Black Friday

Today is Black Friday, traditionally the "kick off" date for holiday shopping. This is the day where those of us who are a little crazy, get up before the crack of dawn and head to the malls. Sometimes, we don't even sleep. Malls opened at midnight in some places and a lot of major stores are opening their doors at 4 or 5 a.m.

Now, I usually don't count myself among the crazy... usually, but this year I am making the trek out at 3:30 in the morning for a quick runaround some places. Yes, it is crazy and I am still wondering whether I'm losing it but I don't qualify as insane... yet.

Insane would be already standing in line somewhere. At this hour, 1:30 in the morning, lines have already formed at many retailers. Here in Chicago, where the temp is around 30 degrees, I would say that that qualifies as insane.

So what kind of deals are we talking about here? There are some pretty good ones out there but not as amazing or crazy as years past. But these are hard times. People are struggling to give their kids what they want. And, unfortunately, most kids aren't old enough to understand why they can't get everything they want. So parents, much like my parents did when I was a kid, did what they had to do... get some or all of what the kids want without breaking the bank. That's not an easy task.

We've posted as many of the Black Friday ads we could get our hands on, listed some online retailers, and put together some other holiday deals. Check it out.

So I'm going to brave the stores, what are you going to do?

Gift card giving

Okay, so it's that time of the year again when you've got to buy a present for someone who has everything or is just too impossible to buy for. I have several of those people on my long list each and every year. Those people are why I tend to buy lots and lots of gift cards.

But you know what, you can do pretty well yourself if you buy gift cards.

During the holiday season, some companies try to encourage customers to buy gift cards at their establishments buy offering a "bonus" for the buyer. An example would be going to Home Depot, buying a $25 gift card and getting 2 free movie tickets for Bedtime Stories. Not a bad bonus for something you were going to buy anyway. I've created a thread with an ongoing list of bonuses like this. Check it out.

Now what I like to do is take advantage of gift cards for myself. Several restaurants offer bonus money on gift card purchases during the holidays. There's a local pizza place that I frequent quite often (twice a month often) that offers a $25 bonus gift certificate for each $100 gift card I buy. Well, given that I go there so much, I can easily go through a couple hundred bucks in a year. So each year around this time, I buy up two $100 gift cards for myself and pocket the two $25 bonus certificates. I'm going to spend the money there anyway, why not get more money to spend?

The one thing to be careful about this year, more than in years past, is the solvency of the establishment you're buying from. I suspect that one or two of the major restaurant chains may go belly up and then you're stuck with lost money. That's never any fun. But if you use your best judgment, I think you'll be fine.

So gobble up (hee) those bonuses and pocket some presents for yourself while you're shopping this year.

Holiday deals are comin' soon!

I've been remiss in my blogging but glad to say that I'm busy as a bee, which means I'm not losing business just yet. That's always a good, but especially in this economy.

And now the holidays will soon be upon us and I'm gearing up for some good deals and ready to share them with you. New forums have been added to consolidate all the deals and allows everyone share what they find too.

So, with Black Friday less than two weeks away and the retailers freaking out about sales, I can see that there will be a lot of bargains to be had. 

First up will be the outlet malls opening at midnight the day after Thanksgiving. I guess that means taking a nap after dinner and heading out early. 

So are you going to go out on the busiest shopping day of the year or are you going to sit in your pajamas and surf the Net for the best deals? 

Me? I'm still debating.

Lunch, lunch and more lunch

Well, the verdict is in. Eating lunch out is a lot of money. $6 or $7 may not sound like a lot of money but add it up over five days, then a month and then a year and soon you're looking at over $1500 a year! And that doesn't include the two or three day a week Starbucks habit.

So brown bagging is in. Leftovers are looking better and better. It's now cool to bring your lunch to work. Who'd have thunk it?

But it's amazing to me that I still hear people in line at Panera talk about how bad the economy is and how they need to save money and then turn around and order a lunch for 10 bucks. It's like people think they have to eat, which is true, but don't think past "where am I going to get food if I don't go out." 

A few bucks for a loaf of bread, a bit more than that for some lunch meat, add a buck or two for some condiments and you've got yourself a sandwich with enough to make several more.

Try it for a week, see if it can work. What's the worst that's going to happen? You spend less and probably end up eating a bit healthier than the burger you picked up at McDonalds.

