The Addison Cafe

In 1 day, 22 hours, and 18 minutes I will be on my way to ski the great white mountains of Canada.  I go every year with a group of guys that I have been friends with since middle school. This will be our 6^th year in a row that we have gone on this trip and I am still just as poor of a skier as the first year (though not the poorest in the group, sorry Matt).

“Why Canada?” you might ask. Aside from the cool accents, weird candy and… uh… well, it’s great skiing (I am not talking about Whistler, I have actually never been there) and it’s a great place to go if you want a cheap vacation. Here’s why:

• 1) You can (potentially) drive there and split gas.
• 2) The exchange rate is usually in our favor.
• 3) At least half of the skiing I do has been free thanks to Warren Miller’s annual vouchers that you receive when you watch his latest ski flick.

I think the average trip cost has been about $350 each, which covers 6 days of food, lodging, gas, and 3 days of skiing. Where else can you ski mountains as gorgeous for an entire week for that much? It’s amazing how cheap you can take vacations if you look around and spend some time planning.

Plus, they call knit hats “tuques”. I still laugh every time.

(Note: Given the fact that I will be falling down a mountain 6,000 ft above sea level in another country next week, I will not be posting to the blog)

Last night while washing dishes I felt a twinge guilty. You see, some of the dishes I was washing didn’t have to be hand washed, they could go in the dishwasher. So in the dishwasher they went. I felt guilty for choosing the easy way out. Between dishwashers, microwaves, and Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, it feels like we are spoiled and lazy sometimes.

But then I had a revelation. Time saving devices aren’t supposed to increase laziness, they are supposed to save time. And time is money. By using modern conveniences, we are freeing ourselves up to be more productive with our time, not more lazy.

What do you do with the time you save? Watch TV? Relax? (There is definitely a time and place for both of those, don’t get me wrong). Or do you take some extra time to earn money on the side or maybe learn more about investing or financial management? Something productive? 

Check out this blog post by marketing guru Seth Godin on what to do with your time if you get laid off. It got me thinking.

It is hard to believe some of the news I have been reading lately. Credit card companies are threatening customers (loyal customers) to skyrocket their rates for the slightest misstep. They are also getting paranoid about the number of defaults and unpaid balances going up, so they are incenting customers to pay off their balances as fast as possible, or penalizing their customers for keeping a balance. Interesting considering for years they tried convincing people to pay the minimum so they could rake them over the coals with high interest income.

Here is the problem: these big-wig credit card companies can do whatever they want with their rates and fees, just don’t pretend to care about people in the meantime. Put out ads of grouchy old men shaking people upside down to collect the change that falls out of their pocket rather than ads of happy beautiful people trying to promise us that debt will make us happy and that fill-in-the-blank credit card company ACTUALLY cares about my well being. Nice try.

I don’t usually talk about Addison Avenue or the credit union movement in general on this blog, but I think these times make it relevant. It nice to bank somewhere that actually does think about my well being. I can’t tell you how many meetings I am in where the question is posed, “is this what is best for the member?”