Shop A Docket

Does anyone still remember those obscure vouchers you find on the back of receipts? You know, "$6 Kebabs" or "$25 off your next dry cleaning bill" and other niche stuff like that? Sigh, I miss those vouchers even if they were just the same four ads re-printed on every receipt and were only ever useful once every couple of years.

As a reminder, I'll be back on the blog in February 2020, with no guarantee I'll have any new or interesting content by then.

Christmas Shopping

'Tis the season to be painfully waiting in a shopping queue while people are buying gifts and supplies as if the apocalypse is coming soon. Well, consider yourself lucky if you make it alive past December, as this time of year usually entails eating questionable food items that your relatives have conjured up with the intention of making your Christmas as miserable as possible.

Life Update! I will be on holiday after next week and will probably start posting again in early February 2020. Hopefully at that time, I have something to show for the upcoming 200th comic commemoration.

Out of Options

What's the deal with supermarkets? They tell you "If you have any feedback, please let us know" and then you tell them your feedback and then they're all "Slow down, pardner. We can't really do much about that." Why would they want my opinion on something in the first place if they're not even going to do anything about it?! And it's not just supermarkets -- public transport systems, the government -- the whole system is flawed, man!

Terms and Conditions

In the context of your usual storefront, terms and conditions with various legal jargon peppered throughout it doesn't help a lot of people. Customers don't read it (as the youngsters these days say: "Tea Ell Dee Are"), employees ignore it (except for those super annoying staff that catch you on this one particular clause they've memorized for no good reason except to make you look like a complete fool), managers need to spend time making sure the proper processes are followed (every time I use one of those KFC receipt offers, the manager is always pulled in).
Next thing you know, lawyers are getting in on the action by charging people money to explain the nuances of a coupon. Like, you spend $100 just to have someone say to you "Look, this coupon is expired, so, yeah...". If they're not already doing this, you can tell they're making enough money as is.

Gift Card

I've always thought that gift cards are just a socially acceptable way of saying "I had no idea what to get you, and I was running out of time but I didn't want to hand you raw cash". Some would argue that the experience of buying something is meaningful to the individual, to which I would counter: "Then you may as well have gotten them cash anyway".

Monetary Hallucination

Lightly inspired by the fact that I draw my money bags using largely the same shape as I do for garbage bags. But even so, I just can't shake the fact that money isn't worth as much as it used to. Not that it's currently equivalent to garbage, otherwise I'd be swimming in money.

On another note, we're coming up to 200 comics kinda soon. Keep your pants on for that, because you're going to need them...

Use your head

Considering the last time I checked, that crummy gold bar is only worth a measly $6000. Now, I'm no expert on high-value organs, but I'm fairly certain you could get more bucks for less brain. Not that I'm endorsing black market transactions of this nature, but if you think for a second: When was the last time the ol' noggin was good for something? Yeah, I thought so.

Travel Insurance

There's no question that travel insurance is infuriatingly complicated. More so, the promo codes that some providers are even more confounding. This comic is a tribute to that one time recently where I randomly stumbled across an old promo code for a travel insurance policy, and it turns it was still valid. Good ol' technical loopholes, saving you money where you weren't supposed to.

Superannuation

For those who don't know, I'm getting to that age when I have to start worrying about all kinds of ridiculous finance-related problems. Superannuation (which is to say only a subset of items related to retirement), insurance, car registration. Augh, it's as if people actively avoid teaching you this stuff in school so that you don't realise how much of a drag being an adult is. But who knows: In 10 years time, things will probably get even more complicated and confusing, which would make me yearn for the times currently.

Pocket Change

This is probably the reason why those skinny jeans with barely any pockets are so popular these days: You can't lose your stuff if you don't have pockets to put said stuff into. I would argue that distributing your things between all available pockets is a means of theft redundancy, where someone would have to painstakingly sift through all your pockets to get all your important items instead of just raiding one central location. So jokes on them, I just like carrying lots of useless stuff in my pockets anyway.

