Free Money Finance

Money Math: What am I Giving Up?

Money magazine has five short money math tips in its January issue and I'll be sharing/commenting on them over the next few days. Here's one for today:

What am I giving up in retirement savings when I spend money today?

The math: Add a zero to the price tag. That's what you'd have in 30 years if you invested the money and earned 8% a year. So a $40,000 car trims your nest egg by $400,000.

Puts a new spin on "luxury" automobile, doesn't it? ;-)

Looked at another way, $10k not spent (saved) this year will yield $100k in 30 years. Do this for 10 years, and you'll get to $1 million.

Save Money by Repairing Your Old Speakers

I know NOTHING about music speakers, but one of the guys from work swears by this method, so I'll pass it along to you as best I know how.

Apparently, one of the things that often goes wrong with good audio speakers is the "foam" inside the speaker goes bad. So usually the owner then needs to take the speakers in for repair (replacement of the foam) at the cost of $100 per speaker. It is (and sounds) quite expensive.

This was the situation my buddy faced recently. Being a tighter tightwad than I am (which is saying a lot), he looked for alternatives and found the NEWFOAM company. He ordered one of their kits and fixed two of his speakers. He said it was very easy to do. His total cost: $30 (versus what would have been a $200 repair.)

Hopefully, this tip makes sense to someone. I haven't ever repaired a speaker and currently do most of my music listening out of an iPod, car CD player, or my computer.

Anyone else have some thoughts or a more informed opinion on this?

How to Handle Six Money Dilemmas, Lease a Car OR Buy a Car

Money magazine lists six money dilemmas and what to do about them. Over the next few days, I'll list each dilemma, what Money suggests as the best option, my take on the issue, and additional FMF posts on the topic. Here goes:

Dilemma #3: Lease a car OR buy a car

Money's suggestion: Over the long term, buying costs you less.

My take: We always buy new and then keep our cars forever. For me, "forever" means about 6-7 years -- until about the time when major repairs start to hit. For my wife, who drives about 5,000 miles a year, "forever" really does seem to mean forever. She's only owned three cars in her lifetime (she's got 20+ years of driving time) and the third car in that group (her newest car) only has 15k miles on it -- so she'll have it for a good, long time.

Anyway, I would NEVER lease.

FMF posts related to this topic: Save on Buying a Car: Four Steps to a Bargain on Wheels, Buying a Car Using the Web

How People Save on Health Care

Money magazine has a list of how people save on health care costs in its January issue. Their list:

• 78% have switched to generic drugs where available
• 66% talk to their doctors about cost and options
• 64% go to the doctor only for serious symptoms
• 28% have skipped doses or have not filled prescriptions

Money also says that the best bet for saving on health care is asking your doctor whether he'll lower his bill. (6 out of 10 patients who have tried negotiating a lower fee have been successful.)

Now that my health care is more of my responsibility, I'll be considering these options as well (all except the skipping prescriptions idea -- yikes!). We have always used generic drugs where available and only go to the doctor when we think we need to (who WANTS to go to the doctor?), but we haven't really questioned our doctor about cost options or his bill. I need to add that to our list of money saving tips.

Any other health care-related savings tips out there?

Use Your Curtains to Save on Heating Costs

I've talked before about how to use your curtains to save on cooling costs, so I figure it's appropriate that we talk about how to use them to save on heating costs as well. Here's how you can do so:

Open your curtains on sunny days to let the sun/heat in your house and close them on overcast days to keep heat inside the home.

I was thinking of this the other day when we had a sunny, winter day in Michigan (which is rare.) I opened the blinds on the south side of the house and it really warmed up our bedroom and living room (which face that side) in the early afternoon. But as the sun went back behind the clouds, it cooled off dramatically. At that point, I closed the blinds to help keep the heat inside.

As I noted on the post above about cooling your house, my wife and I have an on-going battle with the curtains/blinds. She prefers light to saving money, so she'll have the curtains/blinds open even on cloudy days in the winter and on hot, steaming days in the summer. Drives me crazy -- especially since she forgets to close them and the blinds remain open well into darkness (I usually end up closing them all in the evening.) But then again, she saves money in almost every other way, so I guess I can cut her some slack on this one. ;-)

Save a Bundle of Money, Get in Shape, and Help the Environment in One Step

Here's a tip I found in the January/February issue of Bicycling magazine: think about commuting to work on your bicycle next year (when it gets warmer, of course.) I mentioned this tip before in Save Big Money by Biking to Work, but the magazine makes such a compelling case for commuting to work (and all the associated benefits) that I had to post what they wrote. Their comments:

The average American drives 29 miles per day. If you use a bike instead of a car just one day per week, in one year you could save more than $1,000 in gas and car costs, burn 15 pounds' worth of calories and prevent 74 pounds of carbon monoxide from entering the atmosphere.

Of course, if you live in Michigan like I do, riding once a week isn't really an option -- unless you relish freezing to death in the January-March and November-December months. But I could ride twice a week from April thru October and my round trip would be about 30 miles. I thought about doing this last year but just didn't get around to it. Maybe I'll get more inspired this year. After all, I love saving money, could use an extra 15 pounds of cushion in my eating (more Moose Tracks ice cream to enjoy!) and am all in favor of helping the environment.

For related posts, see these links:

• The Most Cost Effective Ways to Stay in Shape

• How to Save on Medical Expenses

• Want to Get Rich? Get in Shape

Good Food for a Low Price

Anyone been to Arby's lately?

I'm not a fast food sort of guy (I LOVE the taste, but nutritionally it usually offers nothing, so I skip it), but last night after a basketball game we needed a quick bite to eat. Logan's was full and we wanted to make it quick, so we picked Arby's since (in our opinion) they offered the best nutritional option of the McD's, BK, etc. crowd.

Man, were we right. My wife got a Martha Vineyard's salad (which she loved) and my daughter got a fruit cup with her sandwich. When was the last time you saw a fast food place offer a fruit cup?

My son, on the other hand, went all "bad." Chicken tenders and fries. Though he did have a 100% juice drink, so I guess that makes it ok. ;-)

But I made the score of the night. Arby's has a "5 for $6.95" deal going. You get to pick any five of a number of items for $6.95. I was going to get a sandwich combo (for $6.99), but then I saw the $6.95 deal and thought, "Wait, this is a TON more food for the same price of what I'm considering. And it's stuff I like! Why not go that way?" And that's what I did. Two roast beef sandwiches, two ham sandwiches, and a fry. I ate the fry and two of the sandwiches and have two sandwiches left over for lunch today. Not a bad deal at all!

One Way to Look at Christmas Spending

Here's an interesting question: How many days will you have to work in order to pay for your Christmas generosity?

A few more details:

For example, if you earn $12 an hour and your family spends $800 for Christmas, you'll need to work 15.5 days to get that $800 back. That's more than three weeks! 

The piece also includes a chart that helps you determine how many hours you worked for what you spent this holiday season. Check it out -- you may just find that you are working a long time simply to spend a boatload on Christmas.

The combination of a decent job and keeping our Christmas spending low means that I end up working 15-20 hours for what we spend at Christmas. Not bad -- I'm willing to live with this.

The piece also includes some ways you can give inexpensive, meaningful gifts so you don't have to work so long to afford to bless those people your love this holiday season. Their ideas include:

• Consider giving a gift of service.
• Make a gift for someone.
• Give the gift of time together.

I know a couple who don't have much money but give tons of "gifts of service." In particular, they offer to watch another couple's kids while the second couple goes out and enjoys an evening together. Those of us who have kids know that babysitting fees can really add up, so this is a GREAT gift -- plus one that doesn't really cost the first couple anything.

How about you? Have you ever given "simple" gifts that made a big difference to someone? Or maybe you've received some.

Save Money by Insulating the Foundation Walls on Your Home

The December/January issue of Family Handyman magazine suggests we all consider insulating the foundation walls (on the outside of the house) to save big on heating costs. here's what they say (sorry, I couldn't find a link -- I have the hard copy of the article):

An uninsulated foundation accounts for up to 22 percent of the energy loss in a home. So insulation panels will improve your home's energy efficiency -- and its looks.

They refer their readers to Styro, a company that makes insulation panels. The panels actually look nice (see pictures of them on the Styro homepage after all the "energy loss" pictures are shown) so they not only save energy, but add to the beauty of your house (imagine replacing those concrete foundation walls with something that actually looked good.) They also have some stuff that you can paint on as well.

I've never heard about insulating your foundation walls from the outside. Anyone done this? Good or bad experiences with it? 

More Ideas to Save Money

Here's a great comment full of money saving ideas left on my post titled The 10 Most-Hated Money Saving Tips:

1: Be sure to analyze the cost per unit of anything you buy. Sometimes bulk purchases will save you a lot. Sometimes not. Sometimes they cost, if you buy that 3 gallon vat of pickles only to throw them out months later ;)

2: Dollar Stores now often stock name-brand items such as cleaning supplies. For items that are disposable (and I don't mean convenience disposable, just something that naturally gets used up like a scrub sponge) often times cheap is just fine.

3: High-quality seconds stores. Not to plug, but TJM*xx usually has top-notch items with a defect...a little more money than Wal*Crap but much better quality that will last.

4: Cut the cell phone. I was on a $60 (cheap - it's $70 now) 2-phone plan from V***zon, that's $720 per year just to talk. Now, I wouldn't pay $720 to hear what I have to say, and I'm saying it. But, safety is an issue (w/wife and baby) so we do still need phones to call AAA, etc. But T-M**ile has a GREAT pre-pay plan: $100 for 1000 minutes that last a year. I paid $50 for my phone and $30 for the wifes (hey I still gotta have the cooler phone!)

So, $80 worth of phones (we lost/broke both phones this summer, and would have had to pay $100 to replace even if we signed the 2 year contracts), and let's assume she uses 3000 minutes and I use 1000, so $400 worth of minutes = $340 savings this year (due to phone purchases). If we talk less (<2000 min) we could save up to $520/year. Not bad. Plus, we can ask for minute cards as holiday gifts! Get that cost down to $0!

