The most useful things I've ever purchased

Time and time again I've gotten household/automotive appliances (eg: george foreman grill or a $20 paper shredder) that have either broken or I've stopped using. Below are a few items I've gotten off of Amazon over the years that I have found to be well made and gotten a lot of use out of and I have no hesitation recommending.

1) Giant, Powerful Scissors.


Ok well maybe they refer to them as "Tin Snips" but these things are awesome, and amazingly useful. According to Amazon: "Super sharp blades easily cut through sheet metal, aluminum sliding and more ." I've used these to cut through so many things I can hardly keep count. In particular, they are good on packaging. The hard plastic packaging that most electronics seem to come in most days can be easily disposed of with this thing. It also eats right through whatever plastic ring in a package may be securing the item inside. Do yourself a favor and get the twelve inch ones. Whenever you need scissors on steroids, keep these handy.

2) Tire Inflator



I've had this Slime compressor for about a year and it is great. Throw it in your trunk and you will never have to pay a dollar at the gas station each time you want to inflate your tires. This particular model is pretty heavy duty and feels like it will last a long time. Plus, when you get that inevidable flat tire only to find out your spare needs 40 pounds of pressure, this thing will be there to help you out. It will also get you to the gas station if you discover a nail has slow-leaked your tire flat overnight. As a bonus, it also comes with attachments to inflate things like bicycle tires, basketballs and other inflatables.

3) Aeropress


If you need single serving coffee, forget about the tasteless pods that everybody seems to be buying these days. The Aeropress is the way to go. The reviews on Amazon speak for themselves. I've had mine for over three years now and it is the only thing I use to make coffee at home. This is especially good for people who (like me) enjoy strong coffee. Read all of the Amazon reviews if you don't believe me.
Being a finance person, I'm not a big fan of buying crap you don't need or can't use, but this stuff is either incredibly useful and built to last forever (the snips), saves you money and gives you peace of mind (the tire inflator), or saves you money and gives you delicious life-giving coffee (the AeroPress) and I'm willing to go out on a limb and recommend all of the items above. As long as you can comfortably afford them, you won't regret buying them.

The Best Vacuum I Could Find

SEBO X4 - the best vacuum I could find.

A while back, I wrote a post about the best medium-duty shredder I could find. The moral of that story was that I was tired of burning out the motors on cheap shredders or sitting in front of them feeding one sheet at a time, so I spent a little more on a better quality shredder. I ended up with a powerful little machine that destroys junk mail like a savage, shreds 12 sheets at a time and has been doing an incredible job of protecting me from ID theft for over four years now. By paying more for a quality applicance, I actually saved myself money in the long run and it really cemented my philosophy that you should be prepared to pay up for a quality appliance. Buying one well-made (and likely costlier) product that you don't have to replace is ultimately cheaper than buying five cheap ones, and it is also so much more satisfying to use.

At the end of that post, I mentioned that the next appliance I had on my radar for an upgrade was my vacuum. There are few appliances as basic and essential to a clean, hygenic dwelling place than a vacuum.

My old vacuum was a piece of junk bagless upright. I threw it out a while back and I don't remember the exact model name or number, but it was a sub-$100 model similar to the Dirt Devil UD40285 Featherlite Bagless Upright.

It was great at first. Nice suction, always worked, had shiny new parts and attachments. But after a few months, it started getting on my nerves. It seemed to have a weak motor and wouldn't pick up the little stray pieces of lint and string I could see in my carpet. I felt like I was following my vacuum around picking up whatever it missed.

It was also a major pain to clean. When I bought my previous vacuum, I didn't give it too much thought. I figured it would be great to get a vacuum without bags because I'd save on the price of buying new ones when the old ones filled up. I figured when the dirt container got full, I would just dump it in the garbage, put it back in the vacuum, and get back to cleaning up. Right?

Wrong.

