Texas Sales Tax Holiday Weekend is Here!
Today marks the start of the (10th, I believe) sales tax holiday weekend here in Texas. What does that mean? Well, no sales tax on certain items (most clothes under $100, and a bunch of other neat things).
If you are in Texas, it’s time to pack up the car and hit the malls! If not, well, you should come over to shop if you live close, and if you are from some other state, you should just move here.
So many things about Texas are awesome. This is just another one of them.
Go shopping!
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Monday Money: Saving Small Amounts Adds Up
When I was younger and more stupid than I am now, I had a technique that I used when keeping my checkbook that worked great for me, but managed to drive my wife insane. Looking back, I wish I could have continued using the technique and not got lost in the laziness that has doomed me to being the pathetic, financially-stressed nerd I am today.
What you do is this: whenever you make a purchase, round the amount up to the next dollar (i.e., if you spend $24.35, round it up to $25) when you write it in your check register. After a while, you will be surprised at the amount of ‘extra’ money you have in your account.
Why did this drive my wife nuts? Because it wasn’t an ‘accurate’ reflection of the ‘actual’ amount in the bank. While I concede that she is correct, and I also have a thing for accurate numbers, I liked knowing that there was a bit of extra money tucked away in the account.
Fast forward to today: I’m overdrawn (thanks to BoA’s processing timing) and I don’t have a checkbook that I keep. How can I make this work?
What I’m doing now (in order to pay off the ridiculous fees that Bank of America charges) is this: whenever I get a bit of extra money in my PayPal account, I’ll deposit the change part plus the minimum ($1.00) in the bank to help slowly fight off the offending red numbers. Slow? You bet, but I’m not going to dump all of my earnings into it at one time and NEVER have anything to use.
Anyway, I just thought I’d share this tip with you guys. Hope it helps.
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Even Idaho Needs Mortgages Sometimes…
Refinancing a home can be a decent way to get some major savings on your monthly bills. Today, we will be talking about a company that is growing in the Idaho Home Loans market. Strategic Lending is a company that can help homeowners in Idaho reach their personal goals by helping to match potential home buyers or homeowners with a loan that will fit into their budget.
Strategic Lending can also help you reach your goals by assisting you in finding a suitable lease to own plan, for those of you who might be ready to make a move, but may not have the cash on hand to get started with a new home purchase or do not have sufficient credit history to qualify for a mortgage. If you are in Idaho and looking for a lease to purchase home, Strategic Lending can help you out!
So how can refinancing a home mortgage help you save money? Easy. When you refinance, you are basically negotiating a lower payment (based on a lower interest rate for the remaining balance). Less interest means you will be saving money in the long run, and we all know that saving money is a very good thing!
Readers, if you are in Idaho and need to do something about your present home mortgage situation, give Strategic Lending a call and see what they have to offer!
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How to Make Ten Bucks Starting Now
I just signed up to get information on the 30-Day Challenge. I know, it’s designed to help people make their first $10 online with zero investment, which I have already done, but I’m curious to see how their system works.
When it comes to making fast (and relatively easy) money, I like to find new ways to get cash in my pocket. I have a full-time job, but the problem for me (as it is with most people) is that no matter how much I work, it seems like there’s never enough left over for little things that just make me smile: a couple of pawn-shop CD’s, cheap flash drives, etc.
So here’s a couple of my tips on how I have made a (relatively) quick $10 bucks.
1. Recycle - this has been one of my best methods of making fast cash. At work (and many of my previous jobs) people tend to drink sodas that come in aluminum cans. Just pick them up (usually on the top of the trash cans, you can dig if you like but it’s not required), put them in a plastic bag, and add them to a ‘recycle bin’ at your house. At the end of the week (or whatever) sell them for cash, and if it’s only a couple of bucks, put it in a change jar. Oh, and don’t just stick to aluminum cans, copper and brass are worth considerably more, and easy to get in larger amounts (especially brass). Car batteries have paid up to $5 each in my experience, and I’m sure you can find 2 of them with almost no effort whatsoever.
2. Pick up change - yeah, it’s just a penny. Guess what? Five pennies are a nickel, and I’m sure you’d pick up a nickel if you found one. Put change in jar, repeat.
3. Sell something - DVD’s, CD’s, other miscellaneous junk can be sold either on eBay or Craigslist for fast cash. We are planning a yard sale as we speak.
4. Scavenge - use Craigslist, freecycle, or just ask people for their old junk computers. Here’s the kicker - you can usually get older, working (or semi-working) systems for free. Fix them up, install some OS, and sell the whole system (monitor, keyboard, mouse, cpu) for $10-20 bucks. You’d be surprised how fast someone will drop that for an internet-ready machine that you got for free.
Now, $10 bucks might not be a ton of cash, but it’s a building block for making more. Using these tips, I have made considerably more than $10 over time, and you can too. Just think, with that cash sitting in the coin jar, you can buy some cheap hosting, a cheap domain name, and start making more money online!
Now get to it!
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Snapbomb - Another Potential Moneymaker
When I first heard the word Snapbomb, my thoughts immediately went to firecrackers. I love fireworks. But the sad fact is, it takes money to buy them. Rumor has it that one can make some easy cash using the Snapbomb network.
The Snapbomb system essentially creates ‘word of mouth’ marketing for website owners. They do this by paying bloggers to write posts that create ‘buzz’, thereby driving traffic to the advertiser’s site.
Let’s look at the important part: getting paid.
Basically the system starts out by checking your blog to see what it’s ‘worth’; what you will get paid for your posts. As you make more posts, your ranking goes up and your pay per post amount follows suit. As far as I can tell there are no minimum word limits (of course, that may vary from post to post), so it can be an easy way to earn cash with your blog.
Snapbomb appears to be a potentially worthwhile tool for both bloggers and people wishing to engage in blog marketing. I will be posting more as I learn more about this interesting opportunity.
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