If you're one of those people that eats out every day, I'd suggest brown bagging it for only a couple days a week at first. When we first started doing it, we chose a day a week to take off from packing a lunch. By alternating days or whatever works for your schedule, it'll help the new system take. 

Go on, just try it.

I don't think I can watch the stock market anymore...

... it's starting to depress me. Now I don't have a ton of money in the market, I actually don't have a ton of money at all but that's beside the point. I see stocks like Microsoft and Apple drop to 52 week lows and at face it looks bad. But really, these companies are worth more than the market is saying, right? At least that's the way I understand it and I don't understand much.

So what does it mean that everything is crashing down in price, and food prices are rising and gas prices are falling and banks are failing and our illustrious presidential candidates are saying the economy is bad but they can fix it? That last part is a crock of s**t. What our illustrious leaders should be saying is, don't panic. Panic is what can make a weak economy go boom. We don't want that. 

That's the problem with personal finances too. I find that if I lose a few bucks (okay more like 30%) in the stock market, I start to panic and start thinking about whether I can afford to buy a bag of chips for lunch or maybe I should just skip lunch all week to save money. It's a natural reaction to panic and I have to catch myself from jumping into panic mode.

Just today, we were talking about what would happen if I lost a client or two, and I joked about selling the house and moving into an apartment. But to be honest, that would probably end up costing more. I didn't buy too much house ten years ago and though it's lost value in the housing crisis, it had gone up enough prior that it still is "sellable" at over 50% more than I purchased it for. Besides, I'd go nuts if I had to lose my laundry room.

Markets run in cycles, the whole economic world does. What I need to do is just chill and continue to invest as I did before ($100/mo. into Sharebuilder). By doing so, I am taking advantage of the highs and lows of the stocks I buy. Dollar-cost averaging is what I believe it is called.

So my advice to you: don't panic. It will run its course and in no time, another industry bubble will continue to balloon until it too busts and we end up back here again. But hopefully, we'll be a little bit better off then than we are now. 

Keep the change...

So I've gotten in the habit of saving coins. I don't know where it started, just suddenly seemed to have a lot. So I put the coins in a jar, and then as years passed, the one jar became two, three and so on.

We're not talking about a lot of money but a couple hundred dollars is a fair amount to just have laying around doing not much more than taking up space on my shelves. So what do you with it?

Take it to a bank and deposit it was my first guess. Did you know that most banks charge to deposit coins now? Unless you put them in those paper rolls? The average bank charges 5% for coin counting. On about $300 in change, that's $15 bucks right off the top. No thank you. I feel my time is better spent clipping coupons than filling up roll after roll (which, by the way, you have to buy).

And then there's Coinstar. You know that big green machine in most grocery stores? I see a lot of people using them so I thought I'd check it out. Their rate: 8.9%! That 5% was looking pretty good at that point.

But then I looked further and lo and behold, you can get free coin counting from Coinstar if you turn your change into gift cards or e-certificates. And we're not talking about ObscureStore.com here, we're talking Starbucks, amazon.com, Borders, and even AMC Theatres. These are places I shop at anyway.

Check out Coinstar's website here for a full list of what stores they work with and where you can find the machines that have the ones you want.

So why pay to convert your coins into bills, or even deposit them? They'd do better sitting on the shelves. Why not turn the change you have been collecting for years into something you can use?

I ended up using my loose change for a $289.52 gift certificate for amazon. Definitely takes the sting out of an impulse purchase.

The way people think

So I ran across this comment on the web the other day in a discussion about the American Express Black Card. Have you ever heard about it? I hadn't, but in seeing what it was about it, I could see why I hadn't.

The comment went something like this [paraphrasing]: "Those with black cards think differently than other people. One come in the grocery store and bought a 24 pack of Coke for like 6.99. 'I told him that we had 12 packs on sale 2 for 5. He said it doesn't matter.'"

That comment threw me. Not because I was surprised, I'd seen it a hundred times before in my trips to the grocery store, but it threw me because I fight tooth and nail to save a buck or two and there are still people throwing around money to the tune of a $2500 annual fee PLUS a $5000 initiation fee. And no, I didn't forget to put a decimal in there!

But I suppose that person is right, those with money think differently than those without. Why is that?

I like money, who doesn't? But I like to keep my money. When I was just starting to save, I noticed that when I had finally scraped together a hundred bucks or so in my savings account, I wanted more. I wanted to keep building it higher and higher. I felt like a telethon where they have the thermometer thing that shows the higher total.

