Budgets Are Sexy

So I’m back from the amazingly BRILLIANT Financial Blogger Conference this weekend – which was nothing short than *heaven* for me, I got to see my online family for the first time in 3+ years! And you all voted me the winner of FIVE Blogger trophies!!! THANK YOU so much!!! – and now that we’re back to the “real world,” I have a stack of emails and meetings and all sorts of interesting busy work to hopefully get through one year ;)

But one thing that really fascinated me when I got home, was the pile of letters sitting on my desk yearning for some good old fashioned affection. I don’t know about you, but one of my small pleasures in life is sorting through mail and *hoping* for something good. I don’t know WHAT that could possibly come since it’s not like I’m entering any contests or expecting any random $10,000 checks or anything, haha, but the pure fact of not *KNOWING* just excites the pants off me. In a totally non-sexual way, of course (unless, someone mails me Kim Kardashian!).

And this time around I was greeted by not one, not TWO, but SIX pieces of financial spam-mail! Woo! Some were actually kinda awesome, but most were pretty bad to the point where I wanted to hurry up and hop onto this laptop to start blogging about ’em ;) Which is where you’re finding me now. On my kitchen table surrounded by all kinds of financial offers calling my name.

Here’s what came in:

1. An invitation to join the Archdiocese’s Annual Benefit.  In all it’s well-crafted and glorious marketing package.  It was so good that I actually DID feel special for getting it! And then I almost RSVP’d until I saw the slew of options forcing me to give a donation. I don’t know which one bothered me more – the fact that I got tricked feeling like I was specially selected to attend a fancy ball (I had a quick image of going as Lloyd Christmas from Dumb & Dumber! Haha…), or the fact that the lowest amount I was allowed to donate was $250.  Though I could easily donate $50,000 too of course – all these numbers were next to the “YES, I/We want to attend” check box.  The only other option wasto say No, which read like this: “NO, I/We are unable to attend, but would like to make a tax-deductible contribution of $ __________.” I was not impressed.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for giving back to the church and/or military – 100% – but these not-so-subtle ways of asking just rubs me the wrong way… I’ll just continue dropping in money during church.
2. An offer to receive a free, no-obligation, LED light pen! Just by asking for more details on their Mortgage Protection.  Really?  A light pen?? Are we in the 90’s again?? haha… now I don’t know too much on mortgage protection insurance, so I can’t really comment on that one (though it does kinda perk some interest as it seems it would cover your mortgage if you were to suddenly die or something?), but I feel like life insurance pretty much covers everything you need anyways.  I could be wrong though, so if any of you use it lemme  know! And also let me know if you want my incredible offer for a FREE out of this world light pen!!  Come on!  They were invented on the moon!
3. An invitation to watch a free UN-RELEASED Steve Carrell film! Before it’s official launch to the public!  Woahhhh!  Where the heck did that one come from? It turned out that, among our wreckage of awful spam mail, that *this* one turned out to be actually true!!!  But because my wife thought it was junk like all the rest, it was too late to take them up on their offer when we shot them a call :(  Turns out they had overwhelming response to it, and they didn’t need our sexy opinions any more – boooooo….  the audience was gonna help them w/ rating the movie (PG-13, R, etc), and give feedback in return for the free cinema.  Woulda been fun! (I blame you, stupid light pen, for making everything look like spam)
4. An offer to open up a new ING Savings account.  An option that would earn you more than 6x the national average of interest.  Sadly, however, that’s only 1%.  And I’m not in the mood to go chasing rates around town – too messy for my brain.  But if any of you are interested, more info can be found here.
5. A fake auto insurance card from Allstate telling me I could save $336 this year.  And also that I’d be in “good hands” with them ;)  And I believe them too – that President Palmer is convincing! Haha… (any 24 fans out there?  anybody?  Bueller?) I do give them props for saying how it is though, and trying to save people money if they’re jacked up in some other insurance plans out there.  Just the fact they’re not trying to woo me by offering up some weird object gives me a tiny bit more of respect for them ;) If I weren’t so obsessed w/ USAA I’d at least entertain ’em!  Though they’d have to compete w/ that awfully funny gecko, haha…
6. A refer-a-friend offer from Flex Offers.  This I actually don’t mind, since it was right behind my check they owe me ;) For those unaware of Flex Offers, which would be 90% of you since you don’t blog, they’re a company where you can get advertising collateral from to promote companies you like and then get paid for it.  Kinda like a database you can sort through, rather than directly reaching out to whatever company you want to try and advertise with.  I use them for some things, but other bloggers/websites are much better about monetizing than I am. Anyways, if you’re interested in giving them a shot, I would gladly refer you to them ;)  (shameless plug!)

And that about wraps it up.  How much of this junk do you all get in a given week?  Anything new & exciting coming through?  I’m gonna start mailing out fun things to people since all we get now are emails and Facebook updates from each other. If we don’t continue doing so, our Post Offices will be sure to close down! And that would make me terribly sad :( So take a few minutes and jot down a quick note for somebody today. It might just be that *surprise* they’ve been waiting for!

Originally published at budgetsaresexy.com.