The dirt reservoir was an incredible pain in the neck. Cleaning it made me feel like Mike Rowe in an episode of "dirty jobs." After you've tired yourself out by vaccuming (in my case moving furniture out of the way to get under tables and chairs), you bring this container chock full of dust over to the garbage can, turn it upside down, and watch as a mushroom cloud of dust rises from the can, putting the stuff you just took out of the carpet back into the air in tiny, microscopic particles. I tried everything to keep the dust down when cleaning out the container- putting it inside its own plastic bag, emptying it really slowly, covering the garbage can as quickly as possible... but nothing I did got rid of the fact that cleaning the vacuum put the dust back into the air.

Not to mention the fact that it was impossible to get the entire container clean. Dust stuck EVERYWHERE inside the vacuum, on the sides of the reservoir, in the little mesh cover at the bottom of the intake, on the underside of the lid... it was dust city inside that thing and the problem only got worse over time.

The vacuum also had a cheap belt which started slipping after about 6 months of normal use. For those of you who have had a vaccum with a slipping belt you'll know what that meant- burnt rubber smell every time you use the vacuum.

I began to dread vacuuming and I cursed that machine every time I laid eyes on it.

I finally gave up and began looking for a replacement. I wanted something like my shredder- a quality workhorse. I was willing to pay whatever it took (within reason) to get an animal of a vacuum. I figured if I had to replace a $100 vacuum every year, I could pay $800 to $1000 for a quality machine that would last me 8-10 years, and I would have a cleaner house and less stress in the meantime.

After doing a lot of research online, I realized a few things. The first is blasphemous because I'm writing this post on Google's excellent blogger platform and I think the company does amazing things, but I realized that when you are trying to research a consumer product, google search results are becoming pretty bad. I'm not going to get into it, but I think that link sums up the problem pretty well.

Once I got around that issue, one name keep coming up again and again when I looked for a quality vacuum. Yes, it was expensive, but it seemed like everyone who touched it raved about it.

That vacuum? The SEBO Automatic X4.

You can check this vacuum out elsewhere on the web. I've found a targeted search for the Automatic X4 brings up a lot more useable results than just looking up "vacuum cleaner reviews," due to the issue with the google mentioned above.

I've used this vacuum for over a year now and I have to say it has been awesome. In no particular order, I'll tell you what I like about it:

1. The bags- gone are the days of fighting with my wife over who has to clean out the vacuum. The bags are great, they hold a lot of dirt, and I havent found the need to replace them very often. (I used 2 this year).
2. The power- this vacuum sucks up everything my old vacuum missed, partly due to the motor and partly due to....
3. The automatic height adjustment- when you turn on the X4, a little green light goes on that says it is either raising or lowering the height of the vacuum according to the floor it is sitting on. This ensures that the rotating brush is at the ideal height to agitate the carpet and knock loose any dust, dirt, paper, pet hair etc... so it gets sucked out of the carpet and into the bag.

4. The engineering- there are so many little design elements of this German made vacuum that show you someone put a lot of thought into it. For starters, the entire brush comes out with the click of one button. This makes it incredibly easy to clear off all of the hair and string that accumulate on a vacuum roller brush over time. There is also something called the "instant use wand" that I've found very convenient for getting into tight spots without messing around with external attachments. You just grab a handle on the vacuum and pull it out, then when you're finished with the space behind the computer or on your baseboards, you put it right back in to reactivate the main unit.
5. It lays completely flat- I've never had a vacuum that went completely flat before and it has been handy in a number of situations, particularly when vacuuming under furniture.
6. It works great on carpets as well as hard floors- I think this is because of the automatic adjustment. It goes from my livingroom to my kitchen without a hitch.
7. The belt has a lifetime warranty- the belt, the part that transfers twisting power from the motor to the brush, is guaranteed for life. If it ever slips, smells, or breaks, I know I can get it fixed for free from a Sebo dealer (and surprisingly enough there is a dealer pretty close to me. I'd never heard of SEBO before so I figured it would't be easy to find.) I think part of the reason they are able to offer this warranty on the belt is because it has an automatic shutoff feature. For example, if you suck up the power cord from your computer and it jams up the roller, the sebo will detect this and shut it down. I think that other (ie cheap) vacuums would overheat or strip the belt when this happened. 
8. Overall durability- this is not the prettiest vacuum on the market. In fact, I have the blue model and it looks almost antiquated. It doesn't look like a spaceship with the Dyson ball inside of a clear, futuristic-looking case, but it is extremely well made and I think it is going to last for a long time.
9. It works- even though I've devoted a lot of words to this review, vacuuming isn't something I like to think about very much. When you have a vacuum that doesn't pick up all of the dirt, or smells funny, or is hard to push around, or takes a lot of time to adjust on the fly, it becomes a small, but unnecessary source of stress. I don't have to fight with this vacuum. Plain and simple, it does the job and creates a clean home for me and my family.

