"The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket." Kin Hubbard

Want some free money? OK so I’m not giving away money but I will introduce you to some sites that will help. The first one that has saved me a bundle on music is Dealnews. This site has a ton of categories that you can choose from. They seem to scour the net so they can present you the very best deals. I tend to jump on the free ones. (I’m cheap) From technology to clothing, they seem to have it all. They turned me onto Amazon’s free music list which has almost 2500 free, legit, music. They’ll even give you local discount on restaurants and other deals closer to home.
The other site is Groupon. My friend Nate turned me onto this one. You sign up and they take your zip code and assign you the closest large city. In my case it was either Providence or Boston. Both are not exactly close but I’ll take what I can get. Groupon will present you with a limited time offer that will be something like buy a coupon for $15 dollars that is actually a $30 dollar coupon at a restaurant. So in effect you get double your money. You print out the coupon and bring it to the place. It works nice and easy. I do have a couple of issues with it as much as I like it. First it requires a bit of preplanning, which I am not the best at. Also because the range of locations is so large you might get a deal an hour away. I guess that’s fine but I’m lazy but I am not running out the door for that one. You can specify the types of deals you want like food and museums and not health and beauty stuff. However it doesn’t seem to listen to those preferences. I got two for liposuction. I took it personally.
Anyway I recommend trying either one at least for a bit just to see the one you like most. I should mention that Dealnews also covers coupons from Groupon as well.

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." Malcolm Forbes

Many Many times I look up a how to on the great and powerful YouTube. It’s useful for everything from cooking a roast to installing a disposal under the sink but how is it for a subject like math? The answer is very good indeed. Recently I caught a great interview with the founder of the Khan Academy. He started out recording a few math videos and posting them to Youtube to help his niece. She and others found them useful and now more and more people are contributing and learning from the Khan Academy. It is now a nonprofit that creates videos explaining subjects like biology, math, banking and money….Their admirable mission is to give access to knowledge to anyone. I am a big fan of this idea. I have watched a few of the videos and they work for me. They usually consist of a narrator writing on a digital blackboard. For people who might have a concentration or understanding issues, this is great because you can rewatch it as many times as you need. Plus you can download some for .99 cents to watch on your iPod or whatever. Also many people leave useful comments for these videos unlike other ones on YouTube. So if you are having trouble with a subject try this fantastic free service.

Below is the NPR interview. Quite interesting.

“Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.” Frances Rodman

Not too long ago I left my debit card at a restaurant in Boston. I got worried and wanted to cancel it ASAP but the numbers are written on the back of the unfortunately lost cards. Thankfully I had my iPhone to search the web and find the right numbers to call. However I pledged to correct this situation. So I added all the credit card phone numbers to my cell phone contacts. From now on if I lose my cards I will not have to scramble to find a number. Do the same to minimize the freakout factor.

I unfortunatley could not find a photo of Mr. Rodman to go with the quote so instead here are some people enjoying the beach at Coney Island.

The first rule of business, is never sell something you love. Otherwise, you may as well be selling your children. Hugh Macleod

At home our walls are bulging from the amount of extra stuff we seem to acquire. In this time of loss of jobs and high prices it is nice to hear about any amount of money to be saved or gained. Well even eBay has felt the pinch and so they have a new offer to get people using their service again. eBay usually charges to put items into an auction on their site but the first five auctions of every month will be free to put up. Now this may not save you a bundle but when you think that the whole goal is to sell an item every last bit of saving is nice. I have been reading through some of the comments about this and the general consensus is good because people are using some of the savings to offset free shipping. Free shipping on eBay almost always results in more bids. The flipside of this is also nice. Now if I decided to purchase an item the likelihood of me getting free shipping will go up. To put it simply if you have a bunch of stuff crowding you try selling a few items to begin with and go from there. Also I do have classes in how to buy and sell at PPL. Sign up and stop on by.

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” Desiderius Erasmus

Note: Before I begin I just want to say I have not tried the service yet but I figured I would post about it and if someone else has used it they could comment on their experience.
Not too long ago we had a yard sale to reclaim some space. After we left a message on Craigslist for people to come and claim the rest of it. Finally I boxed up the detritus and carted it off for donation. As I did I noticed how many books were still in the pile. Now I must say I have tried offloading unwanted books on places like eBay, with no real luck, and instead I just do the donation thing. However in the future I may give Cash4books a try. The site pays you for your books, that is if they want them. All you do is pop over to the site type in the ISBN numbers from your books and hit enter. If they are interested it will tell you how much they will buy them for. I looked around my office for some test subjects and every book I typed in was rejected. So I walked into the library and grabbed a fairly new book off the shelf. Finally I got one. They would pay me a whopping $1.73 for a Fairly new book. Now I agree that does not seem like a great deal but we have a ton of books at home that we go through from book sales, friends castoffs or just curb pickups and this might be a deal to recoup some of the cost. Once they identify books and they give you a price you need to sign up and then agree to their terms. Finally you print out an invoice and a shipping label. They pay for all of the shipping. I liked this hassle free approach. You box them up and they pay you by either check or the service Paypal. So in future just before you donate all your books you may want to try the service at least once.

