A while back, I wrote about the dangers of selling to friends and family. Recently, a reader wrote to me stating that they wanted to make a “pre-emptive strike” against these kinds of sales pitches, but didn’t know how to go about it.

Please feel free to copy and paste the following email, edit it as you please, and send it to your friends. Trust me, almost all of them will thank you.

Hey friend,

A while back, one of my other friends invited me to a [Tupperware/Princess House/Pampered Chef/etc.] party at their home. I accepted, because I felt like I was supposed to – after all, I didn’t want to let my friend down.

When I got to the party, all of the items at the party were way overpriced and, frankly, I didn’t want any of them. But my friend was trying so hard to sell the items that I bought one out of guilt. There went $30 down the tubes. The item’s now gathering dust until I find some excuse to re-gift it to someone else.

The more I thought about this, the more irritated I got. Why should I have to buy stuff I don’t want just to maintain a friendship? I don’t think friendships and sales pitches mix.

So let’s make a deal right now. I’ll never host this kind of party and “bank” on our friendship by inviting you to it, so you’ll never have to feel obligated to buy some junk just because we’re friends. You’ll do the same for me. Deal?

Your friend,

In other words, be straightforward about it. Make it clear that you don’t want to participate in such parties – and also make it clear that you won’t ever utilize your friendship in such a way.

Yes, yes, I’m sure I’m going to hear from lots of people who are happy with the items that they bought at such a party. I’m not writing to you. If you’re interested in the goods these businesses have to offer, then seek out a party in your area and attend one!

I’m also not decrying the products sold. Some of the items at these parties are perfectly fine, though I make no claims about them being any sort of bargain.

I’m also going to hear from people whose friends were glad to have such an opportunity. Perhaps some of your friends did feel this way. However, I’m willing to bet some of them did not – they went to your party and made a purchase merely to be polite and that item found its way to a yard sale somewhere. I know many, many people who fall into this latter category.

If you enjoy hosting such parties, that’s great! Sell to strangers instead of selling to your friends. If your friends are interested when they find out you’re hosting such events, they’ll ask to attend, but make it clear to them that you don’t mix your business and your friendships so that they don’t feel obligated to come. If not, don’t cash in on the friendship.

My concern is simple: selling to your friends usually diminishes your friendship. They feel obligated to come, and when people start feeling as though a relationship is based on obligations that they don’t want to fulfill instead of things they’re happy and excited about, they begin to grow apart and drift away. That’s never worth the small commission you might get from selling to them.

I’m hosting a free teleclass with Vicki Robin (author of Your Money or Your Life) this evening starting at 5 PM Pacific / 6 PM Mountain / 7 PM Central / 8 PM Pacific and running for roughly 90 minutes.. During it, I’m going to give a short presentation (mostly geared toward people who have never read The Simple Dollar), followed by a long question and answer session.

If you’d like to participate, here’s the URL for signing up. You’ll be able to dial in with any phone when it begins.

Keeping Yourself Motivated Motivation can often be a key challenge for success in anything you want to try in life. For me, I find that lots of small victories and successes as I move forward help a lot. And I do mean small – I felt a huge success recently with my piano practice when I was able to play “The First Noel” three times in a row and do a right hand thumb tuck correctly. (@ freelance switch)

How Much Stuff Does One Man Need? Our problem isn’t my stuff, it’s the kids’ stuff. Thanks to the fact that they’re the first grandchild/niece/nephew for a lot of their relatives, they’ve got a small mountain of things. We slowly make stuff “disappear” from this mountain (the things they don’t play with) and take it to Goodwill, but it’s still too much. (@ get rich slowly)

The Eight Year Escape Plan This is an interesting interview with a person who worked at a full-time job for eight years, but spent her spare time building a side business that eventually became her full time work. (@ the art of nonconformity)

Do You Track Your Achievements? Over the past few years, I’ve basically stumbled onto this exact routine. It’s really a great way to keep track of all of the stuff you’ve accomplished, and looking back on it really helps you to feel like you’re a very productive person, particularly at the times when you’re not so productive. (@ dumb little man)

The New ABCs of Success: Always Be Creating Creating new things is really the foundation of modern success. More and more, creative thought is an essential piece of successful work. (@ pick the brain)

One common, painful bill that we all face is the insurance bill. Whether you’re talking renter’s insurance, homeowner’s insurance, or automobile insurance, the bill feels painful because it’s not something we can often directly see the benefit from. It just comes in handy when something goes wrong.