Short-term decision making

Whenever I find a good bargain at a shop, a surge of questions immediately flood my mind. How much am I going to save? Is this a good price compared to other shops? Could I find a better deal if I wait a bit more? After experiencing "paralysis by analysis" (now that I think about it, maybe that should have been the name of this comic?), I usually end up not buying said item, leaving me both disappointed at not owning this item and mentally bothered by all those noisy thoughts. Sigh, who knew finding a good deal was such a stressful exercise...

Tax Return

If you're in Australia, you probably know that tax time is due relatively soon. Wait, let me double check the date... Okay, it turns out we've got one more month until the actual due date. So continue goofing off until then. On a related note, did you know you can lose money during a tax return? I mean, that's $250 I'm never getting back.

True Value

Based on a recent event where I found myself unquestionably paying for some vaccinations totaling to $125, and then subsequently thinking about all those times I hesitate to pay more than $2 for any food item. It certainly goes to show that even the things we buy show out inner biases and subjectivity. Or maybe it's just me showing my frugality yet again. Both, perhaps?

Deadlocked

With supermarkets in the local area installing *gasp* actual barriers at the entrance AND a real security guard if it's one of those classy-looking places. Of all things, this comic basically came to mind as a result of thinking about this absurd new reality we live in.

It pays to spell correctly

I'm not sure what's worse: Dealing with people who can't spell or dealing with people who speak using Internet jargon like "LOL" and "BRB". Some people would argue that the main point of the message was still communicated regardless of spelling correctness. To those people, I can see you write all your electronic text files using the Wingdings font, I suppose? Professionals have standards... although it's not to say they were high standards to begin with.

Common Cents

To my surprise, people are more reluctant to take free stuff that doesn't directly interest them. Whether it be tasteless biscuits, a soggy old box or a concert ticket to some Eastern European band on the other side of the country, it's free.. but people don't want it? Understandably, the other side of that spectrum is basically being a hoarder, which is often less socially acceptable.
Not in my case! No, I relish the opportunity for free things! Tasteless biscuits? Give me all you got! A soggy old box? Perfect as a makeshift doormat. A concert ticket to some Eastern European band I've never heard of? *shrugs shoulders* Beggars can't be choosers.

Low Costco

This comic more or less came to mind when I found out that a certain someone in my social circle has decided to cancel their Costco subscription, after about 12 months of on-and-off purchases. And it makes sense; why spend $60 a year to shop at a distant warehouse where the only thing worth buying are the 1 kilogram packs of Reese's peanut butter cups?
Unless you're one of those crazed enthusiasts that basically buy-out entire sections at Costco, you're better off with that local supermarket whose name you still can't remember nor pronounce after years of shopping there.

The Other Option

When you live in a world where everything is overpriced and haggling is never an option (i.e. Australia), you often find yourself in situations where you're literally 10 cents away from that sweet, sweet bubble milk tea, but you had to settle down for that mediocre coffee from 7-Eleven. Well, if it helps ease the pain, that bubble milk tea was probably going to be just as mundane as the coffee from 7-Eleven, so nothing of value was lost in the end. Yeah, keep telling yourself that...

Re-selling

Car salesmen, real estate agents, online scammers: These people have a natural knack for flipping used items into profit. Unfortunately, I am not one of these people, so I have to make my money like how all the other clowns in this circus do. And no, I do not work at a circus, so please stop asking me that question.

The Bargain Bin

Do you know what it's like to eat marshmallows out of a garbage bin? Because I do and admittedly it wasn't as disgusting as I initially expected. Mind you, this was a couple of years ago at university and not some rat-infested street dumpster you'd find normally. I suppose that sort of mindset explains my indifference when it comes to buying the cheapest possible price for most items.

Double-Sided Coupon

Every month or so, I get this odd pamphlet of vouchers in the mail to be used at various local businesses. Disappointingly, this pamphlet is poorly designed such that they put all the interesting vouchers on each side of the same page, while always overlapping the vouchers on the other side. So when you go to cut one of them out, you inadvertently lose the other. It's so frustrating! I guess you could always get two copies of the same voucher page and -- wait, was that the solution this whole time?!

