What’s so good about the iPhone?
Posted by WoB in Spending Money on July 3, 2009
It’s time to upgrade the old mobile phone and you’re wondering if you should take the leap and upgrade to the new iPhone 3gs. I know this is a bit off topic for this blog, but whatever. Feel free to worry yourself with something else.
My only reason for not doing it is that I have Verizon Wireless and I haven’t dropped a call in 12 years. Half of my friends have made the switch from Verizon, and I can’t blame them. The phone is unbelievable although I have been on the phone with a few of them and they have had to say the words “I’m coming up on a bad service area, do you mind if I call you back in a few?” I’m not sure if I’ll ever really let this go.
Having the real internet on your phone is awesome. You never know when you will use it. You could use it to find a better price, under what you are about to pay at a store. If you’re looking at a big screen TV at an electronics boutique with a really knowledgeable salesman, just bring up the TV he’s pitching at Amazon with free shipping and no sales tax, and buy it on the spot. It’ll be delivered right to your living room for much cheaper and probably faster without you borrowing your fiend’s pickup and dealing with tie down straps.
There is even an app that will scan the barcode on items and bring you right to the cheapest price. That is just ridiculous. You could probably save enough on one big purchase to pay for the thing.
There are thousands of mini applications, called apps, that provide just about any service that you can think of. There is an MLB app that allows you to watch two (predetermined) live games on your phone, and listen to unlimited games, for all for $9.99.
It has Google maps or turn by turn directions. You’ll never get lost again. You can even get a street view of your current location. This is highly unnecessary, but entertaining none the less.
You can update you Facebook status on the go, and check other peoples without being at a computer. You might never miss out on meeting up with a friend that is just a few blocks from you.
You can watch videos on your phone, and I know what you are thinking, “why bother” but if you are waiting at the DMV for an hour, is there any better place to watch a few episodes of your favorite shows?
If you have not used one, find someone with it and give it a try. There’s no way that you’ll want to give it back. Make sure you try the game Super Marble roll. It is awesome.
I currently have a Windows Mobile Smartphone that has some of these features, but there are some that are not available that I would really use.
You can bet that I will be getting and one as soon as I see an ad for the iPhone for Verizon wireless. I can barely wait, but I enjoy being able to make phone calls.
Vacations are priceless
Posted by WoB in Necessities, Spending Money on July 2, 2009
Everyone needs time to unwind after months of living the daily grind. There are limitless vacations that you can go on for about $1000 per person. I believe that the key to defining a good vacation is if you can put away your watch and not miss a step. I have found that a good all-inclusive resort vacation fits his billing perfectly.
There are a few places that you can get an all inclusive for under $1000 per person, double occupancy. Cancun, Punta Cana, or Puerto Vallarta is a few choices depending on where you are flying from. Take a look at this site to see a few pictures from each of these places. They are all good options.
On an all inclusive vacation, you pay for everything up front. This one price includes flights, transfers, food, drink, non-motorized water sports, beach towels, taxes, tips, and gratuities.
Never entertain the idea of a timeshare unless you really like the idea. Almost all of these resorts try to sell you on timeshares with pushy salespeople and free gifts, but you will find that it wastes a lot of your time and is never worth it.
I recommend bringing a $100 in sequential bills and keeping it in your safe for tipping. I know that tipping is included, but if you want the best service, a dollar or two every once in a while really goes a long way. I recommend sequential bills so that you never have to count how many you have spent. Just look at the serial numbers and line then up so that you have a countdown.
Bring some other cash for gifts and souvenirs, and never buy them on the resort. Grab a cab into the local towns and haggle your way into a deal.
The best use of tip money is to throw a few at the reception clerk at check in. They have been known to give up an upgrade or two.
Another tip is to bring an insulated travel cup. Some resorts you don’t need it because the service is phenomenal, but for some others, it’s nice to have a cool beverage with you on the beach or near the pool and the longer it stays cold, the more relaxing you can do.
Before you go, check out this packing list that I have compiled. It is obviously not a complete list, but it does have some things on it that you might regret forgetting.
Cancun has great nightlife, and so does Puerto Vallarta, but Punta Cana has the best beaches. There is less to do at night, but each of the resorts has late night bars and clubs to go to. I recommend going to www.tripadvisor.com to check out a few reviews to help you decide what resort to go to. Be wary of what kind of person the resort caters to. You don’t want to be single at Couples, You don’t want to bring your children to Hedonism and so on.
Start cooking at home
I have a few friends that eat out for every meal. They haven’t used their kitchen except to store leftovers. This must be nice for them, but it surely costs them a ton of money. I think that cooking is a mandatory lesson that needs to be learned. You easily pay twice for a meal what you would have paid if you had made it for yourself and probably more like four times for a decent meal. I know it takes time and that time is valuable, but there are surely meals that can be created in less than 15 minutes, that are much better, cheaper, and even quicker than jumping in the car and driving to get takeout.
