Best of Blogs for November 30th

Every Friday afternoon I share some of the more interesting or notable posts that I have seen in the personal finance blogs and other sources for the past week

PlanetMoney shares Household Debt In America, In 3 Graphs
they also point out that No, Switching To Dollar Coins Would Not Save The Government Money
I was skeptical about that statement at first.   $1 coins were supposed to be cheaper to make in the long run since they last longer.  But that benefiit as appearntly recently disappeared since the dollar bill production was improved and now bills last longer.  Still the government would benefit financially from $1 coins only due to putting out more coins than dollars and some resulting savings on the governments interest debt.  Its complicated.



I found this interesting article on How to Price Your Home For Sale – Critical Information!
by Amanda Duffy a Realtor in Georgia.   Theres a Youtube video.  

Apex continues the rental series at FMF with Real Estate 101: The Lease

 --

$650 in Dell Gift Cards for $450 Net

If you're thinking of a computer purchase from Dell here's one way to use your Amex card and Twitter to get $200 off..     Amex and Dell have a deal right now where you can get a $150 credit on your Amex if you spend $599 or more at Dell.com using your Amex card.   Theres also a 10% off coupon code you can use.


1. Synch your Amex card with the Dell deal via twitter and tweet the hashtag #AmexDellOffer following their instructions
2.   Buy a $500, $100 and $50 gift card and then apply the coupon code  VJ7$295NPV28MN to get 10% off the $500 card for a total cost of $600. 
3. You should get a $150 credit from Amex. 
4. Consolidate your gift cards online into one card if desired.

In the end you bought $650 of gift cards for $600 and got $150 back so the net cost is $450.   You can then turn around and use the $650 of gift cards to buy whatever you want at Dell.    Buying gift cards allows you to get $50 extra off via the coupon code. 

I saw this at Fatwallet and they have more details and discussion in the forum there.

I have not done this myself.   If you do it then I'd recommend you read up on all the details to make sure you're doing it right and not missing any details.
--

Black Friday Violence is Statistically Likely

It seems like its developed into an annual tradition on Black Friday that we get to see some video footage of a violent stampede at Walmart during Black Friday.   The incidents of fighting or stampedes or other violence around Black Friday are held up as evidence for why Black Friday is bad.   There are articles like Black Friday Fights: Violence Plagues 2012 Shopping Day, Videos Surface Online   When such violence occurs the annual shopping day is blamed as the cause of the violence.   But in the larger picture one or two violent incidents during Black Friday are really not that bad, in fact I'd say if thats all that happened then its actually pretty good.   Let me explain...

According to the FBI crime report "In 2011, there were an estimated 751,131 aggravated assaults in the nation."   That means that on an average day in the US there were 2,057 assaults.  

The National Retail Federation reports that about 88 million people went shopping in stores or online on Black Friday.   They don't clearly break apart who shops in stores versus online, but it seems at about half or more the people shop in stores.   Lets estimate then that 40 million people are in the stores.   Thats about 12% or so of the US population.    If they only spent 1 hour in the store at least then thats about 6% of their waking hours spent shopping.

Based on the daily average of 2,057 assaults and a guesstimate of about 40 million people spending an hour in stores on Black Friday then if assaults are proportional to time across the population I'd expect we'd see about 15 assaults among Black Friday shoppers just based on statistical averages.   I'm sure people spend more than 1 hour shopping though so it would likely be higher.

I bet you that ever day in the country we have 10 times as many people assaulted in our nations bars and taverns.   But thats not news.  Yet one punch thrown in a Black Friday brawl is sure to be highlighted in the 11 o'clock news all around the country.   

Large groups of people in crowded conditions can be a risk factor for increased rates of violence.  Assaults at sporting venues are common place.   Anaheim stadium was bragging that it is safe and they only had 15 simple assaults last year during Angels games.   Attendance at Angles games for a season is about 3 million. (less than 10% of the Black Friday shoppers)  Sports stadiums can be a particularly bad place for violence particularly if you add alcohol which is often sold in stadiums.   But its not just drunk sports fans, any large group of people can see violence.   I can even find many instances of assault in churches. 

Get enough people together in crowds and unfortunately some amount of violence is almost inevitable.   Its unfortunate but it happens, whether its the shopping mall, your local bar, a rock concert or a mega church.  But none of its unusual to Black Friday.

Don't be afraid of Black Friday violence.    You're probably more likely to get punched at a baseball game.

--

FREE - Christmas MP3s from Amazon

Amazon has a few free Christmas MP3s :

Follow the link : Free Must-Have Christmas Masterpieces

 Songs include Jingle Bells, Nutcracker Suite - Waltz of the flowers, Gloria in Excelsis deo and Silent Night, Holy Night.

No catch, just free music.   Probably expires soon.


I saw this one on Fatwallet

 -- This article may contain referral links which pay this site a commission for purchases made at the sites.