One of the most common tactics that you’ll see in cost-cutting articles is calling up your insurance company and requesting an increase in your deductible – the amount you have to pay before the insurance kicks in.

On the surface, this works well. If you increase your deductible, your premiums (the amount you pay each month/quarter/year) will go down, meaning your monthly bills are lower. You can chip hefty percentages from your insurance bill just by making this move.

One of my long-time readers, Jeanne, has been writing to me about insurance this week. She has considered doing this, but something is convincing her that it’s not the best move:

I understand that raising a deductible will lower your premiums. But why do we have insurance in the first place? Doesn’t raising the deductible through the roof defeat the purpose?

The first thing to note here is that the purpose of insurance is to insure that you’ll survive financially due to an unforeseen event. We don’t have homeowner’s insurance because it’s fun – we have it because it will help us start over with a new home should our house burn to the ground. Without it, most of us would financially sink. The same goes for renter’s insurance – it’d be tough to lose all of your possessions in a fire without any way to recover. Again, with automobile insurance – if you total your car without insurance, you might be sitting holding just a car loan and nothing to show for it.

Obviously, if you have a ton of money, insurance on smaller things is a lot less important. People with huge bankrolls have no need to carry full insurance on their cars – they just cover the parts that might worry them or that they’re legally required to cover.

Saving money by raising a deductible assumes that you have the cash on hand to cover the deductible in such a situation. If you raise your auto deductible from $200 to $1,000, you’ll see a big drop in your bill, but if something goes wrong with your car, you’re going to need that $1,000. If you don’t have that $1,000 in an easy-to-access place, then you’re in real trouble.

The solution is simple: if you have a well-funded emergency fund in a savings account somewhere, you can raise your deductibles some without worry. A well-funded emergency fund means a minimum of a couple months’ worth of living expenses, plus more if you have dependents. If you have that kind of cash that can be accessed with ease, then by all means, raise your deductibles.

Won’t this cost me more in the long run? Many people who consider this ask themselves whether such a move will cost them more in the long run. After all, if they’re having to come up with a lot more money on each claim, are they really saving money overall?

The average homeowner makes an insurance claim once every nine years. If you raise your deductible on your homeowners’ insurance by $1,000, you only need to save about $120 a year in your premiums in order to create a net savings on average – and, likely, you’ll save a lot more than that.

Similar math exists for other types of insurance. The claims made are so infrequent that you only have to save a little bit on each insurance payment to make up for the additional cost on the deductible.

The key, though, is making sure you have the emergency savings to handle that higher deductible. If you don’t have that, make it a priority before you consider making changes to your insurance policies.

Over the weekend, I made two brief mentions of using cohabitation as a method for saving money. In other words, if you invite someone to share your home with you (or share someone else’s home with them) and come to a reasonable agreement for sharing the load on the bills of the home, you can save quite a lot of money and often stretch a very difficult situation into a liveable one, at least in terms of the finances.

In response to that article, I received a small pile of emails with a wide variety of thoughts, questions, and concerns about cohabitation arrangements. Since I’ve lived in such cohabitation situations in the past and we’ve recently looked into such arrangements, I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my own key thoughts on cohabitation, how much money it really saves, and whether it’s right for you.

The first thing is to know who exactly you’re cohabitating with. Who is this person you’re going to be sharing your living quarters with? It’s not as big of a deal when you’re in college and sharing an apartment with five other people so you can have a place to sleep for $80 a month (not that I know from experience or anything…), but when you’re talking about monthly housing expenses that run into the thousands, you want a reliable person to cohabitate with.

So where should you look for potential cohabitants? Start with your family and your social network. Sisters, cousins, brothers, aunts, nieces and the like all make great cohabitants – you already know each other and have things in common, so you have a much higher likelihood of success. The same is true with your social network as long as you stay closer to people you know well.

If you choose to advertise, be selective. If you are considering a cohabitant and have any warning signs at all that there might be problems before you enter into such an arrangement, don’t enter into such an arrangement. If you do not know the person very well, you should have a legal agreement drawn up between both parties – consult a lawyer to draft one.