Choose and Lose

Recently, there's a supermarket I've been visiting on a semi-regular basis. Not because they sell items at affordable prices or have any particularly interesting stock, but because they put out free cheese samples in the afternoon. Unfortunately, their choice of cheese is sometimes questionable, leaving a bad taste in my mouth both literally and metaphorically. Or maybe it's because they leave it out for hours on end to develop that "extra aftertaste"? All the better to have premium end cheese at no extra cost, I suppose.

The Price is Not Right

Lightly inspired by all those times I'm browsing around in a shop, and the one thing that looks remotely interesting has its price tag missing. And then you go find out how much it really costs, and get immeasurably disappointed by how expensive it is.
That's why it helps to shop around, look for alternative options and compare prices. So next time your friends/family/people requiring social interaction suggest a place to buy a certain item, push 'em aside and point in the general direction of some obscure discount store that takes 45 minutes to get to, but sells the same product for half the price. Don't worry, your pals will thank you later... in a few years, if you're lucky.

Contraband

Back in action once again, after that marginally relaxing hiatus for the entirety of June. Interestingly enough, the total page views on this blog during that time actually surpassed some of the previous months, even though I literally didn't touch the blog for an entire month. So perhaps I should take more of these holidays...?
Whatever cryptic plans I've got up my sleeve, this week's comic is for all you boys out there in the airports, getting free stuff and then promptly realising that you can't bring it overseas anyway. I know the feeling, less so than the feeling of having to scull down two litres of freely acquired water in about 5 minutes.

Quick Sale

Have you ever seen those "25% OFF" or "ON SPECIAL!" stickers on various products in a supermarket, which also happen to be placed on crucial information, like the expiry date or the ingredients list? Neither have I, but I reckon it's happened to one of you out there. I mean, peeling would constitute deliberate product vandalism, so you'd end up buying it anyway. And the supermarket staff will probably tell you to stop being a baby and buy the darned item already. So you've got two choices: Live long enough to regret missing out on the sale of a lifetime, or just *YOLO* it and hope the ol' immune system is as good as it used to be...?

Loss Leader

Lightly inspired by various purchases made at a local Asian supermarket, where the price label and actual price at the checkout counter are two different values. So far, it's been somewhat generous, allowing me to save tens of cents so, as with all semi-random systems, I'd rather not push my luck more than I need to.

Also, time for a LIFE UPDATE! I'll be going on some holiday during June, so you may not see anything new on the blog for, like, a month or something along those lines. I'll try to post something on Wednesday or Thursday to account for the fact that I won't be around on the weekends to post as I normally would. But it might also not happen, in the event I horrendously underestimate the amount of time and effort needed to sufficiently prepare for a holiday. We'll see what happens in due time...

Nothing but bad news

Surprisingly, the English language doesn't really have a word to describe the fear of government agencies. I suppose for the conspiracy theorists reading this, one might conclude such a term has been deliberately redacted from the Internet by the powers that be.
Personally, I'm under the impression that the fear of Centrelink (and other government agencies in general) is more or less universal, and is actually quite normal. I have yet to meet someone who enjoys those sorts of interactions.

On Closer Inspection

Based on an actual listing on the Facebook Marketplace that I haphazardly stumbled into a few months ago. If you want my unsolicited opinion about the platform itself, it seems to suffer from the same problems that sites like eBay and Gumtree have to deal with, namely falsified seller reputation and listing subversion (e.g. some sellers set the price label of items to "Free" just to gain attention but then mention the actual selling price only in the listing description). Then again, I rarely buy anything from these online marketplaces, so what would I know about buying a cheap second-hand T.V. from some random person on the Internet?

Double Lifetime

Based on some articulated thoughts after stumbling across this "Golden Golden Gaytime" promotion while wandering around (mindlessly) in a nearby shopping centre some time ago. Yes, the Terms and Conditions text is a direct quote from the actual Terms and Conditions, under the Prizes subheading.
But can you imagine eating the same ice-cream product every day for the next 4 - 5 years? At least you won't have to worry about cooling off on a hot summer's day anymore. But eating ice-cream during winter might be problematic, unless you're a true fan of cold weather.