When I started out saving, it was a big deal. I wasn't exactly young and out of college. I was just about to turn 30 and had no money in the bank, no retirement set up and just left my full time job with a foolish dream of freelancing.

So what happened?

Well, I can credit my younger sister for the coupons and rebates lessons. My parents for the buying of a house so I had something to show for my monthly living quarters expense, and a basic sense of what I wanted to achieve and the sheer will to achieve it. And believe me, it wasn't easy and at times it wasn't pretty.

It started as a challenge to myself. I would use a coupon, a savings card from Albertsons, Safeway, whatever, and then I would take whatever the total savings was on my receipt and I would deposit that in a savings account. I rationalized that if I didn't use the coupon or savings card, I wouldn't have the money so I put it away.

You know, it adds up.

The next thing I did was sign up for a withdrawal from my checking account each month, just about $10 to start with. I didn't notice it so it was a good amount. I bumped it to $25 a year or so later and it's worked well ever sense. In fact, I've got several thousand in there now. A forced savings if you will.

See, I don't go all out to save because if I did, I'd most likely hate doing it and end up stopping. I took the avenue that worked for me, hiding a little bit at a time. Slow and steady can get just as far as long as it's consistent.

That works for me, what works for you?

Where to put your money

Washington Mutual is now a part of JP Morgan Chase.

Wachovia is now Citibank.

These past few days have seen a big shakeup at the banks. I have a personal account at Chase and a joint account at WAMU. Now I guess they're all going to be the same. I suppose that it's a good thing that I don't have to worry too much about being over the $100,000 FDIC insurance limit!

So where do you put your money? You want it to be safe but you also want to make more interest than stuffing it in your mattress.

A couple of years ago, I found ING DIRECT. It's an online bank and its interest rates were attractive. I was skeptical at first, it being online and all, but then I realized that I don't really go to the bank that often anyway. What's the difference really between an online account and using the ATM all the time?

There are some drawbacks, of course, there almost always are. Deposits are on hold for a short time (5 days I believe) and you have to have a checking account at a brick & mortar bank to link to in order to transfer in and out of an Orange Savings Account. The transfers can take up to 3 days but in my Chase linked account, I almost never not see it in my account the next business day.

I admit it, I bought into initially because they were offering a $50 bonus for depositing $250. But I've come to love this bank for many reasons.

1) No fees, minimums, liquidity of cash, etc.

2) Interest rate is pretty decent for a savings account, 3% APY as of this writing.

3) Access is limited, albeit not much.

#3 is important to me because I use the account as my rainy day, emergency fund and you never want too much access to that. The cash is totally liquid so I don't have to worry about breaking a CD and paying penalties. And the interest rate is comparable to most CDs these days.

ING DIRECT offers more than just a savings account. They offer CDs, an electronic checking account (Electric Orange) and a variety of other products you'd find at a bank. It's fully FDIC insured so your money is as safe there as it is anywhere. 

Check it out. Email me if you want a referral to get a bonus (get a $25 bonus when you make an initial deposit of $250) or you can open an account with as little as you want.

So go ahead, get that emergency account started. 

Living within your means

Ugh, I hate that phrase. But these days, with the way prices are rising and raises at work are becoming a thing of the past, that phrase seems to hold more meaning.

I received an email the other day from a client on a job I hate to do. I mean, I hate every minute of it. And there are a lot of minutes (about 6,000 of them). Last year, I had sworn not to do it this year. 

And yet I stared at this e-mail trying to decide.

Then, while I was on the phone with someone, they were talking about how a good friend of theirs just lost his job. This was a good job. His wife works too and makes a fair buck but nowhere much as he did and they have a couple kids. But this could be a blow to their lifestyle. Now, I didn't ask if they had money in the bank or anything like that, but the fact that it happened made me think (always a dangerous thing :-))

What would happen if one of us lost our jobs (or in my case, a major client)? That thought has crossed my mind more often these days, but I have been fortunate enough to have been thinking about it long before the economy went to hell.

First and foremost is to live within your means. If you make $30,000 a year, you don't spend $30,000 a year. And I would hope this goes without saying, but you don't spend more than $30,000 a year. Credit cards are not an extension of your income! (Though I know there are cases where there necessity is there.)