Even if you choose not to have a contract (if you’re cohabitating with your sister, for example), make everything as clear as possible. Make it explicitly clear when you need to pool money for rent or for a house payment. Talk about the amounts before you even begin – don’t just say “half the house payment” because the other person might not understand how much that is. Write it down in an extremely clear fashion. Give some reminders, especially at first. You should also make it clear right off the bat what sort of situation would constitute the cohabitant having to leave.

You should also protect yourself with an emergency fund. If your cohabitant doesn’t come through on an expected payment, you’ll be the one that needs to make up the difference. The best way to protect yourself here is with an emergency fund, so for the first few months, channel the money you’re saving into an emergency fund so that you’re sure you have the cash.

A barter system might also be a good idea. Perhaps, rather than being responsible for money, your cohabitant can be responsible for some other things – home maintenance, yard work, child care, or so on. Each of these things can save you significant money and time, which has the same effect on your bottom-line personal finances, but also takes some financial concern off of your cohabitant.

Our example For several months, my wife and I discussed a cohabitation arrangement with one of her sisters. Under that arrangement, she would have lived at our home for free while attending classes at a local university part of the time, and “paying” for her room and board with some number of hours of child care per week. This would have basically allowed us to eliminate the cost of child care from our budget.

Our biggest reason for not doing this was actually a personal one. My wife began to strongly consider a semester or a year off from her job during this period instead of having her sister live with us during that year. At the same time, her sister decided to follow a different path and attend nursing school. So, the reasons had nothing to do with the arrangement, which all of us were in favor of (as it would have saved all of us some money).

Prior to that, in my late college years and early professional years, I had several cohabitation situations in order to save money – yes, the typical college roommates. Since the quality and space of living quarters weren’t really an issue then, the big reason for doing this was to save a lot of money. At one point, I shared an apartment with four other people, driving rent down to $80 a month for me.

If you’re considering such an arrangement, good luck. It can be challenging, but the financial rewards are great.

As I’ve mentioned before, we give our children a small allowance each week. Our daughter, who is only two, puts all of her money into a single-slot piggy bank and is allowed to fully spend it as she chooses. Our son gets more money for his allowance (for now), but has a Money Savvy Pig, where he splits his allowance into four equal parts: money to freely spend, money to save for an item he wants, money for an annual charitable gift, and money for investing for the long term.

The idea here, though, is that each of them has a few quarters to spend each week on whatever they would like. Most of the time, they spend it on reasonable kid things – they both have a strong affection for M&Ms, for example, and often buy M&Ms with their quarters.

This week, however, was different. We were dining at a restaurant that had one of those carnival-esque “claw” machines near the exit, where you use a stick to maneuver a claw around, then hit a button to have the claw drop into a pit of stuffed animals or other toys. Almost always, the claw is unable to pick any of the items up, so you simply lose the money you put in there.

We’ve warned our kids about these machines in the past. “If you put your money in there, you’ll just lose it and not get anything for it.” “Those machines are rip-offs.”

However, we are also committed to letting our children make their own choices about their free-spending money. Thus, as we were leaving with our children, they asked if they could use their spending money in the claw machine. After a quick warning about the nature of the machine, we allowed them to, assuming it would teach them a quick, simple lesson about disappointment and how things like this actually work.

Of course, my two year old daughter won a stuffed animal on her first try.

Of course, my four year old son won a stuffed animal on his second try.

Obviously, the lesson learned from this situation is the opposite of what we hoped they would take from it. My son, in fact, has already told us that this is now his favorite restaurant and he can’t wait to go back to get another stuffed animal, implying (of course) that it’s trivial to get a stuffed animal from such a machine.

Where do we go from here? My wife and I talked about it and came up with the following conclusions that we feel are in line with the money lessons we want to teach our kids.

If they wish to try again with their “free spending” money, we won’t stop them. How you choose to spend money – and what you get out of it – is a constant lesson in itself. Putting restrictions on the portion of their allowance that they’re allowed to spend freely (at least at this point) defeats the learning (even if sometimes the learning isn’t perfect).

We’ll still advise them of potential poor spending choices. Of course, just because they’re allowed to freely spend doesn’t mean we don’t offer suggestions to them about what’s a good spending choice and what’s a bad spending choice. We try to avoid drawing conclusions, but we do try to provide information. We focus on saying things like, “If you put your money in this machine and it doesn’t win a toy, that money is simply gone – you’ll get nothing for it.”

