Coffee heat rising

Grocery-store Gasoline Discounts: Deal or No Deal?

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At  Planting Our Pennies, Mrs. PoP reflects on grocery-store offers of gasoline discounts that grocery stores sometimes offer regular customers. Ultimately she concludes that these programs are hardly worth the effort.

Here in lovely uptown Phoenix, Safeway stores offer a gasoline discount after you’ve racked up some crazy number of dollars on purchased registered with the annoying red card. So every once in a while, they’ll offer my deceased dog (in whose name the card is made out) cents off on gas.

Problem: the nearest Safeway with gas pumps is way to hell and gone up on the north side! Safeway has reserved its shiniest new stores, the ones that sport gas stations, for the White Flight set. So Safeway gas stations exist only in areas close to the upper-middle-class tracts where the white folks have moved. And those areas are way, way off my beaten track. By the time I got all the way up there and back, I would have spent more on wasted gasoline than I would have saved on the gas buy.

And besides…better strategies exist.  IMHO the Costco AMEX card is about the best of those.  You get 3% back on gasoline (which is usually pretty cheap at Costco to begin with), 2% back at U.S. restaurants, 2% back on travel purchases, and 1% back on everything else. Once a year you get a lump-sum  cash back “reward” — a kickback on purchases made during the year.

There’s a Costco on every corner in this city, so it seems. Costco underprices stations in the immediate vicinity of its stores. Gasoline prices vary wildly by the part of town you’re in: in upscale Scottsdale you can pay ten to thirty cents a gallon more than other parts of town. In the westside slums, you’ll pay ten cents a gallon less than you’ll pay in the more or less middle-class tracts in the central areas or the far west.

One Costco, which is on my way to many destinations, straddles an aging middle-class district and a downscale high-density area that feathers into the gang-infested tracts bordering the I-17. That thing ALWAYS has the lowest prices around. I try to time gas purchases to days when I know I have to drive down in that direction. The gas is cheaper in the first place, and then I get a 3% kickback on it.

So ultimately, by purchasing gas at Costco regularly — even if I happen to be at one of the higher-priced outlets — I end up saving a lot more than I would if I traipsed up to North Phoenix for the privilege of collecting “bargain” gas from Safeway.

In the gasoline department, BTW: man, quitting the hateful teaching gig sure is saving on the gas! In the last month I taught, the four-day-a-week commute racked up an astonishing $230 in gasoline bills. In the first full month of freedom: just $80.

Just think of all the things I can diddle away that $150 savings on! 😀

Trading by Smartphone Is on the Rise

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MakeItCheaper

It seems that more people than ever are making important financial transactions with smartphones and tablets. This certainly applies to trading on the stock market, spread betting and similar products, but how is this growth possible? This infographic hints at the creation of a dedicated Trading Platform.

Mobile trading makes perfect sense for any traders with a busy lifestyle. They can go to City Index Forex Trading on the move and it doesn’t take too long to do. Some of the most successful traders have made significant profits in excess of £1m to date using dedicated apps for iPhones and iPads.

Products like Forex are leveraged and, as with normal websites for computers and laptops, mobile trading involves the same level of skill and timing that is essential for any trader to make a significant profit at a level acceptable to them.

At the moment, iPhones are among the most popular devices for mobile trading, although BlackBerry and Android smartphones are being used more often by traders. Forex, CFD trading and spread betting are all possible with the right device.

What Makes Word Crash???

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I knew it! I just knew it: the job was going to make me grind my teeth. Good thing I stuck the mouth guard in before I started typing mind-numbing data. Boring. I hate boredom. Boredom frustrates me, and frustration makes me clench my teeth. Without that mouth guard I would’ve broken all the teeth in my mouth when Word “closed unexpectedly” just as I hit “Table > Sort > Sort by paragraphs • Ascending” on 29 single-spaced pages.

“We are sorry; Word had to close unexpectedly” means “You are screwed! Any data you haven’t manually saved is gone, and NO, there is no auto-recovery file backing up the work you were doing. And yes, we did calculate this so it would happen just as you were coming to the end of an hours-long slab of brain-banging labor.”

Word does that all the time. We figured out that it’s not a function of Wyrd for Mac, because Tina reported that her Wyrd for Windows does the same thing, and she runs it on a high-powered PC. I have Wyrd set to auto-save about every three minutes, plus I’ve learned to hit “Command > Save” after just about every sentence, phrase, and word. I’ve also set Wyrd to make back-up files as it goes, creating mounds of annoying clutter.

So no data was lost, but I didn’t know that until the system came back online. Frustrating, time-wasting, and annoying.

It seems to have something to do with tables. Apparently a lengthy or complicated table — one with bulleted points in it, for example — causes Word to crash.

First time this occurred, a client had constructed tables and stuck more tables inside some of the cells. He even put an image in one of the cells! The damn thing crashed if you just looked at it.

