Hijinks Inc.

Category: Finance

  • The 10yr Rule

    The theory is that every ten years your investment doubles in value, and now I have proof!

    So I haven’t exactly been actively investing in the stock market for ten years, but unbeknownst to me just under ten years ago my Grandfather took out an Educational IRA (much like a 529 plan) on my behalf, at the time he invested $400 in an American Century fund and set it up with a DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Program)… Now ten years later, even though the fund has dropped significantly in value, his original investment is now worth $903 thanks to that DRIP. Pretty cool.

    Now the 10 year rule is a nice thought, but I’m sure it doesn’t always apply. And in todays market, it hard to imagine any investment doubling in value.

  • iPhone SDK + Firmware 1.1.4

    This is all pure speculation/wishful thinking on my part, so please don’t take it too seriously.

    I personally love the way Installer.app works, I can install/uninstall applications where ever I go, that being said I’m not looking forward to installing apps via iTunes.

    So my question is this, will Apple be able to offer the same on-the-go application management style as Installer.app with the release of the iPhone SDK? I genuinely hope so, however that functionality would likely require firmware 1.1.4 to be released alongside (or soon after) the SDK with a major overhaul to the mobile iTunes application.

    Completely doable, but will Apple choose to follow the logical example set by Installer.app? If they plan on allowing developers to sell applications it makes great sense financially, after all I’ve purchased more than my fair share of stupid games for my cell phone at random times when I was utterly bored and had no form of entertainment readily accessible.

    That being said, what do those of you who actually own an iPod touch or iPhone think?

  • Death and Taxes


    In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
    – Benjamin Franklin

    It’s tax season, kids! And you know what that means, right? Yeah, me neither. Anyhow, I’ve been rocking the tax scene for the past four hours and it has been pretty painful, I knew going in that I was going to have to pay in of course, and that it was going to be a lot… but it still hurts.

    So, a mere six cups of coffee and $11,237 of deductions later and I think I’m in business. I now only have to pay in several grand and the world is a much happier place, I will take the time to try and lower that figure further before I actually file, especially since I’m in no hurry to pay the feds any of my hard earned money.

    What about you? Are you getting money back, or paying in? Worse yet, have you not even started your taxes?!

  • Passive Income – January 2008

    My passive income for January was slightly lower than December, mostly because I had to pay for classes, my speeding ticket, and the bank cut my interest rate. Ah well, still not a bad start to the new year.

    • Interest: $30.58
    • Dividends: $11.53
    • Credit Card Rewards: $13
    • AdSense: $9.93
    • Text Ads: $16.02
    • Misc website income: $15

    That rings up to a fairly respectable $96.06 for the month, I’m hoping to see an average of $100+ per month this year, we’ll see how that works.

    (more…)

  • I’ve Returned

    They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but apparently that doesn’t apply to Google, although it is slightly reassuring to know that their server clusters don’t actually incorporate human hearts. I digress. Over the course of a few days I’ve all but disappeared from the hollowed pages of Google Search, major bummer, I used to be the number two result (also numbers 3, 4, 7, 12, and 42) when searching for ‘Aaron Nelsen‘ but now I’m stuck at the bottom of the first page of results, plus Hijinks Inc. doesn’t show up until page two.

    In other news, banks cut interest rates because of the cuts the Fed made, and the market continues to be as unpredictable as an inebriated schizophrenic. Both of which are major thorns in my side.

    Along the same lines, I’ve made more money in the past six months by changing a portion of my cash holdings from the US dollar to the Euro than I have from the stock market. That’s depressing.

    Oh and I’m in the process of upgrading my iPod touch to the 1.1.3 firmware and attempting to jailbreak it, if I’m successful I’ll post instructions on how to rock that scene.