Archive for August, 2008

Posted on August 30, 2008 - by admin

Gas Supply Countries for the US - Out of Gas Newsletter 7

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 7 August 30th, 2008

This issue brought to you by

If you find our tips useful please don’t hesitate to forward it to a friend… we’ll thank
you and they’ll thank you as well.

++ News -

Oil prices - The big news is Gustav and what it may do. Gas prices have spiked some around the Gulf Coast as some fears for supply problems have emerged.

The price for crude oil slipped. Couple of things on this is
a) if the storm fizzles out or isn’t as strong as predicted the oil will fall.
b) be on the watch for the second storm Hanna.
http://www.weather.com/newscenter/hurricanecentral/2008/hanna.html

We hope you have a safe, fun labor day holiday.

++ The Oil Industry - Supply Countries

Last week we talked about Opec - this week we’re going to give a breakdown of all the US oil supply imports. Next week we’ll talk about US oil production and then in the coming weeks we’ll talk about each of the countries and regions.

Here are the countries we’ve imported from last year in millions of barrels

Opec 2,183 (yep that’s 2 billion)
Non Opec 2, 733
These included:
Argentina 24
Aruba 40
Australia 1
Azerbaijan 23
Bahamas 1
Belarus 7
Belgium 31
Bolivia 1
Brazil 73
Brunei 4
Bulgaria 1
Cameroon 10
Canada 896
Chad 28
Chile 2
China 5
China / Taiwan 7
Colombia 56
Congo 24
Costa Rica 1
Denmark 2
Egypt 3
El Salvador 2
Equatorial Guinea 22
Estonia 6
Finland 9
France 26
Gabon 24
Germany 26
Greece 1
Guatemala 4
India 10
Italy 20
Jamaica 2
Japan 13
Kazakhstan 7
South Korea 45
Latvia 4
Lithuania 4
Malaysia 5
Mexico 560
Netherlands 47
Norway 52
Oman 11
Peru 12
Portugal 9
Russia 151
Singapore 4
South Africa 3
Spain 19
Sweden 9
Syria 1
Thailand 6
Trinidad 36
Tunisia 5
Turkey 5
Turkmenistan 2
UK 101
Vietnam 11
Virgin Islands 126
Yemen 5

So we get most from Canada, then Mexico, Russia and a surprise for me the Virgin Islands.

Saving you Money

We’ll continue the save you money tips next week - on Friday we posted a good way to have fun over the holiday weekend, so make sure that you check it out.

===============
If you haven’t had a chance to buy our gas mileage guide we would encourage you to do so.
you can find it here.

Posted on August 29, 2008 - by admin

Having fun this labor day weekend

One thing you can do this weekend and it takes almost no money and it will give you something to do during the whole weekend (if you want to).

1. Get some poker chips and decide what the $ value of each is going to be. $1 - $5 - $10.
2. Each person then writes down on a piece of paper two things they would / could do for someone - that doesn’t cost any money… things like clean your room, fix you breakfast in bed, do your chores for a week, chauffeur you for an evening etc.
3. Decide the times that you want to play the game during the weekend.
4. Decide who gets to pick first - each person then can pick a game - you will then play the game for an hour - the winner at the end of the hour gets a $10 chip, 2nd a $5 chip, 3rd a $1 chip. Then the next person gets to pick a game - for an hour and so forth.
5. At the end of the tournament place the prices in a hat. Take them out one at a time. With the winnings they have everyone can bid on the prizes. The highest bid wins. One rule is that you can’t bid on a prize that you created.

Have Fun!

Posted on August 28, 2008 - by admin

Hurricane Gustav

Looks like Gustav will definitely hit the gulf, which means there will be some disruption in the oil supply. The off shore wells account for about 1/4 of the oil produced in the U.S. There has been some rebuilding / remodeling going on lately, here’s hoping that the storm weakens (or I should say doesn’t strengthen as it is supposed to). Oil prices are still trading at around $115 a barrel.

Posted on August 26, 2008 - by admin

Following your local ads - Saving Money on Food

Another way that you can save money is check out your local ads, you know those papers that you use to line the birdcage with. If you shop at the same store often enough you’ll get a feel for what the prices usually are. You’ll then be able to tell if their ’sale’ prices are lower than their regular prices. Another good way to find deals is to talk to other friends, family, neighbors that live in the area and agree to call each other if you find a good deal. When you find some good deals you can save even more by using coupons. We’ll talke more about coupons next Tuesday.

Posted on August 25, 2008 - by admin

Pricing update - spotlight on Oil Supplies from Russia

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. A pricing update on our ebook. The average price of a gallon of gas was down to $3.68 - that brings down the price of our ebook to $11.04.

Also so this interesting article on Oil supplies and Russia.

http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/763829.html

Have a great day!

Posted on August 23, 2008 - by admin

Opec - Saving money on Vegies - Out of Gas Newsletter

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 6 August 24th, 2008

This issue brought to you by

If you find our tips useful please don’t hesitate to forward it to a friend… we’ll thank
you and they’ll thank you as well.

