Recent comments

  • 51 Uses for Coca-Cola – the Ultimate List   13 years 5 weeks ago

    Actually coke is used to clean up blood from crime scenes. My best friend is a csi for LA county he's the one that told me that they do it.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 5 weeks ago

    Using inheritance money to purchase our first house - the payments were the same back then as we were paying for rent.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 5 weeks ago

    Making a 50% down payment on a new car and financing the balance at 0% for 2 years. Many of the GM dealers offer this promotion in August and December.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    My best money move was working hard and getting a promotion at work.

  • Feeling Stuck? 100 Ways to Change Your Life   13 years 6 weeks ago

    Hello Nora! Thanks for a very good article! I will implement some of your ideas! I'm trying to change my life around and I think it's all about committment, to keep your focus far ahead and just never give up!

    Regards Patrik

  • 18 Frugal and Romantic Dates at Home   13 years 6 weeks ago

    Combining some of these things also works great. Yesterday we combined making dessert, cocktails, and youtube. It makes for inexpensive, quality time together.

  • 18 Frugal and Romantic Dates at Home   13 years 6 weeks ago

    Great list! They wifey would love the at home massage and candlelit dinner. We do the stay at home movies a lot already. Kinda hard to make out in the car with three kids and a dog hanging around.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    Living within my means and paying off my MBA before finishing the program all under a college student's budget.

  • 25 Things to Do With Used Corks (Including Making Money With Them)   13 years 6 weeks ago

    I took a string eyeglasses cord drilled a hole in a couple of corks then threaded onto the cord and now I can go in the water and not worry about losing my glasses, they float.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    "The brains and the brawn." This is what we call our strategy for getting rid of excess items and making extra cash to put towards debt payments.

    One year ago, after having our first baby together (we also have an 11 year old son from his first marriage) my husband and I retained a financial planner to help us examine our finances. It was the best $3000 we've ever spent: we realized how much money we were wasting in debt payments every month and vowed to work together to pay off all debts (except for our mortgage) and really start saving.

    Part of our recent strategy has been to get rid of excess items around the house. Now, every week I try to find one or two things to post to Craigslist or ebay. My son and have made a game of it. We find an item, price it and list it together, and then wait and see what happens. My husband hates that part of things, so he has assigned himself the "muscle" task, i.e. shipping (for items we sell on ebay) and hand-offs (for items sold on Craigslist).

    This division of labor works well for us, and we've succeeded in bringing in between $30 and $200 each week doing this. $30 might not seem like much, but it feels great watching the principal on his student loan slowly shrink over time, and we've learned to work as a team.

  • Simple Strategies for Using Your Leftover Food   13 years 6 weeks ago

    I find that any leftovers are great when stirred into and cooked with fried onions. Add potatoes to the mixture and fry up together (with minimal oil) or put over rice. Shepards pie is also a family favorite.

  • Up Before the Roosters: Becoming an Early Riser   13 years 6 weeks ago

    No thank you!! I choose to stick to an alarm.

    Good advice in the article. Will definitely work on creating an evening routine to help start early to bed and early to rise. I hate rushing in the AM but I always seem to anyway. Perhaps good quality sleep is the trick. :)

  • Secret Lawn Tonic Recipe From Golf Course Groundskeeper   13 years 6 weeks ago

    I am so excited about trying this on my lawn in No. Central Florida. For a year or so I have admired a lawn in our town. It is absolutely beautiful! I decided to stop and ask the owner just how she kept the grass so perfect. She told me the only thing she did was treat it every 3 weeks with this tonic! She showed me her 10 gal. hose end sprayer but I hadn't been able to locate one anywhere. Now I can refer to the comments with the proper ratio for mixing in any sprayer. Thanks!! She has no sprinkler system or professional pest control. She sprays all of her plants and hedges and they are amazing. She does water with a regular sprinkler regularly. After reading these comments, I can't wait to see what happens!

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    It was probably becoming a one car family which helped with out budget and eliminate a 2nd car payment, insurance and reduced our gas budget

  • netSpend: The Story of the Visa Debit Card We Did Not Apply For   13 years 6 weeks ago

    I have used Netspend since 2003. I like it for online shopping do to that if there is no money loaded on it no one else can use it. I general do not leave a lot of money on the card. I put it in the netsped savings account which can not be accessed via the card. I can have my paypal money and etsy money directly deposited to the card. I can also tranfer money to my kids who live in another state just by transferring it to thier net spend card no fee unlike wires or western union
    I think where people are having trouble is when dealing with amounts over 1000.00. But my card has worked great for 10 years

  • The 5 Best Pressure Cookers   13 years 6 weeks ago

    As a pressure cooker expert and author of a pressure cooking cookbook, The New Fast Food: The Veggie Queen Pressure Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less than 30 Minutes, I think that you failed to mention one of the best pressure cookers which is the B/R/K. I have used many cookers and both the design and functionality of these cookers is top-notch.

    While I am not a huge fan of the electric pressure cooker, I really like that the Instant Pot (not mentioned) has a stainless (rather than nonstick) insert. Some people love their electric cookers. Good for them. The recipes in my book work with those, as well.

    Thank you for writing about pressure cooking. It's an incredible way to cook.

  • 8 Vile Craigslist Scams to Watch Out For   13 years 6 weeks ago

    I had almost an identical response to a current listing I have, it was from a "Hustin Lee", instead, it asked for my paypal account "for quick and easy transfer of funds". I hate that they actually catch people in their web from time to time....

  • The Travel Hacking Cartel: Fly Around the World For Almost Free   13 years 6 weeks ago

    Hi! This program sounds really great. I'm seeing that to take advantage of this program and rack up frequent flyer miles, you need to sign up for credit cards. How would this work for someone who is young and has no credit, or someone who has bad credit. In those instances they are not likely to get approved for a credit card, so how could they still benefit from it?

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    eatting out less

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    My husband wants one thing and one thing only. He wants our house to be paid off before he retires in 13 years, 4 months. Over a year ago, I was able to refinance our home from a 30 year mortgage with 28 years left on it, to a 15 year mortgage at 3.5%. The payment for the 15 year ended up actually being lower than the original payment for the 30 year loan. Now he's happy - a few extra payments, and the house will be all ours before his retirement date.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    my best money move was buying apple stock in the $100's and selling in the $600 -$700 range.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    The best move I've ever made was going to school to be a radiology technologist. I will make fairly good money.

  • 9 Simple Ways to Stop Impulse Buying   13 years 6 weeks ago

    Something that works for me is to think, "if a stranger came up to me and offered me x dollars instead of this item, which would I rather have?" If I'd rather have the money, the purchase isn't worth it.

  • Training Your Dog: 9 Hazardous Habits (and How to Break Them)   13 years 6 weeks ago

    These are awesome tips. We had a hard time training our dog before but with patience and dedication, we were able to get rid of some problems. There's til the barking and the jumping but not as frequent. And no more biting of slippers and furniture.

  • Ask the Readers: What's the Best Money Move You've Ever Made?   13 years 6 weeks ago

    My best money move was starting saving early, from my very first job in my teens, to my first job after college, I saved over 50% of my income. I took advantage of not needing much when I was single. Now that I have a family to support, I hope I can breathe a little easier.