5: INSULATE!!! I had a $650 heating bill (Pgh PA) one month and went ballistic...I did have to put in ~$850 in insulation, but my budget bill has gone down over $100/month...the investment keeps on paying (and will pay more as energy prices go up). Oh, also, keep an eye out for compact fluorescent sales...don't pay $4-6 per bulb...HD had a sale at ~$2 per bulb.

6: VHS over DVD: Am*zon has many VHS movies for $.01 + $3.50 to ship. I got a bunch of great kiddie-brainy videos that his grubby little hands can't scratch.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, when you do buy premium kiddie DVD's, copy them right away and don't let the kids use the archive copy (my Bro-in-law was griping that his kids were trashing several $20 DVD's per month).

7: Rain Water Barrel: Haven't done this yet (and the barrels do cost ~$150) but I'd like to after we got some high water bills this summer ($40-50 over norm)...with the droughts going on this may get smarter still.

Other notes: Craigslist and Freecycle: Lots of cheap and free stuff on these forums (freecycle is a Yahoo list)...also a great way to unclutter those functional yet unwanted items you keep vacuuming around.

I do my own auto work, and that saves much $$$, admittedly at the cost of much time. Not for everyone, but unless handicapped or making 100K per year you should be able to change oil and stuff and maybe even do brake jobs (they have made this very easy...it takes longer to get the parts, jack up the wife's saturn, and take the tire off than it does to actually change the brake pads).

I've also learned to grow my own veggies, and while it is a satisfying hobby, it is not yet cost effective (high water bill + opp costs of time sunk) However, if costs keep growing it will be soon. Quality is second to none though...tomatoes that actually have flavor and all that.

Some good tips to consider -- if you like saving money. ;-)

If You Work the System, You Can Save a Good Amount of Money

Here's a great illustration of how with a little planning, ingenuity, and work you can save a good amount of money. It was left as a comment on my post titled How Many Gift Cards Will You Use This Holiday Season?:

We occasionally give gift cards, and often receive them as gifts (quite happily), but mostly we buy them for ourselves.

One of the largest grocery store chains here in NE Ohio is Giant Eagle. They sell gift cards for all sorts of restaurants, appliance stores, bookstores, etc. They also have a "fuel perks" program where, if you use their customer loyalty card, for every $50 you spend in the store they give you $0.20 off per gallon of gas at their gas stations in the parking lot.

The perks accumulate, so buy $200 worth of groceries and you get $0.80 cents off per gallon...UP TO 30 GALLONS! The best part? Buying gift cards count as normal store purchases.

So here's what my wife and I did. We needed to put new windows in the house. So we:

1. Went to Giant Eagle and bought $2,000, yes, 2-thousand dollars, worth of gift cards to Home Depot.

2. We used our Citi Bank Cash Rewards Credit Card to buy the gift cards (discount = 5% off of grocery store purchases). That saved us $100 right off the bat.

3. $2000 spent at Giant Eagle gave us a total of $8.00 off per gallon of gas. Amounts can be rolled over so any amount you have over the price of a gallon of gas is retained for up to 60 days.

4. I then took one of the gift cards to home depot and bought three 5-gallon gas cans.

5. I took the remaining gift cards and bought my new windows, which I installed myself, and which btw have now drastically reduced my heating bills.

6. Then for the next month whenever I needed gas I would take the gas cans to the Giant Eagle gas station and fill my car (15-gallons) and fill the cans with another 15 gallons - FOR FREE. I would take my gas cans home and fill my wife's van in the garage, btw.

With gas at $3 a gallon, that means I filled up my 30-gallons twice for FREE and then paid just $1 per gallon for the next 30-gallons. A total gas savings of $240.

All in all, this method of using my rebate credit card, plus gift cards and fuel-perks, saved me $340 on the cost of putting in windows. That equates to a 17% discount.

Thank you Giant Eagle! Thank you Home Depot! Thank you gift cards!

Wow! What a story! It just shows that if you put your mind to it, you can save a good amount of money by "working the system."

For other money making ideas, check out these posts:

• How You Can Earn Over 2.6% Cash Back by Using a Combination of the American Express Blue Cash and Chase Freedom Cash Visa Credit Cards

• I Told You There Was Big Money in Being a College Advisor!

• Use the Skills from Your Job to Make an Extra Income

Can't Afford Retirement? Move to Mexico

As I wrote in The 10 Most-Hated Money Saving Tips, people don't like to be told to move to a foreign country to save money (see tip #9.) No, they'd rather put up this objection and that objection on why it's a bad idea. Maybe it is a bad idea, but if you haven't saved much for retirement (a situation many Americans will face), it's better than eating dog food and living under someone's porch.

Of all the foreign options, Mexico is particularly a decent place to consider moving to because:

1. It can save you a TON of money (more on that later.)

2. It's not far from the U.S. You can drive there.

3. Nice climate.

4. It's easier to learn Spanish than Chinese. ;-)

So how much can you save by moving to Mexico? Here's what MSN Money came up with:

Suppose you can find a place where the cost of living is about 75% of the cost in the United States -- some beach town north of Puerto Vallarta or south of Manzanillo. What happens to your standard of living when you move to Mexico? It rises to the equivalent of about $42,400 in the U.S.

So let's say you have a $60,000 a year lifestyle but only have enough retirement income (via Social Security and your own savings) to fund $30,000 a year. Move to Mexico, make a few lifestyle changes, and you're not far from your pre-retirement standard of living in the U.S. Not bad at all!

Consumer Reports Weighs in on Nitrogen in Tires

We had a spirited conversation on my post titled Air or Nitrogen in Your Tires? with people weighing in on both sides to give their thoughts. Some thought it was a sham while others said it could be worth the extra money. Well, an "expert" has now weighed in on the topic. In its January issue, Consumer Reports says the following on the issue:

The claim (nitrogen keeps tires fuller longer) isn't totally hot air. All of the tires lost pressure, but nitrogen-filled tires lost less; an average of 2.2 psi, vs. 3.5 psi for air-filled tires. But with either filling, you need to check inflation monthly, which means that paying for nitrogen doesn't make much sense.

I personally don't think it's worth it either. I get my nitrogen free at Costco when my tires are rotated and in between visits, I fill up with air (the Costco service man said this was ok to do.)  Otherwise, I wouldn't have nitrogen in my tires.

What about you? Do you think nitrogen in your tires is worth the added expense?

Is Regifting ok?

I've written a bit on the topic of regifting including How to Regift, Over Half of Americans Re-Gift, Do You?, and 12 Rules for Re-gifting. And personally, I'm ok with regifting -- both as a giver and a recipient. I do regift at times and I'm fine with getting a gift that people are regifting (I've even had someone tell me it was a regift when she gave it to me and I loved the present.)

In my recent piece titled Test Your Gift-Giving Etiquette, I noticed that regifting is a polarizing topic. Most people came down adamantly on one side of the regifting issue or the other -- either they said "of course it's fine" or "it's never ok to regift." Since everyone seemed to be bringing up the issue anyway and we're in the prime gift-giving season, I thought I'd ask the question outright: do you think regifting ok?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

101 Ways to Save Money

Here's a piece I found on Yahoo that lists 101 ways to save money. Here are a few of their tips that I especially want to highlight:

4. Try a vacation at home. See and do the things you've always meant to do and save on hotel costs. The holidays are a perfect time to enjoy local festivities.

18. Save all your change and use it to buy gifts next year.

39. Don't renew subscriptions to publications you don't have time to read.

41. Make IRA contributions early in the year to take advantage of additional months of tax deferral.

97. Buy an I-PASS and save on highway tolls (in Illinois).

My thoughts on these:

4. We do this almost every Christmas. We stay at home, visit the local botanical gardens (we're members there) where they have "Christmas trees from around the world," and simply relax. My parents come for a few days and it's a good time of family, food, and fun. Besides, we got the go-go trip for the year out of the way when we went to Disney. ;-)

18. Great point. I think I read somewhere that the average home has quite a bit (maybe a couple hundred) dollars in spare change laying around. It won't buy all your gifts for the year, but it's a good start.

39. I just did this as part of an effort to simply my life. I had something like 12 magazine subscriptions and was killing myself to try and keep up with them. I eliminated them to five or six I really like and let the others expire, and in the process I saved both money and time.

41. At the beginning of each year I make contributions to both IRAs (non-deductible), Coverdell IRAs, and 529s to get the money in and working as soon as possible.

97. We live in Michigan. My parents live in Iowa. In between is Illinois and the traffic mess they call Chicago. We used to have to wait in line, sometimes for up to an hour on weekends, to pay our toll and move on. Then we got an I-PASS and now we sail through at full speed. I LOVE it!!!!!

Save and Make Money All in One Step

My post titled The 10 Most-Hated Money Saving Tips certainly got a lot of great comments. But there's one that stood out to me that I feel needed to be shared with everyone. It addresses my most-hated money saving idea -- moving to a lower cost-of-living city. The comment:

I can understand #1 being the most-hated. We met with a lot of skepticism when we did just that.

But, we researched and found a town (in the same country) that met our criteria and had a very low cost of living but most importantly, had ridiculously cheap real estate. For us, it was the low cost of entry into the real estate market that sold us on our location. I mean, less than the price of a decked out minivan low.

We purchased one house three years before we were ready to actually move out there and rented it out. A couple of years later, a second one. After we moved out here (5 months ago) we've bought 3 more and are currently closing on #6 and #7. The rental income from these places alone is enough to live modestly, so very soon, we'll have no need for a job. So much for the "not being able to find work in a small town" objection, eh?

Finding a place with inexpensive houses allows us to easily diversify, and our 7 houses combined still costs less (maybe even 1/2) of a home in Toronto. The risk to our portfolio is considerably lower than putting all our eggs in one house. We describe our thinking and our process in our blog WeLiveHereNow.net

Strategy #1 has worked very well for us, and everyone we talk to says they think it's great, but they could never do it. I guess that's just more houses for us, then! :)

So they not only saved a bundle of money, but now they're making money to boot -- enough so they don't have to have "regular" jobs in the near future. I'd say that's a pretty good combination!