Second, build a safety cushion. It doesn't have to be big, just something to have around in case of a job loss, a water heater going out or a repair on your car. Experts recommend about six months salary but who are we kidding, I'd be lucky to have a month's salary lying around!

Third, reduce your debt. That's always a tough one, especially if you have no safety cushion. What works for me is to take a portion of what I can afford and put it in a savings account.

So out of say $400 a month that can go toward credit card bills, I take about $50 and put it in a savings account. It slows up the debt reduction but it allows not having to use credit cards in emergencies and lowers the stress level of not having any backup savings. Of course, that's just my opinion.

I don't like debt, and I do everything in my power to not have any. My car got paid off and I continued to make car payments to myself so that when it finally did die about eight years later, I was able to pay cash for a new car.

Living within my means involves a few sacrifices along the way, but I am much better off for it. I used to say that I'd work at McDonald's flipping burgers if that was the only way to pay my bills. I still believe that. No job is bad enough to sacrifice feeding yourself or your kids.

So what did I do about that crappy job? I took it. I'd have been crazy not to.

Saving money is like dieting...

Seriously, what is the difference between pinching pennies and counting calories?

If you keep the pennies off your bill, you're that much richer. If you keep calories out of your food, you're that much thinner, right?

Okay, that is really not my point. The point is that while it is great to save money and great to diet, you cannot take either one to the extreme. 

That seems to happen a lot when dieting, denying yourself indulgences, counting each and every calorie and then getting upset at yourself if you go over by a small amount. It can just make you miserable.

A friend of mine once starting socking away every single penny she could. I mean, she never bought anything she didn't absolutely need, never went out and basically didn't have any life. 

Then she cracked and went on a spending spree. She'd deprived herself so much that she needed to overindulge. 

Same with dieting. If you consume yourself with every calorie, one day you will crack and you will overindulge. It's just a natural thing to do.

So what do you do? Again, saving money is just like dieting. You have to give yourself a break and be a little flexible.

Every once in a while, go out to dinner, hang out with friends, do what makes you happy. You can do it without spending your life's savings. You'll find that you can keep up the savings if you release yourself from the constraints a time or two.

And if I'm sticking with the diet comparison, have a candy bar once in a while or whatever it is you've stricken from your life. 

Bottom line is that you cannot keep denying yourself something, whether it's money or food, for too long of a period or you will crack. And if you crack, you probably will do much worse damage to your pocketbook or scale than you would if you allowed yourself to indulge once in a while.

By the way, that friend spent two years paying off that "splurge" she went on. The credit card fees and interest added up to another 35% over what she spent initially. The plus of it was that she never did anything like that again and I will always remember that happening to her. 

It was a good lesson for me as well, luckily a much less expensive one.

Watch those gift cards

Ever used a gift card only to find out that it's empty? Figured you used the money at some point and just didn't remember? Or maybe you received it as a gift and felt odd going back to the giver?

You'd be surprised at how often gift cards go awry.

Take this for example: I stop by a hair salon to pick up a gift certificate for my mother on Mother's Day. Normally I get the paper ones but on this day, there was a line and a very exhausted saleswoman taking order after order. Apparently a popular gift that year. So I finally get up to the head of the line and they're using these new gift cards, electronic and much easier to track. So I paid for the card, in cash, and proceeded to the family gathering (I was a bit behind that year).

Fast forward about a month later and my mother is at the hair salon and attempts to use said gift card. Only there is nothing on it. Nada. Zilch.

Fortunately, this is my mother, and if I was going to scam her out of a gift, I would have picked up a 99¢ coffee mug at Walgreens, instead of a gift card. After calling me, and me explaining that I paid cash and back and forth with the salespeople, it was finally resolved. But it was resolved in the fact they believed her, not that they found out what happened.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. So did she when a similar incident happened to a "refund card" at a store just last week.

1. Always keep the receipt with the activation or proof you bought one.

2. Use a credit card, it will help with supporting documentation should you need it.

3. Keep a record in your head or a note or whatever works for you. Know if you use only a portion of it and know how much you have left on it.

Gift cards are a great gift, especially for those people that are hard to buy for (yes, Mom, I'm referring to you). But remember that gift cards are essentially money and should be treated as such.

Trimming the budget again

So I get my bill for my phone, the landline, and it's gone up again. Just a few more cents to $69.03 but still enough to get my attention. 

When I first signed up for this service, it was pretty cool. All distance, caller ID, all the bells and whistles...plus it had an intro rate of about $40. 

