Learning to repair cars yourself is perfectly doable. Maybe one of your parents taught you the basics as you were growing up, but even if that isn’t the case, there are plenty of books, websites and actual experts out there that can help you figure out the nuts and bolts.
But what about more extreme DIY projects? If you’d grown up two hundred years ago, you might have learned how to make cheese, build your own tools or all sorts of other skills that seem beyond most of us these days. There are situations when such skills can still come in handy, though, especially if you’re more interested in investing time rather than cash in the situation. Here are a few tips to acquire such skills
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One of the great truths about life is that we can deal with just about anything. The recession has led to a revival in the noble art of haggling, and it is possible to take advantage of this almost everywhere. The worst that can happen when you ask is that the other person will say no, and this applies even on health care costs.
Now we all know about the rising costs of health care, and many of us worry about being buried under a pile of bills. The good news, though, is that you can sometimes haggle your costs down. The October 2011 issue of Consumer Reports Magazine offers some insight into how you can negotiate on some of your health care bills, and save money. Some of the tips include:
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I admit that I shamelessly stole this idea from my sons’ elementary school. Each year, all of the students are invited to bring in books that they are done reading to swap with their classmates. All of the kids love it and the parents love that it encourages children to read while teaching them a valuable lesson about thrift and the value of re-using things.
There is no reason that you can’t do the same with your circle of friends, a church or other social group or your co-workers. Combine it with some light refreshments (maybe even a cookie swap or potluck?) and you’ve got a fun way to socialize with built in conversation starters. Better still, everyone gets to go home with a new-to-them book to enjoy.
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In college, I had more than one professor tell my class at the outset that he did not ever award A+ grades to his students. An A+ denoted perfection, and as students, we were not able to get a perfect score in these classes. There was always room for improvement.
For years, I assumed that the 850 credit score was a similar beast. I thought that you might be able to break the 800 range if you were some sort of financial rock star, but that no one really achieved a perfect score. However, while earning an 850 is certainly rare, it is not impossible. If you consistently follow all of these rules, you can improve your score and become one of elite few who have perfect credit:
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Balancing your home budget has never been easier or more enjoyable with the widespread advent of feature-packed iPad and iPhone apps. If you one of these slick devices, check out these four iPad and iPhone apps for financial management that rose to the top of the charts.
1. Home Budget with Sync- free/$4.99
Home Budget is a user-friendly iPad and iPhone app that helps you keep track of your finances on the go. With nearly instantaneous sync, the app allows spouses or partners to view information in real time, preventing financial goof ups that arise from poor communication. With this app you can track your expenses, your income, and your progress towards maintaining a balanced home budget with detailed reports that include full-color visuals such as pie charts and bar graphs. You can even scan and attach receipts directly from the app.
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There are many reasons that, as a society, we’ve gone over to using money, rather than sticking to a barter system. One big reason is accounting, as it’s much easier to keep track of dollars coming in and going out than it is to track a variety of services and products that all have different values.
But there’s still plenty of bartering going on. For those who want to barter on a regular basis, it’s important to keep track of where your finances are, even if you aren’t working entirely on a cash basis. Not doing so may not have the immediate dire impact of not keeping up with your monetary bookkeeping, but it can have a lot of problems.
Trade Deficits Aren’t Just a National Issue
If you barter regularly, it’s not out of the question that you might find yourself on the wrong side of a trade deficit — where you’ve traded more to someone else than they’ve traded back. At the most basic level, keep track of your non-cash transactions can help you make sure that you’re actually making good deals.
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