monoprice and Newegg that have a loyal following. eBay is cheap but inconsistent. So we’re left with the brick and mortars – Walmart, Target, and Costco.
2. To change your shopping habits. They also need to promote a huge behavioral change where when you need something you don’t think Walmart or Costco, you think let’s go on Amazon and just click and buy. It takes lots of repetition to gain that kind of trust and habit formation. Low prices and fast, free shipping will do that.

During this time, consumers like myself have been happily buying things cheaper from Amazon than anywhere else, from laundry detergent to diapers to hard drives. Why waste the time and gas going anywhere else? I’m afraid they are almost done giving out the free drugs. Are we addicted enough to finally allow them to make big profits?

It seems like they are switching to the Costco model. They want your $79 Prime membership fee, and then they hope to break even on everything else by giving you a nice solid low price along with free 2-day shipping. (Free 3-month trial with Amazon Mom, Free 6-month trial with Amazon Student)

At the recommendation of reader from one of my Cost of Convenience posts, I have been reading the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. In it, Reese does many similar cooking experiments where she decides whether it is better to make it yourself or buy it. I was surprised that she put a “make it” recommendation on things like hot dog buns (while hot dogs themselves are “buy it”), lard, and goat cheese. I’d never even considered making any of those things myself.

Was I wrong? Is there right or wrong? Take the example of Smucker’s Uncrustables, which is a factory-made peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts removed (and extra oil, sugar, and preservatives added). There are many articles out there ranting about how this invention must be a sign of the apocalypse. How hard can it be to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Can’t we do anything for ourselves now? I find myself nodding in agreement.

But wait.

A generation or two ago, someone “making” a peanut butter and jelly sandwich actually baked the bread from flour, shelled, roasted, ground up raw peanuts, and preserved excess fresh fruits via canning. Doing all of these things is actually not that hard. Okay, so maybe you bake your own bread, but do you grow the wheat? In the 1930s, 25% of Americans lived on a farm before widespread monoculture, and thus probably grew the flour, peanuts, and fruits on their own land.

So my takeaway was really that we should be open to the possibilities, consider the options carefully, and then each draw our own lines between D-I-Y and B-U-Y. There will always be someone more or less DIY/frugal/green than you. We all have to balance our own time, energy, and beliefs. This book has inspired me to at least try making a few things once. I wonder how my Eggs Benedict with homemade English muffins and hollandaise sauce with turn out.