If you don’t really cook, start small. When my wife and I started cooking, we went through a lot of fazes. We started with bagged meals from Bertolli (these are great). I know, it’s not really cooking for ourselves, but it got us started and it was easy. It got us used to using our pots and pans, our stove, and even the kitchen.
After we got sick of those, we started in on buying other things. We would buy a cut of meat, marinade it and bake it in the oven. Then we would make one of those boxes of mashed potatoes and microwave some green beans. These were good for a while, and we started to add variety into this faze; creamed corn, steaming broccoli, different seasoning on the meats, and different cuts of meat.
Then we moved into faze three. We would find a recipe online and give it a try. To start out, we would follow each recipe to the letter. These meals were hit or miss, but we always got through it. We would select easy recipes with minimal ingredients, because we didn’t have many on hand. We kept adding different ingredients into the mix and new recipes to the catalog.
Now, we know that we’re not the best cooks, but we have become relatively proficient. We can make almost anything taste good. We have really mastered the art of making the flavors all work together. It just takes time and practice. We now use almost the whole spice rack for different meals and don’t have to make excuses when people come over hungry. I can honestly say that I no longer have any pizza joint phone numbers memorized.
Get started. Even if you have to start with frozen Bertolli meals, just do it. Check them out, they really are good. www.bertolli.com
I was an early entrepreneur
Posted by WoB in Earning Money, Introduction to finance on June 25, 2009
When I was around 10, I was making around $2000 a summer. A business partner and I mowed lawns and did yard work for neighbors and they loved us for it. This was a great job for me at the time because I had spare time when I wasn’t playing manhunt, or biking around aimlessly. We would charge a different rate for each of our customers, given their vastly different yard sizes, but it would average $15 per yard. Each yard would take us about an hour, so we were earning about $7 per hour, given the gas and other expenses.
Along with having more money than I knew what to do with at the time, I learned a few valuable lessons. Make sure to keep your customers happy, go above and beyond, and always exceed their expectations. These lessons have served me well ever since.
Each of my customers would tell their friends and neighbors about their yard and the job that we did, and soon we had more customers than we had time to manage. We were able to be selective when choosing new customers. At the time, I didn’t fully grasp the concept of outsourcing, and I’m glad I didn’t because I would probably still be mowing lawns. Nothing against the profession, it just isn’t for me.
Mowing lawns in the summer turned into shoveling snow in the winter, and again, we had the same problem; too many prospective customers and not enough time. We would each make a profit of over $200 during big snowstorm and living where we did, there were about 10 serious snowstorms a year and a few small ones.
Thinking back on all of this money, I wonder where it all went. I don’t really remember making any big purchases but I do remember losing a lot of wallets. I never opened up a savings account during this time, and I really wish now that I had. I wasn’t a great budgeter, and I had no financial blogs to read at that time to get me started. I wish I had stumbled onto this post. Then I definitely would have started a savings account and watched my money grow. I could have invested it in a mutual fund, or jumped on the Roth bandwagon early. I could have bought Microsoft or AT&T.
If you have children about this age, have them read this post. It’ll either give them ideas about how to make money, or start them thinking about saving money the right way; not in a wallet.
Saving money the easy way
Posted by WoB in Banks, Introduction to finance, Savings on June 24, 2009
I’ve talked about this before, but it is really important. There are three ways to get money into a savings account:
> wait until the end of the month, and move any leftovers into savings
> budget in an amount to send over and hopefully stick to it
> deposit a portion of your paycheck directly into savings, or have it automatically taken out electronically
I have found that trying to save money by putting what is left after all of your other expenses never really work. Unless you really have a good budget, as really are able to stick to it, you won’t have much luck using the budgeting technique either.
The best method to really maximize your savings is to have it done for you before you have a chance to even see it hit your checking account. It is much easier to not have to manage you savings process. The more you have saved, the closer you are to financial security. It’s everyone’s goal to be secure financially. If you lose your income, you need a way to pay your bills without relying on credit cards. Your mortgage or rent needs to be paid, along with other monthly expenses. If you have liquid or relatively liquid assets that you can transfer into your checking account during any period of time that you don’t have income, this is where you want to be.
Open a savings account at an online bank (www.ingdirect.com or www.hsbc.com) and have your employer deposit a good chunk of money from each paycheck. If your employer doesn’t offer this, use you online account to set up an auto withdrawal the day after each paycheck clears. As you start to see the money pile up in this account, you will notice a weight being lifted. It has an amazing effect.