Category — Money

Whenever the economy is bad, getting worse or has hit rock-bottom, there is usually pandemonium, the press goes to town writing and saying all they can about how bad things are and how it is bound to get worse. However, there is always that silent voice, almost like the voice of reason whispering the word: COMMON SENSE!

Below are 2 important tips or tricks (since not many people do them) that one should apply in the days of financial and economic trouble.

1. Press Re-set Button

Any of us who has used a modern electronic gozmo before knows what this button is. It is the rescue spot when your gadget freezes. Some computers also have it. To do this to yourself in real life is indeed one of the fundamentals of surviving hard economic realities. The practical way to press reset button is as follows:

• Re-evaluate your spending. Are you spending first on what really matters? Toothpaste, toothbrush,shelter not unnecessary luxury in a penthouse. Gas guzzler automobile versus biking/small fuel efficient scooter.
• Re-assess your income. Do you refuse to work overtime and get the pay? Are you giving far too much of your services away for free. Are you getting paid for the knowledge you give away everyday or are you giving it away for free as free advice?
• Re-define your saving plans. Initially after college you wanted to spend wildly for 5 years before settling down. Now you should re-consider and start saving now. The savings you put aside now could save you when your employer suddenly lets their best employee of the year go….and it was you!

2. Seek new Knowledge

For the recent college or grad school graduate, this sure would taste like sand in the mouth. However, the reality is that many people end up earning a living from a skill very different from what they have been studying for years. With digital technology exploding over and over daily, access to knowledge is no longer a tenable excuse

• For visual monsters who love movies and TVs, hook your high-speed internet onto a TV monitor and consume the gazillion number of how-to videos online.  Start at Youtube.com, look for youtube.edu or simply google the topic of interest  (+) video. You may soon fin=d out how this skill can earn you extra money.
• For the rest, devour websites that have information that you are interested in. Seashells, cart wheels, dentures or any other topic. You are increasing your knowledge-base and in a knowledge-driven economy, this is a trump card.
• If you are more advanced, look for some youngsters to teach. teach them for free or for a fee. Volunteer to teach a young lad, volunteer at the local church. Teach teach teach. Giving to society is sure one way of tapping its resources.

I hope we can start applying these tips and tricks in our daily lives. If you have other tips and tricks that have worked for you, let us hear them in the comments below.

Credit Cards are one of the easiest instruments of civilized society. The companies come as ‘pussy cats’ and leave as ‘lions’. However there are a few long-established rules that have stood the test of time, These rules help you navigate that industry without sweat. The good thing about the credit card rules is that they are echoed all over the internet. Most personal finance websites and frugality blogs have it in one form or the other. I will outline some of them here and I am certain there may be new ones that my readers know that I have not included. Please feel free to add them here too.

1. Pay off your balance ALWAYS. Any dollar not paid will accrue interests in the next billing cycle and that is money wasted.

2. Send in your payment in good time electronically. Mailing a check may sound good, but if there is any delay or your mail gets lost, then you get hit with the late fees and it may even ding you credit score. Electronic payments have become3 so reliable these days that it is now the norm. Caveat: That you pay electronically does not always ensure that your money will get there in time. One of the popular hardware chains in the US has a store credit card that takes 3-5 days to process online payments. They actually state it clearly on their website so if you send your payment late, you get the late charges.

3. Always look at you credit card bills. This is common mistake seen with couples where only one person handles the finances. Spurious charges get paid because the other party “assumed” it was a proper charge. Check and verify that you actually spent what you are paying.

4. Getting rewards cards makes sense if there are no hoops like expiration and minimum expenditure before you can claim a reward. However, I must say that with the recent Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act in the United States, rewards have been shrinking fast. Check out this post by Liz Pulliam on MSN Money.

5.Watch your interest rate just in case you have to carry a balance. I started off on one  American Express Credit card three years ago at 8.99% APR. Soon enough (possibly when they saw that I was indeed payingoff  my balances), it went up to 10.98%. Well who cares, I pay off my balances every month and that is the way it is going to be.