I've been trying to think of some negatives about this vacuum and I'm not coming up with much. However, here is what I dislike about it sofar:

1. Looks- as mentioned above, the X4 is not the most attractive appliance I've ever owned, but I really don't care how it looks. It sits in the closet when not in use.
2. Replacing bags- this will cost money over time, but as I discussed at length above, I think the cost is minimal and vastly preferable to fighting with a bagless.
3. Takes time for the height to adjust-  if you go from a hard floor to a carpet, you will have to wait a bit before you start vacuuming. Not a big issue, but something to keep in mind.
4. The price- Make no mistake, this is an expensive vacuum. However I think in the long run it costs less to buy a high quality appliance like this than a bunch of cheap ones that will have to be replaced over time.

Overall, I've been very happy with this purchase, and even though I've only had it for a bit over a year, I'd highly recommend you consider it the next time you want to buy a vacuum. I'll post updates over time to let you know how it has been holding up. If you have any other comments (good or bad) please feel free to leave a comment.

Happy vacuuming.

Great Gifts for Finance Geeks - Part II

As promised, here are some more ideas (in no particular order) I had that I'm sure the financial analyst/hedge fund manager/business school student or other finance geek in your life would appreciate this holiday season. Ok well if it's a hedge fund manager you're buying for, you might want to stick with the items in Part I. These are more inexpensive than the extravagant items I had in Part I.

1) A subscription to the Harvard Business Review - I don't have one myself, but I try to get to the library once every couple of months to check out the review and see if there's anything in it that interests me. For those of you who don't know what it is, the Harvard Business Review is a thick, glossy magazine that comes out once a month and costs $99 for a one year subscription (yes, that's north of $8 an issue). It has a bunch of articles written by people, primarily academics and consultants, about general business and managment issues. I consider reading the HBR as a form of "continuing education" for people who work in the business field.

2) A way to get more out of Microsoft Excel - most finance geeks know their way around an Excel spreadsheet very well. In fact, if they call the office their home away from home, Excel is probably their home away from home away from home. Despite being so familiar with the program, many don't know the powerful programming language called VBA (VisualBasic for Applications) that they can use to get Excel to perform mind-bending tricks that save huge amounts of time for finance geeks and their companies alike. John Walkenbach is my favorite authority on the subject, and presents it with rigor and enthusiasm. Depending on which version of Excel the person has, you might want to check out one of the following:



4)The Office DVDs:



I didn't catch on to this show until season 3, so it was a real treat to buy the first couple of seasons on DVD and catch up with them all over the course of a couple of weekends. Ok, so it's not particularly finance-based, but I figured I better put something fun on here in case you wouldn't feel comfortable giving someone what amounts to and Excel textbook as a gift :).

5) The best medium-duty shredder I could find.




This thing still works like a charm for me, and I am still really glad I paid close to $100 for a good one rather than getting one of those cheap ones that can only handle one sheet at a time. If you know someone who could use a shredder or an upgrade, this is highly recommended. What finance geek worth his/her salt doesn't know the threat of identity theft and the importance of destroying sensitive documents. The link above the picture is a pretty lengthy review I did on this shredder a while ago. This thing still eats unopened junk mail (complete with fake credit card) for breakfast.

6) Pretty much anything from KlearGear.com. This site doesn't cater to finance geeks in particular, but it has plenty of items for the wider "geek" audience, ranging from the utilitarian laptop bed desk to the whimsical computer-controlled USB Missile Launcher.