Yes, You Can Save Money by Asking a Hotel for a Discount

Well, we finally have an expert weighing in on our discussion regarding asking for a discount at a hotel. Here's a comment left at my post titled A Practical Way to Save Money on a Hotel Room.

As a hotel desk clerk myself this is probably a good idea. We do not normally charge no shows, unless the entire hotel is booked, and especially if you come in late at night just try asking for a discount. I would rather sell you a room for a discount then have you walk out the door.

An empty hotel room is lost revenue for the business that can never be recouped. So, their thinking goes, why not offer a room at a discount? It's better to have a room rented out at a reasonable discount than to have it go unused for an evening.

Knowing this, you can use it to your advantage and simply ask for a discount. What's the worst that could happen -- they could say "no"?

Save Money by Having a Live Christmas Tree

In their December print edition, This Old House magazine gives a great, "green" money saving idea:

Use a live tree as your Christmas tree.

They tell how to find, transport, care for, and ultimately plant a live evergreen. Basically, you find a tree you want in your yard (eventually), take it inside for a few days and use it as a Christmas tree (the roots are bound in a bag and placed in a container), and when you're done with it, you take it outside and plant it. If you were going to buy a Christmas tree anyway and wanted an outside tree too, buying one tree and using it for both purposes certainly saves you a bit of money.

They don't have the article itself online, but the do offer some thoughts on how to select a live Christmas tree for your region.

It really is a great idea -- something I've heard of but never done. The downside: you can only have the tree indoors for 10 days or so. Otherwise it starts to bud and then transporting it back outside can harm the tree.

Anyone out there ever had a live Christmas tree?

Save Money with LED Holiday Lights?

Here's a little holiday-related money saving tip I found in my local paper recently:

Want to cut your holiday lighting bill by about 70 percent? Invest in the new wave of LED fixtures and light strings. These "light emitting diodes" are more expensive than traditional holiday lights; a strand of 30 decorative LED lights is about $15, compared to $8 for a string of 100 miniature lights.

According to the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), the LEDs burn cool and reduce energy consumption. LIPA says it costs about 56 cents to burn 600 LED lights five hours daily for 30 days. Over the same time, it would cost about $23 to burn incandescent bulbs.

At first, this seems like a really good deal. But, let's look at the payout.

Say you're thinking of buying 600 LED lights versus 600 regular lights. It would cost you $300 to purchase the LEDs and $48 for the regular lights. If you used them for five hours per day for 30 days, it would take you over 11 months to pay for the LEDs. Given that you only use the lights for 30 days each year, you're looking at breaking even sometime about 12 years from now.

And if you already have the regular lights, it would take over 13 years to pay off the LEDs.

Nope, no money saving tip here.

Save Money by Buying a New Air Conditioner Now

Here's a piece from Money magazine that says consumers can save a bundle of money on air conditioning purchases if they buy now. The details:

But if your house doesn't have central air, or if the system you have is about 15 years old (and therefore probably nearing the end of its life span), you should get the job done this winter. Not only will it automatically raise the value of your property, but you'll snag an iceberg-size seasonal discount.

Like many contractors around the country, Wilkos typically knocks 10 percent and sometimes as much as 20 percent off his wintertime bids. That's a savings of up to $3,000 on the $6,000 to $15,000 central AC costs.

This is the old "buy during the off season to get a discount" trick. I guess it really works here -- 20% off is a chunk of change on an AC unit.

For more money saving tips, see these posts:

• Money Saving Tip: Check Your Medical Bills

• Save Money by Asking for a Discount and Paying in Cash

• Save a Bundle on Your Energy Bills, Part 1: Upgrade Your Equipment

• A Practical Way to Save Money on a Hotel Room

The Inside Scoop on Getting Your Property Taxes Reduced

Here's a great comment left on my post titled One Positive of the Housing Decline that I thought you all would want to see:

My wife is a property tax assessor for our county, as well as a licensed appraiser at the state level. In our state, residences are reassessed every 3 years. The process is known as a "mass appraisal" because it has to be done at the neighborhood level (note that several "subdivisions" can make up a neighborhood. Quality of construction, square footage, land, and additions are some of the factors taken into account.

I don't recall the exact numbers, but in these mass appraisals, the goal (and state law) is that something like 90% of the homes should be within 10% of their "market value", that is, the price that the market would support if the property were sold in an arms-length transaction. In a year where market values are down over a three year span, the valuations of those homes being reassessed will be down. In a year where the market values are up over a three year span, the assessments will go up.

Also, due to the "average" nature of the mass appraisal, the chances of a property being undervalued are about the same as a property being overvalued. Of course, you don't hear of many people appealing their undervaluation. ;-)

While beastlike is correct about the budget being arrived at before tax rates are set, the assumption that the dollar amount of your taxes remains the same only applies if everyone in the county appealed their valuation when home values in the area drop.

The law is a bit tricky on this point -- Any property owner is required to file a "return" (think income tax return) each year during a certain window. This return simply allows you to state what you believe the property to be worth. The county can either accept your value or reject it. If they reject it, you have the right to appeal. If you do not file a return, the county's previous assessment becomes your automatic return. In essence, by failing to file a return, you are saying that you agree with the previously assessed value.

However, those homes that are up for their three year reassessment will be assigned a new value, and the property owners notified of the new assessment. These owners (one-third of the county each year) have the right to appeal their reassessment.

If you (a) did not file a return or (b) were not reassessed, then you have NO rights to appeal. This is the important part, at least in our state, and I would assume many others. If you believe the value of your home has dropped since your last assessment (or you believe a previous assessment was overvalued), FILE A RETURN. Otherwise you are stuck.

Mistakes made in square footage, additions, land, etc. are pretty much always corrected IF the process above is followed. If you come to an assessor after the windows have passed, their hands are pretty much tied. The values have been passed on to the county board at that point, and the budget will be set based on those values. The assessors cannot modify them after that point unless you filed a return (with a different value) or were reassessed in that year.

If you filed a return or were reassessed, and believe that you could not sell your property for the amount that you are assessed for, then you need to support that with reasonable comparisons of nearby, equivalent, arms-length transactions for the time period being appealed. For every appeal, my wife will research nearby transactions and see if they support the property owner's numbers. If they do, then she will go ahead and modify the assessment accordingly. It's understood that some percentage of the properties will be overvalued due to the nature of mass appraisals, and it's her responsibility to change these when they are brought to her attention.

Do NOT bring comparisons that are unrelated to your property--A father selling to a son, a foreclosed home, homes too far away from yours, vastly different square footages, vastly different acreages, etc. You are looking for comparisons that are "similar" to yours.

You can always sit down with the assessor and ask them for their comparisons. If you disagree with their comparisons, then you can appeal to the next step, in our state the Board of Equalization for the county. I would guess that your chances here depend on the quality of the assessor. If they know what they are doing, it's going to be hard for you to come up with better comparisons that convince the board that your valuation is better. For instance, my wife's valuations have been accepted over the property owner every single time in the last two years of appeals (about 40-50). Of course, she's also one of the few county assessors who is also a licensed appraiser.

If you lose before the Board of Equalization, you still have another option--you can appeal to the Superior Court. At this point there is a filing fee ($80?). My understanding is that the county attorneys do tend to settle a lot rather than go to court.

All said, it's going to take a lot of time and effort to argue an assessment that's close to the real value. If there are obvious mistakes, then you should absolutely appeal to have them corrected (make sure you file a return in order to do so). If you believe there is no way that you could sell the property for what the county's assessed value, then take that case to the assessor -- Chances are good that they will make the modifications if your numbers are reasonable. This is going to be the most likely course of action in this "down" market that we are currently seeing in most areas.

Regardless of what state you are in, now is probably the time to educate yourself on the process you need to follow next year to make sure your value is correct.

How Often Do You Check Your Bank Balance Online?

Here's a comment recently left on my post titled Money Saving Tip: Balance Your Check Book:

Here's another idea. Check your online banking account and balance WEEKLY.. if not every few days... It's an easy habit and you catch things sooner and can plan better.

I check my bank balance online every other week on average as I'm usually transferring money here or there for some reason, but if I wasn't doing that, I don't know if I would be checking my bank account online regularly.

Couple questions for you:

1. Do you think checking your bank account online is a good practice or something that's not needed?

2. How often do you check your bank balance online?

The 10 Most-Hated Money Saving Tips

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I know a bit about saving money. In 2005-2006, I wrote 519 money saving posts (which I summarized in 301 Saving Money Posts -- Hundreds of Ideas on How to Save Money) and this year I've added almost 200 more. So at over 700 tips now, I know a few things about saving money.

After all of those thoughts, suggestions, and ideas, one thing I can tell you about saving money is that despite the fact that they can save you a boatload of money, some tips are hated. And I don't mean disliked a little. I mean people HATE them. They hate the thought of them, the suggestion of them, and the fact that I would have the nerve to even list them. How do I know this? I read the comments. I get the emails. I see the blog posts rebutting the suggestions. Believe me, there are just some money saving ideas that tick people off.

It's too bad because many of these ideas can save people a bundle of money. We're not talking a dollar here and a dollar there, but thousands of dollars in savings (and some even offer tens of thousands of dollars in savings.) And yet, people don't want to hear them.

But since I'm a glutton for punishment, I thought I'd highlight what I see as the 10 most-hated money saving tips. I'll list them all in countdown fashion according to how much they are hated. I'll give a brief summary of each of them as well as some links to related posts in case you'd like more information.

With that said, here we go:

10. Be healthy -- Let's face it, people don't like being told they are fat and lazy. I think that's at the core of the disdain for a healthy lifestyle. But despite the pans this suggestion gets, there's no debating that being healthy can easily save you thousands of dollars on items like medical expenses and life insurance. Even something simple like losing some weight can add up to big savings. Or you can sit on the couch watching TV every night eating bon bons. You decide what's best for you.

