I used to clip grocery coupons, but eventually decided that wasn't worth the time. I do, however, take advantage of cash back or free trial offers if they are substantial enough.
The trick to never forgetting to cancel in time is to immediately create a reminder in Outlook or other to-do list software. It only takes a minute, and avoids my increasing inability to predictably remember anything.
Then I just have to remember to check Outlook on a regular basis...
I am always getting emails about receiving free giftcards from Walmarts or Walgreens or some other place.
However, I know that if I decide to go for it, I will h ave to wade through a bunch of other sponsors, changing the Yes to a No and will probably wind up with something I don't want.
I think too that they sell your email address, don't you? You are not going to get this great gift for nothing.
In my eyes money should always come second. However, we need money to live. It is a tense balance sometimes. But if you can learn to earn more you can enjoy life more and work less.
That is why I create a financial blog also, to teach people how to be free of money worries
I am about to finish my 3rd year of bible college in 5 months and I decided to take it into my own hands to create my dream job. Instead of waiting for someone to offer it to me I decided I want to work for myself.
I want to be a writer and I am passionate about finances so I have started my own blog www.smarterwealth.net and I will be building up my readership over the next year and writing an ebook in the next 18 months.
I don't want to be stuck to a boring day job, I want to work for myself.
It is crazy that this happens. You never think it will happen to you when you invest your money in the bank. I will be more careful when looking at banks from now on
I am going to see The Dark Night in about 10 hours. I found a great way to save on movie tickets. Either go on tuesday 'tightass tuesday' and save about $5/head or we get discount coupons in the mail for the movies which we use and we agian save about $5/head. This means I can go to the movies more often
Great thoughts on why not to act, but you seem to be saying to yourself that you are stupid for not doing it. Think of what you could do with an extra $2,000 every 6 months.
I want to implement this strategy but I am a student and cannot do this yet. When I am earning enough I definately will though
You found real work at home jobs on Craigslist??? The only ones I find ask for money and then tell you to list an ad like theirs on free websites! Such scams! Beware people..... if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is!
My husband and I aren't able to run for office right now, but we've found that simply attending the regular Board of Aldermen meetings is a great way to 1) meet the local politicians and 'people of influence' 2) firsthand hear their views on local issues 3) participate by speaking to them on topics that interest you (either during or after the meeting) and 4) find the committees, etc., that need help the most.
Great article. When I forget this principle, I am reminded by a severe case of buyer's remorse for whatever unnecessary, stupid purchase I've just made. Regret has got to be the opposite of pleasure when it comes to purchase satisfaction!
Agreed. A lot of this stuff ends up being a "stupid tax" because you forget to cancel the thing in time and get billed or you're sent something you have to mail back (costing time, gas, money).
The one exception for me was when I was getting out of debt a year ago. I transferred balances to a zero percent interest card, but I did pay it off before interest charges started accruing.
I could only agree. I remember purchasing a website template package subscription months ago (with 15 days free access promo), unfortunately I didn't pay much attention to their email saying that if I didn't cancel before the subscription expires, they will automatically deduct $99 from my credit card. Man guess what, they didn't inform me that my subscription is about to expire and the next thing I know, I'm $99 poorer.
That happend 2 more times that I ended up canceling my subscription for fear that it might happen again.
I've taken advantage of the free money from the credit card companies. I only do two or three at a time to make sure I don't screw up. I keep a very close eye on them until it's time to payoff the balance. Rinse and Repeat!
Nothing comes that free, and easy. Everything you have, you should work for. If you don't you will turn up into one of those girls on my super sweet sixteen.
vaguely guilty because I never do that money-saving stuff -- coupons and credit card roulette and such. Thank you for so clearly stating the reason for not doing it. I feel better now.
"It's a constant bombardment, and it's all around you. There's some disagreement about this number, but it's been estimated that the average person in the United States sees 3000 ads a day."
Your comment reminds me of Aldous Huxley's essays in Brave New World: Revisited; specifically the essay on Hypnopaedia, which as you mentioned, is occurring constantly by way of advertisements.
I totally agree. On many of the personal finance blogs I read, people talk about The Grocery Game, where they spend hours scouring sales, driving to lots of stores and combining coupons to save 50 cents on toilet paper. No thanks. I try to make substantive changes in my lifestyle that save real amounts of money, but my time is far too valuable to play games.
I think government resources are great -- their designs are not (usually) exciting but the content is excellent: relevant, useful, and written in a language that is neither intimidating or patronizing.
...first, this is not an attack on the iPhone. I'm sure it's a groovy product, Apple make great gadgets. My point of the article was not about the phone really, but more questioning why anyone would spend hours and hours in line for a gadget. Spending hours in line to see a great musician or band is fine by me. You're about to have a life experience, and you can only see the musician on that particular date. But everyone can have an iPhone 3G...why do you need to have one first?
Great post. I've seen similar ideas in various voluntary simplicity books, but this is the only distillation I've seen that is both concise and clear. It's nice to have a reference to a description of these ideas that's only a couple printed pages long rather than hundreds.
Your posts have truly offered something unique and I have enjoyed them thoroughly. After a year or so of reading frugality blogs and books, a lot of content gets to be repetitive rehashings of the same details (CFLs, index funds, etc). By contrast your writing looks at the big picture, often from a perspective that's new to me.
I used to clip grocery coupons, but eventually decided that wasn't worth the time. I do, however, take advantage of cash back or free trial offers if they are substantial enough.
The trick to never forgetting to cancel in time is to immediately create a reminder in Outlook or other to-do list software. It only takes a minute, and avoids my increasing inability to predictably remember anything.
