Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

  Note all the vibrant colors? After driving by the Lexus and BMW dealerships the other day I was once again overwhelmed by the sea of bland.   Even Mercedes, perhaps the most staid and elderly focused brand has a bright red in their color line.    I can accept that many people are willing to accept what mundane color that is in inventory but many, many people prefer something with a bit more pizzazz.   Perhaps a push to your brands could, at least, provide some color choice on special orders.    Try and listen to your potential audience not just the MBA’s who determine that there is better trade value in a non-descript vehicle. If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

When it comes to saving money, college students need all the help they can get. There are so many expenses associated with the college experience—tuition, textbooks, housing, and living expenses—that it’s hard not to panic about the amount of money being spent at any particular point in a semester. For college students with smartphones, I can offer a few options to help lessen spending. There are a number of apps made for college students on a budget, with each one specializes in some popular area of spending. Here are my three favorite (free) money saving apps for smartphone-carrying college students. Bigwords College bookstores are notorious for gouging students on textbook prices, in some cases charging hundreds of dollars for a few dusty hand me downs. Savvy students will turn to places like Amazon for cheaper prices, but there’s one app that offers the cheapest prices on textbooks that I’ve ever seen. That app is called Bigwords , and it’s essential for any colleg...

I have a Polaris pool sweep.  It does a nice job and this is the third one I have had in 32 years. I have never had an issue with the sweep but I do take issue with the consumables.   The mesh bag and the foam tip protectors wear out and from most pool supply places they are grossly priced. The mesh bag ranges from $25.00 to $45 for a mesh bag with a zipper.   This bag is 100% compatible with my sweep and costs far less at $15.98 with free shipping (must purchase $25 at Amazon).  It is the old style velcro bag instead of the newer zippered bag but it does the job for less money.  A good purchase! If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

My ACE of the day.  Andrea, a most pleasant paper pusher.  Buying a car on the net can be cumbersome but doable if you have the right people helping you. Andrea is the right people.

This is a nice little multifunction unit that is quiet.   It installed easily but slowly.   The software installation took quite awhile but it does need to install software for faxing, printing, scanning and copying.   On the other hand, the wireless installation went very smoothly.   My E1200n router does not have the easy button that Samsung was looking to find.  However once I opened the router software up, it had a software easy install button and once I pushed it and the button on the printer, Viola!, I had connection.   The wireless connection was very fast.  I was also impressed with the high quality of the scan and the copy.  I didn’t even test the fax part, it is nice to have if you need it but I have only sent and received two faxes in maybe four or five years.  I was not impressed with the screen on the unit.   It is hard to read head on and practically impossible to read from...

FreeDigitalPhotos.net In a world that is fast paced and frantic, slowing down to save money may seem counterproductive. After all, aren’t you always trying to speed things up and do things more quickly and efficiently? But you may be making the mistake that many Americans do. We think that faster is always better when that is simply not true. Here are three ways to save money by slowing down: 1.       Hang dry – When you are doing the laundry, your first instinct is to use the ever convenient dryer. Just toss them in and forget about it, right? Wrong. If you want to save money on your electricity bill, then try hanging your clothes dry. This doesn’t mean you have to have a line going across your yard or even a yard. They have drying racks that you can purchase at the super store for just a few dollars. You can even make one if you want to. Best of all, drying clothes this way saves on your air conditioning bill in the summer. Those driers p...

Originally posted 12/18/11 Revised and re-posted 7/4/12. After innumerable “ display driver has stopped responding ” messages and waiting for my screen to come back up I have given up on this video card.   I have tried every solution I was able to find on the web.   NONE of them have worked.   I pulled the card and have not found any issues since I uninstalled the drivers and removed the card.  I can NOT recommend this card for use with Windows 7.     First off, if you are a gamer I did not test this with any games. I got it to keep my on board video card from grabbing RAM from my base memory. That feature seems to work just fine. This is a very good video card for the price. The onboard 1gb off DDR3 memory just astounds me. Keep in mind that my computer roots go back to computers that had 64k of memory, let alone video cards with 1gb of RAM. It does include the low profile bracket. SAPPHIRE Model 100292DDR3L Form Factor L...

Best Buy is one of the top computer and technology retail stores. They have many commercials that boast of great prices and great service. You may spend a lot of your time in Best Buy but I bet you didn’t know these 5 things: Negotiate: Believe it or not there are some things at Best Buy you can negotiate the price on an item. How do you know which items? Ask. Another way you can almost always negotiate on the price is on items labeled ‘Open Box’ or ‘Open Item’. These typically are on larger items like televisions and appliances. These Open Box/Items are typically displays that have never been used, returned products without the original packaging and products that were returned in general. The price you see is already knocked down. You can even go lower if you like. When buying these open box items, inspect that all the pieces are there, there are no major dents and scratches and that everything works. This is a good time to use that money you saved and put some toward t...

I’m a bit cheesed out over taking my grandkids to see Madagascar 3 in 3D.    I know that you pay a surcharge for 3D but I still feel that Regal Cinema’s charge of $28.00 for a senior citizen and 2 under 10 kids is crazy exorbitant.    What is even worse is that I had a free ticket but that only took off $6.00 from the original price of $34.50 for three and got us way down to $28.00.    Now giving credit where credit is due, the young lady at the snack bar did advise me to get the $8.00 bucket of popcorn which held more than two medium bags of popcorn and was cheaper than two medium bags of popcorn.    The bucket also had a free refill which we did not utilize.    Admittedly none of my graduate degrees are an MBA but…there were 9 of us in the theater the morning we saw the movie.    So at approximately $9.00 per person that was $81.00 (approximately) of ticket income.    I will hazard a wild guess ...