I should have known better.

So here it is, several years later and the intro rate is long, long gone and the bill is going up slowly but surely in the meantime. Time to do something about it.

Now I need a landline, that much is true. But do I need the long distance part? Probably not, I could use my cell phone. So I checked into AT&T and saw I could get a smaller package for about $30 that would give me unlimited local calling and 200 minutes in local long-distance. Sounded not bad. Then there would be a "nominal" charge for the extras, such as non-published, caller ID and so forth. Nominal? Yeah, right. That brought my bill to about $42 including taxes and everything. 

That would save me about $27/mo., over $300/yr. Not bad.

But I could do better.

Then I called my cable company, Wide Open West (luckily we have options where I live). They currently supply my internet connection so it was only a matter of adding on to my bill.

I had been leery about cable phones for the mere fact that if the cable goes out, then I have no phone. But I've got a cell phone so that dilemma didn't hold much water.

We settled in on a landline, including free installation, that would give me the local, local-long, and long-distance like I have now, plus all the bells and whistles like caller ID and so forth.

I also decided to up my cable connection speed to 50% more since I was already going to shave some money off my budget.

Bottom line: The addition of the landline service and the increase of my cable internet brought my bill up a total of $32.

So eliminating my AT&T plan and getting basically the same service, and increasing my internet plan, I will save $37/mo. or close to $450/year.

That's not too shabby.

So if you're wavering between keeping your landline or dumping it for your cell phone, think about the alternative. You probably already have cable so bundling in a phone shouldn't add too much.

On to the next budget cuts...

Cash is king!

Did you ever think that you could save money simply by paying cash? Sure, we all went for the reward credit cards to gain some money on the money we spent, but now that a lot of us are knee deep in debt, why not save some money by not using your credit card?

Remember some years ago when Mobil gas stations offered a cash price and a credit price? Then the credit card companies said something like it was unfair and they stopped. Well, they were on to something back then.

My vet gives a 5% discount if I pay cash.

My dentist offers 5% off if I write a check.

Heck, I offered cash to have a window replaced and got a substantial discount.

Why? Because credit card fees are amazingly high. So are business bank fees. Of course, there are those (like my painter and electrician) who probably prefer cash so they don't have to claim it, but that's their choice, I'm just trying to save my money any way I can.

Cash is becoming more and more popular once again. It has advantages other than just saving money like I mentioned, it also has accountability and a sense of what you can afford. My mother told me a story once about a training session she had while working at a department store.... about pushing the credit card to the customer. It went something like this (at least it's how I remember it, it was a long time ago):

Say you have $10 in your pocket to buy a birthday gift for a friend. You find several items that you think said friend might like. Then you spot something that said friend would absolutely love but it's $5 more than you have in your pocket. But if you get a credit card, you can buy it. 

Most people would probably buy the more expensive item on a credit card. After all, it's only $5, right?

That's good business for the store, they just got you to spend 50% more money.

And that's just for starters, because if you don't pay off a credit card each and every month in full, they're getting a lot more of your money.

That story sounded a lot better in my head, but I think it makes a lot of sense.

So the next time you need something, whether it's at the doctor, a painter, or even the department store, it doesn't hurt to ask if there is a cash discount. Most places don't advertise it, but a lot of places you wouldn't expect would take you up on it.

Cash is king.

Getting a free month trial of Amazon Prime

I'd be totally on this if I didn't have it already but I definitely wanted to pass it on. 

Free month trial of Amazon Prime

What's so special about it, you may ask? Well, since I am a junkie when it comes to Amazon, I like its features: 

1) Unlimited Free 2-day shipping on millions of Amazon items

2) Overnight shipping upgrade at only $3.99/item

3) NO MINIMUM order

4) Share benefits with up to 4 household members

My favorite part of this is the no minimum order. In the past I would find myself searching for items to reach the $25 free shipping limit and half the time I'd be ordering something I really didn't need. So I really wasn't saving any money.

Now that I have Prime, I am a huge $5 per order person. I find a quick deal and I jump on it. This is especially true around Christmas where I am trying to find quick deals (for 17 other members of my family plus another 4 on my better half's side). Sometimes items at good deals run out quick.

So why am I telling you this? Simple, it's a way of trying out a great program for free. After that it is $79/year. If you don't like it, you don't pay for it. And you don't have to mark your calendar to make sure you cancel it in time. For one thing, Amazon will remind you that your free trial is coming to an end.