More recently, we edited a corporate book compiled of entries by a whole slew of authors. To enforce some sort of conformity, the PR director had come up with a tabular form, whose purpose was to regularize the content and format across the board. Great idea…but as soon as someone decided to enter a bulleted list in a cell, it would cause the whole elegant construct to crash.

Always just as the august editor was about to close out, having spent two hours laboring over the edits. I lost track of the number of hours we had to write off for that project because of Wyrd crashes. Six or eight, as I recall.

Then there was the author who inserted Japanese characters inside Word tables. Complicated, elaborate tables. CRASH!

What makes Word crash? Tables make Word crash!

Nothing was lost yesterday but some time that wouldn’t have been paid, anyway. It was my own project. But those recurring Word crashes sure are annoying.

Frugality, the Child of Necessity

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Drat! They no longer make this handy over-the-sink dish rack, something I’ve used every day since I bought it six or eight years ago.

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This has been one of the most convenient and frequently used gadgets in the kitchen. It holds any number of little pieces of junk, keeps them out of the way and out of the left-hand sink, and often serves as de facto storage.

Over time, though, it’s begun to wear out. The rubbery plastic coating has eroded away along a series of small joints:

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The wire underneath it is rusting and eventually will break. {sob!} That’s because I do this to it:

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Every time I use one of my good kitchen knives, I wash it and drop it to dry into one of those handy-dandy slots along the side of the thing. Evidently, this has not been good for it! Not very good for my knives anymore, either.

dis drainer31ronroWeELThanks to the cleanliness & tidiness kick, I thought the mini-drainer should be replaced. Lo these many years ago, I bought it either at Albertson’s or Linens ‘n’ Things. The Albertson’s no longer carries its old array of products like this, and Linens ‘n’ Things went out of business years ago (actually, its spirit haunts the ether in the form of an online store). Bed, Bath, & Beyond, now the only game in town in the freestanding brick-and-mortar household miscellany department, doesn’t carry this object. Neither does Target. Neither does Home Depot. Neither does Lowe’s. Neither does Amazon. The latter has a flimsier thing that’s wider and will take up too much space out of the rest of the sink, which I use to drain larger items, and one that’s allegedly stainless but, as we know, “stainless steel” made in China means “rusty steel.” Neither the size nor the cheesiness will meet my needs.

What to do about this conundrum?

Well, I remembered having heard, some years ago, about a product people can paint on dishwasher racks when the rubbery stuff wears off of those. My dishwasher has solid nylon racks, so that annoyance is a thing of the past. But what’s happening to the little over-the-sink dish drainer is comparable, eh? So when I passed a Home Depot yesterday, I darted in and found this:

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It was in the dishwasher department, not in Hardware, interestingly enough. We’ll see if it works.

Probably will take all day to apply the stuff. You have to paint on “multiple” coats. Damn, but I wish people would quit using that irritating bit of jargon! “Multiple”: many? a few? a couple? Say what you mean!!!!

What? Oh.

Anyway, you paint it on, wait a half hour, and then apply another coat. Unless it’s radically goopy, I think I’d like to apply three, four, maybe even five coats — try to fill it in the worn-off spots to where the surface comes back up and blends into the undamaged white coating. At a half-hour per coat, it could take two or three hours to accomplish that. Then you have to wait 24 hours before you can use the repaired rack.

I was going to title this post, cutely, “Necessity, the Child of Frugality.” But that’s not really the case. It’s not that I’m too cheap to replace the rack with a new one. If an adequate rack were still being manufactured, I’d buy it in an instant. I do have better things to do with my time than play with goop that emanates toxic fumes. But the truth is, as formerly quality products are being replaced with flimsy, second-rate junk produced overseas factories with minimal quality control, consumers have to try to extract as much life from their old, better-quality products as possible. Amid all this illusory plenty, we have to make it do and make it last.

Once this thing wears out, I guess, the only option will be to buy a Rubbermaid drainboard-sized drainer and drop it in the bottom of that big sink. Which is going to be a nuisance…if I wanted one of those, I’d have one of those.

Sure would help if stuff were made in America.

P.S.: Hold the phone! Just found the thing on Amazon, about six pages in to the search. They want THIRTY DOLLARS for it!!!! I’m dead sure I didn’t pay that much for mine, because I wouldn’t have…too cheap. But there it is. “Eligible for free super save shipping.” Yeah. Well, it sure should be, at that price.

Spend Our Way Out of Recession

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Throughout the election cycle and the holiday season, the growing concern over whether Congress would reach a fiscal cliff agreement by the New Year bombarded Americans every time they turned on the news. Without the agreement, tax hikes on 98% of Americans would have been imminent—something which could have pushed back economic recovery and possibly sent the U.S. into another recession. The deal did pass in the Senate and the House of Representatives on New Year’s Day, allowing many Americans to breathe a sigh of relief. But what exactly are the terms of the deal—and what does the agreement mean for the future of America? Read on to find out.

