As of tomorrow, about 75 percent of people who filed their last tax return specifying a direct deposit account should have received their stimulus rebate-a-ronis in their bank accounts. This is based on the schedule of payment on the IRS website. According to that schedule, tax filers with Social Security Numbers ending in the digits 00 through 20 would receive their directly-deposited stimulus rebates by May 2nd. Assuming a proportionate allocation of SSNs, that means 20 percent of direct deposit rebate recipients have their cash in hand right now. The majority of rebate-kateers—those with SSNs ending 21 through 75—will get their payments by tomorrow, May 9th. And an unfortunate few with SSNs ending 76 through 99 will have to wait until May 16th to get their rebates credited to their bank accounts. (As for people getting their rebates by paper check, some with unluckily high SSNs may not see their checks until mid-July.)

I wasn’t too upset about this payment schedule until I realized a few things:

1. My SSN falls between 76 and 99.
2. That means I won’t get my $1,200 rebate until May 16th.
3. Two weeks worth of 3% APY interest on $1,200 is almost $1.40.

Thus, the Federal government, by staggering the payment of these stimulus rebates, is cheating millions of people out of their $1.40. By my calculations, that’s about $140 trillion dollars people like me are being cheated out of, more than the entire economic stimulus package amount!

The reasons for the staggering payments have been cited before: the IRS and U.S. Treasury just can’t send out tens of millions of electronic and paper payments all at one time due to the fact that the entirety of the Federal government is still run on Apple IIe computers from the 1980s. So splitting the payment distribution into chunks by Social Security Numbers—which are more or less randomly assigned and evenly allocated by geography, financial status, ethnicity, etc.—seems to make some sort of sense.

Well guess what—it’s inherently biased against a really swell group of folks. That’s right, I’m talking about awesome people.

You see, just about everyone I know who is awesome has a Social Security Number ending somewhere between 76 and 99. For example, me. Here’s a list of just a few of the really awesome people whose SSNs fall in that pitiful 25% range of taxpayers who’ve been shunned by the IRS and the government:

• Most New York City firefighters
• That nun you see in the grocery store buying food for the homeless
• 90% of orphans
• Vietnam and Iraq War veterans
• Almost every Starbucks barista east of the Mississippi
• Santa Claus
• Spiderman
• All of the good living former U.S. Presidents

And if it isn’t bad enough that all of these amazing people are being punished just because they showed up too late (or too early) at the Social Security office, it turns out that a lot of terrible people were assigned SSNs with last digits between 00 and 20. Here’s just a sampling of the kinds of scum who are getting their rebate money before fine people like me:

• 67% of prostitutes
• 39% of convicted rapists
• The guys who canceled Star Trek
• Unwed teenage mothers
• Zombie Hitler
• The person you asked to the prom who turned you down because you were a nerd

Just how did so many losers end up with lower-ending SSNs while we monuments to humanity got the high ones? There are many theories, ranging from DNA profiling to covert behavioral analysis. But whichever school of thought you buy into, there’s little arguing that something is amiss with the way we’re being numbered.

By now you’re probably as outraged at this blatantly obvious conspiracy as I am. While the minions of evil are out there purchasing new cars and big-screen TVs with their rebates, people like you and me are stuck at home eating leftover lima beans and reading last month’s Reader’s Digest for the third time. And I bet you wish you could do something about it.

Well, there is. To be precise, there are three things you can do about it:

1. Write your local Congressman and let them know just how irate you are over the supposed “random” rebate payment schedule. Tell them that you’re just as awesome as, if not more awesome than, people with lower Social Security Numbers. Suggest that the next time there’s a stimulus rebate that payments be issued according to some more noble metric such as number of volunteer hours performed or number of homeless kittens adopted.
2. Write to the IRS and the U.S. Treasury demanding your $1.40 in interest. And if you’re getting a paper check in July, you should demand as much as $7.00. Be sure to let them know you’re a Punny Money reader so they understand right away just how awesome a person you are.
3. Refuse to stimulate the economy. The best way to say “screw you” to a government that has wronged you is to do the exact opposite of what they want you to do. For the stimulus rebates, that means not injecting that money into the economy. Put it in savings, stuff it under your mattress, burn it—just don’t spend it. That’ll teach those government number-crunchers to piss off the awesome people.