9. Move to a foreign country (or even visit for health care) -- How dare I even suggest this idea? It's unpatriotic, would require extensive travel to see family, and, after all, the United States is the "best" in everything, so why move? Let's take these objections in reverse order.

First, here's a news flash: the United States is NOT the best in everything (such as health care, lifestyle, culture, weather, etc.) I know, some of this is subjective, but come on, does anyone really believe the U.S. is the best in everything? Second, living in Central America may actually require LESS travel to see family than if you lived somewhere else in the U.S. Example: You live in New York and your family lives in LA. You move to Mexico. Are you closer to them now? Besides, once you have to get on a plane, any trip is not that much longer away even if you live farther. Finally, I'm not suggesting you renounce your citizenship. What I'm saying is that you can still love the U.S. (as I do) and live somewhere else. Sheesh! Lighten up.

The fact is that the cost of living is significantly lower in other parts of the world and you can save a ton of money by moving overseas. Of course this brings up the "what do I do for a living" question, so this idea works best for retirees. Some money saving countries to explore: Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama.

As far as health care goes, you can easily save thousands having a major medical procedure done in a foreign country. Concerned that the care isn't as good as in the U.S.? It isn't. In many cases it's better.

8. Quit smoking -- Ok, I expected the smoking addicts to hate this one. They, of course, decry the fact that I'm trying to steal all the fun from their lives. But I didn't expect the outcry from another group: those who invest in companies who make cigarettes. Ha!

I think everyone will agree that smoking is bad for your health. And, as we know by now, having poor health is bad for your wallet (re-read item #10 in case you've forgotten this already.) In addition, you can save somewhere around $6,000 a year by quitting smoking (maybe less, maybe more.) Heck, by just not buying cigarettes it's easy to save a bundle.

For you smokers, find a cheaper, better way to enjoy life. And for those of you buying cigarette stocks, do something better (and easier) and go with index funds.

See? Now everyone is happy! ;-)

7. Buying used -- Let's list the things people hate about buying used: 1) it's not new; 2) someone else has used it; 3) did I mention it's not new?

Really, is owning something brand new really worth that much more? I think most of us have generally accepted that a good-condition used car is less expensive than a new car, but we haven't made the transition to other areas of products. But if we do, buying used can save a bundle. And yet, people don't really like this idea -- especially when it comes to buying used clothing.

6. Buy a house you can afford -- This one used to get a lot more heat than it does now. Then the subprime mortgage mess hit and detractors have been silent lately. Funny how good advice seems to always win out in the long run, huh?

Anyway, buying a house you can easily afford is a key part of my formula for buying a house. Avoid this suggestion and it can cost you big time as many people are unfortunately finding out now.

5. Cutting your cable -- It's a known fact that the U.S. Declaration of Independence states that all men are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness through watching endless re-runs of "dog police" and "the world's wackiest whatever" sorts of shows. Who cares that it's rotting your brain and costing you a fortune?

You can save thousands by cutting cable TV -- maybe even $1 million.  And if you can't cut it completely, at least take steps to save as much as you can on cable costs.

4. Taking your lunch to work -- Who knew there were so many advantages of blowing $10 a day on lunch out? You get out of the office (which gets you exercise and allows your mind to freshen), you get to socialize with others (which can enhance your career), and you get to have fun!

I've got an idea, why don't you bring your lunch to work, saving a bundle of money, then get a group of people from the office to run at noon. Then you get exercise, socialization, a fresh mind, and fun. Or, if you simply want to walk with friends you could do that too. Not to mention, you wouldn't have to find a place to shower afterwards. And you can save a few thousand dollars a year. Not bad.

3. Limiting small spending -- Personal finance guru David Bach came up with the "latte factor," the idea that you could save a bundle of money if you limited the small, worthless purchases you make every day -- like $5 lattes for example. But no one likes this idea. It takes all the fun out of life and besides, we all need to focus on the big amounts we spend, that's where you can save the really big money.

Yes, while it's true that we all need to watch our big money expenditures, it's also true that before you have millions, you need thousands. And before you get to thousands, you need hundreds. And before you need hundreds, you need tens. And so on. Ok, enough with the philosophical junk, what I'm really trying to say is that pennies can add up to millions. Live with it for Pete's sake!

And finally, while it may be fun to pour $5 down your throat for 15 minutes a day, I prefer to have more fun checking my ever-growing net worth. ;-)

2. Not buying a pet -- If cable TV is the #2 right of every American, having a pet has to be #1. And shame on me for suggesting that pets actually cost money. What am I, some sort of neo-fascist?

Ok, I didn't help my cause out any when I claimed a pet costs $48,000. I was doing that to get your attention. I've since done a bunch of posts on what pets really do cost and it seems to me that $1,000 per year is a fair, rough cost for a pet. And just for the record, I'm not the only one suggesting pets are expensive -- Money Central says getting a pet can be a stupid money move.

That said, I'm also open minded enough to consider the alternatives -- that pets might actually SAVE you money, make you happy (who said money couldn't buy happiness?), help you become healthier, extend your life and even allow you to buy love. Ok, maybe the dog people are wearing me down.

Still, I'm still horrified by the possibility of having a problem dog that needs to wear diapers.

1. Moving to a lower cost-of-living city -- This one really puzzles me. Not only is it that people don't like this idea, but they REALLY don't like it. As in "you're the stupidest financial blogger ever" sort of don't like it. But what do I care? I still have my day job. ;-)

It must be the fact that, in general, people love where they live. They like the area of the country, their job, and the fact that they have family nearby.

However, if you move from a high cost-of-living city to a lower cost-of-living city, you can literally save MILLIONS over the course of your lifetime. And yes, that accounts for the fact that you'll probably make less money in the new city. But your living expenses will drop so much more that you'll be way better off financially. I know -- you don't want to hear that. I'll shut up now.

Let me end by saying that I'm not against spending money. I'm not about saving every single penny, eliminating any fun in life, just to accumulate more. But what I am saying is that there are a number of good savings ideas that will allow us to save money -- so we can invest a bit more and spend the rest on things we enjoy. And even with ideas we may hate, there are some really good ways to save money if we simply take time to consider them a bit.

That, and I like to aggravate you all with my stupid, money saving ideas. ;-)

Two Examples of How Using Cash Can Save You Money

Here's a great comment left on my post titled Save Money by Asking for a Discount and Paying in Cash:

My wife and I have had fun shopping with cash recently while shopping for furniture. We were buying antiques at consignment shops, we bought 2 items and saved $400 easily. The first one was $1500 "marked down" to $895 we got it for $750. I say "marked down" because it was antiques, and I buy what I like, not what they tell me it's worth.

The other piece was $650, we offered 350, they said no way, we then said $400, they said there's no way they could do that even with cash. I said well thank you very much, and my wife and I left. As we left, I thought, "I should give that guy my number in case they change their mind". So I went back and gave him my number. We shopped at a place next door, and in 20 minutes or so, he called and took my offer. It was great!

Cash does work, try it.

Great stories!

That's a great tip that's hidden in the comment -- if they say "no", leave a way they can get in touch with you. Who knows, they may change their minds. I'm thinking of applying this principle to house hunting. If we find a place we like and make a lowball bid, it's likely the owners will say "no" the first time. But if we leave the door open with something like "well, if you change your mind, you can contact us to see if we're still interested." Who knows, a few months later they may start to get desperate and decide our offer was pretty good after all! ;-)

Another Way to Save on Moving

A reader left the following comment on my post titled Save Money on Moving:

Good friends of mine, moving from West to East, purchased a covered trailer to carry all of their belongings behind them. Arriving at their destination, they were able to unload all of their stuff at their leisure, thereafter selling the nearly-new trailer for more than they paid for it! Even with any additional, short-term insurance costs, they came out pretty well at the end of their moving adventure.

Sounds like a good, creative, money saving idea!

10 Things Better than Shopping Today

While most of you are out there shopping today, I'm at work manning the phones to our small company. It's really no trouble at all (who's going to call anyway?) and the day is pretty relaxing with everyone gone. Besides, I've taken the day after Thanksgiving off for several years now -- so it's my turn to be here today.

I used to work for a retailer (in the corporate offices) and we were forced to work one day in the stores between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I always picked the day after Thanksgiving (I know, I'm a glutton for punishment) and rather enjoyed the mass of people entering the store. They were happy (for the most part) and the store was very busy, so the time went quickly. It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected (being there at 6 am was the worst part of the gig.)

But there are better things to do today if you're on the shopping end. I used to take the three days before Thanksgiving off and do all my Christmas shopping then. Now I do the majority of it online and it's even easier.

Anyway, I found this piece from Kiplinger's that lists Ten Ways to Fatten Your Wallet on Black Friday (for those of you who don't know, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving -- it's said that this is the day retailers go from operating in the red to operating in the black.) Their list:

1. Shop online.
2. Prepare your holiday budget and gift list.
3. Set up a gift that keeps on giving.
4. Winterize your home.
5. Shop for the best credit card.
6. Clean out your closet, basement or garage.
7. Assemble your financial emergency kit.
8. Make smart year-end money moves.
9. Protect your PC.
10. Relax!

Here's where I stand on each of these:

1. As I said, I do shop online.

2. My budget was prepared last January and my list has been done for a few weeks now.

3. My kids already have 529s.

4. Wow, these guys really know how to have fun, don't they? ;-) FYI, here's a whole series on making your home more energy efficient.

5. Better yet, make a plan to maximize your cash back rewards in 2008.

6. Our basement and closets are good, but I do need to get to the garage.

7. Need to do this.

8. All done or on their way.

9. This is standard procedure for me.

10. I am relaxing. Did I mention that no one's here and the phones aren't ringing? ;-)

18 Homemade Gifts Under $10

Looking for some inexpensive but meaningful gifts this holiday season? Why not make your own? This list of 18 homemade gifts under $10 has some great ideas that will allow you to give wonderful gifts to those on your list without breaking the bank.

