Archive for September, 2008

Posted on September 30, 2008 - by admin

Saving Money buy Subscribing to Magazines and Newspapers

A good way to save money is by subscribing to your local newspaper so that you get the Sunday coupons. I’ve found especially recently that many magazines also have coupons and even free stuff in them. To make sure you’ll find the coupons that you like take a trip to the library and browse this months issues for free. Once you find a magazine that has coupons that interest you subscribe to it. As always make sure that you shop around to find the best price for your subscriptions. In our Saturday newsletter we’ll be starting a series on saving money by getting fit.

Have a wonderful day!

Posted on September 27, 2008 - by admin

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 11 Sept. 27th, 2008

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 -

There continues to be a gas supply shortage in some parts of the country.  Mostly in Georgia and the Carolinas.

There is an excellent article on things fuel related on CNN. You can find it here.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/fueling.america/
++ The Oil Industry - Refineries.

After the recent hurricane there has been a lot of talk about refineries and how that the hurricane stopped production in about 20 percent of them.

There are about 150 or so refineries in the US. Of the top 25 refineries (according to output) 14 or so of them are located in Texas or Louisiana.

Most of the refineries on the gulf coast have hurricane bunkers so the employees can wait out the storm. There are several reasons why the refineries shut down.
1. Fear of damage that would cause a spill.
2. Flooding.
3. Disruption in electricity.

A big debate has been raging as well about not having built any new refineries since 1976. A good article that details why that may be can be found here.
http://www.slate.com/id/2102031/

Research for this article can also be found at the following urls.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/refineries.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_refineries#United_States

Saving you Money

Time for a review of what we’ve talked about so far -

Preparing your House for Winter

Going to Flea Markets

Money Saving Tips around your house.

Renting movies for $0.00

Money Saving Resources

Four ways to save money on a hotel room

Enjoy your Weekend!

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Posted on September 26, 2008 - by admin

Fun at the football game with your Family

Fall is finally starting to get here in our little corner of the world. Although the leaves aren’t changing yet, some mornings are a little brisk and high school football is in full swing. You can take your family out for an evening of fun at your local high school. Tickets for these games are usually pretty cheap ($5 or $6 at our house). You may want to ask around to see what prices are at the concession stand. If they’re high you may want to take some snacks with you and eat a meal before you go. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Posted on September 23, 2008 - by admin

Saving Money by Preparing your house for Winter

I can’t believe that it is fall… where did the Summer go? One way that you can save money (remember that even little changes add up) is by taking some time over the next few weeks and winterize your home. The best checklist I’ve found can be found by clicking on this link.

One of those suggestions that I would definitely recommend would be to get an emergency kit. A few years ago we had below zero temps for a week and it came an ice storm before the cold snap… so we had no electricity.

Enjoy your day!

Posted on September 20, 2008 - by admin

Saving money - Go to a flea market - Hurricanes - Out of Gas 10

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 10 Sept. 20th, 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 -

Gas Prices -

Crude oil climbed more than $14 a barrel this week after things settled down some in the stock market.

15 refineries as of Thursday were still shut down. 49 offshore platforms were destroyed by Ike.

++ The Oil Industry - Hurricane Season.

I found a site on the net that explains much better than I can everything you need to know about hurricanes including
How they form.
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/goes/hurricanes/

Another good site including some preparation tips can be found here.

http://www.redcross.org/news/ds/hurricanes/010524ABCs.html

Saving you Money

Shopping at the farmers market / flea markets / yard sales.

Some of my relatives won’t ever pass up a yard sale. Some people I know wouldn’t be caught dead stopping to ‘pilfer’ through junk.

Here are a few tips that will help.

1. If you buy something that you don’t really need… then you haven’t really saved any money.
2. Realize especially with electronics that if it doesn’t work when you get home then you just bought a paper weight, so ask them if you can try it / test it out.
3. The price they have on the item isn’t very firm, so especially if you’re buying more than one item then haggle with them.
4. Many times neighborhoods will have yard sales all on a certain day… find a good community that is doing this and you may find a bargain on some designer clothes.
5. At yard sales prices will usually be less than they are at your local store, but at flea markets and farmers markets they may be selling things for more… so know your prices.