Finally, if the wait for your stimulus rebate is too painful to bear, feel free to print out the following simulated stimulus check and hold it in your hands for as long as you like.

Just don’t try to cash it at the bank or you might end up in Federal prison where the only stimulation you’ll receive will be of the surprise-from-behind variety, probably from someone with a low Social Security Number.

The end is near for my five-year-old laptop computer. I built this thing myself from parts just before my last semester of college. I’ve replaced just about every part since then at least once except for the casing and screen. Unfortunately I’ve just about reached the end of the line for what upgrades and repairs can do to keep it going. The keyboard is missing several key caps (I pulled off one of the “Ctrl” keys and put it where the “E” was), the power supply jack is wiggly, the memory capacity has been maxed out at 2GB, and the hard-to-reach internal Wi-Fi died long ago. Still, the laptop is capable of performing as well as a laptop you’d pay $800 for today, but it’s only a matter of time until a major component fails or more of the casing starts to fall apart and I’ll replace it altogether. My laptop is at Stage 3: Wait and See.

For a few years now, I’ve used a system of assigning ratings to expensive items I own in order to track where they are in their useful lifespan and make budgetary plans for items I may soon need to replace. For instance, a brand new item at the peak of its performance is in Stage 1: Good As New while that same item that just broke in half and no longer works probably belongs in Stage 5: End of Life (though it might only be in Stage 4: Obsolescence).

What exactly do these ratings mean, and how can they save you money? Let’s look at each rating and consider the circumstances under which you would use each of them.

Stage 1: Good As New

If you just went to the store and bought a product off the shelf, it should fall into this category. And if you properly use and maintain that item, it should stay in this category for a long time to come. Items that are Good As New are in flawless or nearly flawless condition and are as good as or even better than similar items currently on the market. Every feature of the item still performs as well as the day is was built. Good As New is obviously the best category of products to own, but it certainly isn’t the cheapest.

Product Examples:

• A new car fresh off the dealer’s lot.
• A refrigerator you just bought new at the appliance store.
• A refurbished DVD player you bought for $100 less than a brand new model.
• Your grandmother’s set of cookware, painstakingly maintained and better than anything you can buy on the market today.

Notice that Good As New doesn’t necessarily mean “brand new.” In fact, the age of a product is often irrelevant to its life stage. What matters is the condition. Some items, including many appliances and tools, can be kept in Good As New condition for decades with careful maintenance. (Others, like pretty much any consumer technology product or gadget, can be in perfect condition yet still fall out of Good As New status. More on that later.)

When to Replace: Items in the Good As New stage should almost never be replaced. Instead, money that would have been spent replacing the item can be used to repair and maintain the item to keep it in Good As New condition. If you’re in the habit of replacing items that are Good As New, you might as well take your existing products to the store, give them to the store for free, and then buy the items back from the store. Yes, replacing Good As New items is that dumb.

Less than 1% of new products you buy should be to replace items in the Good As New stage.

Stage 2: In Working Order

You probably think most of the items in your household right now fall into this product life stage. (And you might be right.) Products In Working Order still do the job they were originally tasked to do. They work well, they might be a little old, but there’s something newer or better out there. If you had an infinite supply of time and money, you would throw these items in the trash and buy some Good As New ones instead.

Product Examples:

• A 12-speed whatchamacallit when they just came out with a 15-speed.
• A fairly-equipped five-year-old car with no mechanical problems.
• A basic toaster that still toasts toast.
• Any functioning iPod that’s more than six months old.

Even without much maintenance or care, many products will stay in the In Working Order stage virtually forever. Unless something malfunctions or degrades due to wear and tear, that basic two-slice toaster could very well toast your great-grandchildren’s toast. Don’t try to tell them that though, because they’ll be using their 30-slice laser toaster while you’re still using Old Toasty.

When to Replace: If a product in your house is In Working Order, you should try to hold off replacing it for as long as possible. The toaster still toasts your bread like it did when you got it ten years ago; it just doesn’t toast the face of your child’s favorite Sesame Street characters into it like some of the new ones do. Or maybe it toasts 99 slices out of 100 properly, but it turns that unlucky one slice into charcoal. Instead of replacing In Working Order items with Good As New ones, you may be able to repair it or even enhance it with replacement parts (like I’ve done with my laptop).