We won’t “avoid” such machines in the future. One topic was whether or not we should actively strive to avoid “claw” machines for a while until they forget that they won. Of course, doing so simply delays the inevitable lesson that they’ll have to learn from such machines, so we decided not to avoid such machines.

We will never recompensate them for their lost money in such machines. When they try again and inevitably lose, we will allow them to feel the sting of disappointment and not undo that sting by reimbursing their money, as we’ve observed other parents do in the past. They have the freedom to spend their money as they choose, and they also have the freedom to lose it and to grow from the lessons they learn.

Still, I have to say I was honestly amazed when my two year old daughter moved the claw around jerkily for a few seconds, smashed the button, and was rewarded with a cute little stuffed animal. I honestly believe I could have played the machine for an hour and not won a single thing.

It’s Monday again, and that means it’s time for another Reader Mailbag.

I think I read an old post where you gave a suggestion into when it is good to utilize a credit cards rewards program and when it isn’t such a good idea. I don’t remember too much about the post but I think it’s somewhere along the lines of “you should sign up for the rewards program only if a certain condition is met”. I am trying to see whether or not I should keep my bank’s (Wells Fargo) reward program and it has an annual fee of $20.
- Raymond

Here’s my philosophy for rewards credit cards in a nutshell.

First, if you’re not earning multiple percentage points in rewards, don’t bother. A good rewards card will earn you more than 1% back in rewards. Some cards in some situations can earn you as much as 4% back. Don’t waste your time with a card that earns less than 2%.

Second, if those “rewards” are intrinsically tied to points that are very limited in terms of what you can use them for, don’t bother. If your “rewards” are tied to some catalog of consumer goods set up by your credit card holder, don’t bother with the card unless there’s some explicit way of maximizing that. For example, our Amazon card requires us to explicitly go to a catalog site and choose to use our rewards on Amazon gift certificates, which we can then use on all sorts of things.

Third, if the card’s rewards program encourages you to spend more at retailers that you normally don’t use, don’t bother. A rewards program should never cause you to alter your spending habits in the direction of spending more. Instead, look for cards in line with how you already spend your money, such as cards tied to the gas stations you use, the grocery stores you use, or aren’t tied to any retailer at all.

Use those three rules and you’ll filter out the vast majority of rewards programs. Stick with one that makes it through that trial by fire.

How did you get over the fear of introducing your blog to those closest to you? Weren’t you afraid they were going to know how deep your financial hole was? Did anyone judge you when you did reveal it?
- Gina

I really didn’t worry about it at all.

One big reason I started The Simple Dollar is I wanted to convince my friends and some of my family that it was okay to talk about money issues, particularly with me. I decided the best way to make everyone feel more comfortable about it is by confessing my mistakes right off the bat.

It actually worked. While it hasn’t wound up causing many big roundtable discussions about money, I have had many money-related one-on-one conversations with my family and friends about financial issues. They already know that I’ve messed up badly when it comes to finances and they also know I’ve done the footwork to figure out how to fix it. Add that into the fact that they know me personally and (most) judge me to be reasonably trustworthy (I think, anyway), they’re willing to talk to me about it.

I’m thrilled about it.

Another thing: if someone is going to look down at me because I’ve confessed my mistakes publicly and am working to fix the problems, I don’t really think too much of them. No one is perfect. Every single person you see makes mistakes – and they’re often big ones. If they simultaneously look down at me but, at the same time, don’t have the courage themselves to publicly share their life mistakes, I don’t really have a whole lot of respect for that.

How do you decide where to draw the line when discussing elements of your life?
- May

With an audience as large as The Simple Dollar has, this is an issue I’ve considered quite a lot over the years. I have a pretty set policy at this point.

If it directly affects just me, I’m pretty open about it. If it affects my wife, I know what boundaries she has about discussing elements of her life. The same goes for my kids – my wife and I have a policy when it comes to sharing about them.

I have a few minor disabilities that I don’t usually discuss because they usually don’t affect anything and I’m so used to them that I roll straight through it (for those curious, I am completely deaf in one ear, almost completely blind in one eye, and basically have no thyroid gland), although they have affected some of my financial decisions on occasion. In fact, those three minor issues might actually fill in a few little gaps for long-time readers.

