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I started reading this new blog recently called I Will Teach You How To Be Rich. Every day he posts a way to save a small amount of money. Over time, all of this money you’ve saved should start to add up. Most of the things he posts about I already do/know but I thought his latest post on car insurance was really helpful since this is one of those areas that I feel like I don’t know much about.
His tips include knowing what kind of coverage you need, providing phone numbers for all of the major car insurance companies so you can shop around for prices, and including a list of questions to ask. All of this info is super helpful and will be sure to save you some money on your car insurance! Check out the rest of his blog if you’re looking for other ways to save money as well.
If you’re like me, you’re too lazy to clip coupons when you go grocery shopping. This website, Shortcuts.com, eliminates that! Too bad it only works for a few stores…hopefully they add more in the future. In my area, the only one that worked for me was Ralphs but your area might have more.
So how does the website work? You just sign up with whatever club card you have and then it will display all of the coupons available for that store. Next, just click “add” on whichever coupons you think you’ll use. Next time you go grocery shopping, the coupons will be automatically applied to your purchases! Pretty easy!
Man if you’ve been watching the news, you know what’s happening. It makes me so sad to look at my 401K. Good thing I’m young!
September Madness chart by Techcrunch - this is funny…it’s modeled after the march madness basketball brackets but is replaced with banks and government. The taxpayer isn’t on there…I guess that means there’s no way we’re going to win no matter what they do. bah!
Peter Schiff, economic adviser to Ron Paul predicts the economic situation we’re in now while the other guests on the show laugh at him. Btw, it was recorded less than 2 years ago.
I know the average american doesn’t understand what’s happening. It just looks like we’re bailing out these rich bankers from their mistakes but there is a bigger problem here.
Here is a great comment that I read on another blog that explains it pretty well for all of the naysayers:
The rest of you seem to think that because you have been responsible, you’ll be OK no matter what. So you are suggesting doing exactly what was done in 1929 — let investors lose their money and banks fail. You are essentially saying that Hoover policy - drive all the “rottenness out of the system” was correct even though most analysts agree that this is what caused The Great Depression. It took over 20 years, all the way to the 50s for the market to reach the same level it was at in 1929. Just the same level, no gain. Or have you all sold your stock two years ago? Do you think your job is secure and immune to this crisis?
I heard an old commentator on TV tell “when the market crashed in 1929, my father said ‘it serves them right’. A year later he had to close his business”. This is exactly what you are saying. Well, I hope a year from now you aren’t going to lose your job.
Even if you don’t work for banks, you are likely to be affected. Your company needs credit too. Oh yes, I know, according to some of you nobody is supposed to use credit. So do you think the companies shall just keep piles of cash lying in a vault earning nothing or just have it broken up in nice chunks of under 100K in multiple banks? No business can afford to do that. The cash is invested in the business. When a business needs to pay your salary it takes short term loans, then when it gets its revenue, it pays the money back. Without loans all business except for maybe some large cash-rich corporations (like the one I work for) can survive. But these corporation may be producing products that banks used to buy e.g. computers or furniture…. Without banks buying it, these companies will suffer to, laying off people and adding to unemployment. Currently there is almost total credit freeze - nobody lends money to anybody else. Many smaller businesses are having pretty hard time - businesses that had nothing to do with real estate or mortgages.
I also just love this “There is no reason to believe that these companies will change their ways”. What exactly is a company? Is it a single monolith? Is it one person? What percentage of the employees of any of these companies were involved in this type of decisions? Is a teller at a bank responsible? How about a database administrator? A network administrator? A computer programmer? Or a secretary to some manager? Think about thousands of people that were employed by some of these companies. How many of them do you think actually made the decisions that got us into this mess?
You are willing to “punish” thousands, maybe millions of people so that a few of those can “learn a lesson”? Newsflash. Those responsible for this crisis have already made millions and probably can retire nicely. You, on the other hands, may lose your jobs because the company you work for may have trouble getting credit it needs. Or because with so many unemployed people, there will be not many left who can afford to buy its products. Then you may have trouble finding another one because there are so many unemployed people around.
Oh right, all of these people were supposed to save money. Enough to live in for a few years of unemployment. What about young people? Those who graduated a year or two ago and still have student loans? They’ll be unemployed too.
Incidentally, unemployed people don’t pay taxes. What exactly do you think will happen with government budget with so many unemployed people? And how do you think FDIC will be handling bank failures after it runs out of reserves? Print more money? Here we go.
What about the real estate market? With the credit freeze as it is now, it’ll be extremely difficult to take mortgages. It already is. So the prices will fall. Good, right? Except for it’ll cause more foreclosures and more bank failures.
As Foobarista has already pointed out, the Great Depression had other effects as well. It spread to other countries. One of the countries it hit the hardest was Germany. Remember what happened next? Hungry people are ready to elect any charismatic leader who promises to feed them. Has anybody here ever experienced real hunger?