Sometimes, though, it does make sense to replace In Working Items simply because newer versions with useful features or lower maintenance and operation costs exist. Since the current item is still doing the job, you should take your time to research newer versions and wait for a really good deal to come along. But only 5% of products you buy should be to replace items In Working Order.

Stage 3: Wait and See

Items that fall in the Wait and See stage of life are still quite useful and typically in fairly good condition, but they may have some problems or may be moderately out-of-date. You may be able to hold out for some time with an item that is Wait and See, but there are certainly a growing number of advantages to finding a replacement in Good As New or In Working Order condition.

Product Examples:

• My good old 1991 Nissan Sentra.
• A low-efficiency but working furnace that still keeps you warm during the winter.
• VHS tapes, or any other entertainment medium for which players are becoming rarer.
• My cell phone; it calls people and that’s about it.

Hanging on to items that are just Wait and See can sometimes be painful. Your neighbor certainly isn’t helping when he brings home a 10-speaker surround-sound entertainment system while you’re still watching TV on your 19-inch Sorny-brand tube.

When to Replace: Wait and See items belong on your Christmas list, even if Christmas isn’t for another six months. That said, you may want to replace the item yourself, especially if a newer item comes with great features that’ll save you time or money. But before you zip on down to the nearest big-box store, you’ll need to do your homework. Can your current product be repaired at a reasonable cost? (And if so, is there a good chance it will break again before long?) If repairs are out of the question, shop in-store and online for a replacement, comparing a variety of items and feature sets. Since your current item is still doing (most of) its job, you can afford to take your time here. Once you’ve found the right replacement product, consider selling the old one on your favorite internet market place or at a yard sale to help recoup some of the cost of your new purchase.

No more than 15% of products you buy should be to replace items at the Wait and See stage.

Stage 4: Obsolescence

You probably don’t have too many items in this category lying around the house; if you do, they’re probably gathering dust in the attic and you may have a bit of a pack-rat problem. Items in the Obsolescence stage suffer either from moderate to major mechanical failures that would be expensive to repair, very high maintenance or operation costs compared to newer versions, or incredibly outdated feature sets. Even if they still perform some of their original functions, you’re almost embarrassed to still own these products.

Product Examples:

• The car you spend $4,000 to repair every year. And there goes the transmission…
• Your desktop computer that can run Windows 98. Barely.
• A two-slice toaster that only toasts one slice at a time, and it takes 15 minutes to do it.
• Your 30-year-old vacuum that still sucks up 99% of dirt in your carpet… and redeposits 40% of it on your hardwood floors.

When to Replace: The typical item that has reached the Obsolescence stage in your average American household will get replaced inside of a week. That’s not always a bad thing, but it does mean that most people don’t shop around first for a good deal. Just because your washer and dryer are on their last legs doesn’t mean you have to replace them today. You might be able to bum a couple of loads off of neighbors, or you could always hit up your friendly local laundrymatista. For entertainment or convenience products, you may be able to wait quite a while for a bargain price to come along before pulling the trigger.

Still, you may not be in a position to wait months or even weeks to replace items you use frequently such as major appliances, automobiles, or computers. As usual, consider the repair cost and frequency before dropping a wad of cash for a Good As New replacement. If fixing the product isn’t possible and its days are numbered, start frequenting internet deal sites, keeping a close eye out for prices that are “good enough.” You might not be able to score the deal of the year based on your timetable, but you don’t need to settle for the first new item you see.

30-50% of products you buy should be to replace items at the Obsolescence stage.

Stage 5: End of Life

It’s over. Finito. Kaput. Your product has gone to that great junkyard in the sky. You might as well not even own the item anymore. (It might be cheaper that way for some things, since large appliances can be difficult to haul away.) If it’s a product you absolutely need right now, then you better hit the road (assuming it isn’t your car that bit the bullet) and do some serious shopping. Hopefully you saw the untimely demise of your product coming (i.e. it didn’t just jump from Stage 1 to Stage 5 overnight) so you’re already looking around for a replacement.