So there you have my $0.02 on what to get a finance geek this holiday season.

Good Gifts for Finance Geeks Part 1 - Big Ticket Items

If you're shopping for an office worker, finance student, MBA, professor, or similar finance geek this holiday season, let me throw out a few suggestions. This first installment is going to be some more expensive gifts, and I'll follow with a list of cheaper items. My main criteria for these expensive gifts was that they had to be something a finance person would appreciate, and something that might be a collector's item or increase in value over time. I think I achieved this with everything except for the gold, which isn't super likely to increase in value substantially, but hey you never know.

1)Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor. As the link shows, you can get this book for about $1,400, used. That's right, a $1,400 used book. I'm not going to go into the details of the book here because I haven't read it. But any value investor would be extremely happy to get a copy of this book for more reasons than one- in addition to supposedly having some great investing advice, it's also a collectors item and an investment in its own right. In fact, according to Business week, this out-of-print book was going for $700 a copy just about a year ago. Read the article and find out why former hedge fund manager Seth Klarman's book is in such high demand.

2) A framed one thousand dollar bill. That's right, a legal tender $1,000 federal reserve note. These things were never meant for circulation so the federal reserve retires them whenever it comes across one... which as you can imagine isn't too often. This thousand will set you back somewhere around $4,000, but hey, isn't it worth it? Well maybe not, but this is a gift-giving time of year.

3) Gold Coins. At somewhere around $850 a coin, five or ten of these make a great gift for the finance geek who might be starting to get sick of regular paper money backed by government promises. I recommend BlanchardOnline.com, which has great prices and service.

4) One share of Google. This will cost you like $1300, but it could be a great long-term purchase for a finance geek to hang on the wall.

The 4-Hour Workweek

I finally got around to reading The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, by Timothy Ferriss. I have to say it was an interesting read. The basic premise of the book was that there is a class of "new rich" who can do what millionaires do without having a million dollars. They do this by automating their work so that they don't need to be present in order for their businesses to run, and by taking advantages of currency differences.

Ferriss seems to strongly advocate owning your own business, in particular some kind of an internet-based business. In my opinion, this isn't practical for most people. If you're considering doing this, the book might be even more valuable to you.

I did think he had a few interesting ideas though. For one, he has a pretty good chapter called "E is for Elimination" where he focused on streamlining your work life and time managment. None of it is really new stuff (the 80/20 principle etc...), but it will definitely make you think twice about the things you spend your time on, which is something we all need to do from time to time.

He also suggests going on a "one week media fast" where you don't read any newspapers, magazines, websites, or watch any news shows for a week. I think this has both its pros and cons. The main pro is that I think we all waste too much time reading news that we can't use and can spend the time doing more productive things. The cons are that for some jobs, especially more creative, higher-level business jobs, it's important to stay current on the happenings in your field and sometimes the media is the best source of information.

The chapter that intrigued me the most, and the one that really pushed me towards recommending this book, is "Outsourcing Life." In this he suggests getting a "remote personal assistant" from a company in India or elsewhere. He mentions Brickwork and Your Man In India as two potential companies to use. He says you can get a well qualified assistant to do some of your work for you, freeing up your time to do other things. Best of all- they can do it fairly inexpensively and they can work while you sleep. I actually tried this out with pretty good success, and I will hopefully write a post about that sometime in the future.

For now though, I'd say if you're the kind of person who's always looking to improve the way you work, and can overlook the rather drastic premise of this book, I think this is definitely worth spending some of your time (and a little of your money) on.

Final thought- can you achieve the four hour workweek by reading this book? I'd say the odds are very slim. I do think it might help you cut a few hours out of your work week though.

Desktop Tower Defense

Desktop Tower Defense is a great, ultra-addictive game that I'm almost sorry to tell you about because I am sure if you're anything like me you'll waste some time on this.

Just had to pass it along.