6. Use automatic bi-monthly payment. If you set up you account to send in payments on the 1st and 15th of every month, you will indeed NEVER miss a payment. One may ask “So how much should I pay?”. Well, that depends on what your average charges on the card is. Pay half each time. If the money is short, you can make it up in the second payment and if it exceeds the charges, you have to choice to reduce the second payment or pay down the next month’s balance.

7. Get account tracking free software like Mint.com or Quicken and USE IT!

From my frugality point of view, the Iphone in USA and the Ipad are wasteful. The former because of the unnecessary contracts tagged on by ATT and the latter because it is an in-between gadet like Windows CE . I do hope I am wrong and it succeeds, that will be great, I just have not seen it yet

These are some of the ways that my Ipod saves me money.

1. I have wireless internet at home via a simple Netgear router that costs under 40 dollars. It saves me money because I do not have to go to the neighbourhood Starbucks to connect to WiFi. It is all in-house. No cafe, no spending!

2. I transfer my MP3 music from my computer to my Ipod. That way my music is portable to the office, in my car, on international travel and even to the gym or on walks. Sometimes I even listen while in bed at night especially if I am not interested in what my wife is watching on the television.

3.  I download digital audiobooks from my local library’s digital library. That way I have gone through an average of 6 audioboks per month. Books by authors like Wayne Dyer , Steven Covey and even Napoleon Hill as well as the occassional bestseller, Uwem Akpan and even Personal Finance Guru Suze Oman

4. I check my email without booting up the desktop. Computers like many other electrical and electronic equipment can suck up electricity. It is a subtle way to save by using your ipod touch to check your mail and to do minor web surfing. The Ipod can be configured to push you all your email accounts straight to the gadget once you are within a WiFi zone. If I were to turn on the desktop, it would consume much more electricity and will not be turned off soon, but will stay on even long after I am done with the email that I wanted to check.

5. Keeping tabs on my accounts online. With the magic of digital banking , Mint, I have all my accounts in one place and I can check both the credit cards as well as savings accounts, checking accounts and even retirement accounts via my Ipod.  Thus no late payments, no overdraft (I narrowly excaped that the other day following a miscalculation on my part). Mint even notifies me when a bill is available, awesome!

6. I send free SMS via my Ipod. I removed SMS from my cell phone contract and also blocked it off at the networ. However, occassionally someone wants to send me SMS. My Ipod makes it easy. There are some Ipod apps that help you do that on the fly. For me, I use Google Voice. I have a dedicated number via that service and I can send and recieve SMS free. In the past when my Ipod was jailbroken, I even had an app on the equipment that could do it. Nowadays I do it directly from the GoogleVoice webpage.

7. I make local and international phone calls with my Ipod. I registered for a service by Vonage where you can make calls via your Ipod. It cost me 5 dollars to register and activate. I however discovered by accident that I could make local calls for free via the service. I almost never need it though, but it is good to know you have that especially for that call to your pal when your home phone is busy and you do not want to call during the peak time with your cell phone. It also has Skype service as well as other Voip (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services, so it is awesome for making cheap “PC to PC” phonecalls

8. I monitor my wordpress websites. I host many websites. Some for profit and others for pleasure, yet others for charity.  With my Ipod, I am able to monitor content on most of them using a WordPress app on Ipod. That way I can even send posts on the fly, upload pictures and see comments realtime.

9. Voicemail made easy and checked for free. I use Youmail and there is an app for it too. It is free. I customize the greetings for my known numbers. When the calls come, if I am unable to pick up it goes to the customized message hosted on Youmail. Youmail then sends me the message as an email. The beauty of this app is that the voicemail is also sent to the app and downloaded so I can listen to it. It even show’s the caller’s number too. that way I do not have to use my “anytime minutes” if I have no real need to for checking my voicemail.

10. I monitor my cell phone minutes usage. There is a nifty application that was also downloaded for free which I use to monitor my ATT cell phone minutes. That way, I do not exceed my minutes and thus have to pay useage charges.

There are many more reasions why I use my I pod so much and how it saves me tons, but I will stop here. Follow one of my links and get an “I”-pod,-pad, or -phone. Do not buy apps, use free ones and save some dough while enjoying the latest technology in town.