Product Examples:

• The only thing coming out of your toaster toasted is itself.
• Your car just exploded. A lot.
• You now have two whole-house heaters: your furnace and your air conditioner.
• You just burnt dinner, your whole house is smokey, and the smoke detector with the new battery just sat there silently.

When to Replace: As with items in the other stages, consider if repairs are possible and economical. If they’re not, determine your timeline for replacement. Much like items in Obsolescence, End of Life items may not need to be replaced right away if they’re products you don’t use all that often. If your portable MP3 player just played its last tune, you’re certainly not going to die if you wait a week or two for a good deal on a new one unless you have some sort of strange disease where you need to hear music all of the time or else your brain implodes, which you don’t. Even items you think you need to replace today—dishwashers, microwaves, televisions—can probably wait a bit… at least until you have a chance to scour the internet for a baseline of prices.

And if the idea of dropping a ton of money on a Good As New item makes your stomach turn, you could always look for an item In Working Order or Wait and See condition. Some products, like cars and electronics, are easy to find used at a good price and in good shape.

50% or more of products you buy should be to replace items at the End of Life stage.

By keeping your product replacement habits in line with the suggested budget percentages listed in this article, and by taking care of the things you already own, you can help control the natural consumer impulses to buy the newest, biggest, and best items available. And if following this advice means that you end up with a house full of items in Stages 2 to 5, don’t be embarrassed; be proud that you’ve resisted the urge to splurge needlessly.

As for me, I’m still on the lookout for a new laptop, so hopefully no more keyboard letters fall off until I can find one at a dcnt pric. Oh crp.

According to some guy who thought we were all gonna die on Y2K, the skyrocketing price of oil may soon doom suburbia. In place of the sprawling suburban landscape will be a return to small towns situated around retail hubs with everything in walking or bicycle distance. You’ll travel between towns by trains powered by enslaved poor people, and you’ll never eat fruit out of season again.

Okay, so maybe this guy’s just a bit of a nut-job and the future of American society isn’t that grim (or hopeful, depending on how you view suburbia). But there’s no debating that today’s world of the 100-mile commute only came about thanks to gobs and gobs of dirt cheap oil. If anything ever happened to that cheap oil, a lot of things we take for granted today would become a thing of the past.

So what would super-expensive oil mean for your life? Well, if you buy into the end-of-the-world theory, then things would quiet down pretty quickly after an initial few months of rioting that would leave millions dead of violence or starvation. Those small towns I mentioned would start to form gradually with support from local farms and nearby light manufacturing. If your current career is physician, barber, handyman, or prostitute, you’d continue in your profession; otherwise, you’ll become a common laborer hopping from job to job.

The good news is that all of those environmental catastrophes that scientists are predicting for us would go away because nobody would be paying scientists to make those sort of predictions anymore. The air would become cleaner, people would get more exercise from walking and performing more physical work, and the average American’s quality of life would ultimately reach a new high. Eventually your town would put up one of those adorable signs that says “Name of Town, Population: Some Teeny Number.”

Personally, I don’t think we’ll ever end up like this because most people would probably shoot themselves before giving up their automobiles. Or perhaps science will invent us a way out of this with a cheaper, renewable alternative energy source that will be quickly adopted and is already available in large quantities. And if not, when we’re lining up to exchange our office jobs for small-town work, I call blacksmith.

It’s looking to be a big big summer at the box office this year. Tons of highly-awaited movies are coming soon to a theater near you—movies like Old Guy With a Funny Hat, Old Woman Looking to Get Some, and Kids in a Crazy Magic World. With so many great films, and with ticket prices approaching the price of a semester of Harvard tuition, it won’t be easy to choose which ones will get your hard-earned entertainment dollars. Use this guide to help you maximize the bang you get for your movie buck this summer.