Terms of the Deal

While the agreement was good news for most Americans, it did resolve to raise taxes on wealthy Americans in an effort to back away from the fiscal cliff. Taxes will increase from 35% to 39.6% for top tier earners, meaning that married couples who make over $450,000 and single filers who earn over $400,000 will be affected by the agreement. This group will also face and increase from 15% to 20% on taxes paid on dividends and capital gains. Estate values over $5 million will also see a hike in taxes, from 35% to 40%. Unaffected by the new fiscal cliff agreements are unemployment benefits, tax credits on college tuition, Medicare providers, and renewable energy tax credits (at least for now), all of which are designed to lift up the middle and lower classes and push the U.S. economy toward full recovery. Government spending cuts have also been delayed for two months, a point that was hotly contested in the GOP House.

How Markets Responded To The Deal

The new resolution was signed just in time for global markets to reopen for the New Year, and when they did, they rallied in support of the agreement. London’s FTSE 100 broke through 6,000 for the first time since July of 2011, and Germany’s Dax index reached 7,779.22. Hong Kong’s Seng index also showed strong support, opening at 2.1% on January 2. The U.S. Dow Jones industrial average also showed modest gains on the first trading day of the New Year, registering at 13,107.14 (up 1.28%).

Consumer confidence has continued to remain strong in the first few weeks of 2013. As of January 14, Britain’s FTSE 100 is up to 6,129, Germany’s Dax is holding strong at 7,759. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.6% on Monday, and the U.S. Dow Jones closed at 13,507.32 on Monday, continuing to show strong support for the fiscal cliff agreement in the New Year.

Do Your Part

For most Americans, the fiscal cliff agreement means that tax hikes have been averted for the time being. Even if holiday spending has left you strapped for cash, you can still show a vote of confidence in the U.S. economy by selling your unwanted or outdated electronics on musicMagpie to get some extra spending cash. Once your check arrives, go out and spend it—it’s the surest way to help give the economy the kick start it needs in 2013 after years of sluggish activity.

This post is contributed by writer Matt Morgan. Matt is a recent graduate from Southampton University, an aspiring writer who blogs at www.thebookofmatter.com.

Let Your House Work for You

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Housing costs can often accumulate and lead to you could be spending more than you should. Instead of throwing that extra money into the black hole that is your mortgage, ensure you take advantage of the various ways that you can save on your mortgage and have money you had previously written off to invest in making your house more energy efficient, so you’ll save on utilities too. Read on to learn all about how to save on your mortgage and invest it so you save on utilities.

Shop around to get the best rate

Since lending agencies are interested in getting your business, they will often offer lower rates as a means of attracting customers. You may be able to negotiate a better rate with your lending agency. However, you will need to research the latest news on mortgage rates and be familiar with the current climate of the housing market. Then you’ll be able to tell if the rate you are getting is fair and perhaps do a bit of negotiating.

Take an existing mortgage

If you’re looking at buying a house, you can also assume an existing mortgage instead of getting a new one all together. This is a particularly attractive option if the rates on that mortgage are lower than what you would currently get. For this option to be available, the mortgage must be transferable and you must be able to pay the difference between the purchase price and the outstanding debt.

Make an extra payment each year

Making an extra payment at the end of each year will help you pay off your mortgage faster because the extra money is applied to your principal, so your balance will decrease. You’ll also save because a portion of this payment won’t be going toward interest. Several free mortgage calculators available on the Web, such as this one from Bankrate.com, will give you a feel for how this might work in your favor.

How to save on utilities by going green

Once you have gotten your returns from saving, invest them in green alternatives to help you save on heating and electricity. With fossil fuels becoming ever more expensive, you’ll want to start building the infrastructure to liberate yourself from these finite resources. Here are some ways to go green and save money on home energy costs.

To save on lighting, replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. While they may cost more initially, these bulbs use electricity more efficiently and also don’t wear out as quickly, so you won’t have to replace them as often. They use about a quarter of the electricity an incandescent bulb uses and can last up to ten times as long.

You can also trade your car in for a hybrid that uses less gasoline by running on electricity. Popular models like the Toyota Prius may help consumers reduce their fuel bills while also reducing their dependence on fossil fuels.

Finally, for a long-term project, you can consider converting your home heating system to a geothermal system. Geothermal heating relies on the temperature of soil underground to distribute heat through your home through a geothermal heat pump. While the upfront costs are significant, a geothermal system can save you thousands in the long run.

They say, “a penny saved is a penny earned.” When applied to your mortgage and home improvement investments, this saying takes on gigantic terms. You can save thousands of dollars if you play your cards right on your mortgage and then make the right investment choices in your home.

This post is contributed by writer Matt Morgan. Matt is a recent graduate from Southampton University, an aspiring writer who blogs at www.thebookofmatter.com.