I have been at this frugal game for several years. Maybe, I have gone too far. I am always very generous with tips, just in case I might be perceived as cheap.
I recently vacationed with four women. We ate in restaurants, but also prepared some of our own meals. I still haven't gotten over how much food they threw away. I didn't say anything, but wonder if I should have (remember--this was a vacation). I also (finally!) realized that people really do find the money for what they want, while pressing others to pay their unglamorous bills. I am now feeling that I need new friends or I have gone too far! I fluctuate between the two. I so enjoy reading these blogs where others seem to struggle with the same issues. Thank You!
I use the pages as paper towel substitutes. Tear out a few pages whenever you need to chop an onion or peel a carrot- talk about easy clean-up. Also works great to wick away grease from cooked foods.
I have always found phone books incredibly inspirational for business purposes. (Yes, really.) I'm an efficiency consultant and work with a wide variety of businesses; when I was getting started, I would open the yellow pages up to a random page and spend time considering what unique challenges that type of business might experience (or, on the flip side, how a second business might be able to save money when working with that type of business, preventative measures that might be taken, etc.).
I imagine a web designer or other type of service provider could find the yellow pages similarly helpful for brainstorming. In fact, the yellow pages gave me so many ideas I haven't been able to execute on yet that I have expressly forbidden myself from looking at it anymore.
I know that may sound a little crazy, but for those of us who have larger birds like macaws and cockatoos, phone books make excellent, cheap toys for them. We just drill a hole through the middle and hang from a thick rope or chain. They'll spend hours ripping off the pages, one at a time.
This may sound a bit redneck, but they do make good shooting targets.
Also, one year we gave 21 phone books to a friend for his 21st birthday. Just left them at his doorstep for a good WTF?! gag.
And another year we filled another friend's car with phone books and packing peanuts. (Don't do this unless you're willing to help clean up, though -- as we did.)
As you mentioned, they also make a great source of paper for wrapping things, as well as helping pack breakables for shipping.
Don't worry, we haven't been stealing phone books. We have friends in the apartment biz and every year there are stacks of unclaimed phone books left in the office.
I generally recycle mine. Some of the other ideas may be useful though. In my area phone books are not really thick enough to be used for exercise or booster seats though.
I have used swoopo and it is not a scam but it is extremely difficult to win. It is gambling with another name, swoopo calls it entertainment shopping, however it is nothing more than gambling. When you go to a casino and lose you are aware it is a game and hopefully you are aware the house has an edge. In the case of swoopo they make money of the losers and tons of it because the bids generate alot more than the item's value.
how ever i would not get mad because I did not win a laptop for 50 dollars. When using these sites be responsible and do not expect the impossible just hope to be lucky or dont play. If you do not have a gambler personality i would urge you to stay away from them.
To be clear I am in no way affiliated with any of the sites mentioned above I believe that these sites are legal casino's
and dont get mad if i lose because I am aware of the risks associated with bidding on these sites.
You've described my what my job search has been like perfectly. I've sent out resumes and applications time and time again to be only met with silence. It's rough out there! Actually, it's more impersonal than rough. People don't reply to applications or email questions, or even accept phone calls about the job! They don't want to talk to you, maybe for fear of being buried in frivolous conversations or... ?
It's like a machine. You put your resume in the slot, pull the lever, and if you don't get the job the machine does nothing and your resume vanishes somewhere inside its recesses. What happens when you land the interview, I couldn't tell you. But thanks for the strategies... Seriously, you've given me some alternatives to try. Maybe I've been going about this all wrong, all this time.
I received a Visa debit card in the mail. Since I recently opened a new bank account. I thought it was from my bank.
I called the number on the card for activation. The voice response system started to ask me more and more personal information such as DoB and SSN. I became suspicious and requested a service rep. I asked what this card was for, he told me that this was sent to me at the request of one of their "partners." But he could not identify the partner by name.