Splurging

As much as it shocks you, I do indeed spend money on non-compulsory luxuries from time to time. Most of the time, it's something small such as a pack of pork rinds or spicy peas. And sure, buying these things has no real future investment value, although I imagine the natural counter-argument would be just to work in the finance industry if you were solely aiming for returns on investment. So as it stands, at least there is some minimal joy in *gulps nervously and wipes sweat from forehead* spending money.

First-Time User Experience

As I happened to be searching the internet for affordable soft drinks, I happen to stumble across these well-known Australian purveyors of all things fizzy (i.e. they sell soft drinks). Oddly enough, the first few search results got me into these unusual situations after browsing around their respective sites for a bit. Interestingly, IGA have still left the misnamed "blckberry Ginger all" unaddressed, which either goes to show the unpopularity of IGA as a whole or the fact that nobody cares enough to do anything about it. Or maybe it is spelled correctly, but the product image is incorrect. I guess the mystery still continues...

Supply and Demand

You know that feeling: You're strolling around the supermarket, trying to look for something in particular and in one of the aisles, you notice an unusually large void of products on the shelf. It just so happens the product was on sale so everyone had the sudden urge to purchase a 375ml can of Pepsi. It also turns out you also had a craving for Pepsi not so long ago, but now you're left disappointed and parched, so now you'll have to settle down for one of those *shudders* alternative options, like L.A. Ice (is that brand still a thing these days?) or Thums Up (an interesting brand for all you cola connoisseurs out there).

Too good to be true

If I remember correctly, I think this was actually a placeholder item listing that was supposed to promote either the seller or some other item they happened to be selling at the time. What a letdown, although the fact that people actually use the Marketplace feature on Facebook is even more tragic.
So remember kids: If it sounds too good to be true, follow Uncle Dan's three easy steps - Stop the other person from talking, Look at any supporting evidence and Listen to your gut instincts using said evidence.

A Blast to the Past

Centrelink is like an elephant: It never forgets. Also, similar to an elephant, Centrelink often operates on peanuts (a euphemism for minimal funding and resources, although the literal meaning works too) and tramples all over you if you fail to appease the beast. And so, like any reasonable person, one would tend to stay away from Centrelink as much as possible, much like how you would react to an elephant.

This comic more or less wraps up the thematic series of comics on my current conundrum with Centrelink, getting my past income issues ironed out and straightening all those nasty tax records that I haphazardly sent through. Will I finally be free from the shackles of Centrelink after this? Only time will tell.

Missing Callback

Still continuing the Centrelink mini-saga, based on the always-confusing information that gets spat out by everyone's favourite government agency. Honestly, I'm not going to sit around eating Cheetos and watching "The Bold and the Beautiful" for the next 5 weeks while the fate of my savings lies idly in the hands of a bunch of butter-fingered toddlers (i.e. Centrelink). I'm going to march right up to them, look 'em straight in the eyes and say "Excuse me, why are you so incompetent?" before being pointed to the seating area. So tune in around the same time next week to see if anything useful came out of that dreaded interaction.

Tax Evasion

Look, it's one of those rare comics where I actually show some relevance to my current state of finances affairs. Yes, I'm still waiting for Centrelink to get back to me about my updates to my taxable income from 2016 - 2017, so I'm not looking forward to that AT ALL. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm in this weird purgatory zone, where even the slightest caveat could be the difference between being an idiot who can't file their tax return and a legitimate tax fraud.
So if you don't hear from me again after, like, April, it's because I'm either in jail, on the streets (repaying Centrelink debt is more or less like paying back a loan shark) or in a body bag. See you at the morgue!

Reject and Receive

Largely based on those situations where my parents always refuse gifts of money from anyone and everyone, simply because it shows "weakness" in one's social status. Soon, it turns into a competition of stubbornness in an attempt to wear down each other until the other party resigns and takes the money-related gift. And then I'm usually there thinking: "Why don't you just take the free money, so people stop staring at us?". Ah, well. I guess some questions are best left unanswered...

