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One Man Explains Why He Stopped Contributing To His 401(k)

Commented by godospoons:
3:04 PM on December 19, 2011

There's also the fact that a Roth IRA maxes out at $5-6K a year (depending on age), whereas a 401(k) maxes at $16,500-22K (again, on age). For those maximizing savings, employer plans are far better for mass savings.

However, I miss how the Roth has more flexibility... I can adjust from 1 to 100% of my salary into my 401(k) without withdrawing for the year. I assume the OP's plan doesn't allow for changes in the contribution?

Firefighters Watch Another House Burn To The Ground Because Of Unpaid $75 Fee

Commented by godospoons:
7:44 AM on December 7, 2011

I'm sure they're opposed to the individual mandate, but go to the emergency room when they get sick.

AT&T U-Verse Sends NHL Network To Penalty Box

Commented by godospoons:
10:14 AM on October 3, 2011

Stick ALL the sports channels into a separate tier, regardless of its content, so I can exile it from my cable bill once and for all. The FCC should ban mandatory tier assignments entirely so that I no longer have to bear the cost of content I will never consume and accounts for such a large percentage of our cable bill.

Why Did This Deal Voucher Company Abruptly Shut Down?

Commented by godospoons:
5:38 PM on September 3, 2011

"Hello, Visa? I have a chargeback request for services not rendered..."

Adventures In Ordering A Clearanced HP TouchPad

Commented by godospoons:
6:27 PM on August 23, 2011

Not really. If you're cutting it that close to the done, perhaps you shouldn't blow your available credit on a discontinued tablet that, in all senses of the word, is a luxury purchase you could likely live without.

I appreciate chasing the deal--and I am, myself, 2 for 4--but I'd never put my own emergency fund or credit availability at risk over something like this.

Adventures In Ordering A Clearanced HP TouchPad

Commented by godospoons:
2:32 PM on August 23, 2011

If you don't have enough money to buy two, you probably don't have enough money to buy one.

Costco's Lifetime Return Policy Only Applies To Actual Members

Commented by godospoons:
5:45 PM on August 11, 2011

It's an idiotic sense of entitlement like this that will one day end Costco's generous return/exchange policy. You passed the useful life of your luggage... anyone trying to claim that the handle on a ten-year old piece of luggage resulted from a manufacturer's defect, which is what most luggage warranty covers, should be banned from membership.

Make Sure Your Mobile Phone Doesn't Sneak Off To Canada While You're Sleeping

Commented by godospoons:
9:41 AM on July 9, 2011

Exactly my thought... 150 miles? He could be in Canada in less than three hours. Two, if he drove like I did when I was a teenager.

Start by locking up his passport, birth certificate and passport card. :)

Survey: 88% Of Americans Think Cell Phones Should Be Compatible With All Networks

Commented by godospoons:
6:22 PM on April 27, 2011

Then 88% of respondents are uninformed consumers responding to a poorly designed question both engaged in wishful thinking.

There are five, in many cases fundamentally incompatible, approaches to mobile telephone in the US today between iDEN, CDMA, GSM/UMTS, WIMAX and, now, LTE, plus multiple frequency ranges in which these technologies operate, plus different subscriber identity infrastructures. This is akin to saying I want any car to be able to accept parts from any other car. More importantly, there is no "magic chipset" that would even be able to meet such a technical requirement. The few devices that could support CDMA and GSM/UMTS were extremely limited within the portfolios of Verizon and Sprint and, even then, were mainly used for international roaming in the rest of the GSM/UMTS world outside of North America.

To be clear, you can't take a Sprint 4G WIMAX phone and skip over to AT&T. You can't take an AT&T phone and go to Nextel. You could, with some impairment, go from, say, Sprint to Verizon or AT&T to T-Mobile, but as the unlocked iPhone users discovered, that doesn't mean that T-Mobile magically inherited AT&T's frequency ranges.

And all of this before we get into the next level of things like carrier billion, network configuration support or other issues. And all this kind of poll does is distract from the real issues here, like crippled operator variants of mobile devices, the unfair subsidy model and so-called "open networks" that say they permit user device choice, but then prevent users from purchasing outside their portfolio.

How about hiring pollsters and lawyers who understand the fundamental issues at play before rushing into a regulatory advocacy position that makes you look informed and undermines the real beneit a consumer advocate could play in this kind of complex market?

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