I strong feel that the practice is deceiving and consumers are coerced to provide sensitive information under a false pretense. It is a dishonest marketing tactic, and can easily be used as a fraud for identity theft.
I hereby request you to stop this company (Netspend) from continuing this practice and make it illegal to send a unsolicited debit or credit card to consumers.
Uh, yeah, Bobby - no one was under the impression that the bank was giving you money with every transaction. They were simply putting the remainder into your savings account, where it was immediately available for you to use should you need it. They did match up to a certain amount, and THAT money, you couldn't get at for a year. So, they did give you some free money, but that wasn't the point - the point was that you could save money without trying to - automatic deductions from your checking account were put into your savings account, and at the end of a couple of months, you might have a couple of hundred bucks saved.
I've since withdrawn from Keep the Change - I was never charged any fees for it, but I found it difficult to balance my checkbook with the constant transferring of funds from one account to another. Also, I'm much less pleased with Bank of America than I used to be.
I can definitely tell when our chickens are happy. They may not win any IQ contests, but they are sweet creatures when treated right. Our hen runs up whenever she sees me. And our chick loves roosting on my husband's arm. She even makes a soft purring sound. Both LOVE scratching, dirt baths, and eating fresh greens bugs -- which they're far more interested in than their chicken feed. They are truly a joy to watch.
Lots of good points. I do take issue with a few of them:
Organic stains like grass and blood can be removed with hydrogen peroxide. Yes, someone probably tried to remove the stain, but that doesn't mean they knew how... So price matters. If the item is a $6 shirt (typical of Goodwill), I won't buy it if it's stained. But if it's a 50 cent item at our small-town thrift store, I might take a chance.
I found the comment about sofas to be sad. Yes, it's true that there's a small element of risk, but in a college town like mine, if all sofas and futons went to the dump after one use, the landfill would expand and bury the town. I was happy to buy my recliners from thrift shops when I moved to town, and I'll be happy to return them to the thrift shop when I leave, for someone else to take a turn with.
As for electronics being a no-no, well, it depends on the price again. I bought my vacuum cleaner for $3. I was well aware that it might not work. But I could have gone back and gotten another one for $3, and repeated this process 25 times for the cost of a new one. Yes, your time is worth something, and if the gadget absolutely must work on the first try, don't buy used. But for $3 versus $75, I thought it was a good risk. (By the way, it did work.)
Thirft stores are an excellent place to get somewhat obsolete electronics if these will meet your needs. For instance, the touch pad on my old laptop is busted. It's not worth getting this replaced, but I would like to get the files off of the machine before recycling it. I will go buy a mouse for maybe $1 at a thrift store to get the job done.
This isn't as bad as sending people (esp. the elders) a $10 check with the tiny fine print that reads: by cashing the check, you are enrolled to x program that costs ONLY $6.99 a monthly fee.
I bake bread for our own use, and now some family members buy it from me. With regular practice, I've gotten pretty good at it. I make enough money to cover the materials cost for *all* the bread I bake, plus a bit more. So essentially I get my bread for free and cover the utility bills. Doesn't that seem wise?
I received one of these cards today, and have tried to cancel the card over the phone. However, when I call the number, there is no option to speak to a live person, and I can't go through the activation process (assumedly to cancel it) without typing in the card number, which I am afraid with automatically activate it. Those who have canceled the card - how did you speak with a live person?
Found this article from a recent comment link. I have to say, I'm totally with you on this one. I don't get it when people blow their tax refunds on luxuries because it's "free money". 'Extra money' just means you have more room in your budget. That means you can afford a little extra something, and I sometimes do, but most of the time, that money gets used for something important that I'm working towards.
Fill Large Glass with ice. Add cheap red wine until glass is 2/3 full. Add cranberry juice (low cal is what I use) and Sprite (Diet for me) and mix. Play with the ratios until you are happy with the results.
