Another excellent use for stale bread/rolls is to make bread crumbs. Simply slice, toast the bread in the oven, and blend. It will keep for up to three months in the freezer :)
The first thing I thought I should cut out of my life when I read this post was the television. We went without the black box for a couple of years, before my daughter arrived, then it slowly crept back into our lives. How much time do each of spend glued to the screen? The average American spends 127 hours per month watching the beloved TV! Surely we could be doing something better with our time?
Thanks for re-framing the use of the savings bond! I have only ever received them as birthday presents from my grandma when I was a kid. It sounds like others here have had that same experience!
I made these cookies but made a few small changes. I was making them for my teenagers who do sports at school and need a breakfast that they can carry for after the morning workout. I added 1/2 tsp of salt and doubled the sugar. Also, my daughter had apparently eaten all of the raisins so I chopped up some dried peaches. They are eating them up. May need another batch for breakfast.
The article was inspired because I introduced this concept to a friend recently who needed to start budgeting, and now he talks almost evangelically about his new budget! For him, a simple awareness of where his money goes made all the difference.
@Brian - I agree completely that setting goals is the first step. I guess I didn't include it as the first step to budgeting, because I believe that goal-setting falls into the more general financial planning arena. But I do agree: a budget is all but useless without goals.
Thanks to @kerri for the link to DebtSpark, and to @Philip for the complementary article.
To everybody else, thank you for your input! Keep it coming...
I'm the OP and I figured I'd clear some things up.
First of all, this advice isn't going to be helpful to everyone. The people it will be most helpful for are the ones that receive 3-4 calls a day per product and gets called on multiple products a day. Some people do get so many calls a day that they just get frustrated, yell, hang up, and do everything except for say "Put me on your call center's do not call list." So in turn, they get called some more.
The other people this will be useful for is the people looking to punish the companies that are operating outside of the law. If you catch a call center breaking the TCPA, it is VERY easy to file a small claims case on your own against the company. If they don't settle out of court, you'll get 500-1500 cash.
If you operate a business and are getting lots of telemarketing calls, you can sue to make up for lost time.
If you receive telemarketing calls on your cell phone, you can ctop them completely easily.
I work in a part of rural maine where call centers, grocery stores, and gas stations are the only jobs in the area. This call center being the only one hiring. I happen to have a kid on the way in a couple weeks, and was jobless just a couple months ago. I got hired within a week and now have been able to purchase everything we need that we didn't get from friends and family =]
I also tend to fight for sales less than most telemarketers. I don't care about my performance since I don't view it as a long term job. If someone polite declines, I won't even try to rebut. If someone is really polite with the call, but doesn't request to be put on the do not call list (usually the elderly) I'll do it for them since I don't want them to be bothered by our calls.
Telemarketing can be a viable sales platform. Most of the banks that have contracts with our call center sell extra services and such through the bank. They're available through the bank directly, but when you order by phone you usually have a review period to try the service out before you pay for it. I've never received any complaints about our company making unauthorized charges (although the sketchier call centers will.)
I love my I bonds. I purchased my bonds from around 2000 through 2004. My bonds have inflation rates of 3.4% to 1.1%. Additionally, I purchased them all with credit cards and racked up some serious frequent flier miles - unfortunatel the US government does not allow you to purchase savings bonds using credit cards any longer.
The "I Bonds" link in my post is to an older post of mine where do an analysis of I bonds versus TIPS, and that post has a link to the Treasury site where you can buy them.
But, yeah, there's no need for anybody to read that before they make a decision. I just thought it provided good context, because it talks about the obvious alternative (TIPS).
Adam,
Your defense of the credit essentially describes the entire argument against it. The point is that since the credit is going to a large number of individuals who would have bought a house without it (which seems to describe your situation entirely), why continue it? There are estimates that it is costing over $50,000 per house that would not have otherwise been purchased. Is this really the best way to stimulate the economy? I think not.
I have some TIPS. Of late I've thought the yield over inflation was a bit low.
Of course, the yield over inflation of the I bonds is even lower. The difference, though, is that the I bonds can be cashed in early (for a small penalty). If you had TIPS, though, and wanted to get out of them, you'd have to sell them--and if the reason you were selling was because you could get better rates on new TIPS, your selling price would be pretty low.
If I were really, really rich, I'd want to own enough TIPS that the income could support me at a modest standard of living. Then I'd feel free to invest the rest of my portfolio with wild abandon. Since I can't afford that many TIPS, I have to invest the rest of my portfolio with due attention to safety.