One of their ideas is to create a "Grandparent’s Calendar." I LOVE the thought behind this idea, but there's a simpler (and almost as cheap) way of doing this. How? Use Costco's online system and your photos to create your own calendar. It's very easy to do, you get multiple pictures per page, the end product looks very professional and it's cheap -- $9.99 last year plus shipping. People LOVE them. We're giving them to all of our relatives this year as they continually are our most requested gifts.

Save a Bundle on Your Energy Bills, Part 5: Replace Old Appliances

In October, Money magazine had a special energy insert that featured five ways to save on your energy bills. They not only highlighted the ideas, but the annual savings and up-front costs you'd expect from each of them. They also listed a "quick fix" -- a step you could take in case you didn't want to take the "full-on" advice. Today we'll look at their #5 suggestion, replace old appliances. Their thoughts:

Idea: Most major appliances (such as refrigerators and dishwashers) that are more than 15 years old are major energy wasters - and likely worth ditching in favor of this year's models.

Annual savings: $50 to $150 on electric bills per machine.

Up-front cost: About $500 to $1,500 per machine.

Quick Fix: Compact fluorescent bulbs (costing about $5 each) could save you about $5 each annually.

My take:

We have a "new" washer and dryer (a few years old) and a new dishwasher (a couple years old), but have a very old refrigerator (probably 15 years old now.) My wife has kept it in good shape by regularly cleaning the coils, but it's due for a replacement. We were just talking the other nigh and agreed that if/when we move, we'll get a new refrigerator. If we don't move in the next year, we'll probably get a new one anyway.

As far as compact fluorescent bulbs go, we have them in part of our house but haven't made the full switch. I still can't get over the "flickering" when they are turned on. Do they all do this or did we just buy cheap ones?

Click here to read part 1 of this series.

How to Get a Free Cruise

Want to save money on a cruise? Even better -- want to get one for FREE? (Talk about your money saving tips -- your vacation budget could save a bundle here.) All you need is some sort of expertise in a popular topic as well as the ability to speak to a crowd. The highlights from Kiplinger's:

Want to go on a free luxury-ship cruise? If you have some area of expertise, you could follow the course take by John Hall, 72, of Shreveport, La., who is a retired Louisiana State University professor of anthropology and geology. He provides passengers with lectures on the characteristics of the destination. In return, he gets a vacation at no cost.

So basically, the "experts" agree to do talks/give presentations and in return the get a free cruise (for two.) Not a bad payment for a few speeches, huh? Anyone want to hear about finances on these ships? I'm set to go. ;-)

And if you don't have any particular expertise, there still may be a way you can get a free cruise:

Many cruise lines recruit "gentleman hosts," single men between the ages of 40 to 70, who conduct dancing classes and serve as dance partners for single, divorced and widowed women passengers.

I'm not touching that one with a comment. ;-)

I've read about this idea before but it sounds too good to be true to me. Anyone out there ever done something like this or know someone who did? If so, please share the details with the rest of us.

Save a Bundle on Your Energy Bills, Part 4: Add Insulation

In October, Money magazine had a special energy insert that featured five ways to save on your energy bills. They not only highlighted the ideas, but the annual savings and up-front costs you'd expect from each of them. They also listed a "quick fix" -- a step you could take in case you didn't want to take the "full-on" advice. Today we'll look at their #4 suggestion, add insulation. Their thoughts:

Idea: Insulation wasn't standard for newly built houses until the mid-70s oil crisis. So if your home is older than that, check out your attic floor - it's the place you'd be most likely to find the stuff. None? Consider adding it to the attic and the basement. Even if there's some insulation there already, you may benefit from adding more.

Annual savings: About 5% on your fuel bills (if you have some insulation already) to 25% (if you have none).

Up-front cost: About $1,000 to insulate the attic and foundation yourself; about $2,000 to $4,000 for a handyman to do it.

The credit: 10% of the cost of materials (credit cannot exceed $500).

Quick Fix: A Smart Power Strip (costing about $30) could save you $30 per strip a year. Most electrical devices gobble energy even when they're shut off and unplugging them is a hassle.

My take:

We probably should have added some more insulation a few years ago. We have some in both the attic and basement, but I'm sure it's not enough and not as good as today's materials our house is about 20 years old. But since we're moving soon (hopefully), it's probably not worth it to add any extra insulation at this point.

Not sure how the power strip relates to the insulation idea, but I use one for my home computer. We should probably get one for the TV/DVD player/video game part of the house too as that's the other area where we have a concentration of electronic appliances.

Click here to read part 5 of this series.

Click here to read part 1 of this series.

Save a Bundle on Your Energy Bills, Part 3: Seal Your House

In October, Money magazine had a special energy insert that featured five ways to save on your energy bills. They not only highlighted the ideas, but the annual savings and up-front costs you'd expect from each of them. They also listed a "quick fix" -- a step you could take in case you didn't want to take the "full-on" advice. Today we'll look at their #3 suggestion, seal your house. Their thoughts:

Idea: Small cracks and gaps in your house's shell can allow about a third of the heat and air conditioning in a 10-year-old house to escape.

Annual savings: Up to 10% on your fuel bills

Up-front cost: About $100 if you do it yourself; $500 or more if you hire out the job.

Tax credit: 10% of the cost of storm windows (credit cannot exceed $200).

Quick Fix: A water heater blanket (about $20) could save you $34 a year for a gas heater; $54 for an electric one. Water heaters made 10 years ago aren't well insulated. If yours dates to 1997 or before, it can lose about 3 degrees Fahrenheit of heat an hour.

My take:

I'm missing it big-time on this one. I seal cracks around windows and doors (though I do have one door that I constantly struggle with), but I'm totally missing the attic. And I don't have a water heater blanket either -- so between all of these ideas, I could be losing a few hundred dollars a year. Sheesh!

Click here to read part 4 of this series.

Click here to read part 1 of this series.

How to Save on Medical Expenses

Here's a suggestion for how to save on medical expenses:

Get into shape.

And I'm not talking about world-class-athlete shape here either. Just get into the "normal" range for your body type. You know, eat well, lose some weight, exercise a bit. Doing this could save you some big bucks in the future.

Business Week is reporting a trend that many companies are allowing workers in better health to get "enhanced" medical insurance coverage -- having lower deductibles and co-pays. Workers who don't pass a physical screening, then either have to work with a health coach to get into shape or have to pay a higher cost for their coverage.

It's only a blip on the insurance radar right now, but I think this system is going to be a growing trend. Companies want to lower costs and we all know how health care costs are increasing rapidly. And while it's tough for companies to put the cost burden on all employees (otherwise, there could be a revolt), it's much easier to charge people more if they cost more to insure. After all, that's fair isn't it?

Personally, I LOVE this idea. If someone refuses to quit smoking, wants to be 50 pounds overweight, and hasn't exercised in decades, that's ok with me -- just don't expect me to help pay their higher-than-average health care costs. It's a way of putting some personal accountability into the health care system, something that's far too lacking in our society in general IMO.

What do you think -- great idea or cost-cutting madness?

Thoughts from My Car Dealership

Last Wednesday I took my car in for its 60,000-mile tune-up. I had several finance-related thoughts about the experience during the time I waited for the car and wanted to share them all with you. Here goes:

• I don't usually have my car worked on at the dealership since they are way over-priced. But for major work/tune-ups, I'd rather pay a bit more and have guys work on the car who really know the ins and outs of it (after all, they work on these cars all day, every day.) I also have a few other reasons I go to the dealership that I noted last year, most of which are still valid.

• Since my last visit, the dealership has upgraded. Instead of a lounge where you can hook up your own computer and get dial-up access, they now have the dealership's computer with high-speed internet access. Cool! I could do several blogging-related tasks while I waited. Yeah, they still had the option for me to dial-up my own computer, but why bother?

• During the tune-up, the manager came and told me my brakes were almost worn completely (95% or so) and asked if I wanted new ones (for both front and back) or wanted to get them elsewhere. If I got them here, it would be $425. Within 20-seconds, here's what went through my mind:

1. I do trust these guys -- I don't think they would tell me something like this if it weren't true.
2. I KNOW I can find a better deal on brakes somewhere else. I could probably save $100 or so versus their price.
3. How long will it take me to find a place to do my brakes? And to price shop? And to take my car in again? Maybe two hours at best. Probably more like four hours.
4. My car is here NOW. It can be done NOW for only maybe an extra hour's worth of waiting time. Even if I value my time at only $50 per hour (which I value it at more than that), I'll probably "save" $100 to $150 by having the work done here and right now.
5. If I get the brakes done now, I have a coupon that will give me $25 extra off the price.
6. I told him to do the work now.

• When I paid, my bill was $800. But I knocked it down a bit as follows:

• I had a coupon that gave me savings off different levels of spending at the dealership (I'm on their mailing list and they sent it to me.) The tune-up alone was going to get me $25 in savings, but adding the brake work bumped me up to the next savings level, so I got to save $50 off the work.

• I redeemed my last $100 rewards certificate from my Subaru Platinum MasterCard from Chase (for details on how/why I had this card, see What My Second Credit Card Does for Me.) I'm getting rid of this card in favor of the Chase Freedom Cash Visa Card since next year I'm looking to dramatically increase my cash back rewards. But I did use my one, last rewards certificate to knock $100 off the bill. And I timed it so it will leave me with no rewards accumulated on it.

• My final bill was $650 and I paid with my Blue Cash from American Express card, earning me cash back of $9.75. Not bad.

