Wise Money Decisions

The Wife points out a great way to save on rent:

Japanese Woman Caught Living in Man’s Closet

Tokyo - A homeless woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times.  Don’t steal food from the guy whose closet you’re staying in.

Let’s suppose I’ve booked a flight on American Airlines.  I want to know how many bags I can check.  I know the answer can be found at the American Airlines website, but I don’t want to navigate through their site.  So I go to google.com and type:

how many bags can be checked on American

The American Airlines website pops up first and I find my answer. 

Right?

Not So Fast

Actually, the American Airlines website doesn’t show up until hit #91.  It doesn’t even show up on the first page unless I’m set up for 100 hits per page.  And then it shows up at the bottom.

That means there are 90 sites discussing how many bags can be checked on American that are presumably more important than the American Airlines website. 

Including such internet heavyweights as Cranky Flier, the Luggage Security Coalition, Air Gorilla, a page about the O.J. Simpson trial, a site about hiking the Inca Trail, a guy posting a comment on a bulletin board about sunglasses being stolen from his checked luggage on a flight from the Dominican Republic, and a site explaining why it’s a good idea to write the date on plastic bags before you put food in the fridge.

Which site supplanted American Airlines in the #1 spot?  Click here to find out. 

Post Script

If I’m not in the #1 spot, I was when I wrote this.

I’ve never lived in Manhattan.  Long before I met her, my wife lived there for a short time.  During law school we mulled over a few offers from New York firms that would have taken us to Manhattan.  She would have liked to go back. 

Had we moved to Manhattan I may have known that the JPMorgan and Bear Stearns headquarters are next to each other in midtown Manhattan.  See the picture to the right.  Bear Stearns is on the left, JPMorgan Chase on the right.

Now that JPMorgan is buying Bear Stearns, I’m offering my consulting services to identify synergies, cut costs, and restore profitability.  My first suggestion for management:

• Hang a string between the buildings. 
• Attach one tin can to either end of the string. 
• When a JPMorgan employee needs to talk to a Bear Stearns employee, they put their ears to the can.
• Talk.
• Save on telephone bills.

It’s so simple that I predict no one will think of it.

I was looking through my site’s visitor logs and noticed that people continue to find my article on conforming loan amounts by searching “$729,725″ in google.  

I know what you’re thinking:

“Why are you telling me this?  You already told us last week that you were #2 on google for $729,725.  (in a sarcastic voice)  And nice work.  That’s got to be a highly competitive search term.”

I’m bringing it up again because I’m not number two anymore.  This time, I’m Numero Uno!  Number One on google!  Or as my friend eloquently put it after correctly spelling Onomatopoeia to win the sixth grade spelling bee, “Second place is for losers!” 

I know what you’re thinking, and let me respond.  It wasn’t me.  I’m not one of those people that says “my friend” when I’m really talking about me.  I never won the spelling bee.  I would never say second place is for losers.

Now for some analysis.  While the original article got me to second, I think the later post pointing out I was #2 on google actually pushed me to #1.  This post should solidify my spot.  I’m not an SEO expert but just to be safe it probably won’t hurt if I mention $729,725 a few more times.

$729,725.  $729,725. $729,725. $729,725. $729,725. $729,725. 

That should do it.   No one can take $729,725 from me now.

This blog is just a few days old.  It’s fun to track how people find it. 

After the post on the conforming loan amount, I noticed that somebody found the blog by searching for “$729,725″ on google.  My article was the second hit.  I never thought I’d be the second hit on anything this soon.  I proudly sent a brief email to a few people:

Copy and paste $729,725 into google and look what the 2nd hit is.

I received one congratulatory response:

Awesome!

And one sarcastic response:

I search for that number all the time.  Unfortunately, I always go to the #1 page….