Some of you may have noticed references to the Wall Street Journal in a few of my recent posts. This is because I began receiving a print subscription of the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago – for free. I am a member of the e-Rewards program, which offers rewards currency in exchange for completing market research surveys.

I have joined many survey programs before, but this is the only program that I have found to be reliable. With consumer surveys for market research, there is often a pre-screening survey that you have to fill out to see if you qualify. Some of these pre-qualification surveys take about 10 minutes to complete, after which you find that you are not eligible. With e-Rewards, they give you a small reward – $0.50 in rewards currency – even if you don’t qualify. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. And it adds up fast.

e-Rewards currency can be redeemed for a number of rewards such as magazine subscriptions (subjects range from fashion, to fitness, to business, etc.), Blockbuster video rental coupons, Borders Bucks, ariline miles, hotel points, coupons for dining and luxury merchandise stores, and more. Click here to see a full list of rewards.

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The 2009 Entertainment Book – Great Savings on Dining, Shopping, Travel, Attractions, Movie Tickets & More!

I don’t often blog about sales, but this is one I couldn’t let slip by because it is such a good deal. My parents used to buy the Entertainment Book every year when I was a kid living in Hawaii, and I used to love this book. I remember afternoons lying on my stomach on the living room floor browsing this book for coupons for my favorite restaurants and attractions, namely McDonald’s and movie tickets. My bargain hunting days go way back.

Just using a few of the coupons pays back the cost of the book, which is currently on sale at 50% off and shipping is very reasonable at $2.79 per book.

The Entertainment Book, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a book loaded with coupons for all sorts of local businesses and products in your area. The coupons and deals include savings for every day things as well as special occasions and outings:

• Groceries
• Dry Cleaning
• Auto Care & Repair
• Portrait Studios (JC Penny, Target, etc.)
• Fine Dinging (Ethnic and nice restaurants)
• Casual Dining (Tony Roma’s, IHOP, Pizza, etc.)
• Fast Food (McDonald’s, Subway, Domino’s, Wendy’s, Del Taco, etc.)
• Movie Tickets
• Museums
• Recreation (Golf, Mini Golf, Family Fun Centers, etc.)
• Sporting Events
• Attractions
• Travel (Car Rental, Hotels & Airline)
• and many more.

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When our A/C went out two Sundays ago, my first reaction was panic. We live in the desert where we have been experiencing triple digit temperatures and we have esteemed air conditioning as one of the dire necessities of life. So when our central air went out last weekend, my first thought was that we had to call the repair people first thing Monday morning and get it fixed ASAP to avoid extreme suffering.

By Sunday night, however, I began singing a different tune. Yes, it was hotter than h*** as we had a high of 104 that day and sweated a lot more than we would have liked. But the point was that we had survived it, and without any real harm to ourselves except for discomfort. I started fantasizing of the money that could be saved by going the rest of the summer without it.

I’ve also been thinking of how often we forget what we really could live without. We grew up in Hawaii where the average middle-class home doesn’t have air conditioning and many don’t even have insulation. I have memories of hot, humid summers when the entire house was unbearably hot and sweating was a normal part of life. In the winters (and trust me, it does get cold there) I would go to bed wearing at least 2 layers (one of which was sweatshirt and sweatpants), socks and occasionally a cap, under 3 layers of blankets.

But since moving to California in 2003, A/C has become a regular and expected part of life, and we got so used to the luxury that we would turn it on as soon as we felt hot. Of course, being the tropical beasts that we are, 82°-83° keep us sufficiently cool and happy.

So, while it has still been hot (we’ve still had highs in the 100°s), it has been begun getting a little cooler, so we have decided to postpone the A/C repair in the interest of saving and as a matter of discipline. We consider ourselves lucky that our A/C graciously waited until the latter part of summer to go on vacation.