Initially "Keep the Change" seemed like a great idea. But I didn't use my BoA debit card much and the Regular Savings account they linked to it went largely ignored. I also failed to read the fine print: if you fail to meet certain criteria (not transferring $25/mo into the account, etc) they assess $5/mo fee to your "savings account." Of course this schedule of fees is not disclosed to you up front. So essentially BoA ends up siphoning your change in their coffers through assessing this "Maintenance nce" fee. When I tried to close the account, they would not refund the assessed fees. Looks like BoA kept my change instead!!!
During the Introductory period Keep the Change seems like a great way to pocket some cash. Thereafter, it's not such a great deal. Do the math: you can earn up to 5% cash back with the maximum of $250 dollars. $250 dollars is 5% of $5000. That means in order to earn $250 annually (outside of the promotion period) you would need to perform, at the minimum, 5000 debit transactions where the balance ended in ".00" and $1.00 was transferred through Keep the Change to your "savings" account each time. Of course the actual amount transferred to your account varies significantly (between 1 and 100 cents) and is usually much less than $1, so you can imagine how many annual transactions one would have to perform to actually accrue a substantial amount of money!
Get a wildlife guide and drive out (well, for me, it's a bike ride out) beyond the edge of "civilization"--i.e., the suburbs--and learn to see what you can see. It takes a little while to learn to spot birds, and in the thick of summer, songbirds are almost impossible to see, so you'd probably do better scouting for wildfowl along the nearest wild stretch of river.
A good guide, granted, is not exactly cheap (my Sibly's bird book looks to be about 25 euros), but the thrill of seeing new birds and new scenery and wildlife is addictive. Seriously--I wouldn't slog 20 miles on my bike loaded down with binoculars, camera (cheap P&S, but still rather bulky as it has a 10X zoom), bird guide, extra water, etc, if it weren't.
I have been at this frugal game for several years. Maybe, I have gone too far. I am always very generous with tips, just in case I might be perceived as cheap.
I recently vacationed with four women. We ate in restaurants, but also prepared some of our own meals. I still haven't gotten over how much food they threw away. I didn't say anything, but wonder if I should have (remember--this was a vacation). I also (finally!) realized that people really do find the money for what they want, while pressing others to pay their unglamorous bills. I am now feeling that I need new friends or I have gone too far! I fluctuate between the two. I so enjoy reading these blogs where others seem to struggle with the same issues. Thank You!
I use the pages as paper towel substitutes. Tear out a few pages whenever you need to chop an onion or peel a carrot- talk about easy clean-up. Also works great to wick away grease from cooked foods.
I got to a live person by selecting "billing issues" on their automated system. Then I talked to the person. They did ask for the card number, though.
I have always found phone books incredibly inspirational for business purposes. (Yes, really.) I'm an efficiency consultant and work with a wide variety of businesses; when I was getting started, I would open the yellow pages up to a random page and spend time considering what unique challenges that type of business might experience (or, on the flip side, how a second business might be able to save money when working with that type of business, preventative measures that might be taken, etc.).
I imagine a web designer or other type of service provider could find the yellow pages similarly helpful for brainstorming. In fact, the yellow pages gave me so many ideas I haven't been able to execute on yet that I have expressly forbidden myself from looking at it anymore.
Thank you for including my post (on getting late fees removed)!
Have a great weekend,
Penelope :)
I know that may sound a little crazy, but for those of us who have larger birds like macaws and cockatoos, phone books make excellent, cheap toys for them. We just drill a hole through the middle and hang from a thick rope or chain. They'll spend hours ripping off the pages, one at a time.
This may sound a bit redneck, but they do make good shooting targets.
Also, one year we gave 21 phone books to a friend for his 21st birthday. Just left them at his doorstep for a good WTF?! gag.
And another year we filled another friend's car with phone books and packing peanuts. (Don't do this unless you're willing to help clean up, though -- as we did.)
As you mentioned, they also make a great source of paper for wrapping things, as well as helping pack breakables for shipping.
Don't worry, we haven't been stealing phone books. We have friends in the apartment biz and every year there are stacks of unclaimed phone books left in the office.