That's it. Who ever thought I'd pick up such a long blog post at my dealership? ;-)

Save a Bundle on Your Energy Bills, Part 2: Patch Leaky Ducts

In October, Money magazine had a special energy insert that featured five ways to save on your energy bills. They not only highlighted the ideas, but the annual savings and up-front costs you'd expect from each of them. They also listed a "quick fix" -- a step you could take in case you didn't want to take the "full-on" advice. Today we'll look at their #2 suggestion, patch leaky ducts. Their thoughts:

Idea: Even if you have the most efficient furnace and air conditioner known to man, if the ducts that funnel that precious hot air or cold air around your house are in bad shape, you'll still lose way too much energy.

Annual savings: About 10% to 20% on your heating and cooling bills.

Up-front cost: About $50 if you do it yourself; $500 to $3,000 otherwise.

Quick Fix: A programmable thermostat (costing about $100) could save you about $100 a year.

My take:

Confession time: I need to do this. I know that the ducts in our house are leaky in the basement and I just haven't taken the time to patch them. But with $200 to $400 per year on the line, looks like a little tape could save me a bundle.

We do have a programmable thermostat and use it regularly. We turn the heat down at night and it kicks back on to warm the house just before we get up. IN the summer, we keep it cool while we sleep and let it heat up a bit in the day. We also use the "vacation" setting that allows us to keep it at a high or low temp (depending on the season) for several days while we're away from the house. It's a great tool, and for a $100 savings, it's a no-brainer.

Click here to read part 3 of this series.

Click here to read part 1 of this series.

Free Items at Lowe's and Home Depot

Last weekend I received some freebies from the top two home improvement companies in the U.S. and thought I'd tell you about them.

The first is really no big deal (though it was tasty.) After basketball practice, my son and I stopped into Home Depot for some gardening supplies (mulch to cover my roses for the winter and so on.) To our delight, they were handing out free bags of popcorn. And this wasn't just any popcorn -- it was the salty, buttery, worst-for-you-but-best-tasting sort of popcorn I used to get at high school events. We snagged two bags and had them gone in no time.

The second item was a much better value. A few months ago, I subscribed to two free newsletters/magazines (they're about 10-12 pages each) from Lowe's -- one on gardening and one on woodworking. Each of the newsletters gives tips on how to make things or some sort of other handy home-related tips (of course buying the supplies at Lowe's). In the latest issue of the woodworking newsletter, they had a coupon for a free six-in-one screwdriver. Since the offer was good "while supplies last", my wife stopped by the day after we got the newsletter and picked up our screwdriver. It's a neat little device and was a $5 value (I think), so I was happy to get it for nothing. (BTW, Lowe's often has coupons in these newsletters, so if you're interested in saving, you might want to sign up for them. As I said, it's free to do so.)

Make Money When Buying a House and Save Money When Selling a House

Here are a couple new, interesting websites I received an email about last week. They are designed to save you money when you sell your house and make you money when you buy it. But before we get to them and what they offer, let's review the home selling and buying process.

When a home is sold, the realtors involved (buyer's and seller's realtors) earn a 6% commission on average for selling the home. That commission is paid for by the seller. Generally, the commission is split evenly between the listing agent and the selling agent. If the listing agent also sells the home, he keeps the entire 6%. So if your home sells for $200,000, you'll end up paying the realtors involved $12,000. That's a pretty big chunk of change, but theoretically it goes to pay for all the ads, MLS fees, and other work done by the realtor.

On the buying side, you don't have realtors fees as all of these are paid for by the seller (though some will argue that they are factored into the cost of the house, I'd say the house sells for what the market declares to be a fair price and the fees are then paid by the seller after the fact.) But that doesn't mean realtor fees don't factor into your buying efforts. For instance, if both you and the seller have agents, you'll pay $200,000 for the house above while the seller will get back $188,000 ($200k - $12k; yes, there are other fees, but I'm trying to keep this simple.) But if you find the seller or he finds you without any agents involved, he is now willing to take a lower price since he'll "save" $12,000 if you buy from him. So let's say you split the difference and you buy the house for $194,000. With no realtors, you save $6k on the home and he makes $6k more. It's a win-win situation!

The two sites I noted above are designed to help you eliminate the realtors' fees as much as possible so more money goes into your pocket. Here's how they do it:

• IggysHouse lets you list a home you want to sell on the MLS system in your area. Since this is something that's usually closed to people looking to sell their own homes and is a key to getting your house in front of agents in your area, this is a valuable service. The site also gets your house listed on Realtor.com (a major real estate website) and offers some other benefits as well. And all of this is FREE. You'll still need to do the other marketing for your home, but this is a big step to saving a bundle (at least 3% of the selling price of the home as you won't have an agent and maybe the whole 6% if you find a buyer without an agent). For details on how this works, visit their how we do it page.

• BuySideRealty basically acts as your agent -- though for a much cheaper rate than normal. The reason they can do this is that they offer fewer services than a regular agent (translation: you have to do much more of the work -- see their how it works page for details) But your reward for doing so is that they'll give you back 75% of the realtor fees they generate. So in the example above, they would have earned $6,000 in realtor fees from the seller and they would give you $4,500 back. Not bad at all for doing a bit more work yourself.

I see sites like these becoming more and more common as people look to eek out whatever equity is left in their homes. It could even work for us, IF we decide to sell our house when we buy the new one and IF we had the time to do much of the legwork ourselves (which we don't.)

I'm interested in your opinions -- what's your take on these sites and/or this do-it-yourself trend?

And for those of you who are skeptical out there, no, this is not a paid post for them. Though I wish it was! ;-)

Save a Bundle on Your Energy Bills, Part 1: Upgrade Your Equipment

In October, Money magazine had a special energy insert that featured five ways to save on your energy bills. They not only highlighted the ideas, but the annual savings and up-front costs you'd expect from each of them. They also listed a "quick fix" -- a step you could take in case you didn't want to take the "full-on" advice. Today we'll look at their #1 suggestion, upgrading your equipment. Their thoughts:

Idea: If your system is more than two decades old, the new one should easily pay for itself in three to seven years. In the long term it can save you more money than any other home improvement project.

Annual savings: As much as 25% to 50% on your fuel bills.

Up-front cost: $3,000 to $6,000 for a new furnace and air conditioning unit, including installation.

Tax credit: $300 for central AC system; $300 for water heater; $150 for furnace or broiler (credit cannot exceed $500).

Quick Fix: Air Filters (costing about $30 a year) could save you about $100 a year if you change them every three months, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Chose a pleated model - it'll do a better job.

My take:

I pay roughly $2,000 a year to heat and cool my house. If I put in a new system for $4,500 (the mid-range above -- I'll leave out the tax credit savings, though they would make this even better) and saved 37.5% (the mid-range above), I'd pocket an extra $750 a year. At this rate, it would take me six years to recover the costs of the new system. Not bad.

In the worst-case scenario, let's say the new system cost me $6,000 and I only saved 25% per year (or $500.) In this case, it would take 12 years to pay back the investment. It's not a killer as the system should last 15-20 years, but it's not a clear winner, either.

However, in the best-case scenario, the idea's a big winner. If the system were to run me $3,000 and I saved 50%, I'd have the money re-couped in two years! Woo hoo!

Our current furnace is at the breaking point. For the last three years, each time we've had it checked prior to the heating season, we've been told it could "go any time." We're hoping we don't need to replace it before we move, but if we don't hurry, we won't have a choice.

We do use air filters and I change them every other month (believe me, they're dirty by then), so I guess I am saving a good amount even with the old system.

Click here to read part 2 of this series.

Save on Heating Costs by Checking/Cleaning Your Dryer Exhaust Vent

I've previously suggested that a great way to save on heating costs is to make sure all air leaks from your house to the outside are caulked, covered, repaired, insulated and so on. In other words, you can save money on heating bills by making sure your home is sealed for the winter.

I was outside the other day doing some raking and caught a glimpse of our dryer's exhaust vent (it's about 6 feet high since our back yard slopes down from the first floor.) I noticed that the flap that opens when the dryer is on and (supposedly) closes when the dryer is off, was 3/4 of the way open -- and the dryer was NOT on. After a bit of feeling around, I found that lint had collected all around the flap and was keeping it propped open. I scooped out the lint with my fingers (it only took me a couple of minutes) and cleared the way -- the flap was able to return to its proper place.

As I did this, I thought what sort of impact it would have had this winter if the vent had remained 3/4 open. I'm sure we would have lost a good amount of heat from the vent and would have wasted a ton of energy as a result. So consider this a reminder that as you look around your house this fall to decide what to seal for the winter, be sure to check your dryer exhaust vent. Doing so could save you a few extra bucks!

Money Saving Tip: Check Your Medical Bills

I've recommended before that you should always check your medical bills since they're likely wrong (for specifics, see Money Saving Tip: Watch Medical Bills and Money Saving Tip: Check Your Medical Bills, Part 2.) Well, here's a reminder not to accept your hospital's/doctor's bill without looking it over closely. Why? Because it's very likely that the bill is wrong . In fact, MSNBC says 8 out of 10 hospital statements have multiple mistakes and ignoring them could be very costly:

Errors on bills for doctors, medical tests or hospitals can result in overcharges that run from a few dollars to tens of thousands of dollars.

And let me go out on a limb here and guess that the incorrect charges are hardly, if ever, in your favor.

So what should you do if you find a mistake on a medical bill? MSNBC says you may want to get help from a medical-billing advocate. But if you prefer the do-it-yourself method, check out these suggestions:

• How to Get an Incorrect Medical Bill Corrected

• Another Way to Get an Incorrect Medical Bill Corrected

• A Third Way to Get an Incorrect Medical Bill Corrected

Save Money on Moving (And Get New Stuff!)

Here's an interesting idea suggested on my post titled Save Money on Moving:

What you move should vary with the distance you are moving it. Across country you should only move antiques, heirlooms, irreplaceables, precious items, personal papers and photos, and clothing. Lesser distances, it becomes worthwhile to transport less valuable items, but low value density objects such as ordinary furniture and household supplies are not worth transporting far. Better to sell and buy new there.

