Filthy Commerce

More blogging elsewhere

I apologize for the sporadic updates in December. And what a month! Oh, to have picked fights over the usefulness of gift guides, or the emotional minefield of the handmade gift, or to have more closely monitored the holiday sales!

Alas,I've been busy over at Dollars & Sense, doing a series on the little things that add up to form your everyday money philosophy. And the great people at Bitch offered me an eight-week gig blogging about television for them. Until the first week of Ferbruary, I'll be over there on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. So far, I've written about Wanda Sykes, Sweet Dee Reynolds, holiday movies, Nip/Tuck and the Style Network's What I Hate About Myself. And then there was wrapping up the TWoP recapping for Flash Forward. AND the day job.

With luck, I will be able to resume posting more once I'm on winter vacation -- because oh, ho ho, do I have a few things to say about the reinvention of conspicuous consumption, skinflint fatigue, and why user reviews need to be banned.

But enough about me! What have you all been up to?

I'll show you mine, you show me yours

After reading "How to Achieve Your Goals by Changing How You Surf the Web," I realized that the way I trawl for information now is dramatically different from how I did even five years ago. I used to have a folder amongst my bookmarks where I had the daily "must-checks." Now, I have 125-odd separate RSS subscriptions I manage in my Google reader. This rules: I can "star" items for future reference and search for them later.

I still maintain a bookmarks file (assiduously organized, and I'm happy to natter on about that if asked) based on what I get from my daily and weekly email newsletters (and wow, do I need to update that list for y'all) ...

... but most of my web consumption has shifted from following the point-click trail to filtering through the hundreds of new web items that get pumped into my RSS reader. It's like shifting from a hunter-gatherer mode to a farming mode.

To jump off that metaphor: in order to keep the soil healthy, it's necessary to rotate the crops and add variety. Consider this post the equivalent of a seed exchange. Below the jump, I've listed most of the feeds I subscribe to*. Please share yours in the comments.

Learn how the sausage is made

It started this morning with a press release and a pitch "Company Reports Triple Activity of Families Escaping Car Leases to Share One Family Car," so more Americans are becoming single-car households.

Single-car households, you say? So I read the release and confirmed that the numbers on this automotive downsizing only reflected leasing. Is this indicative of a trend across all U.S. households? I wondered.

I then did the following:

1. Looked for a breakdown of auto leasers versus those who buy. Found: a Cars.com article asserting that only 1 in every 5 auto purchasers goes for leasing over buying. So we're already seeing an indication that leasing is not an "average American" option, but something that suggests a specific group of buyers.

2. Asked myself: Is there anything else that might explain why consumers are more likely to lease a car than buy it outright? Found: a Bureau of Labor and Statistics report (PDF!) on the demographic breakdown of new-car purchasers versus used-car purchases versus car leasers.  I confirmed the 1-in-5 statistic, then noticed a call-out in the report: auto leasers had the lowest up-front and monthly expenses, but the highest median incomes. 

3. Asked myself: If auto leasers have the lowest expenses and highest incomes, what would account for a spike in lease buybacks? Especially since all other car sales are flattening out? I don't know. My hypothesis: the people who lease cars may be overextended and facing a credit crunch. Or they're preparing to move their money into the purchase of an asset compared to a service.

4. Wrote a blog entry for the SFGate with these links and this line of reasoning.

5. Checked Google news for other takes and noted that I have exactly the opposite take from the fine folks at Forbes and the Big Money. Went into a fit of professional second-guessing.

Why am I sharing all this with you? Because I wanted to be transparent and show you how one reporter and blogger tries to figure out what the numbers really mean. And because I wanted to tell you, the readers, this: I understand how frustrating it can be when you can't get one straight story from the media. I do. And as someone on the other side, it can be frustrating trying to figure out what that story is.

In which I promote Dollars and Sense ...

... because today's post is on saving money with your pet care -- advice courtesy of a local SPCA volunteer -- and I linked to tons of places that are brimming over with adoptable animals. It is pretty awesome to be able to write about spending money in a context other than "Let's scratch that consumerist itch, shall we?"

Guess where I'll be five days a week?

Remember how a few months ago, I was all, "I'm going to be blogging less and beating the bushes for more freelance writing work" and blah blah blah recession blah blah blah?

I'm pleased to be able to announce that I have managed to fall into a gig that combines blogging AND freelance work! I am now writing the Dollars and Sense blog over at the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate.com. Look for new posts over there from me Mondays through Fridays.

Since that blog's focused on the more practical aspects of how to spend your money in ways that meet your needs and wants, I will still be posting over here with the kind of big-picture posts and once-quarterly "What the HELL, Gap?" posts you all have come to expect. And I will definitely be hitting you all up for your ideas; my readers have shown time and again they're all smarter than I, anyway.

Yet another tiresome programming note ...

If I were you guys, I would not expect any Filthy Commerce posts for the next week or so. Here's why ...

A programming note, courtesy of the times

A few weeks ago, the recession hit our household firsthand.

Get Filthy Commerce links and more via Twitter

I don't know how many of you have noticed my Twitter feed on the right, but it's devoted to two things: providing links to the latest blog entries here and posting URLs for things that fall within the Filthy Commerce preview but may not warrant a full-blown entry. Why, it's like a blog RSS feed, only better!

So come on over and check out the Filthy Commerce twitter stream.

Formatting the posts around here

So I'm thinking that the Social Capital posts might work better if I post a snappy "Executive Summary" above the jump and the longer, actually-includes-facts-and-opinions-other-than-my-own stuff after. Thoughts, anyone? I'm here to serve you.

All About Filthy Commerce

WHAT: An aggregation of information and commentary concerning the sinful little business of making, managing, spending and saving money. Filthy Commerce covers everything from the hidden costs of free shipping to how well various business sectors are doing.

WHEN: Yr. most humble obdt. srvt. strives for a M/W/F posting schedule, but reserves the right to post as often or as intermittently as events warrant.

WHERE: Here. Duuuuuuh.

WHY: Many personal finance blogs are tedious exercises in self-abnegation or flamboyant examples of blinkered zealotry. Many business blogs fail to walk the fine line between inside-baseball and deathly dull. Yr. most humble obdt. srvt. wanted a blog that took money seriously, but not so seriously that money began getting an inflated view of its own worth. And when one wants something done, one often has to do it oneself.

WHO: Yr. most humble obdt. srvt. is a business and tech reporter who happens to love reading 10-K statements and blurting information at any willing audience.