When it comes to my family and friends, I obfuscate heavily. I will combine elements of different people. I will check with people before I write about them in any way that’s specific at all and allow them to read it first and veto it if they choose (no one ever has). I don’t feel it’s right to invade their privacy or dignity. I do have some blanket permissions from a few people very close to me to write about them (John being one).

I’m also careful with specific pieces of information that are irrelevant to the issue at hand but which could be used for identity theft. I often completely substitute false information in these cases.

There are times when these concerns can sometimes interfere with a full discussion of a financial issue on The Simple Dollar. In those cases, I usually do the best I can to make do while steering clear of those concerns. More than once, this has caused me to be strongly attacked by readers.

I am 31 years old with a comfortable income and no kids. I currently max out my Roth IRA contributions with a standing withdrawal from my bank account. I recently moved to Finland, so I am no longer receiving any 401(K) benefits. My 401(K) investments I had accrued with my employer in the U.S. is now just sitting in a Fidelity account. Is there any reason to roll this into a regular IRA? Or do I just move over some of it to the Roth IRA and stop contributing for 2010?
- Angela

The reason one would want to roll over a 401(k) is so that one has better access to investment options for that money. If you’re really happy with the options that Fidelity gives you for the 401(k), leave it there. Otherwise, I’d roll it over into a traditional IRA with an investment house that you trust (I usually recommend Vanguard).

A separate question revolves around converting a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. 2010 is the year to do this if you’re going to do it because there’s no income test for a conversion in 2010. Anyone can convert to a Roth, pay the taxes, and secure untaxed income in retirement. Should you convert? If you believe your tax rate in retirement will be lower than your tax rate now, then it’s probably worth your while.

No matter what, it shouldn’t affect your contributions for 2010. You should absolutely continue to contribute towards your retirement.

I have question about closing a Roth IRA to pay off debt. Currently I have 7500 in credit card debt and my wife has about 11,000 (once we use our tax return to pay off some of her debt). I had a mutal fund that isn’t performing very well, I have had it for 10+ years ($1600). I’m closing the account and adding it to an emergency fund that has about $150. I also have a Roth IRA with about $1600 in after an intial investment of $4000 (during the tech boom). My question to you is should I close this Roth IRA and use it to pay off debt, knowing that I will get penalized for closing it and taxed or should I just transfer it to a another account (Vangard or Fedelity Roth IRA)? Can I write off the Roth IRA loss ($4000 to $1600) on my tax return?
- Oscar

Your only penalty here would be losing the balance of your Roth IRA without converting it. Your basis for the Roth is the amount you put into the account – $4,000. If you take out the full balance – $1,600 – it’s just a straight loss of $2,400.

Can you claim that on your taxes? You can only claim it if you close ALL of your Roth IRA accounts at the same time. This sounds like it’s your only Roth IRA, so you would just need to close this one.

If you wish to move your Roth IRA, contact the business to which you want to move the account and explain your situation. They will be able to help you move the account.

I will be getting back a substantial reimbursement from he IRS but I owe just as much on a credit card which has an interest rate of 23%. Since I do not have any emergency fund, I was thinking of just banking that money and continue paying my credit card at approximately $500. a month. I know the logical thing to do is pay off the credit card and save the $500. monthly but I’m actually almost afraid of doing that. I live with my boyfriend and he is currently facing the possibility of a lay off. What are your thoughts on this. Should I save the large sum or pay off the credit card with it?
- Yomaira

If you’re facing the strong possibility of a layoff and you would have to support both you and your boyfriend with your savings, then you should bank the money and keep making minimum payments on that debt. A job loss is a significant risk with some pretty strong consequences.

Once the situation is clear, however, you should keep an emergency fund of about $1,000, take the rest of it, and make a giant payment on that credit card.

The most important thing you can do in this situation, though, is get out of the habit of using credit cards. Put them in a place where they’re hard to reach and learn how to live without them for a while. One common suggestion is the old “block of ice” trick, but that’s often fixed with a hammer. I like the “put them in a coffee can and bury them” trick better.

My husband and I had a wonderfully misspent youth and much of our older lives. We were not financially wise and the way things worked out we moved around a lot to stay employed. Moving takes money and we find ourselves at the brink of retirement with insufficient savings. Worse, we do not have a house that is even close to paid off. And finally, my husband is being forced to retire in June pushing us to make some financial decisions.