That's an interesting concept -- to simply not move certain things and take the money you would have spent to move them and buy new things. Think this could work? In other words, if you saved $2,000 by not moving certain household items, do you think you could buy replacement items for $2,000 or less? If you could, you could donate the older items to charity (and get a write-off), save yourself the trouble of moving (even if someone else does it, it's still a hassle), and then buy new stuff at your new place.

Another option: if it's a corporate move, ask the company to give you the money they were going to spend moving you instead of paying the movers. Then you would be responsible for your own move. I've had a couple of corporate moves and they pay a TON of money to move someone -- seems like most people could do better if they took the cash, only moved the essentials, then bought new stuff when they arrived in their new city.

What's your opinion of this idea?

Save Money by Asking for a Discount and Paying in Cash

I've suggested before that both asking for a discount and paying in cash can save you big money when buying an item. Bankrate gives us a couple examples where one woman put both of these principles to work:

My husband bought new tires, and just by the outright offer of a cash transaction the priced dropped $75. Who knew just saying "And if I give you cash?" could be a coupon in itself! Our second experience was in a furniture store buying a dresser. Of course we were attacked by salespeople upon walking in the door. I pulled out a wad of cash -- all $10 bills, but it looked big -- and said, "I want that dresser." It was marked $175, and I just said, "Sir, I got $110 with me right now for that dresser, or I can just run down to another store and see what prices they have."

And I'll be darned if after a quick "check with the manager," we didn't walk out with a dresser for $110! So do yourself a favor, speak up. The worst that happens is nothing and you pay what you were going to anyway!

My sister-in-law recently used this technique to save several hundred dollars on a floor model refrigerator. She simply knew it was a floor model and was discontinued (two other things that helped her save big), so she took in cash, made an offer and they accepted it. Guess she should have gone lower, huh?

Anyone else used "asking" and "cash" to save money?

Save Money by Hang-Drying Your Clothes

Bankrate suggest we all can save money by hang-drying our clothes and not running the dryer. Here are the highlights:

Because regular use of the dryer is hard on fabric and uses a lot of electricity, I hang my clothes to dry in the laundry room. I have a dehumidifier there that keeps the basement from being damp and helps speed the drying of my clothes. The dehumidifier has the Energy Star logo, which means it is a model that uses less energy, thereby saving money. I use the water that the dehumidifier collects to refill the toilet tank or to water the outdoor plants on dry summer days.

My take on this:

1. Wow. This sounds like a lot of work.

2. How much does it really save? Yeah, you save money from the dryer not running but spend money on the dehumidifier. Not to mention the cost of your time. This is quite a process.

3. Good point on dryer's being hard on clothes. A bit of savings can be racked up there due to clothes lasting longer.

4. We used to hang our clothes outside when I was a kid. But haven't we found that doing this can aggravate allergies?

What do you think -- good idea or not worth the effort?

Save Money with a Geothermal Heat Pump

One of the houses we looked at this summer had a geothermal heat pump, something the realtor saw as a big selling point. I didn't know anything about them so it didn't really mean anything to me at the time. But since then, I've studied a bit about them and I recently found an article on them in This Old House magazine. It seems like they can both save money and help the environment, so I thought I'd post on what I know about them.

We'll start with this overview from Wikipedia which says:

A geothermal heat pump system is a heating and/or an air conditioning system that uses the Earth's ability to store heat in the ground and water thermal masses. This system will take advantage of a land mass as a heat exchanger to either heat or cool a building structure. These systems operate on a very simple premise; the ground, below the frost line, stays at approximately 50 °F (10 °C) year round and a water-source heat pump uses that available heat in the winter and puts heat back into the ground in the summer. A geothermal system differs from a conventional furnace or boiler by its ability to transfer heat versus the standard method of producing the heat.

So basically, it's easier for a geothermal heat pump to heat in the winter and cool in the summer because it's using 50-degree water as a base. Compare this to trying to get heat from 10-degree air or cooling from 90-degree air (something conventional heating/cooling systems have to battle with), and you can see why the geothermal heat pump has such an advantage.

In addition, a geothermal heat pump is much quieter (the equipment is usually in the basement, like other systems, but the rest is buried underground -- nothing to make outside noise) as well as better for the environment (This Old House says it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of planting 750 trees or taking two cars off the road.) But let's get down to brass tacks. How does it stack up financially? More from Wikipedia:

The initial cost of installing a Geothermal Heat Pump system can be two to three times that of a conventional heating system in most residential applications, new construction or existing. In retrofits, the cost of installation is effected by the square footage of living area, the home's age, insulation characteristics the geology of the area, and location of the home/property. For new construction, proper duct system design and mechanical air exchange should be considered in initial system cost. These systems can save the average family from 400-1400$/year, reducing the average heating/cooling costs by 35-70% per household. The cost of installation may be reduced by many governmental programs which all the home owners use to reduce their taxes at the end of the year.

This Old House uses the following numbers:

• Installation cost: $15,000-$20,000
• Savings to heating/cooling bills: 30 to 70%
• Break-even point: Seven to eight years (according to an Air Force Institute of Technology study)

Of course, the actual payback depends on your power usage as well as your local utility rates. Still, even a 10 to 12 year payback would seem pretty good to me.

My main thought was "what happens if this unit breaks down somehow -- much of it is underground, wouldn't it be costly to repair?" I'm guessing the answer is "yes" to this, but This Old House says the units rarely need repairs -- and the parts that do are the ones inside the house, not the ones buried in the yard.

Supposedly, only 47,000 geothermal heat pumps were installed last year -- a small fraction of all heating/cooling systems. Anyone out there have one or have experience with one? I'd sure love to hear your thoughts.

If you want to read more about geothermal heat pumps, check out the Wikipedia article above (with cool pictures) as well as this one.

Can You Get a Good Deal Buying a Car from Costco?

On my post titled Buying a Car Using the Web, I recently received this comment:

What do you think about the Costco car buying program? Can it compete with your method?

It's an interesting question. I'm not sure about the answer.

My method got me deals that were very, very close to the true dealer cost (including kickbacks from the manufacturer), so it's hard to believe I could have done better. Then again, every time I walk by the car-buying section of Costco, I wonder how good of a deal they could get me. FYI, I wasn't a Costco member when I bought my last car, so I didn't even know about it then.

Anyone used the Costco car-buying program? What did you think of it?

How to Immediately Lower Your Economic Class -- Move to San Francisco (Or Anywhere in California)

I've talked extensively about the differences in cost-of-living among various cities in the U.S. and how you can increase your standard of living simply by moving (see Move, Save Money, Become a Multiple Millionaire -- All in One Step for details.) Here's another example of how expensive it can be to live in a high-cost-of-living city -- in this case it's San Francisco. Check out this information:

A family of four in the Bay Area with two working adults must earn $77,069, equaling an hourly wage of $18.53, just to pay for basic necessities, a study released today calculates. If only one adult works, that figure falls to $53,075, largely because the family doesn't have to pay for child care, according to the report by the California Budget Project, a liberal Sacramento research group. But that one wage-earner must make $25.52 an hour.

And a single parent with two children needs to take in $65,864 annually, at an hourly wage of $31.67, to cover expenses, the Budget Project figures.

Statewide, the two-working-parent family needs an annual income of $72,343 to cover necessities; the family with one working adult must earn $50,383.

The Bay Area is by many measures the richest region in the United States. Median household income - the level at which half of households are above and half below - was $62,024 in 2000, the highest in the nation, according to the Census Bureau. But that means that almost half of all households in the region don't take in what the Budget Project reckons is needed to make ends meet. Those families often must do without some of the things viewed as essential to middle-class life, such as health insurance or a separate bedroom for the kids.

The federal poverty threshold, used by the government to calculate how many of the nation's people are poor, is an income of $20,650 for a family of four. That means basic necessities in the Bay Area cost roughly 2.5 times the federal poverty level.

My thoughts:

1. Yep. That's what I said. Some cities are REALLY expensive. You can save yourself a bundle simply by moving. Even if your income takes a hit, you might be better off because it's likely your income won't go down as much as your expenses.

2. I don't know about you, but where I'm from, someone making $77k a year is doing ok. They're not wealthy, but they're not just barely making it either.

3. "Basic necessities in the Bay Area cost roughly 2.5 times the federal poverty level." Do I need to say more? For those of you who say "yeah, but there's so much to do in the city," I gotta ask, "Is there really THAT much extra to do?"

4. California as a whole isn't much better.

5. I know I'm going to get a bunch of "it's my money and I want to live here" sort of comments and those are fine. If you can afford the higher cost-of-living and want to live in an expensive city, then go ahead. But if you're barely making ends meet, paying for only the necessities, and scraping by on a mere $77k a year, you might want to consider moving to a less expensive city.

Save Money on Moving

Here are some thoughts from a reader who left a comment on my post tilted Money Saving Moving Tips:

I have been preparing to move cross-country for family reasons and have been doing extensive research on the various ways to do this cheaply and quickly on my own as well. I have already helped my girlfriend move cross-country and have assisted several others move regionally, cross-country, and internationally through self-moves and with government paid moves. Here is a few I would like to add.

• If renting a Uhaul or penske truck/trailer/van for a long distance 1 way move the price will vary wildly by where you are going to move to. If you are moving to a small area then the fees can be 2-3 times as much. In my case it was going to be $1500 to rent a trailer but if I returned it in a neighboring larger city it was only $600!

• When negotiating salary or benefits with a company in the new area that does not offer relocation ask if they will do a partial relocation package. The companies are normally figuring on a complete relocation package for a 3-4 bedroom house as well as temporary housing while house hunting in the local area. For a cross-country move with complete door-to-door services including boxing, packing, shipping, and unloading it can easily range from $20-50k+ from a reputable mover! For most mid-career positions this is an expense that I understand most companies do not want to pay for but most will be willing to pay a smaller amount. Several companies which did not offer relocation packages were easily convinced to offer a smaller amount ($5k) as a hiring bonus. This amount would have easily covered my personal moving costs which included Uhaul rental, mileage rate, per diem (lodging and food), and packing supplies. Many companies will also allow you to inprocess at the company before the move and this allows time to house hunt at the same time.