Haynes Repair Manual

Over the past few years, I have become more interested in doing minor auto maintenance jobs myself, rather than paying my mechanic exorbitant amounts for parts and labor. Oil changes, air filter changes, tuneups, etc... are all pretty easy to do and can save you a few dollars both now when you don't pay a mechanic and down the road, when your car has fewer unnecessary breakdowns due to neglect.

Hoping to learn a little bit more about my car, I recently purchased the Haynes Repair Manual covering my specific model. The book arrived a few days ago and as I've gone through it, I've been very impressed with the level of detail and the quality of the writing.

As someone who works in finance, I don't get much time to fool around with my car, nor do I find it necessary to do so. I could very easily use up all of my free time tuning, fixing, and upgrading my car, but I would rather spend that time with my family. However, I think that not knowing anything about a car puts the average car owner at a serious disadvantage. A mechanic could easily bilk you out of hundreds, even thousands of dollars of unnecessary or shoddy repair work, and if you don't know an alternator from a radiator, you would never know the difference.

The Haynes manual is a great addition to your library if you have a car and any interest in learning more about how it works. The books are based on a complete disassembly (or "teardown," as Haynes calls it) and reassembly (rebuild) of your specific model of car. It gives you a few hundred pages of photographs, repair tips, testing advice, and suggested procedures to do everything from changing wiper blades to overhauling an engine.

I've read some of the more basic "Vehicle Repair for Dummies" type books, but the Haynes manual is vastly superior since it actually shows work being done on your specific car, and it walks you through some more complicated procedures, rather than telling you in general terms what you might need to do, but that it varies by manufacturer and model.

I don't plan on doing much more to my car than the steps it suggests in chapter 1 - "Tune-up and routine maintenance." This chapter lays out a tune-up and maintenance schedule, and includes a bunch of things I think I will be able to do by myself without much prior experience. They include things like fluid checks, battery tests, spark plug replacement, fuel filter replacement, an ignition timing check etc...

Anyway, I wanted to pass this along as yet another good way to "Watch Your Wallet."

The Best Medium Duty Shredder I Could Find

I've been shopping around for a paper shredder for a few months now, and I have finally settled on one. My wife and I got tired of tearing up all of our old financial records, credit card applications, and other identity-revealing documents and were looking for an easy way to deal with it all.

After seeing my father go through two cheapo $30 shredders in a year, I figured it would be worth it to pay up for a shredder that would be able to handle a decent load (such as a few pages stapled together, or maybe even an unopened credit card solicitation) without burning out the motor. I don't want to have to replace it anytime soon.

If you don't have a shredder in this age of digital identity theft, I think you are making a big mistake. Having your personal information, credit card applications and other miscellaneous information floating around in unsecured trash bins and trash bags is practically a recipe for someone to steal your identity and create all kinds of trouble for you. My mail gets delivered into a locked mailbox and as a general rule I shred anything with personal information on it before I throw it in my clear plastic paper recycling bag.

There are a ton of shredders in the $20-60 range that advertise 8 sheet capacity, are very cheaply made, and probably only good for extremely light use. My brother recently threw out a Staples brand shredder because a cheap plastic gear in the motor simply wore down after a few months.

Instead of risking one of these cheaper models, I decided I was willing to pay more like $80-$100 to get some better quality shredding power. The one we have at work would be my ideal shredder. It can take like 20 pages at a time and it stands about five feet high, but I didn't think it would be practical for my apartment, or my budget.

After reading some reviews and poking around a bit, I think I found what I was looking for- the Fellowes Powershred PS-77Cs 12 sheet Confetti Cut Shredder (pictured above in my livingroom) , which I paid about $96 for on Amazon (with free shipping). It advertises 12 sheet capacity, which is a little more than the cheap ones, and it got some great reviews around the Web.

I've only had it for one day, but sofar, so good.

The thing weighs about 30 lbs, and almost all of the weight is concentrated in the tough shredding apparatus that sits on top of the basket. I have to admit it was a bit bigger than I expected when I opened the package, but it's not that much bigger than the size of an ordinary wastebasket. In the photo, you can compare it to my briefcase and the copy of the Wall St. Journal (financial analyst's best friend) that's poking out.

