Always Check Your Receipts!
May 23, 2008 Personal Finance, Rant
The other day, I stopped in a convenience store (Fas-Start, on Hwy 21 in Bryan, TX…just for your information) to pick up some stuff. I payed for it with my debit card, using the ‘credit’ option. I feel that it is more secure that way, because anyone can memorize a 4-digit code, but it’s a whole different thing to successfully forge a signature.
To make a long story short, the total of my purchase was somewhere around $6.50 cents (give or take a few cents). The cashier told me the amount, I gave him my card, signed the ticket, and left.
The next day I signed in to my online checking account, to see what my current balance was. I was a bit surprised to find that the idiot had rounded my purchase up to an even $7.00 and ran it.
Now, that may not seem like a huge amount to have stolen, but for those who are snowflakers, you would understand why it sucks so much: it adds up.
So let’s look at it this way: suppose the thieving scumbags did that to everyone who made a credit purchase (and I assume that they do it quite frequently). Even .50 each time, for only 10 customers…that’s $5.00. They are helping themselves to extra bits of change. MY change. And, since they are dishonest, I have no problem sharing the location of the store in this post, to help my fellow readers and friends keep from having their hard-earned money stolen by lowlife jerks.
The moral of this story? If you feel a bit sickened by stuff like this, you can always try fresh air as a remedy, but I doubt it will help. A better idea is to always check your receipts in the store. I didn’t do this. If there had been a discrepancy, I could have asked them immediately to rectify the situation. Since I did not do this, I’m out of luck. I can guarantee that I won’t be using them again, and I will most certainly tell people not to use them.
Note: I’m not the only one that has had trouble with this store, for the record.
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Tags: bryan, fas-start, lessons, money, Personal Finance, stealing, Sucks, truck stop, tx
PayPerPost Added to The Sugarbuzz Project!
Dec 17, 2007 Blogging, Internet, Jobs, Money, Personal Finance, Reviews, Work At Home
As you all know (if you read this site), I like to try to find new ways to make money on the internet. I’ve considered many options, and I wanted to pass on some information about one of the choices I have made.
PayPerPost is a site that basically sells blog reviews. What does this mean to you? Well, if you are a wannabe uber-blogger like yours truly, it means they pay you to write reviews for their paying customers (thereby generating buzz and traffic - which, as we know, is a good thing).
One feature that strikes me as cool is their “Blogger Dashboard”, which gives you a display of your posts that have been approved and rejected, how much you have been/will be paid, and other featured offers you can take them up on.
Oh, and there’s a nifty ‘give to charity’ feature as well, if you are so inclined.
As far as their payment schedule, here is a snippet from their FAQ regarding how their payment schedule works:
Once your post is approved, our system sends it back to the Review team for a second round check 30 days after the original submit date. If the post is still live, and unchanged, it will be approved again and you will receive payment via PayPal.
I look forward to doing business with PayPerPost on a regular basis. Their site is easy to use, and they have a fairly good reputation (according to the things I have read). Check them out!
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New Ventures
Oct 18, 2007 Jobs, Personal Finance, Work At Home
My wife has set up an online store selling t-shirts and stuff. She’s still working on coming up with more products to sell on there, so bookmark it and check it out often.
There are so many ways to make money online, and I’m still wanting to tap into the I-only-work-2-hours-per-day-blogging market. Unfortunately, real life keeps getting in the way of my dreams. It takes money to get good hosting, and that’s a luxury that I don’t (at this time) have.
However, a friend just scored a new server, and I plan to discuss setting up a hosting company of our own with him depending on the connection he has. If nothing else, to host our own blogs and make some money while cutting our overhead.
Another friend in Michigan just got his inventory for his computer shop in today. Good prices, great systems. I’ll be putting links up as soon as he gets a web site.
I’d like to get more feedback on home and web based businesses, their earning potential, and what you (the reader) think would be a good idea for getting out of the rat race and into the Magrathea-esque life, where the rats run the show.
Fire away!
url :: http://www.zazzle.com/brenhammom
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Dreaming Big
Sep 30, 2007 Personal Finance
I have been so overwhelmed lately by my lack of time-management ability. My ‘real job’ keeps me so busy, sometimes working 14+ hours each day, that I have no time to stop and look around to see what I’m missing. And now that my family and I have our own place to stay, my radio gig (which I do for various reasons - fun, extra money, etc.) paycheck is being used to help pay the bills. No problem, that was the plan from the beginning. Things are beginning to stabilize.
**I’m at the station now…some lady singing on this live church broadcast…waugh…can’t really hit those high notes like she thinks she can…
We’ve been trying to move our things from one house to the new house, squeezing in trips between the two every chance I get. I really need to get it finished today. I doubt that I will.
I keep wishing that I had a way to find an easier job (not so physically straining) that paid just as good or better. I need to get my life organized.
My goal for the next 2-3 years is this: I would like to get a good pickup truck and start up my own Hot Shot business.
I have no idea how to go about getting the cash for the truck. And then, I would need commercial insurance. A DBA only costs about $50 (I believe), so that won’t be too big of a problem.
I also plan to take another shot at college. I would really like to get an Associates degree (for starters) in Accounting. I love computers, but the market is flooded. People always need accountants. I have a good friend who does this for Halliburton, and to say the least, he’s doing OK.
I welcome suggestions and ideas of ways to make easy cash in very little time (i.e. available time). It doesn’t have to be much, just enough to put some back. Also ideas on reducing bills, time management, etc.
Please help!
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