"Never invest you money in anything that eats or needs repairing." Billy Rose

I like technology, cooking, and cartoons. These are subjects I feel I can have a conversation on at any time. I have other subjects I can wade through but one that I am completely out of my depth is anything to do with cars especially car repair. When I go to my mechanic I have to take his word that is a good price and I am not overpaying for extra junk I do not need. Now I could go and take a class in car repair and brush up on the vocab to at least get a clue or I can head over to RepairPal. It is a great little site that allows you to type in the basic info about your vehicle and the repair that needs to me made. Once that is done it will give you a range of prices from parts to labor and other basic info. It works well and I even found I have a decently priced mechanic. They have some other extras like a place to leave questions for the forum of members and an encyclopedia for greater understanding. It will do a shop search for your specific type of vehicle as well. So next time you bring your dying Utterly Sputter in and they say the Super-Zooper-Flooper-Do needs replacing look it up before you give the A-OK.

“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?” Bertolt Brecht

How much do you spend on ink? I would argue that it is one of the most expensive liquids on the planet. Every time you print you spend money. It is a simple equation but not printing is not always an option. . What if there was a way to print with less ink but still have pages looking normal? This post has turned into an infomercial. NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY? Well according to Spranq Creative Communications their Ecofont prints with 20% less ink. They created a font with tiny holes inside the letters. It looks like Swiss cheese. Sometimes the simple answers are truly the best. The nice bit is that if you print at normal size type (10-14) it is barely noticeable if at all but if you pump it up to 72 point size it becomes apparent how it works. I am still testing this out but I have to say if it does what it says it does, I may adopt this for almost all my printing. There is no reason to waste money or resources if you don’t have to. One last thing: the font is free so why not give it a try? Download and test it yourself. If you like it, they do take donations.

"Stop, hey what's that sound" Buffalo Springfield

On the net there are games, movies, and fun of every kind. Some of it is considered addictive and keeps you coming back again and again. I tripped across this page not too long ago and it is more than just addictive. It is obsessively addictive. MySecretSound is a site with one purpose and that is to give away money. The site is devoted to a contest which features a mystery sound. All you have to do is listen to the sound and identify it. Simple? Once you listen to the sound you realize it sparks memories of something you swear you know and is just on the tip of your tongue but you just cannot quite picture it. You are allowed to give an answer once per day. If you can remember 30 minute car rides with your parents that seemed to feel like an all day event then you will understand when you guess wrong. A day is long indeed. At the moment you can win 2000 dollars. It changes after someone gets the answer correct. The only thing they ask of you is to join there site so they can keep track of your guesses. So if you have decided you have just a bit too much time on your hands give this one a try.

Once I thought of the quote I could not get the song out of my head so here is a link to hear it for yourself.Thanks goes to the Technohippie website for the song.

“Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.” George Carlin

Are you concerned about gas prices? Do you drive all over town to find the best deal? Well stop wasting gas right now and head over to PumpCost for a quick and easy breakdown of the cheapest stations. Frankly there is not much more to say about this site other than it works well. The list shows you the cheapest to most expensive prices with all the grades of gasoline following in line. So for all those that like to pay close attention to gas prices this is for you. Give it a try

“The interesting thing was, I started eBay off as a hobby so it was free of charge.” Pierre Omidyar

As of February 20^th the rates of eBay will be changing. The initial fees will lower and this is good news all around. However to make up for losses eBay has raised end fees much to the displeasure of sellers. There are several other changes that will affect both sellers and buyers alike. Gallery images will now be free allowing buyers to quickly see photos even before they open the auction. As per usual with every change comes problems and resentment. So sellers have decided to strike on the dates February 18th through the 25^th. They plan to do no selling of any kind on the site. Many spokespersons have said this is a normal routine that the auction site goes through every time a change in rates happens. I personally do not think much will happen other than the usual acceptance of rate adjustments but people should know this is going on. So how does this concern you? My only advice is to get all your shopping done by those dates and just sit back and see what happens.

“It is not helpful to help a friend by putting coins in his pockets when he has got holes in his pockets.” Elizabeth Bowen

So you are cleaning up and finding change in the couch cushions and in random places around the house. Now you have a big container of change but how much is it? It would be nice to get an idea of how much it is so you find out if it is worth toting it on down to the local bank or coinstar in a grocery. CoinCalc is a very nice little site that calculates how much you have. All you do is weigh the change in the jar or bag and then grab a handful and enter in the values of how many coins and their types in you hand. Once you enter the values it will give you a fair estimate of what you have. Is this setting the world on fire amazing? I would say no but it is pretty cool. Give it a try and find out how much you got paid for cleaning up.