1. Catch a matinée. Do you really need to see that movie at 9 o’clock at night? Here’s a tip: they show the same movie at 2 in the afternoon, and the ticket prices are usually a good deal cheaper. Some theaters have matinée showings that start as late as 4pm so you can catch a flick and still be able to spend your $100 for overpriced restaurant food.
2. Check for discounts and special offers. You might be able to shave a buck or two off the regular ticket price by presenting your AAA or other association membership cards. Also look in the back of Entertainment Books (on sale for as little as $5 now) for coupons that’ll knock a few dollars off even full-price admissions. Be sure to read all of the fine print with any discount offer as some promotions can’t be used for new releases.
3. Go for the dinner/movie package deal. Some restaurants close to movie theaters will offer discounted tickets with a meal purchase. If you were planning to dine out anyway, you might as well take advantage of these offers. Just make sure you’re not walking into a super-pricey restaurant.
4. Don’t order tickets online. Yeah, it might seem like a smart idea to order your tickets over the internet and print them out at home or have them waiting for you at the theater, but there’s usually a fee that’ll tack an extra 10-20% on to your ticket price for ordering them online. Unless you’re worried that a hot show is going to sell out before you get to the box office, don’t pay extra for a pseudo-convenience.
5. Sign up for movie rewards. Just about every major theater chain has a reward program that’ll give you something like a free small popcorn after you see 37 movies. It’s not much, but there’s no need to leave free stuff on the table.
6. Skip the popcorn. Seriously, why are there not laws against five bucks for ten pieces of popcorn? And what sadistic jerk thinks that selling a 50-cent package of M&Ms for four dollars is okay? With prices like that, you have a duty to sneak your own snacks into the movie. Just be careful where you hide them since some movie houses now search bags for hidden video cameras. (Personally, I find that strapping some Skittles to my wife’s upper thigh is a smart and sexy way to enjoy a treat at the movies.)
7. Look for second-run theaters. They’re hard to find nowadays, but these hidden gems can save you big bucks and still let you catch newer movies in theaters before they come out on DVD. Ticket prices start from just a dollar or two, so it’s worth it if you don’t mind waiting until everyone else has stopped talking about the movie to see it.
8. Don’t buy into the hype. You’re not going to die if you don’t see Spiderman 12 and Harry Potter and the Sandwich of Magnanimity in theaters. For less than the price of just two theater tickets, you’ll be able to buy the DVD when it comes out. Or you could rent it for much less than that. Or you could just give the movie industry the finger until it decides to stop cranking out sequel after lame sequel, which will be never.

Now you can go see that horrendous insult to a classic anime series or whatever crap DreamWorks’ computers spit out this year and still have enough money left over to build that flying robot suit you’ve always wanted.

You search for it, you get it here at Punny Money with our not-too-frequent feature Search and Ye Shall Receive. Today we look at three search engine queries that brought some people seeking financial enlightenment to this humble quadrant of the internet.

Since the IRS Gave Me a Refund, Will They Not Come After Me For Deducting My Hair Extensions?

If you get your tax refund, will you not be audited? (via Google)

Oh if only it were that easy. No, my friend, when you get that delicious little refund check in your hands, your IRS worries are only just beginning. Uncle Sam has three years from the day your tax return is filed (or the April 15th deadline, whichever is later) to audit your return. If it establishes that you owe money, it has up to ten years to come after you for it. And if it determines that you filed a fraudulent return (i.e. you claimed your weekly visits to the local brothel as a “medical expense”), there’s absolutely no statute of limitations.

So always live in a state of paranoia because you will get audited and chipmunks are waiting to steal your car keys when you go to work tomorrow.

What Benefit Is There to Not Having My Account Information Sent By Pieces of Paper Anyone Can Steal?

What are the benefits of paperless statements? (via Google)

Well, I kinda gave away one of the answers to this question in the snarky headline; getting your bank and credit card account statements sent to you online is about 83 thousand times safer than having them molested by half the U.S. Postal Service before being deposited in a mailbox that’s about as easy to break into as a papier-mache ATM machine. But there are other benefits than just security to keeping stacks and stacks of statements from hitting your home:

• It takes up less room in your trash can.
• It saves you time spent weeding out junk mail from important account information.
• It’s easier to store electronic statements for years than shoe boxes full of papers.

I Can Has College?

Can I go to college? (via Yahoo!)

Without knowing anything else about your situation, and basing my answer solely off your question, I would say no.

Oddly enough, someone else searched for the phrase “I can go to college” shortly after this query was received. To this person, I say congratulations and I look forward to having my Big Macs served by you in the future.