Here is a great site with some more tips. [[ click here ]]

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Posted on September 19, 2008 - by admin

Fun at local Festivals - Having Fun with your family

Here’s an idea for some fun and friendly competition with you and your family. There are many local festivals acroos the country - in Kentucky (especially Eastern KY where we live) most of these are in the fall. You could in fact visit a festival every weekend for several months.

The downside of these festivals is to get a drink you’ll have to pay 5 bucks - to buy something to eat you’ll have to shell out ten bucks. Below are some ideas on how to enjoy the festival for peanuts.

Before you go to the festival make sure that everyone has a good meal. Pack a cooler with snacks and drinks for the whole family and make sure that everyone packs one with them. Remind your family that if they want something to eat to come find you. A fun way to make the outing a contest is to give everyone $10 bucks to buy things. Have a prize for

a) the most interesting buy for the money
b) the family member that gets the most for their money

We hope you enjoy your weekend!!

Posted on September 16, 2008 - by admin

Money saving tips around the house.

Here is an excellent article that talks about ways to save money around your house… including some ways that I had never thought of like -

Using your microwave saves energy.
Using your dishwasher saves water.
A full fridge is more energy efficient than an empty one.

All of those make perfect sense just never thought about them before. You can find more savings tips here.

http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/tips/summer.html

Have a wonderful day!

Posted on September 15, 2008 - by admin

Gas average up for the week - Congress and offshore drilling

Gas prices average for last week went up to $3.84. Congress is going to be debating on off shore drilling this week. Details can be found here.

Posted on September 13, 2008 - by admin

Ike, Alaska Wilderness Drilling - Out of Gas 9

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 9 Sept. 13th, 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 -

The big news over the weekend is of course Hurricane Ike. We noticed a spike in Gas prices and rumors of a ’shortage’ here yesterday and there were lines at the gas pumps and even some fights were started. I would just like to mention that the US has a huge petroleum reserve for cases when the gas supply gets short. I don’t think we’ll have any severe shortages, just a glitch or two as things get lined out.

Price for a barrel of oil fell briefly yesterday to below $100 barrel but rebounded a bit at the end of the day. That was even with Hurricane Ike… so my prediction is after hurricane season they will fall even further. Next week we’ll talk some about the Hurricane season.

Found this link yesterday which is like a Hurricane situation room with news and live feeds.

http://www.vuetoo.com/vue1/SituationPageNews.asp?sit=2190

Ike has forced some shutdown of Refinery Capacity. Details can be found here.

++ The Oil Industry - Domestic Supply - Alaska

This week we’re going to talk about Alaska oil supplies. Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere you’ve heard the debate about drilling in Alaska.

We talked about the oil that comes from Alaska some last week but the controversy is drilling in the Arctic Refuge. The Arctic National Wildlife reserve (ANWR) consists of almost 20 million acres of the Northern Alaska Coast. The controversy is between getting the oil and disrupting the environment and the habitats of the animals.

I’m not going to take sides on this, but hopefully will give you an idea of the controversy.

The Environment

The argument here is that the disruption of Eco systems and habitats would not be worth the amount of oil that would be obtained from drilling there. Reports say that oil production from there would have minimal impact on oil prices. There is also a fear that there would be oil spills. Everyone remembers the Valdez.

The Oil Reserves

It is estimated that drilling in the ANWR and surrounding areas would produce an estimated 10.4 Billion (yep that is Billion) barrels of oil. Without actually drilling there this is a rough guess. The estimated amount of oil still in the US is 120 billion barrels of oil. So ANWR constitutes roughly 10% of the US reserves.

So what are your thoughts, make sure to leave a comment and let us know.

You can find much more information (including arguments for the pros and cons here). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy

Saving you Money

Short and Sweet this week. We’ve mentioned coupons. Here are a couple of different ways to get additional coupons.

1. When you see an advertisement on T.V., note the URL with the advertisement. Sometimes they will provide a coupon at the website.
2. Do a search for the coupon your looking for on Google - we did this the last time we bought a Dell computer and saved about $400.

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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. Thanks so much for sharing your day with us and we hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Posted on September 12, 2008 - by admin

Fun with the Family for Less Cash - Renting Movies for $0.00

Did you know that you can usually go to your local library and check out recent DVD’s for free. Why not have a movie night this weekend. Take the whole clan to the library and let everyone check out a movie. Some selections (in our library anyway) you may have to put in a request for but usually we get them within a week or two.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.