Archive for September, 2008
I blogged awhile back about how the summer might be a good time to get online and buy your text books before the school rush starts. Yesterday I was rummaging through the basement looking for an old back pack when I cam across three boxes of old books that I had acquired in my university days. They are just sitting in my basement collectiong dust. I am not reading them and I won't be reading them any time soon. So why not trade them in and grab a little cash? I am in a small town and there are several used book stores and a store that specializes in trading and selling used text books. Next week when I get a chance I am going to take them in. Even a little money is better than just having them sit on a shelf in a box.
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When it comes to your money do you have a game plan? Have you thought about where you are and where you want to be in say six months, a year or at the time of retirement? As a younger man I never had a game plan to speak of. I just put my savings into a general account and that was it. There are so many options out there to take into consideration. It could be futures trading, rrsp's, term deposits or even investing in real estate. Over the past few years I have sat down my banker and with a financial advisor and come up with my game plan for retirement and clearing my current debt. Let me give you one tip, if you are in debt or not in debt I would suggest you meeting with your banker or advisor and come up with a plan. I wish I could have done this 15 years ago. I would have been out of debt and much farther ahead today.
Okay so it's not earth shattering but the cost of domain names is set to go up at the end of the month. Today I received a newsletter from Name Cheap informing me that they are raising their costs by .40 cents a year for their domain names. Not a whole lot on my side, I only own a few but could be a bigger deal for those that own hundreds upon hundreds.
The bonus though is that they will remain at the same price until September 30th if you want to renew them early. I will probably renew a few for a year or more to save a little bit. A little here and there, right?
I guess printer cartridges are kind of an enigma these days. I remember my old printer cost just under $100 each for the two cartridges it needed. Today you can probably get a couple decent printers for $200. So my Epson was due for a change today and I was getting ready to head out to the local office supply store to get new ones when my other half mentioned a place in the mall that refills them. I knew it was there but never thought of going there as I don't make it to the mall too often. I packaged the old ones up and she took them to get them refilled today. We saved just about $12 getting the four cartridges refilled as opposed to buying ones. I will be back every time. In the past I tried the refill kits myself which you can save even more with but it turned out to be a mess. If you like a mess you can always try that route. Otherwise, have a look in the phone book, the net or ask around for a place that will refill them and start saving money.
Like the title says, do you know where your money is going every week or every month? Do you just spend it without looking back? I thought of this blog post today while talking to a co-worker. He was telling me about going his sessions with a naturopathic professional and he was showing me some of the vitamins, minerals and oils he was taking. Most of what he was taking was common sense thing like fish oil, vitamin c and there were a couple of other things like colon cleanser. So I thought, he is paying pretty good money for his sessions, getting the magazines at home and reading the internet. If you have all of this literature at hand why pay for the sessions? Why not keep up on your reading and save some money?
That is when I thought, I wonder how many people actually think about what they are spending their money on and then think how they can save a few bucks. A couple of his sessions a month and he has some nice jingle save up. Sit down and think about what you are spending your money on and then see if you can start saving money but cutting down.
Being a Canadian black friday is something I don't think about often until I started to see a lot of Black Friday ads on the web this week. Already the website and stores are starting to gear up for a shopping and savings bonanza.
For those not familiar Black Friday is the Friday after the US Thanksgiving holiday. This year it is Friday, November 28. It is the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season. It's marked as I previously mentioned by huge sales and door crashing specials. You don't have to look far to find a deal on most items. If you are in the market for electronics or home furnishings it might be best to hold off if you can.
You have lots of time to prepare. Make a good list of items you are interested in, compare prices once the official ads come out, make sure you have all of your coupons ready if you need them and make plans to get to stores early if they have limited quantities of the item you are after. Stay tuned, If I come across some good resources I will post them.
I thought I would make a quick blog post about our last shopping experience. We stopped by the pool place to pick up some chemicals to close out our swimming pool this season and there were lots of savings to be had. I think the rainy and cool summer left a lot of seasonal places holding the bag on product. A lot of the pool products and toys you never think of getting at this time of year were going pretty cheap. This included such things as pool floats, balls, pool games, noodles, floating solar lights and more. If you need to stock up on your pools supplies now seems to be a pretty good time.