Over this past week, we have learned a few things about how to keep cool without the A/C, but most importantly, that we have been overusing it by not taking advantage of cooler nighttime temperatures. In the past couple of months, we have sometimes kept the A/C on auto 24/7. Even though we set the thermostat around 82°-83°, the A/C still came on at night when outside temperatures were lower because the house was hot from being closed up. So here are a few tips for lowering and saving money on air conditioning use.

Tips for Going Without and/or Saving on Air Conditioning

• Turn on fans to keep the air circulating.
• Set ceiling fans to turn clockwise (counter-clockwise looking toward it).
• Keep curtains or blinds closed during the day.
• Use light colored curtains to deflect heat.
• Keep windows and doors closed tightly to keep the house cool.
• If there is a breeze or if outside air feels cooler than inside, open the window bringing in the cooler.
• Keep sunny windows closed if there is no breeze.
• In late afternoon, as soon as outside temperatures feel lower than inside temperatures, open all windows and doors.
• In the evening, when it’s cool outdoors but still hot indoors, place fans in front of open windows to draw in the cool air.
• Keep as many windows as possible open during night to take advantage of the cool night air to lower inside temperatures.
• In the morning, close windows as soon as the outside air begins feeling warmer than inside air.
• Limit strenuous physical activity until evening.
• Drink lots of cold water.
• When hot, use a water spritzer to spray yourself. The evaporating water will make you feel cool. (For fun, you can also spritz the water upwards and feel it fall down on you. The coldness can be quite shocking.)
• Tie a wet bandanna around your neck (this is something I do for my dog to prevent overheating and heatstroke during the summer).
• if you work for yourself and set your own schedule, you could take advantage of cooler temperatures to get work done at night as you might enjoy more clarity of mind and get more done without the heat.

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When you purchase food, you are paying not only for the part of the product you intend to eat but also for the packaging, the bags, wrappers, and boxes which usually go straight in the trash. While plastic wrap and bags have little use beyond stuffing them full of trash, cardboard food cartons have a great deal of potential. And since you have bought it, you may as well use it. Here are a few examples of the many uses of cardboard cartons which you purchase along with cereal, crackers, cake mix, pizza, etc.

• Disposable trash receptacles. Food cartons stand up nicely and are good for catching bits of trash while you are cooking, saving you the cost of trash bags. The foil-lined and plastic bags inside these cartons are often sturdier and more leak-resistant than trash bags proper and are ideal for holding food scraps and bones.
• Throw-away cat litter boxes. Very few people relish the task of dumping out cat litter, lifting liners full of sopping litter, or scrubbing the gray-brown clumps from the bottom and sides of cat litter boxes. You can avoid this age-old task by cutting a rectangle from of the side of a cardboard carton instead of opening the top, filling this homemade commode with litter, and throwing the entire litter box away once a day. These litter boxes can be set on newspapers or other floor protectors if you have large cats.
• Cheap homemade notebooks. Use flat cartons as book covers, using one narrow edge as the spine. Paper can be stitched or stapled in folded sections or simply stacked. To be efficient, cut the box to fit the size of the paper rather than cutting the paper to fit the box. I made an exception with the sample pictured here because the idea of a notebook in a Jello box was too good to resist. Affix the pages to the spine with hot glue. If you want a bookmark, glue a piece of ribbon or string to the spine before gluing the pages. These are good for address books, shopping lists, anything. They can be covered with pretty paper or fabrics for a fancier look.
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  
  

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Expansion Difficulty/Complexity: Medium-Hard

This is a credit card add-on for the game of Monopoly wherein players have both cash and credit and may opt to “charge” certain expenses in lieu of paying cash in order to keep the cash flow for investing in property and buildings. For being such a careful money saver in real life, I was surprised at how quickly my “credit card debt” snowballed.

I started out by charging all my expenses because the 10% interest seemed so insignificant, and before I knew it, I was overlimit and paying 20% interest and my debt became more and more unmanageable. I came in second in the end with a credit card debt of $3,600. Madoline won with over $5,000 in cash, and Mabel lost with over $10,000 in credit card debt. :O

Objective

To teach children (and some adults) about buying and owing on the credit system.

