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Len Penzo dot Com

The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people.

My Ketchup Taste-Test: Upset! Guess Which Brand Topped Heinz

By Len Penzo

Ketchup is the most popular condiment in the United States, and if you ask one hundred people what their favorite brand is, ninety-nine will usually say Heinz. As for the other guy, he'll simply say he doesn't like ketchup, period. It's true. Then ...

Continue reading My Ketchup Taste-Test: Upset! Guess Which Brand Topped Heinz

January 10, 2011

How Being Absentminded Resulted In A $2750 Year-End Windfall

By Len Penzo

At least I'm calling it a windfall. Let me explain. You see, if I leave a twenty dollar bill in a winter jacket only to rediscover it after it has been hanging in the closet for nine months, that's a windfall. Now I can hear a lot of you out ...

Continue reading How Being Absentminded Resulted In A $2750 Year-End Windfall

January 6, 2011

The Penner Awards: The 10 Craziest Money Blunders of 2010

By Len Penzo

As 2010 comes to a close, I think it is only appropriate that I share my picks for the ten dumbest money stories of the past year, highlighting some of the most dumbfounding displays of numismatical naivete and financial ineptitude known to ...

Continue reading The Penner Awards: The 10 Craziest Money Blunders of 2010

December 29, 2010

Why Baseball’s Jayson Werth Is Worth $126 Million (and You’re Not)

By Mr. Credit Card

This is a guest post from my good friend, Mr. Credit Card, from www.askmrcreditcard.com.   For the past three years, his Philadelphia Phillies have been the nemesis of my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. I certainly feel we can learn a lot from how b ...

Continue reading Why Baseball’s Jayson Werth Is Worth $126 Million (and You’re Not)

December 15, 2010

How My Great Dane and I Got Cheated By a Fake Charity

By Len Penzo

Well, I've been moonlighting again for American Express's cleverly titled Currency blog. I know. But this Christmas the Honeybee decided to ask for the first seven seasons of Grey's Anatomy. No, not on Blue-ray DVD -- she wants the whole cast to ...

Continue reading How My Great Dane and I Got Cheated By a Fake Charity

December 2, 2010

Consumer Alert: Qualia Free Coffee E-mail is a Scam

By Len Penzo

Any time I get an email offering me a free anything just for clicking on a link, I get suspicious. I know.   I'm just paranoid that way, but it usually saves me a lot of heartache down the road. Not five minutes ago I got an email from "J" who sent ...

Continue reading Consumer Alert: Qualia Free Coffee E-mail is a Scam

November 20, 2010

Come On, People. Quit Maligning the Plastic Grocery Bag!

By Len Penzo

As a Southern California native, I took great interest in the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors decision to save the world by passing an ordinance that bans plastic shopping bags at grocery stores, pharmacies and convenience stores. The ...

Continue reading Come On, People. Quit Maligning the Plastic Grocery Bag!

November 17, 2010

Solving the Mobile Internet Puzzle

By Len Penzo

by Rob Clymo Being able to access the internet and your email, no matter what the location is an incredibly handy thing to have. Thanks to a wealth of deals, it's now quick, easy and relatively cheap for anyone to get connected too with a simple ...

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November 6, 2010

My Daughter’s Halloween Take for 2010

By Len Penzo

In case anybody is interested, here is Nina's Halloween take this year. I had her itemize everything in her bag when she got home Sunday night. Isn't that terrible? Actually, she didn't mind at all. She happily put this together for me in no ...

Continue reading My Daughter’s Halloween Take for 2010

November 5, 2010

Deal or No Deal? Comparing Dollar Stores to Walmart & Others

By Len Penzo

Did you know that dollar stores have been around since 1955 when Dollar General opened its first one in Springfield, Kentucky? It's true. Granted, in terms of purchasing power, a dollar went a lot further back then -- equivalent to just a hair ...

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November 1, 2010

Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs. (Well, Kinda Sorta.)

By Len Penzo

As I've previously mentioned, the Penzo household is in the middle of a long-awaited home renovation project with a reliable contractor. Originally, it was supposed to be a fairly modest kitchen renovation that involved replacing our porcelain ...

Continue reading Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs. (Well, Kinda Sorta.)

October 6, 2010

Ticketmaster’s New Blog (And Why I Hate Them Even More Now.)

By Len Penzo

I recently bought tickets to see Maroon 5 for one of their upcoming shows in Los Angeles. Let me tell you, I love Maroon 5 almost as much as I love my dog - which puts them pretty far up my totem pole of most-cherished entities. Of course, like ...

Continue reading Ticketmaster’s New Blog (And Why I Hate Them Even More Now.)

August 25, 2010

Black Coffee: A Little Fun with My Dog and Some Peanut Butter

By Len Penzo

It's time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe… Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.   Here’s what caught my attention over the pa ...

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August 21, 2010

The Great Debate: Do Kids Really Need Their Own Cell Phone?

By Len Penzo

Last week I shared the story about my $1055 cell phone bill, courtesy of my teenage son. The article seemed to, um, resonate with a lot readers, not only here but at MSN where it was also featured as a guest post, and on Digg, where at last count it ...

Continue reading The Great Debate: Do Kids Really Need Their Own Cell Phone?

July 26, 2010

The Ugly Truth: Why Big Spenders Are Terrible In Bed

By Len Penzo

It is a truism that most big spenders are showoffs; they feed off attention. Ironically, while your typical big spender works 24/7 trying to impress others, most of the time they rarely do so. There is a small segment of the population, ...

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July 19, 2010

My Store-Brand vs. Name-Brand Blind Taste-Test Experiment #3

By Len Penzo

Okay. If you are a regular reader here you know the drill by now, so feel free to skip to the juicy parts! Are name-brand groceries really worth the extra cost when alternative cheaper store-brand groceries are available? More specifically, when ...

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June 8, 2010

Drive-By Movie Review: A Simple Plan (A Movie on the Ethics of Found Money)

By Len Penzo

This is a review of the 1998 movie A Simple Plan starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda, and Gary Cole Plot Summary: Two brothers and a friend find $4 million in the cockpit of a downed plane. The pilot is dead. No one is looking ...

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June 2, 2010

Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline and Others: What’s the Best Travel Search Engine?

By Len Penzo

I can't believe I'm saying this, but our annual summer vacation is right around the corner. Weren't we in the throes of a Little Ice Age just last month? Ah, well. I'd like to say we were going back to Maui, but unfortunately I drew the short ...

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April 14, 2010

Should Low-Income Drivers Receive Subsidies to Use Toll Express Lanes?

By Len Penzo

Every day on my way home from work I zip by tens of thousands of people behind the wheels of cars stuck in hopelessly gridlocked traffic because they didn't want to pay the toll (usually between $2 and $10, depending on the direction and time of day) ...

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April 7, 2010

The Redistribution of Health: Excuse Me, But I Think I’m Gonna Be Sick

By Len Penzo

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. - Abraham Lincoln I don't feel so good. The United States Congress stuck their middle finger ...

Continue reading The Redistribution of Health: Excuse Me, But I Think I’m Gonna Be Sick

March 23, 2010

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