This shredder also has one of those slots for ripping apart a CD or a credit card. I haven't had the opportunity to try that out yet, but I am looking forward to it.

A bonus feature is that it has technology that shuts off the shredder motor if your hands get too close to the opening. I don't have kids, but sometimes my little nieces and nephews come over, and they do the darndest things. This will hopefully make sure that sticking their fingers in the shredder isn't one of those things.

I've already thrown a bunch of stuff in there that I had been waiting to get rid of, and the machine handled them beautifully. I even threw in a new Citicard application that I got today, without even opening the envelope. The machine ate it up, burped, and begged me for more.

Ok, I'm getting a little ridiculous, but anyway you can tell I'm pretty happy with this thing sofar. As a sidenote, I am a big fan of well-made, heavy-duty office supplies. There is just something intrinsically satisfying about well made tools that you use often. I also have a 60 sheet capacity PaperPro stapler at work that works fantastic, and I'm thinking about getting a high-capacity 3 hole punch.

I've also decided to try out this Amazon PriceWatch site that I've been hearing about recently. Supposedly, if the same product you ordered is listed for less on Amazon within 30 days of your purchase, you can request a refund for the difference. This site will automatically track the price of this product for me, saving me the trouble of going to the Web site every day.

I'll make a mental note to write an update in 6 months or so about how well the shredder is holding up, and link it back this post.

If you know of a better shredder in this price range, or think I paid too much- I shopped around and this was within a few dollars of the lowest price I could find including shipping- please post the info in the comments section to share with other readers.

Happy shredding.

7/10/08 Update: I've owned this shredder for about a year and a half now and it still works as good as the day I got it. It is still a thrill to toss an entire junk mail envelope into the thing without even opening it and watch the machine devour the entire thing- fake plastic credit card and all. One thing I will recommend is that you do not buy the bags that come with this thing. They are a waste of money. When the bin fills up, I just dump it into a clear plastic bag with the rest of my paper recycling. I've never had any problems with this machine and the only maintenance I've done is to oil it (using common household vegetable oil, not the nonsense "shredder oil" some companies sell) a couple of times, following the directions in the instruction manual.

I think the $100 I spent on this shredder was a bargain for what I got and this thing is really built to last.

12/4/08 Update: Almost two years of household use and this thing is still cranking away like the day it was born. I have had absolutely no trouble with this shredder and it has seen a great deal of use. My neverending stream of junk mail and credit card solicitations goes in, and a downy, fluffy pile of paper shreds comes out, ready for disposal. I still take pleasure in shredding entire unopened envelopes full of junk mail, and have found the shredder handy for getting rid of other confidential information as well.


Another update as of July 2013- this thing is shredding like Eddie van Halen in 1982 (for those of you non music fans this is a good thing). I've owned it for five years now and it literally still shreds like new. I've oiled it like 2x a year since I've had it but other than that no fuss and no maintenance. I'm absolutely thrilled that paid up for this thing. I would have been on my 5th $25 shredder by now so I definitely saved money in he long run. Built like a tank!

(As somewhat of an aside, around the same time I bought this shredder, I bought a cheap $150 vacuum. The past few times I've tried to use it, the hose has gotten detached and the belt has slipped, causing the awful stench of burning rubber. It no longer picks up the little white things like it used to. I think my next vacuum is going to be a more expensive, but much more reliable Electrolux. I've found that buying a quality item often ends up costing less in the long run, and I think vacuums are the same as shredders when it comes to that.)


12/20/2014 Update: So I was using this shredder tonight and I wondered "how long has it been since I bought this beautiful piece of equipment?" I logged on and realized it has been something like seven years! In seven years, I haven't had a single problem with this thing. It still opens its mouth and devours any and all junk mail without even so much as a pause. I've shredded old credit cards, old CDs with data on them, multi-sheet stacks of paper... you name it, this thing has eaten it. I have to admit that I haven't oiled it very much over the years, but I'll try to correct this soon. Even so, it still runs incredibly smoothly. I will never hesitate to pay up for a Fellowes shredder again (assuming I ever need to buy another one- this one may outlast me.)