A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

When I teach eBay classes I get very worried looks when I bring up the words credit cards online. There is a real hypocrisy when it comes to us using credit cards online versus anywhere else and I am just as guilty. The question I always ask is “Do you use your card at a restaurant?” Most people would say yes. We will give a complete stranger a key to our finances without thinking of it but we hem and haw when it comes to a secure database online. I argue that it is far safer to use it online (with caution) than in regular life. To support this I say it is easier to grab your numbers or steal your cards than it is to hack something online. Now I understand there is hacking online and some places do have problems but not to the extent that theft is there in real life. The news show 60 Minutes did a segment just recently on credit card leaks at stores. The y showed the unfortunate ease of grabbing your numbers. This means when you use your card at your favorite store, and you feel safe because it never leaves your sight, your numbers are actually flying through the air to a router and a server. Some stores have not made this secure and your info can be easily captured as we all saw when Marshals stores had been in the news. Now should you be scared all the time? I would say a decent bit of paranoia is OK but I would not build the bunker yet. Take precautions like contacting your CC company and asking them what they have in place to guard against problems. Now that I am armed with info like the 60 minutes spot and reading online I am becoming more of online shopper than ever before. I have written on this blog about some of the pitfalls like phishing and bad sellers but these are minor in comparison to the problem with the stores. So for the time being I may pay in cash in person and save my Credit Card for the virtual stores.

Alright fine I will still use my card at restaurants as well.

“We're overpaying him but he's worth it” Samuel Goldwyn

Have you ever purchased something only to have the price drop a week later? This leaves you kicking yourself and wishing for better timing. Many stores now have price protection policies. This means if the item you purchase drops in price you could be in for a refund. There are two problems with this: 1) It is for a limited time (different for each store) and 2) you do not get any reminders. This means if you do not know about a price drop, you do not get a refund. So to help with this situation there is Priceprotector. It is a simple site with one real goal: informing you of a price drop. If you bought something recently look it up on the sellers page. Once you find the item, right-click on the items link and choose copy link location. Then go back to the Priceprotector page and paste it into their lookup area. It will find it and show you the current price. If you paid less for it or it is the wrong thing, you can change it there. Once it is all correct, type in your email and it will send you any info if the price drops. This is a nice free service that I think you should give a try.

“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are” Jose Ortega y Gasset

So you can find every bit of info that you could ever want online but do you really pay attention to it? Southern California Edison Energy believes you don’t have any interest in looking at raw data and I agree. They are installing small white orbs in houses to try an experiment that seems to be working well. The idea is this. When power consumption is expensive for you and everyone else the little orb glows red. This means you should start turning off electronics or at least put them on hold. When the power consumption is low it glows green signaling you to power up if necessary. Now why do you care? Well this is showing by just using a little light it gets you to do more than actually giving you numbers to think about. This was originally designed for people paying attention to things like mutual funds and stocks. Since this has been tried it people seem to be responding well to it. To read more here is one article of many that is out there. As usual there is a net component as well. People have started communities to show off how little they use of the power available. Pretty soon we should not be surprised if a new piece of software shows up on a social site that allows us to put our carbon foot print or usage on something like Facebook. No matter what happens if this shows a real effect on us reducing energy then maybe it will be coming to a house near you.

“Everything makes me nervous - except making films.” Elizabeth Taylor

Another outlet for people to explore their creativity is Metacafe. It is another video sharing site but unlike Youtube people can get payed for their works. However boring and unoriginal works will not cut it here. Payment is based on the amount of views. This means people are creating works that are all over the place. Some are instructional, funny or just plain amazing. Their tag line is “serving the world’s best videos.” People comment on the videos and I find they have not succumbed to the spam comment that Youtube has a problem with. If you are looking for some inventive videos or have ten minutes to kill give this a try.

“I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were wearing masks for.” James H. Boren

So you share an apartment and need to pay the bills but how do you go about this in an organized way? Bill Share is one idea to fix this problem. To use their own words you can “create receipts to divide shared expenses. Track spending habits with detailed statistics. Email alerts keep you updated on amounts owed. The group wall and messaging allow group members to communicate effortlessly. It's easy, simple and free!” Give it a try.

Disclosure: I have not used this myself because I have not needed it but the info I have found backs up that it is a usable and worthy site.

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. Woody Allen

Ok I have just paid for something with a twenty dollar bill and then I get a bunch of ones back. But wait one of the bills is marked with a special message. It is not a clandestine spy exchange but it is an invitation to the Where's George website. I have used this site for about six years. When you get a dollar bill with the marking go to the site and sign up. Then type in the serial number and condition that it is in. It will tell you where the previous person received the bill your holding. The thing I like most about this site is that I get to live vicariously through the bill's travels. As soon as you register the bill spend it and then you will get email updates telling you who found it, when, and where. Also there is a version for Canada as well called Where's Willy. Give it a try!