I generally recycle mine. Some of the other ideas may be useful though. In my area phone books are not really thick enough to be used for exercise or booster seats though.
arrival times Tj,fact that theand only realizes it
homogeneous poissonarrival times
Andrea, thanks for sharing my post with readers! I enjoyed the other articles as well.
Hi,
I liked the article a lot and in fact I m more inspired by it and take a contract job or freelance.
I would really like to know the cons of contract job too.
I have used swoopo and it is not a scam but it is extremely difficult to win. It is gambling with another name, swoopo calls it entertainment shopping, however it is nothing more than gambling. When you go to a casino and lose you are aware it is a game and hopefully you are aware the house has an edge. In the case of swoopo they make money of the losers and tons of it because the bids generate alot more than the item's value.
how ever i would not get mad because I did not win a laptop for 50 dollars. When using these sites be responsible and do not expect the impossible just hope to be lucky or dont play. If you do not have a gambler personality i would urge you to stay away from them.
To be clear I am in no way affiliated with any of the sites mentioned above I believe that these sites are legal casino's
and dont get mad if i lose because I am aware of the risks associated with bidding on these sites.
You've described my what my job search has been like perfectly. I've sent out resumes and applications time and time again to be only met with silence. It's rough out there! Actually, it's more impersonal than rough. People don't reply to applications or email questions, or even accept phone calls about the job! They don't want to talk to you, maybe for fear of being buried in frivolous conversations or... ?
It's like a machine. You put your resume in the slot, pull the lever, and if you don't get the job the machine does nothing and your resume vanishes somewhere inside its recesses. What happens when you land the interview, I couldn't tell you. But thanks for the strategies... Seriously, you've given me some alternatives to try. Maybe I've been going about this all wrong, all this time.
when the VRU asks you about SSN, put in a random number or just select no SSN.
I just filed the following complaint to the fed:
I received a Visa debit card in the mail. Since I recently opened a new bank account. I thought it was from my bank.
I called the number on the card for activation. The voice response system started to ask me more and more personal information such as DoB and SSN. I became suspicious and requested a service rep. I asked what this card was for, he told me that this was sent to me at the request of one of their "partners." But he could not identify the partner by name.
I strong feel that the practice is deceiving and consumers are coerced to provide sensitive information under a false pretense. It is a dishonest marketing tactic, and can easily be used as a fraud for identity theft.
I hereby request you to stop this company (Netspend) from continuing this practice and make it illegal to send a unsolicited debit or credit card to consumers.
Uh, yeah, Bobby - no one was under the impression that the bank was giving you money with every transaction. They were simply putting the remainder into your savings account, where it was immediately available for you to use should you need it. They did match up to a certain amount, and THAT money, you couldn't get at for a year. So, they did give you some free money, but that wasn't the point - the point was that you could save money without trying to - automatic deductions from your checking account were put into your savings account, and at the end of a couple of months, you might have a couple of hundred bucks saved.
I've since withdrawn from Keep the Change - I was never charged any fees for it, but I found it difficult to balance my checkbook with the constant transferring of funds from one account to another. Also, I'm much less pleased with Bank of America than I used to be.
@Guest
I can definitely tell when our chickens are happy. They may not win any IQ contests, but they are sweet creatures when treated right. Our hen runs up whenever she sees me. And our chick loves roosting on my husband's arm. She even makes a soft purring sound. Both LOVE scratching, dirt baths, and eating fresh greens bugs -- which they're far more interested in than their chicken feed. They are truly a joy to watch.
@Cidre:
Lots of good points. I do take issue with a few of them:
Organic stains like grass and blood can be removed with hydrogen peroxide. Yes, someone probably tried to remove the stain, but that doesn't mean they knew how... So price matters. If the item is a $6 shirt (typical of Goodwill), I won't buy it if it's stained. But if it's a 50 cent item at our small-town thrift store, I might take a chance.