Overview

This version of the game uses a credit system wherein players may opt to put purchases and expenses on their credit account instead of paying cash – either because they do not have enough cash available or because they wish to keep their cash to invest in property.

How to Play

• Print out and distribute a copy of the Bank of Monopoly Personal Credit Card Statement (includes rules) to each player. The statement contains 20 tables (representing 20 months/circuits of the game board). If you need more than 20 tables, simply print extra copies of this document.
  Tip: Print 2-Sided to save paper
• Any time during the game, a player may opt to charge expenses such as rent, taxes and miscellaneous fees on his/her “credit card.” in order to save cash for investing in properties and building.
• Property and building purchases may not be charged on a credit card.

How to Use the Personal Credit Card Statement

• A player is allowed 12 credit transactions per month (circuit of the board).
• Each person has a credit limit of $2,000.

1. On the first round of the game, enter $0 under Balance Forward.
2. When making a charge, enter a brief description of the transaction under “Description of Transaction”
3. Enter the amount under “Amount Charged”
4. Total the current balance in the right-hand column under “Balance.”
5. When you pass or land on “Go,” total your balance next to “Total Charges”
6. Pay off your desired debt in cash to bank and enter the figure next to “Amount Paid @ “Go.”
   • You are required to make a minimum payment of 10% of the total charges.
   • If you are not able to make the 10% payment, your interest rate increases to 20% until you are able to make your minimum payment again.
   • You may pay your balance in full and accrue no finance charges, or pay at least the minimum or as much as you are able to or wish to.
7. Subtract the amount paid from the Total Charges and enter the amount next to “Balance Subtotal.”
   If the balance is greater than $0, multiply Balance Subtotal by 10% (n x .1) if you’ve made at least the minimum payment, or 20% (n x .2) if you were not able to make the minimum payment, and enter the figure next to “x 10% Finance Charges.”
8. Multiply Balance Subtotal by 10% (n x .1) and enter the figure next to “x 10% Finance Charges.”
9. Add the 10% Finance Charge to your Balance Subtotal and enter the figure next to “Balance Forward.”
10. This is your remaining debt.
11. Move to the next empty table and enter the “Balance Forward” amount at the top right-hand column
12. next to “Balance Forward.”
13. When entering your first charge of new circuit around the board, add the charge to the forwarded amount and repeat.

Click on the image below to view a sample statement

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Lesson 1: When Not to DIY

In the past year, we only went out an average of 1-2 times per month to run errands and our garage door therefore got very little exercise. One day last month, when I was leaving for my monthly grocery shopping trip, the door wouldn’t close. I left it to Madoline to figure out, and when I got home I found the door stuck halfway down and slightly slanted, having come un-aligned and with 2 of the upper wheels fallen out of the track on one side. Being confirmed DIY-ers, we tried to see if we could fix it ourselves, which involved me standing on the back of a sofa we had purchased at Goodwill (with the plan of re-upholstering it) and wrestling with the door, but soon decided it was best left to a professional and we made to by putting the wheels back in the tracks to keep the door from sagging and damaging the entire contraption.

Our biological father came to visit last week, and although I told him we needed to call a professional repairman, he thought he could fix it to save us some money. One and a half hours later, the door was more crooked, we had lost 3 more wheels, the tracks had been knocked out of place and the door was literally hanging. Furthermore, I found out after the fact that my father had severely endangered his own life, and even worse, MY LIFE, by unwinding the tension cable. And worst of all, he had damaged the door further so that what might have been some minor repairs became major repair, including replacement of the tension rod.

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For years, savvy travelers have been booking flights as many as 6 months ahead of time to take advantage of early booking discounts. This year, however, what used to be a smart move could end up costing travelers more money as airlines begin to cut back and cancel flights this fall. According to Airline Cuts Hit Fliers Who Planned Early by Matt Phillips of the Wall Street Journal, many travelers have already been influenced by this situation.

Some of the ways in which these flight cancellations are affecting travelers’ plans and pocketbooks are: Read the rest of this entry »