++ News -

Oil prices -on Friday crude oil prices dropped by the biggest amount since 1991. This happened mostly because of a stronger $$ and a fear on a slowing economy. This is good news for you and me and will probably see a drop in the gas prices next week.

++ The Oil Industry - OPEC

OPEC is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries it was created in 1960 (although there had been talks between a few of the countries earlier).

The countries involved include: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela, and Ecuador.

Their goal is to make sure that the oil supply is not so high that it decreases prices. They set quotas for production of their oil.

Lately there has been some debate over whether OPEC has any control at all over prices. OPEC does supply about 42 percent of the world petroleum consumption.

Here is the opec website.
http://www.opec.org/home/

More information can be found here.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/OPEC.html

Saving you Money

We talked earlier this week about 5 ways you can save money. We’ll talk this issue some about growing a garden.

This is a bit odd to bring up since it is after all going to be fall and winter soon but now is time to start thinking about it.

Space

Now is a good time to start thinking about where you will grow your garden and how what you will be growing.
Some good ideas on planting your garden can be found at the following links -
http://www.humeseeds.com/vegplan.htm
http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/educators/garden/starting_garden.html

Don’t worry though if you don’t have any space - you can grow stuff in containers.
http://www.gardenguides.com/how-to/tipstechniques/containerindoor/container.asp

Gardening is hard work - but like anything the more work you put into it the more you get out of it.

An excellent source on plants and harvesting can be found here.
http://www.backyardgardener.com/

Remember if you don’t have much space you can team up with your neighbors and share extra veggies you have with them and they’ll share with you.

===============
If you haven’t had a chance to buy our gas mileage guide we would encourage you to do so.
you can find it here.

Posted on August 22, 2008 - by admin

Find a park - Saving Money on Travel

If you’re like me there a many places near your home that you’ve not been to in a long time. Your kids have probably never been there. State and National parks are great. Most of the time the entrance fees to visit the park are free. Atractions within the park are usually reasonably priced as well. I’ve been in a few different states and all of them have had some kind of initiative for you to stay at home and spend your money there. A good place to start looking for some place to go this fall on a weekend can be found at the urls below.

http://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm

Gas prices spiked up about 6 bucks yesterday so now would be a good time to fill up your tank if the prices haven’t spiked in your area yet.

Posted on August 21, 2008 - by admin

Oil prices up - OPEC meeting in Sept.

Oil prices were up yesterday to about $116.00 a barrel. This was mostly due to a drop in supply and some speculation on what’s going to happen in the OPEC meeting in Sept. We’ll be talking about OPEC in our newsletter on Saturday. Enjoy your day!

Posted on August 19, 2008 - by admin

Our trip to Indiana - Saving Money

We took a trip last week to Indiana to visit a relative (an in-law really but she has been a wonderful friend to Lisa and I). As we were traveling and when we were there shopping a few thoughts came to mind about saving money and I would like to share those with you today.

In Indiana (and I’m sure in other parts of the country as well) there are mostly little towns. For instance in the town we stayed in the majority of the time the ‘big’ stores like Wal-Mart are a 45 minute drive away. But even in the little town they still managed to save money.

1. They had a garden and grew much of their own produce (like tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, etc).
2. What they didn’t grow they would swap with other people (they have a lot of cucumbers, they would trade for something they didn’t have a lot of - like corn).
3. A couple of times a week a local store would have a sale on milk and they took advantage of that.
4. My aunt (and uncle too) are avid fans of yard sales. Sure some of it is junk that is on sale but many times they have found great deals.
5. They make use of the sale papers that come in the mail (and those of you that shop know what the ‘normal’ price is in most of the stores that you visit).

We’ll talk more about each of these in some upcoming posts but this will hopefully get you thinking about some different ways that you can save money.

We hope you have a wonderful evening.

Posted on August 15, 2008 - by admin

Using Gas Buddy - Out of Gas Newsletter # 5

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 5 August 16th, 2008

This issue brought to you by

This newsletter is a little shorter than usual but we’ve been out of town much of this week.

How to Use Gas Buddies

This issue we talk all about how to use Gas Buddy. We talk some in the paid version of our guide about finding the lowest gas prices. Gas Buddy will help you do that.

1. Go to http://www.gasbuddy.com/
2. Enter your zip code in the box near the top and click search now.
3. In the middle you will see a list of gas stations and their prices. Make a special note of the time when the price was entered.
The longer that a price has been there the more likely that the price has went up (or down). If you think the price is too old then make sure to call the gas station.

A couple of cool features are on the page as well.

It lists how gas prices are trending (higher or lower).

If you click on the ‘Get Charts’ you can find out how gas prices have been trending over the last months all the way up to six years.

In our example gas prices ranged from $3.55 / gallon to $3.79 / gallon.

We hope you have an enjoyable rest of the weekend.