I found the comment about sofas to be sad. Yes, it's true that there's a small element of risk, but in a college town like mine, if all sofas and futons went to the dump after one use, the landfill would expand and bury the town. I was happy to buy my recliners from thrift shops when I moved to town, and I'll be happy to return them to the thrift shop when I leave, for someone else to take a turn with.
As for electronics being a no-no, well, it depends on the price again. I bought my vacuum cleaner for $3. I was well aware that it might not work. But I could have gone back and gotten another one for $3, and repeated this process 25 times for the cost of a new one. Yes, your time is worth something, and if the gadget absolutely must work on the first try, don't buy used. But for $3 versus $75, I thought it was a good risk. (By the way, it did work.)
Thirft stores are an excellent place to get somewhat obsolete electronics if these will meet your needs. For instance, the touch pad on my old laptop is busted. It's not worth getting this replaced, but I would like to get the files off of the machine before recycling it. I will go buy a mouse for maybe $1 at a thrift store to get the job done.
This isn't as bad as sending people (esp. the elders) a $10 check with the tiny fine print that reads: by cashing the check, you are enrolled to x program that costs ONLY $6.99 a monthly fee.
I bake bread for our own use, and now some family members buy it from me. With regular practice, I've gotten pretty good at it. I make enough money to cover the materials cost for *all* the bread I bake, plus a bit more. So essentially I get my bread for free and cover the utility bills. Doesn't that seem wise?
I received one of these cards today, and have tried to cancel the card over the phone. However, when I call the number, there is no option to speak to a live person, and I can't go through the activation process (assumedly to cancel it) without typing in the card number, which I am afraid with automatically activate it. Those who have canceled the card - how did you speak with a live person?
Found this article from a recent comment link. I have to say, I'm totally with you on this one. I don't get it when people blow their tax refunds on luxuries because it's "free money". 'Extra money' just means you have more room in your budget. That means you can afford a little extra something, and I sometimes do, but most of the time, that money gets used for something important that I'm working towards.
Fill Large Glass with ice. Add cheap red wine until glass is 2/3 full. Add cranberry juice (low cal is what I use) and Sprite (Diet for me) and mix. Play with the ratios until you are happy with the results.
Initially "Keep the Change" seemed like a great idea. But I didn't use my BoA debit card much and the Regular Savings account they linked to it went largely ignored. I also failed to read the fine print: if you fail to meet certain criteria (not transferring $25/mo into the account, etc) they assess $5/mo fee to your "savings account." Of course this schedule of fees is not disclosed to you up front. So essentially BoA ends up siphoning your change in their coffers through assessing this "Maintenance nce" fee. When I tried to close the account, they would not refund the assessed fees. Looks like BoA kept my change instead!!!
During the Introductory period Keep the Change seems like a great way to pocket some cash. Thereafter, it's not such a great deal. Do the math: you can earn up to 5% cash back with the maximum of $250 dollars. $250 dollars is 5% of $5000. That means in order to earn $250 annually (outside of the promotion period) you would need to perform, at the minimum, 5000 debit transactions where the balance ended in ".00" and $1.00 was transferred through Keep the Change to your "savings" account each time. Of course the actual amount transferred to your account varies significantly (between 1 and 100 cents) and is usually much less than $1, so you can imagine how many annual transactions one would have to perform to actually accrue a substantial amount of money!
Get a wildlife guide and drive out (well, for me, it's a bike ride out) beyond the edge of "civilization"--i.e., the suburbs--and learn to see what you can see. It takes a little while to learn to spot birds, and in the thick of summer, songbirds are almost impossible to see, so you'd probably do better scouting for wildfowl along the nearest wild stretch of river.
A good guide, granted, is not exactly cheap (my Sibly's bird book looks to be about 25 euros), but the thrill of seeing new birds and new scenery and wildlife is addictive. Seriously--I wouldn't slog 20 miles on my bike loaded down with binoculars, camera (cheap P&S, but still rather bulky as it has a 10X zoom), bird guide, extra water, etc, if it weren't.