But the easiest way is this: After signing up (through my link if you'd please, helps support my site), you can go to YOUR ACCOUNT  and halfway down the page you'll see Subscriptions Management. Click on Manage Your Amazon Prime Membership and select the option to not renew automatically. You will still have full benefits until your trial ends and you won't have to worry about canceling.

But if you like it and use it, it's definitely worth it. So check it out.

Free month trial of Amazon Prime

The time has come to start cutting into the budget

I love baseball, I really do. So when it came down to the decision between MLB Extra Innings or NFL Sunday Direct, I thought it was a no-brainer. I was wrong and my better half won that battle.

I tried to justify it, it only costs less than $20/mo. over the course of a full year. But in the end, it makes more sense to trim that "extra" out of the budget, saving us just about $200/yr. 

So as the season winds down to its end, I will be saying goodbye to MLB Extra Innings. It'll be sad, but I will survive. 

This is just the beginning though, and I know much harder choices in trimming the budget are around the corner, on whether we need a land line, should we start feeding the cat scraps instead of food, that type of thing.

But for now, I will mourn my inevitable loss of live baseball from every park.

GO CUBS!!

Costs more but you get less

So I am standing in line at the BP gas station yesterday and look over at the "impulse" items. A big sign states that the King Size candy bars are just 99¢ each. King Size? The 3 Musketeer bar (now in mint) seems smaller than the "original" bars I bought as a kid...for 30¢! What is going on?

And it doesn't stop there. 

A jug of orange juice has risen in price and also reduced in size from 96 ounces to 89 ounces? 

Peanut butter is ounces less too, and a higher price.

Have you seen a Hershey bar lately? I didn't think they could make chocolate that thin.

And don't get me started on cereal, that's just wrong. 

There's a great article on CNNMoney, called "The incredible shrinking cereal box," (LINK). It outlines the growing trend of how companies are trying to offset the higher cost of food by shrinking products and not drawing a lot of attention. 

It's bad enough that food prices have gone through the roof but now we're getting less food. 

Online shopping

Okay, I admit it, I am an online shopper, through and through.

It might be that I don't have to deal with crowds, crabby salespeople and the people that insist on pulling out their checkbook after the sale is rung up and the cashier tells them the price.

It might be that I don't have to leave the house and the item is delivered right to my door.

Or it just might be that prices are so much better online in most cases.

Case in point: It was decided that we needed a waterproof camera for an upcoming trip (4 days away). So we head out to Ritz Camera and two hours later we have a camera in hand, for about $400 (it was a nice camera). Before opening it, I insisted that we check for comparison on Amazon.

And lo and behold, it was over $150 less, plus no tax. "But we leave in a couple days..." I was told. Now, if it had been ten bucks, even fifteen, I'd probably would have acquiesced. But we're talking about $175 here. So we ordered it online at Amazon and paid for overnight shipping and promptly returned the camera to Ritz. Time well spent.

Luckily for me, I so not have the instant gratification need first and foremost. True, I like to buy things and have them, but I am a realist too. I love books and I can spend hours in a bookstore perusing every section. But 99 times out of 100, I'll walk away with a list of titles and authors more than a book. Then I go online to Amazon and buy them there. Even if they were the same exact price, which they aren't, the tax savings alone makes it worth it.

So I admit it, I am hooked on online shopping and Amazon is my dealer.

Rebates, rebates...

So I went to Walgreens this morning, to cash in on my monthly rebate club and stock up a little. The EasySaver® Catalog is one of the simplest rebate clubs out there. Every four weeks, there is a new set of items and the previous month can be tallied up and submitted on one form. One stamp, that's it.

So today, while I didn't get everything in the free section, I got the following items:

Crest Pro-Health Toothpaste 4.2 oz., $3.79, rebate $3.79 + $1 off coupon = -$1.00
Chemistry Conditioner, $7.99, rebate $7.99 = FREE
Revlon Nail Color, $4.79, rebate $4.79 + $2 off coupon = -$2.00
(2) Pantene Pro-V Shampoo/Conditioner, $9.98, rebate $5.00 + $2 off coupon = $2.99
Pantene styling aid, $4.99, free with purchase of 2 Pantene shampoo/conditioner (coupon) = FREE
(4) bags of Halloween M&Ms (14 oz.), $12.00, rebate $5.00 = $7.00
Pro Health Mouthwash (500 ml), $4.49, register rewards $4.50 = $4.50 to use later.