Then I just have to remember to check Outlook on a regular basis...
I am always getting emails about receiving free giftcards from Walmarts or Walgreens or some other place.
However, I know that if I decide to go for it, I will h ave to wade through a bunch of other sponsors, changing the Yes to a No and will probably wind up with something I don't want.
I think too that they sell your email address, don't you? You are not going to get this great gift for nothing.
In my eyes money should always come second. However, we need money to live. It is a tense balance sometimes. But if you can learn to earn more you can enjoy life more and work less.
That is why I create a financial blog also, to teach people how to be free of money worries
I am about to finish my 3rd year of bible college in 5 months and I decided to take it into my own hands to create my dream job. Instead of waiting for someone to offer it to me I decided I want to work for myself.
I want to be a writer and I am passionate about finances so I have started my own blog www.smarterwealth.net and I will be building up my readership over the next year and writing an ebook in the next 18 months.
I don't want to be stuck to a boring day job, I want to work for myself.
It is crazy that this happens. You never think it will happen to you when you invest your money in the bank. I will be more careful when looking at banks from now on
I am going to see The Dark Night in about 10 hours. I found a great way to save on movie tickets. Either go on tuesday 'tightass tuesday' and save about $5/head or we get discount coupons in the mail for the movies which we use and we agian save about $5/head. This means I can go to the movies more often
Great thoughts on why not to act, but you seem to be saying to yourself that you are stupid for not doing it. Think of what you could do with an extra $2,000 every 6 months.
I want to implement this strategy but I am a student and cannot do this yet. When I am earning enough I definately will though
You found real work at home jobs on Craigslist??? The only ones I find ask for money and then tell you to list an ad like theirs on free websites! Such scams! Beware people..... if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is!
My husband and I aren't able to run for office right now, but we've found that simply attending the regular Board of Aldermen meetings is a great way to 1) meet the local politicians and 'people of influence' 2) firsthand hear their views on local issues 3) participate by speaking to them on topics that interest you (either during or after the meeting) and 4) find the committees, etc., that need help the most.
Great article. When I forget this principle, I am reminded by a severe case of buyer's remorse for whatever unnecessary, stupid purchase I've just made. Regret has got to be the opposite of pleasure when it comes to purchase satisfaction!
Agreed. A lot of this stuff ends up being a "stupid tax" because you forget to cancel the thing in time and get billed or you're sent something you have to mail back (costing time, gas, money).
The one exception for me was when I was getting out of debt a year ago. I transferred balances to a zero percent interest card, but I did pay it off before interest charges started accruing.
Companies don't hire 17 years olds becuase they either underperform or leave for college. Apply for a high school job and be happy.
I could only agree. I remember purchasing a website template package subscription months ago (with 15 days free access promo), unfortunately I didn't pay much attention to their email saying that if I didn't cancel before the subscription expires, they will automatically deduct $99 from my credit card. Man guess what, they didn't inform me that my subscription is about to expire and the next thing I know, I'm $99 poorer.
That happend 2 more times that I ended up canceling my subscription for fear that it might happen again.
Sam
I've taken advantage of the free money from the credit card companies. I only do two or three at a time to make sure I don't screw up. I keep a very close eye on them until it's time to payoff the balance. Rinse and Repeat!
Nothing comes that free, and easy. Everything you have, you should work for. If you don't you will turn up into one of those girls on my super sweet sixteen.
Primarily for institutions, but cdars splits your deposit up among other banks to cover up to $50 million under FDIC insurance:
http://www.cdars.com/why-cdars.php
Has anybody really tried this with red wine? And can it be any red wine? Thanks for the info
vaguely guilty because I never do that money-saving stuff -- coupons and credit card roulette and such. Thank you for so clearly stating the reason for not doing it. I feel better now.
I agree, and you say it so much better than I could! Great post.
"It's a constant bombardment, and it's all around you. There's some disagreement about this number, but it's been estimated that the average person in the United States sees 3000 ads a day."
Your comment reminds me of Aldous Huxley's essays in Brave New World: Revisited; specifically the essay on Hypnopaedia, which as you mentioned, is occurring constantly by way of advertisements.
I totally agree. On many of the personal finance blogs I read, people talk about The Grocery Game, where they spend hours scouring sales, driving to lots of stores and combining coupons to save 50 cents on toilet paper. No thanks. I try to make substantive changes in my lifestyle that save real amounts of money, but my time is far too valuable to play games.
I think government resources are great -- their designs are not (usually) exciting but the content is excellent: relevant, useful, and written in a language that is neither intimidating or patronizing.
I'm so pleased to hear from people who enjoy my writing and find it useful. You'll quite turn my head. Thank you all for the generous praise.
...first, this is not an attack on the iPhone. I'm sure it's a groovy product, Apple make great gadgets. My point of the article was not about the phone really, but more questioning why anyone would spend hours and hours in line for a gadget. Spending hours in line to see a great musician or band is fine by me. You're about to have a life experience, and you can only see the musician on that particular date. But everyone can have an iPhone 3G...why do you need to have one first?
ask someone with a Discover Card to get them for you, and give them the cash?
Philip,
Great post. I've seen similar ideas in various voluntary simplicity books, but this is the only distillation I've seen that is both concise and clear. It's nice to have a reference to a description of these ideas that's only a couple printed pages long rather than hundreds.
Your posts have truly offered something unique and I have enjoyed them thoroughly. After a year or so of reading frugality blogs and books, a lot of content gets to be repetitive rehashings of the same details (CFLs, index funds, etc). By contrast your writing looks at the big picture, often from a perspective that's new to me.
Best wishes.