Thanks for giving a summary of the list. Great information and it's easy to understand why telemarketers operate the way they do. They're just doing their job and because it can often be so umpleasant I'm not surprised its been outsourced as fast as possible.
Thanks for the tips.
It's so easy to throw out food or think that you're a failure because you've let something slip. These 'get out of jail' tips are great for when you find yourself in a spot!!
Holy cow!! I've never had an experience like that at Papa Murphys!! I actually love them, much better than Pizza Hut, I think it's just a better tasting pizza. I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes and we get it all the time, even at busy times. So sorry about your experience!! :(
Buy an occasional savings bond and stuff it into a drawer. It can come in very handy when your emergency fund runs dry.
That's why I was so unhappy over the past few years, with savings bonds paying such lousy rates--I wanted to recommend a strategy like this, but I didn't feel like I could do so in good conscience when you'd basically be locking in a terrible rate. In the current environment, that's not so true.
We are relocating - thus, buying a new house and would qualify for the $6500 credit...if....
We had our last house for more than the 2.5 years we did. We moved into that house because of a job relocation, too. We've owned a house for the past 10 years, but unfortunately, we don't qualify because of the "5 year" thing.
It would have been nice to have, as this time we chose to buy a fixer-upper that has already required $10K of work just to get the small $66K loan on it. At least the house is worth quite a bit more than what we are paying for it!
We will have owned our current house five years this May. Before reading this article, I was unaware of the new credit for move-up buyers. Thanks for this info.
I hope that NO ONE feels "gypped" by the new credits. We should not be jealous of those who are offered another deal that was unavailable to us. The goal of the credit is to help the economy as a whole. Anyone who has bad feelings about this is just plain childish.
Another great budget tracking tool is Mint.com. It is free and easy.
I love using Mint because it automatically downloads my bank account information and email's alerts when you have gone out of your budget.
Another excellent use for stale bread/rolls is to make bread crumbs. Simply slice, toast the bread in the oven, and blend. It will keep for up to three months in the freezer :)
The first thing I thought I should cut out of my life when I read this post was the television. We went without the black box for a couple of years, before my daughter arrived, then it slowly crept back into our lives. How much time do each of spend glued to the screen? The average American spends 127 hours per month watching the beloved TV! Surely we could be doing something better with our time?
Thanks for re-framing the use of the savings bond! I have only ever received them as birthday presents from my grandma when I was a kid. It sounds like others here have had that same experience!
Thanks for responding. I was conflating the 2 types--oops. I have cash on a money market and may move some to IBonds. Thanks for the post.
I don't think that being upset that other people have access to a pool of money that I paid into, but don't have access makes me childish.
It makes the person who is *supposed* to be accountable for the money irresponsible!
I made these cookies but made a few small changes. I was making them for my teenagers who do sports at school and need a breakfast that they can carry for after the morning workout. I added 1/2 tsp of salt and doubled the sugar. Also, my daughter had apparently eaten all of the raisins so I chopped up some dried peaches. They are eating them up. May need another batch for breakfast.
Thank you all for the comments! Great discussion.
The article was inspired because I introduced this concept to a friend recently who needed to start budgeting, and now he talks almost evangelically about his new budget! For him, a simple awareness of where his money goes made all the difference.
@Brian - I agree completely that setting goals is the first step. I guess I didn't include it as the first step to budgeting, because I believe that goal-setting falls into the more general financial planning arena. But I do agree: a budget is all but useless without goals.
Thanks to @kerri for the link to DebtSpark, and to @Philip for the complementary article.
To everybody else, thank you for your input! Keep it coming...
PS thanks for the write up =]
I want this information to help out those that can use it.
I'm the OP and I figured I'd clear some things up.
First of all, this advice isn't going to be helpful to everyone. The people it will be most helpful for are the ones that receive 3-4 calls a day per product and gets called on multiple products a day. Some people do get so many calls a day that they just get frustrated, yell, hang up, and do everything except for say "Put me on your call center's do not call list." So in turn, they get called some more.
The other people this will be useful for is the people looking to punish the companies that are operating outside of the law. If you catch a call center breaking the TCPA, it is VERY easy to file a small claims case on your own against the company. If they don't settle out of court, you'll get 500-1500 cash.
If you operate a business and are getting lots of telemarketing calls, you can sue to make up for lost time.
If you receive telemarketing calls on your cell phone, you can ctop them completely easily.