The bottom line is that where we are we have one good job but living expenses beyond our means. We could move to where life is cheaper but would then have no additional income or guarantee of job. What to do….?
- Delores

The first thought that comes to mind when I read your story is cohabitation. Do you have a room or two in your house that you could rent out to someone, perhaps a college student or someone in town for a short period for a consulting job? That’s one efficient way to reduce the burden of your mortgage.

The second option I would suggest is polishing up your resume and seeing if you can find work in the areas where you would consider moving. There’s no penalty in at least trying to find work, even if you aren’t successful. If you do find a job there, problem solved.

The final thing I would do in your situation is encourage your husband to do the same thing you’re doing. He should be beating the pavement hard looking for opportunities. Now is the perfect time to hunt up old colleagues to see if they’re aware of any work opportunities.

Good luck!

When I bought my car almost 3 years ago, I had 2 90-day late marks on my credit report. I didn’t know about them until I got my car loan. At that moment I was in a bad spot – my home and lifestyle mandate that I have a vehicle and my old one was dead in the parking lot (and yes, I was also young and dumb, excited to be buying a new-used car, and fresh out of college making good money while my student loans were still in deferrment). So I got stuck with 11% interest rate and was too stupid to do anything about it for a while.

Anyway, I thought you might be able to provide some insight about negotiating a lower interest rate on an existing loan.
- Julie

The first thing you need to do is go take a look at your credit report. Visit annualcreditreport.com and find out what your credit report looks like. You need to at least know what facts about you are being shared.

If you find anything on there that’s inaccurate, chase it down and get it off the report. This might take some time and some phone calls, but it’s usually not too terrible and it can make a big difference.

Once you’ve verified that the report is accurate and as good as it can be, you’ll want to head to a local credit union. Explain that you signed a very poor car loan and would like to refinance it. I don’t think direct negotiation with your current loan holder will do you much good here.

Good luck!

My husband and I and 2 kids love to go out to eat, especially Chinese or Thai food. We have done a great job in curbing our 4 times a week going out to once a week. Although both of us work, we are working to get debt free and any money saved goes to paying off debt. Hopefully we will only owe a mortgage by August. I am not too worried about the mortgage b/c interest rate is 4.75%. Back to my question: I really thinks my Dear Hubby believes that he is a king. When we go out to eat, he has to have the most expensive dinner and soup and salad and appetizer or sushi. The kids have come to expect this also, but we end up only ordering one thing between the two of them. I have finally convinced my dear hubby to drink water so the kids will not want a drink either. Our bill comes out to be $45 or more sometimes. And that is after I end up eating very light to compensate for his extravagance. We discuss this all the time and he feels I am wrong wanting to limit the amount he wants to eat. I feel that we should be able to indulge on special occasions (bdays and anniversaries) and on other going out days, eat sensibly. So who would you say is in the right?
- Nisha

If going out for a nice meal is something that your husband deeply values and he’s frugal in other areas of his life, you’re spending less than $50 to feed your whole family, you’ve cut dining out down to one night a week, and you’re spending quite a bit less than you earn, I think I have to side with your husband on this one.

Small extravagances, if done with forethought and moderation, are part of the spice of life and can contribute greatly to one’s enjoyment of life. If your husband’s one real splurge in a week is a very nice meal – one where the total family bill is still less than $50 – I see nothing wrong with it, particularly if you’re still spending substantially less than you earn ater that meal.

If your husband spends money left and right, then there’s a bigger problem at work here that involves overall responsible use of money and deserves special treatment and long conversations. But that doesn’t sound like the case here.

Why won’t you review [personal finance book X]?
- Sheila

First of all, there are thousands of personal finance books I’ve never reviewed and there are more printed every week. I have a single review slot each week to fill.

Because of that, I have to be somewhat selective about what I review for the site. I try hard to pick books that say something interesting to me and also to my readers.

At the same time, I try not to review books that engage in practices I dislike, like selling fear as part of the financial message or offering up highly questionable tactics without discussing the risks or drawbacks of those tactics. I don’t think books like that have value and I won’t waste editorial space on them.

After that, a major factor is availability. Does my library have it? Will the publisher send me a review copy of it? If one of those two is true, I’m much more likely to review it.

Got any questions? Ask in the comments or send me an email and I’ll try to include it in a future reader mailbag.