Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

I’m on vacation but as most Internet junkies I am loathe to be out of touch. I brought my laptop and as backup for the laptop, I brought my PDA which is wireless enabled. I purchased a Comcast approved modem and added seasonal Internet to my TV package. BTW I heard about the seasonal package by word of mouth, I still haven’t seen it on any Comcast site. It turns out in touristy areas like Florida; Comcast has a program that allows you to go month to month on Internet access. The Comcast representative wanted me to have their tech come out to install my modem for $50.00. Since installation was putting a splitter on the cable and sending one cable to the TV and the other to my laptop, I felt I could handle it and I saved the $50.00 installation fee. Once the modem is attached, you call Comcast and provide them with the mac# that is on the modem and you are in business. For $25.00 a month I get a slow but reliable connection to the Internet. Slow as compared to what I have at home bu...

I’ve noticed that my grandchildren have a tendency to turn on a light and keep on going, never to look back and never to turn off the light. I suppose that over time that has an impact on the electric bill. My supposition is apparently accurate since Black and Decker have a product that will turn off the lights automatically. Moreover it is a very simple product which means it may actually continue to work for awhile. It is call the Lights Out AutoSwitch and will be available in a few weeks. It is $30.00 which if you translate to a 100 watt bulb running 10 hours or 1000 kWh at $0.25/kWh, you would have to save about 1200 hours of that 100 watt bulb running to pay for the switch. Of course less hours would be needed if your electric is more expensive and more hours if it is cheaper. In a room with 6 ceiling fixtures of 100 watts each on one switch you would pay for the autoswitch rather quickly. Of course if you replace each of the 100 watt incandescent lights with compact fluorescent ...

Even if the market finally restores my 201k for 401k status, I think the economy has sensitized us all into being more cautious with our finances. AARP magazine, which I am obviously far too young to get (hah!), had a good article on things to do for the next year. Some of the following ideas came from that article. Medical costs drive us all crazy. If you live near a Walmart or other large chain that has committed to the $4.00 prescription, you can save a bundle if your meds fall under their categories. Keep in mind that many in the medical community will negotiate fees if you can’t pay or don’t have insurance. Many would far prefer a cash payment than the nightmare of insurance submission. Banks and credit card companies will negotiate fees. I recently canceled a card that I had used for a long time to get airline miles. Flying has become such a pain that when possible I now drive. I called to cancel the card because they had an annual fee. They offered to cancel the fee if I would k...

I am a member of AARP, a gang for old folks. As a gang, we have colors red, white and blue. We have our “do-rags”, AARP ball caps. We also have our club houses, the local senior centers. Somewhat like your street gangs that offer protection to their members, AARP also offers protection. Of course, AARP does not justify their existence with violence or guns. Instead, AARP offers benefits. There has to be some compensation for aging. It sure isn’t the bum knees, the tricky back or the balding head, in this case it is the AARP benefits. I recently re-upped with my AARP dues. It was $39.95 for 5 years. Shortly thereafter I needed to rent a car for several weeks. I did my due diligence and went to all the sites that claim to save you money on car rental. I even went to Bill Shatner’s site, Priceline. Not one of those sites had a price even close to what I got through the AARP site. Even Captain Kirk’s “name your own price” site failed dismally to compete with the AARP site. How much did I s...

This blog is not particularly technical but it is definitely money saving. I have a Polaris Pool Sweep in my pool. (a) It does a pretty good job keeping the pool clean. It uses a mesh bag (b) to capture the debris as it moves as a water pressure activated vacuum cleaner. So far no complaints, where I get aggravated is the $24.00 price tag on the replacement bags. We aren’t talking stainless steel or anything with a chip in it, we are talking a nylon mesh bag with a plastic collar. As a former business owner I am all in favor of profit but when you have a captive market that you assume has big bucks because they have an in-ground pool (hah!), there is no reason to hose (no pun intended) them over on a consumable. Anyway, now retired and needing a replacement bag I put my creative juices to the task and came up with a workable alternative. You buy a lingerie wash bag at the dollar store for a buck. You use a stainless steel hose clamp ($3.00) or a cable tie $0.25 and you have just save...

Inkjet Cartridges for Less. I may have mentioned I am an avid grandparent. That fact leads to printing lots of photos and other assorted graphics for said grandchildren. Graphic printing is very ink intensive. I seem to run through ink like there is no tomorrow. Consequently I am always trying to find the cartridges on sale. I do not recommend nor will I use the refilling kits. As a reseller, we frequently got printers in for repair that appeared to have had small animals sacrificed in their interior. Generally speaking the problem was home refilled inkjet cartridges. Although in one instance we did find two halves of a mouse that had wondered into an Okidata 3510. So I am not a fan of home refill kits for inkjet cartridges. I had found a reseller that seemed to have the best price I could find for Epson branded inkjet cartridges. Databazzar’s prices were good and the shipping was free when over $50.00. However I had a defective cartridge and emailed their cust...

SnapFish www.Snapfish.com is a photo sharing site. They handle both digital and film photographs. Sign up for an account for FREE. Then you can upload photos from your computer to their server and share them with anyone you wish. Note that is anyone YOU wish. The photos are only seen by your invitation. You place your photos in albums that you define. Even better is the fact that your invitation is not all encompassing. You can send out an invitation to share for one album and the next album you upload you may not want to share with the same people. You decide who gets to see the photos. As an obsessive grandparent, I take tons of photos. I would put the best ones up on my web site under a pass worded section. Then I would email my family members to tell them when new photos were up. It was a bit labor intensive. Not horribly so but Snapfish is way easier. Of course, they try and sell you stuff. They will do prints of your photos for $0.12 each in 4x6...