Yes Preston, your IDEALS are great - let thousands, maybe millions suffer just so we can punish a few wrong-doers. Are you sure you will not be affected?
- made by a person named Kitty (she did not leave a website or contact info)
It’s that time of the year again…Museum Day! Its this Saturday and to view a list of participating museums click here. I clicked on California and there are tons of museums listed. All for free! All you have to do is print out an admission card here. Museums I would recommend:
California Science Center - I have a thing for science museums. They’re always so fun! Museum of Tolerance - I haven’t had a chance to check out this museum but I’ve heard it’s really interesting. (It’s focused on the holocaust and human rights) Watts Towers Arts Centers - It’s in a seedy part of town but so worth it! I went with some friends awhile back. It’s amazing to see the towers that were built out of scraps and trash. Then afterwards go eat some yummy soul food.
Use coupon code TASTE to get a free 60 day subscription to Zagat. They do ratings and reviews on restaurants, hotels, and attractions for major cities.
Don’t forget to pick up your FREE southern style chicken sandwich from McDonald’s today. I am SO getting one of these biscuit ones.
All you have to do is buy a medium or large drink. The biscuit one is only available during their breakfast hours while the chicken sandwich is available the rest of the day.
If you’re like me, one of the best parts of traveling is the FOOD. I love trying different kinds of food, especially the ones that are native to that particular country/region. The Guardian just put out an article on the top 10 foodie destinations:
1. The best sushi in Tokyo
2. The best pizza in Naples
3. The best burger in New York
4. The Best steak frîtes in Paris
5. The best seafood in Sydney
6. The best pho in Vietnam
7. The best oysters in Ireland
8. The best juice in Rio
9. The best dumplings in Eastern Europe
10. The best tandoori in Delhi
You can check out the link for specific restaurants to go to in each country. I’ve only had one on the list, the sushi in Tokyo at Daiwa Sushi. And yes, it was soooooooo good and fresh! I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the rest of these places when I visit!
I decided one of my new year’s resolutions is to keep better track of my finances and to try to maintain a budget. Since I’m thinking about buying a house soon (in a year or 2), I really want to know how much I can actually afford without being house poor. Basically, I don’t want to give up my life and fun just to buy a house!
Anyways, after doing a ton of research on all of the different online web tools that are offered now, I’ve actually settled on an offline excel type sheet called PearBudget. It seems to be the most simple and straightforward way for me to easily see where my money is going and how much I’m actually saving each year. It’s supposed to only take about 10 minutes a week to update. I think I can handle that! Also, it was free.
I’m also going to keep track of my networth by using networthIQ. This way I can see how my investments are doing and where I need to improve on.
I tried out a few different websites but it came down to a combination of these two for me. I’d really like to use Mint but more than half of my banking institutions did not hook up to the service so it was pointless for me. Others might have more luck and I highly recommend going that route if you can. Anybody out there using any cool web finance tools?
*edit: After writing this post, I discovered BudgetPulse and Money Manager EX. I think I might try these as well for a month and then ditch one for the other depending on which I like better. My initial look at them seem promising though!
Walgreens offers a free 8×10″ photo via coupon code “FREE8X10“. You must visit a local Walgreens to pick up the photo, which is typically ready in one hour.
If you shop a lot on Amazon, you really should make use of this website, Refund Please. Basically, Amazon has a 30 day price guarantee. In other words, if the price goes down within 30 days from the day you bought your item, they will refund the difference. If you input what you bought onto this website, they will track the price for you for 30 days and email you if the price drops. Currently, they only support Amazon but they are working on adding more stores in the future.
It only takes a few minutes to input your data and it’s a quick way to save a few bucks or maybe more. Their largest credit refunded was $3860.00!!
I haven’t been using my Visa card lately because I’ve been getting much better rewards with my Mastercard and Discover credit cards but with this promotion, I’ll definitely have to remember to use it for these stores!
Visa has a promotion going on that applies to a select number of stores. Most of the deals are coupon codes to use online or actual coupons you can print out to use at participating stores. Some of the deals are pretty good consisting of 15% off to $10 off your purchase. Some of the stores are:
Target.com
Urbanoutfitters.com
Banana Republic
Netflix
eToys
Brookstone
Papa John’s Pizza
Most of these stores I shop at anyways so if I can shave a little off the top using my Visa card, why not!
Nintendo is giving away non-slip jackets for your wiimotes. I guess they heard too many people complaining about them flying out of their hands. I remember playing the wii with my little nephew and it flew out of his hand. Luckily it went straight up and not straight at the tv. Others weren’t so lucky:
Qeeper - this is my shopping blog I run with my sister. Cute finds for under $30!
Artificial Christmas Trees - Bring a Treetopian Christmas to your home with Treetopia's artificial Christmas trees