I work in a part of rural maine where call centers, grocery stores, and gas stations are the only jobs in the area. This call center being the only one hiring. I happen to have a kid on the way in a couple weeks, and was jobless just a couple months ago. I got hired within a week and now have been able to purchase everything we need that we didn't get from friends and family =]
I also tend to fight for sales less than most telemarketers. I don't care about my performance since I don't view it as a long term job. If someone polite declines, I won't even try to rebut. If someone is really polite with the call, but doesn't request to be put on the do not call list (usually the elderly) I'll do it for them since I don't want them to be bothered by our calls.
Telemarketing can be a viable sales platform. Most of the banks that have contracts with our call center sell extra services and such through the bank. They're available through the bank directly, but when you order by phone you usually have a review period to try the service out before you pay for it. I've never received any complaints about our company making unauthorized charges (although the sketchier call centers will.)
I love my I bonds. I purchased my bonds from around 2000 through 2004. My bonds have inflation rates of 3.4% to 1.1%. Additionally, I purchased them all with credit cards and racked up some serious frequent flier miles - unfortunatel the US government does not allow you to purchase savings bonds using credit cards any longer.
The "I Bonds" link in my post is to an older post of mine where do an analysis of I bonds versus TIPS, and that post has a link to the Treasury site where you can buy them.
But, yeah, there's no need for anybody to read that before they make a decision. I just thought it provided good context, because it talks about the obvious alternative (TIPS).
Interesting enough to make me want to research I-bonds further.
Which brings me to my other point: what this article really needs is a link out. Like this:
Learn more about or purchase I-bonds here: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_glance.htm
Adam,
Your defense of the credit essentially describes the entire argument against it. The point is that since the credit is going to a large number of individuals who would have bought a house without it (which seems to describe your situation entirely), why continue it? There are estimates that it is costing over $50,000 per house that would not have otherwise been purchased. Is this really the best way to stimulate the economy? I think not.
I have some TIPS. Of late I've thought the yield over inflation was a bit low.
Of course, the yield over inflation of the I bonds is even lower. The difference, though, is that the I bonds can be cashed in early (for a small penalty). If you had TIPS, though, and wanted to get out of them, you'd have to sell them--and if the reason you were selling was because you could get better rates on new TIPS, your selling price would be pretty low.
If I were really, really rich, I'd want to own enough TIPS that the income could support me at a modest standard of living. Then I'd feel free to invest the rest of my portfolio with wild abandon. Since I can't afford that many TIPS, I have to invest the rest of my portfolio with due attention to safety.
Thanks for giving a summary of the list. Great information and it's easy to understand why telemarketers operate the way they do. They're just doing their job and because it can often be so umpleasant I'm not surprised its been outsourced as fast as possible.
Thanks for the tips.
It's so easy to throw out food or think that you're a failure because you've let something slip. These 'get out of jail' tips are great for when you find yourself in a spot!!
Are you amassing TIPS for retirement? Do you think that's a good idea? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
As for travelers checks--their time has come and gone. They are almost impossible to cash here or abroad.
I like the idea of that - thanks! They aren't just the things you get from your grandma anymore!
Holy cow!! I've never had an experience like that at Papa Murphys!! I actually love them, much better than Pizza Hut, I think it's just a better tasting pizza. I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes and we get it all the time, even at busy times. So sorry about your experience!! :(
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Deals posted early every day, lots of free shipping bargains
Buy an occasional savings bond and stuff it into a drawer. It can come in very handy when your emergency fund runs dry.
That's why I was so unhappy over the past few years, with savings bonds paying such lousy rates--I wanted to recommend a strategy like this, but I didn't feel like I could do so in good conscience when you'd basically be locking in a terrible rate. In the current environment, that's not so true.
We are relocating - thus, buying a new house and would qualify for the $6500 credit...if....
We had our last house for more than the 2.5 years we did. We moved into that house because of a job relocation, too. We've owned a house for the past 10 years, but unfortunately, we don't qualify because of the "5 year" thing.
It would have been nice to have, as this time we chose to buy a fixer-upper that has already required $10K of work just to get the small $66K loan on it. At least the house is worth quite a bit more than what we are paying for it!
Savings bonds save a lot of people who thought they had No money left.
John DeFlumeri Jr.
We will have owned our current house five years this May. Before reading this article, I was unaware of the new credit for move-up buyers. Thanks for this info.
I hope that NO ONE feels "gypped" by the new credits. We should not be jealous of those who are offered another deal that was unavailable to us. The goal of the credit is to help the economy as a whole. Anyone who has bad feelings about this is just plain childish.