So total is $48.03, minus $9.99 in coupons, minus $26.57 in rebates = $11.47 plus the $4.50 I can use later. Net for all items is $6.97.

In addition, if you choose to have your rebate sent to you in the form of a gift card, they will add 10%. I didn't include that in my calculation because the tax where I live is 10%. It's a wash for me.

All coupons used were in the last two weeks of the Sunday paper. Register rewards are money to be used at Walgreens at your next visit, which is good since I need to still buy a couple more items.

So head out to your local Walgreens and check it out. Just remember to send it in at the end of the month. The last day to purchase items for this month's rebate is September 27, 2008. All submitted rebates need to be postmarked by October 4, 2008. Keep a copy if you can.

I like free stuff

Okay, who doesn't like free stuff? I'm just like everyone else, save the amount of time I put into finding free stuff or maybe just a darn good deal. That's how I spend my mornings, surfing the Net, reading through papers, whatever I can get my hands on, just to find a good deal. And then I post it to my website, www.moneycents.net and call it a day. Well, not really. Then I have to actually work to pay the bills.

But I like to save that hard-earned money any way I can. I buy things, don't get me wrong, but I don't believe in paying full retail. Instead of only wavering between wanting and needing, I figure out how to spend the least amount of money. It takes time, I know, but I've realized more gains that way than working overtime. Plus, I have fun. And I get to pass that research on to others and they can benefit.

So what's today's free stuff, you may ask? Today I will be heading to Walgreens to buy some shampoo and conditioner for a deal and top it off with a coupon for a free styling aid. I love the rebate club there.

Rebates... nah, that's tomorrow's blog.

Prices are going up everywhere

So I get the mail yesterday and discover that my health insurance is going up again. I'm self-employed so I am self-insured. It already jumped over 15% in March due to an age bracket change (Happy Birthday to me) and now another 10% starting next month. Now I shouldn't really complain since my health insurance premium isn't horrible... still under $200 per month, though I predict that will change at some point next year or at least come close.

Self insured is an interesting way to be. It took a long time to figure it all out, being self-employed and all. I knew I had to have insurance, but didn't want to pay the $300-$400 everyone wanted for the "traditional insurance" with co-pays and prescription plans. I rarely go to the doctor if I can help it (those possible broken bones are a tough call) and I don't need to take monthly medication yet (knock on wood). So in 1999, I bought a hospital only policy, which was about $400+ per two months. It worked out, because in 2002 I came down with meningitis, hospitalizing me for nearly a week. If I hadn't had insurance, I would have been bankrupt. However, after a blood clot required me to end up on meds for three months, along with blood test after blood test, I got hit with nearly $7,500 in medical bills including my deductible. So after all that was said and done, I went in search of another policy. What I found intrigued me.

High-deductible policies: Where you pretty much pay up to the deducible in any given year and then covered completely after that. I decided that the meningitis was a fluke and that I could take the $5,000 policy. If I had had it back then, I would have only been out of pocket the $5,000, not the $7,500. And to top it off, it was half a premium than what I was currently paying. I thought I was set.

But then, I discovered another bonus, the Health Savings Account (HSA). This is a beautiful little account, allowing me to put in a set amount per year that I can use for medical expenses. The two main perks of this account are: 1) It's not a use-it-or-lose-it account, it can roll over year after year, and 2) the contribution is tax deducible.

So now I am paying a lesser premium, getting better insurance (BCBS), getting a tax deduction, and saving more for those unexpected medical expenses. What more can I ask for?

If you have any suggestions of questions, please feel free to comment.

My first blog post

Welcome to my first blog. I am totally clueless when it comes to this stuff so I may find myself rambling from time to time. Feel free to tell me to sum it up.

So I create this website, www.moneycents.net, as a way to pass on the teachings I've received of budgeting, saving money, using credit cards wisely, etc. Of course, this is well after I abused all of the above. It's safe to say that I am surprised my credit score isn't in the dumps and I actually have a savings account. It wasn't too long ago that I was trying to figure out which credit card to pay and which one to charge on. 

So I am now passing on my lessons learned and also finding a way to simplify my budget to limit what money goes out. I like to call it "zenning my finances."  There are going to be some tough decisions along the way.