• Paying for professional movers for a long distance move is never cheaper! It is much more convenient but never cheaper. I obtained numerous quotes and it was literally cheaper or a similar cost for me to buy a full size truck, enclosed trailer, pay for gas/time/food/hotel, ship my car, and move myself! To completely move my girlfriend's sparsely furnished small 2 bedroom apartment from DC to the Seattle area was between $25-30k!

• While definitely not cheaper it is often more "frugal/economical" to buy generic rubbermaid type containers if decent boxes cannot be found for free or nearly free. I did not believe this until I put it into action when helping my girlfriend move cross-country. It was a short notice move and we could not find boxes quickly of a quality that we would trust with her things so we bought numerous plastic containers on sale for a price that was 2-3x the cost of cardboard. They were used to pack, move, and then after the move the boxes were loaned out and given to others moving or in need. The remainder are used at her place for storage, organization, and several other uses. There was a higher initial cost but the multiple uses of them over time drove down their per-use cost

• Hire out the help loading and unloading when doing long distance self-moves through moving services such as http://www.twomenandatruck.com/ They will pack and load your things into a rental truck/trailer faster and more efficiently than most people can. There is a minimum amount of time or money they will come out for but the time savings was well worth the reasonable cost. A discount can often be negotiated if it is an off-time or between large jobs.

Good thoughts! Anyone have anything else to add?

Money-saving Tips for the Entire Family

Here's a piece courtesy of ARA Content on how to save money. There's a Shell commercial mid-way in the piece, but just ignore that. The tip is good (make money off a credit card) but I prefer another method.

Bills and expenses are a typical part of life, but some simple changes can go a long way toward saving money. Finding clever ways to stretch the family budget allows for fun activities without breaking the bank.

After I spent ten years as a senior buyer, I had had a difficult decision to make after my son was born. I realized that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but my salary contributed to 50 percent of the family income. That is when I learned first-hand how to manage my family’s budget. Since then I’ve written three books and started a Web site (www.miserlymoms.com) teaching others how to make frugality a lifestyle for the entire family. When I talk to parents about their spending habits, the biggest mistake I hear is how they shop. Whether it's for groceries or vacation, changing how we shop can help our budget.

Here are some tips that over time will help you and your family save money without sacrificing the things that are most important to you.

Family Time

Some of the most enjoyable experiences my family’s had are the ones that cost little to nothing. We looked for inexpensive and interesting activities for the whole family, such as:

• Take a hike through a park and watch the sunset. Take a loaf of bread and feed the ducks or pick wildflowers to bring home. Press the flowers and use in bookmarks or gift cards.
• Look for free tours at interesting places such as factories and museums. You’ll have fun while you learn. Find children's museums or centers with interactive displays. Many are educational (but the kids still have fun).
• Have a contest for the kids – let them be creative. One of my favorites I did with my kids was an egg-drop contest. Kids have to build something that kept a raw egg from breaking when dropped off the playground.

Family Vacation

Traveling is a great way to spend time with the family and create memories that will last a lifetime, but it doesn't have to be expensive.

• Find hotels with free airport pick up. This can save you $100 per person. Utilize any complimentary breakfasts or happy hours with hors d’oeuvres.
• When we went to Disneyland, we called the local hotel and asked for local attraction deals. We asked if the local grocery store chains were offering any 2-for-1 coupons for Disneyland. We were able to get some and make our trip even cheaper.
• Instead of emptying your wallet to fill your tank, use a rebate credit card to earn rewards or save money. For example, with the Shell Platinum MasterCard from Citi Cards you earn 5 percent rebates on all Shell gasoline purchases and 1 percent rebates on all other purchases. At today’s average price that is a rebate of 14 cents a gallon. To calculate a trip’s total savings, go to www.877MYSHELL.com to see how much you can save.

Family Meals

Often we are so busy we end up eating out or buying convenience foods which can be costly and unhealthy. We were able to cut our grocery bill in half – that's several hundreds of dollars – by just changing how we shopped and cooked. Here are some simple changes that can save you money:

• Limit your use of coupons. Coupons are for name brand items which cost more than lesser known brands, and coupons are for convenience foods. Use a coupon if the item is also on sale or you really were planning to buy that brand anyway.
• Plan your weekly menu around the sale items on the grocery fliers. This one step can save 35 percent off grocery bills.
• Cook several meals at once and freeze them. It will reduce the chances of eating out when you are busy, and will save preparation time and money when you buy groceries in bulk.

These are simple solutions to enjoy huge savings. As you try out these tips, you’ll find that you can still have a blast as a family while staying on a budget.

Car Options Not Worth the Cost

Bankrate has a piece that discusses a J.D. Power list of the top 10 options buyers want on their new cars. In particular, Bankrate discusses the items in this list that aren't worth the cost. They include the following:

• Run-flat tires
• Satellite navigation
• Premium sound system
• Heated and cooled seats
• Keyless entry
• OnStar and similar concierge services

I'll comment on these in a bit, but here's the main reason they list the six items above as not being worth the cost:

The bottom line here is that consumers should look beyond the popularity of some options and ask themselves how much use or value they will get. Looking at the option list with such clarity can shave thousands of dollars off the cost of your next new vehicle.

I agree with their conclusion. When I purchased my last cars (two bought within six months), I listed the exact options I wanted and the ones I didn't want. Some of the ones I didn't want were standard on the model I wanted, but I still used that as a negotiating point with the sales person (I asked him to have them taken off the car -- something I knew he couldn't/wouldn't do -- just as another point within the negotiation process, something I could "give" him when I said it would be ok that they stayed on the car, but I wasn't paying above cost for them.)

Now that I've said I agree with them, I'm not 100% with Bankrate on their list. Here are my thoughts on their six items:

1. Agree. Buy good tires, keep them rotated and aired up properly and replace them when the tread is low. Why pay more for something you probably won't need and will give you a rougher ride while you use them?

2. Agree. Anyone ever heard of maps? Mapquest?

3. Agree. I listen to podcasts in my car anyway, and I don't need the latest sound system to do that. As they say, it's often a better choice to buy a system and have it installed in the car. (I did this a couple cars ago and I got something amazingly better than the manufacturer offered for half the price.)

4. This one is where I disagree. Now he does say that these are ok if you live in a cold or warm climate, so maybe I have an exception. All I know is that we use the heated seats quite often here in Michigan, particularly from November through March. But even on a summer day, the heat can feel good on your back after a hard day of lawn care, bike riding, etc.

5. I'm not 100% sure what they're talking about here. Do the mean the key fobs that you lock and unlock the doors with? Don't most/all cars have those standard these days?

6. Agree. Why? Two words: cell phone.

A Practical Way to Save Money on a Hotel Room

In Save Money by Not Making a Hotel Reservation, I discussed a Kiplinger's piece that said customers who arrive [at a hotel] without a reservation often pay less than those who book in advance. This said, I (along with many others) didn't really like the idea because we didn't like the potential of being stranded without a room for the night in case the hotel was booked (I also don't think I'd like to drive from place to place if they didn't offer me a low rate.) Anyway, one of the commenters had a solution on how to handle this issue:

You make a reservation and then walk into the hotel and before mentioning you have a reservation, simply find out how much it will be for your stay. I can't imagine if that told you it was cheaper, that they wouldn't give you a discount on the reservation price.

It's worth a try, isn't it? What has anyone got to lose doing this?

Money Saving Moving Tips

Here's a useful piece courtesy of ARA Content on how to save money when moving.

For many, moving can be a daunting task. Whether your new home is across town or across the country, advanced planning is important. In addition to devoting time to organize and pack your belongings, make sure to put aside time to prepare financially as well. Here are some tips to get you started.

Create and Stick to a Budget

As in any aspect of life, keeping a budget of expenses when you move is crucial. Create a list of expected expenses the moment you decide to move. Remember to include things like boxes, packing material, movers, cleaning services, gasoline, restaurant meals and maybe even a hotel stay. There will always be unexpected expenses, but by creating a list ahead of time, you’ll be ready for them!

Hiring a Mover

If you plan to hire a professional mover, get quotes from several different companies. Costs are typically determined based on the weight or the number of rooms that need to be moved, the distance between your old home and new home, packing and unpacking requirements and the time of year. Expect to pay more during peak moving times. You’re more likely to find a deal if you move in the spring or the fall. Try to avoid moving over holidays and on weekends when costs are highest. Remember that the lowest price may not be the best deal – thoroughly review each company’s policy for coverage of items that are damaged or broken during the move.

Affordable Packing

Even if you hire a professional mover, you can reduce the cost by packing and unpacking yourself. Plan ahead and shop around for the best deal on packing materials and tape. Collect boxes at work, your local grocery store or check the online classifieds. Many movers also offer used boxes for free.

Condense the Weight

Limit travel weight by eliminating heavy items. For example, that heavy jar of change sitting on your dresser could be used to purchase something fun for your new home! According to Coinstar, there’s about $10 billion in loose change sitting in homes across the U.S. (that’s about $90 per household). Since you’re already packing, collect all the loose change throughout your home and take it to a nearby Coinstar Center. You’ll get free coin counting when you place the value of your change onto a gift card or eCertificate from retailers like Amazon.com, Pier 1 Imports, Linens 'n Things and more. Coins can also be turned in for cash for a nominal fee. Visit www.coinstar.com for details and locations.

Get Rid of Unused Items

This is the best time to go through those forgotten boxes and get rid of the things you and your family no longer use. Hold a yard sale prior to moving, sell items to your local second-hand store, online or donate them to charity for a tax write-off. You’ll save on moving and gas costs because you’ll have less to move.

Turn it Off

Schedule ahead to have your cable turned off the day of your move. If you are in an apartment, schedule to have the heat and electricity turned off and moved to your new location. If moving from a house, turn off the water heater and lower the thermostat. Don’t leave on any extra lights and make sure the doors and windows are locked and sealed so that the area is protected while empty.