Sharing insights since 2007 on carefully saving money, investing, frugal living, coupons, promo codes because the little things matter in achieving financial freedom!
I worked as an analyst for a Fortune 500 company years ago. My job was basically to help banks become as profitable as possible. We used proprietary software (best of its kind, thank you) to maximize the profitability of each customer. Part of my job was to travel around the United States training bankers how to use the product.
Travel was part of the reason I took the job. Though, of course, the job comes first, but why can’t a person enjoy both work and travel? This post will tell you what I did to turn business trips into vacations. And I’m not writing this post merely for a catchy headline either, because the strategies are clever (if I may say so myself!).
Note: Business ALWAYS comes first, but traveling for work is largely about building relationships. And what better way to bond with clients than doing fun things with them? Let’s get started: [ continue reading… ]
Nearly all of us have some sort of budget. We budget for groceries, rent, car payments, fuel, even toiletries. We may think we’ve thought of every expense but have we really? Probably not.
What this post will do is uncover the one area of our budget we can easily overlook. And it is perhaps the biggest expense we have. It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.
Spring is in the air and so are those baseballs. If you’re a family who enjoys our national past time, a night under the stadium lights can be a memorable walk off win… or a gut wrenching extra innings loss. Either way, most people spend a ton of dollars to see the games, but that doesn’t always need to be the case. Here’s a few tips from a frugal father who loves to take his family out to the ballgame:
1. Check Out Some Third Party Apps
Very rarely will I buy my tickets from the team’s direct site. I’ve found that season ticket holders who can’t go to all the games try to recoup their losses by selling leftover tickets through sites like www.stubhub.com, www.vividseats.com, and www.seatgeek.com. They host a plethora of ticket options fetching far lower than the retail value on direct sites. My favorite is SeatGeek, particularly their smartphone app. You can scale which seats you want, or what price range you’re looking for. What sets SeatGeek apart is the searching it does from other sites. Like those hotel and airline sites, it searches the web for the cheapest price possible and you’ll end up getting tickets at a far better deal. Their color coding method makes it quite easy to see which seats are at the hottest price (dark green being the best, red being the worst deal). Bonus: If you tap on a seat, it’ll take you to a hi-res photo from a fan who sat there so you’ll see the view of your prospective ticket. [ continue reading… ]
Tesla is an auto brand founded in California by the notorious Elon Musk. Elon co-founded PayPal and also owns SpaceX – the company with a mission to colonize Mars.
While Elon is dreaming of Mars, he builds electric cars. Tesla current makes two models of cars – the Model S and the Model X. The S is a large sedan and the X is an SUV. These cars are renowned. They are safe thanks to their aluminum construction. Also, there’s no gas tank to blow up and no engine that tries to join the passengers during a front impact collision. These cars are also fast – some trim levels going 0-60 MPH in as little as three seconds – that makes the Model S one of the world’s fastest sedan – electric or gasoline. The cars are also extremely spacious since the batteries are beneath the floorboards and the drive components fit into a space about the size of a watermelon. Also, these cars are easy to maintain. You only need to worry about the wiper fluid running low. Did I mention that these cars can drive themselves? Yes, thanks to the recently introduced autopilot feature. I could go on…
Obviously, these are great cars. So why isn’t everyone driving them? One word: Price. [ continue reading… ]
We all have to eat, but we don’t always have to pay the sticker price. Walmart and Target allow consumers to price match from competing stores and online markets, and these retailers can afford it because few are taking advantage from such a discount. Price matching can be a little overwhelming and complicated, but with a few helpful tips, you’ll be able to get the best price when it comes to grocery shopping.
#1: Plan Ahead!
Get in the habit of making a grocery list in order to make the most use of price matching. After making a run through your fridge and pantry, compile a two-column list of needs and wants. Once you have your list, compare it with the weekly ads in your junk mail (yes, even junk mail has its benefits). Then circle every item in those ads with the items on your list with a marker. If you have kids, get them involved and treat the circling task like a fun picture word-search. My kids get a kick out of it, and I’m sure yours will too. [ continue reading… ]
I’ve spent a lot time thinking about my financial situation the past few weeks. Part of that has to do with my newer, bigger tax bill as a result of my recent divorce, as well as the medical bills resulting from breaking my wrist a few weeks ago.
For Financial Literacy Month, CO-OP Financial Services released a quiz that can help you get a basic idea of where you stand when it comes to financial fitness: [ continue reading… ]
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