The Phantom Fee

That's $5 in membership fees I'll never get back from that one candle shop where I bought some crummy scented candle during that one time, and then the shop eventually ended up closing down anyway. Even worse are the recurring subscription-based memberships, and then they try to get you involved in some archaic points system, like this is some kind of primary school for idiots. Like, I just want to buy this one thing and get back to my mundane life! Is that too much to ask for?

EDIT: If you're wondering why the URL has a random "_4" after the comic name, it's because Blogger is being stupid and refusing to let me save and edit my posts as writing this. After a couple of re-drafts, it seemed to work again, although I'm not sure if it's possible to change the URL at this point...

How to annoy a telemarketer

Some days you have to deal with your personal conundrums once and for all. Other days you're on the phone with a telemarketer trying to sell you the same thing for the third time. Today was not one of those days, but hopefully better times are yet to come.
Having said that, this did happen the last time I got a telemarketer call. And to think I spent 20 - 30 minutes on the phone trying to get free solar panels. Still, best case scenario, you actually do get free stuff, so there's a useful exercise for all you optimists out there...

Limited Time Offer

When it comes to sale season, it all about mind games between the consumer and the supplier. Usually, this takes the form of seductive statements from the supplier that make you want to buy arbitrary things. On the contrary, the consumer has literally every other distribution channel (including the more questionable sources) to compare with. In fact, you probably know someone who goes by the "wait for those incredible savings" mantra, and to that I say: "I'll go get myself some duck à l'orange while you keep waiting for, quite possibly, nothing..."

The Centrelink Cycle

After being stuck on the train for 5 hours yesterday, with a power outage at one of the stations, mechanical failures and an emergency stop to some pitiful station called Auburn, along with multiple instances of misinformation from station staff (they also stopped apologizing about delays after the first 2 hours), I couldn't help but be reminded yet again of the sheer disappointment Centrelink brings. Then again, the government hasn't exactly been stellar in using taxpayer funds for purposeful use, especially in the last few years...

Centrelink

For some reason, I've got some mysterious lower back pain as I'm posting this, and the pain of having to deal with Centrelink somehow came to mind. After all, it has been a considerable while since I last interacted with Centrelink, and I'd prefer to keep it that way for as long as possible. But that doesn't stop this surging pain in my back, so here I am, in a constant toggling state of being pain-struck and feeling like things will return to normal soon. Is this what pensioners have to deal with all the time?

For a Good Cause

Yet another comic inspired by a true event last year, except it was insect-filled chocolate bars instead of cabanossi. It's like how petrol stations around the same area can sell at wildly different prices, and just by going to the petrol station on the next block can already save you a couple of cents per litre. But it seems that being at the right place at the right time for the right reasons can actually allow some rather unusual situations to manifest. Although identifying them to begin with is the biggest challenge...

Chump Change

For all those times when I pay for things in excessive amounts of low-value coins. And every time it happens, the same set of events happen: The clerk gives me a weird look and starts awkwardly counting all the coins I've spilled in front of them, while people in the general vicinity briefly stop and stare at me for a bit. Yeah, because society has never seen a guy pay with coins before. Sigh, people these days...

The Price of Thirst

Based on the fact that summer is currently underway here in Australia, and drinking that warm coffee from 7-Eleven probably wasn't a good idea in hindsight. Seriously, I press the "Iced Coffee" button at the coffee machine and all it does it make regular coffee! GGGRRRAAAHHH!!! I suppose all the other options produce actual iced coffee then! But I shouldn't be ranting about some $1 cup of coffee that I happen to acquire on a hot summer's day. After all, you get what you give...

The Art of Budget Cuts

Happy New -- ah, forget it, I'm already three to four days late, and I'm sure your social circles have spammed you more than enough times about this already. Besides, some of you are likely still recovering from all the partying since Christmas, so it's probably best for the both of us to slowly migrate into 2019.

In regards to the comic and its "experimental aesthetic", this should only be for this week only, thankfully. Unless people like this kind of art style, then I might consider doing future comics in a similar way.
Essentially, since the ongoing theme is money, it lends itself nicely as a premise for trying out different art styles. Also implicitly lets me skimp out on quality. It's a win-win!