Archive for October, 2008

Posted on October 31, 2008 - by admin

Turkey Day party ideas

We’ll be talking some in our newsletter on Saturday about saving money on your Thanksgiving day dinner. Since you have a whole bunch of people together anyway, why not have some fun. Below are some links to pages that have ideas for Fall partys.

http://www.reasontoparty.com/harvestparty.htm

http://www.familycorner.com/archives/kids/12.shtml

http://hometown.aol.com/panda34911/KidsParties/HolidayFunPg11DFallA.html

Have a wonderful Saturday.

Posted on October 28, 2008 - by admin

Saving Money - Start with a plan

In doing some research on creating a budget I found a nifty site that gives you an excellent 31 day guide.. it takes things step by step.

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/01/31/31-days-to-fix-your-finances-a-wrapup/

It’s also an excellent blog with a ton of information. I hope you enjoy it.

Posted on October 25, 2008 - by admin

How to Create a budget - OOG Newsletter 15

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 15 October 25th, 2008

This issue brought to you by

Sowhatif - Plus Size Clothes - Dresses, Maternity, Jeans, Tops, Shoes and More!

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 continue to fall - which is good news considering all the other economic news. They’ve fallen an average of $1.37 or about a third since July 17th.

++ The Oil Industry - Savings Tip

We’ve thought of an additional savings tip to save you money on gas.

Many stations now are offering different prices for credit or cash. A station in our town gives 10 cents off a price of a gallon of gas. That may not sound like much but it does add up.

Saving you Money

Now that you’ve worked for the past couple of weeks on tracking your expenses. Now we’re going to work on creating a budget.

Here are a few resources to help you get started - review them and we’ll give some guidance about them on Tuesday.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/Financial_Literacy/Jan07_budgeting_howto_a1.asp

http://financialplan.about.com/od/budgetingyourmoney/ht/createbudget.htm

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson2/

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Posted on October 24, 2008 - by admin

Saving Money at the Football Game

This past weekend we went to a great football game. We talked a little about it on Tuesday. So how much money did we spend while we were there… grand total about $80.00.

$40.00 for the ticket.
$30.00 for gas
$3.50 for a cup of coffee
$1.00 for a shaker
$3.50 for lunch

The trip was about two hours both ways. We car pooled so we split the gas bill. The game was at 7pm in the evening but we left for our trip about 9 am.

We went to the mall to pick up some things (like shakers / hats / soveneirs). The cost at the mall was about half of what we would have paid at the game. We did eat lunch at the mall - again if we had eaten at the game it would have been about $20.00.

We then went to a family members house and had a bar b q.. so nobody was hungry at the game. It was cold which is a reason I got some coffee there. Some stadiums allow you to take food with you, others don’t so make sure to check ahead of time.

Get to the game early - there was a huge crowd of tail gaters and corporate sponsors (with freebies) in the parking lot.

The big thing is to think before you spend and to plan things out… as you can see you don’t have to spend a lot of cash to have fun!

Posted on October 21, 2008 - by admin

Saving Money - Being Persistant

We had a great time over the weekend at the football game that we went to. It was one of the most exciting games that I’ve ever watched (either in person or on television). The sad part is that about 25% of the people that bought a ticket for the game missed it.

It was the 4th quarter with about 5 minutes to go. UK was behind Arkansas by 13 points. It was homecoming at UK and so about 15 or 20,000 people left after a couple of bad calls from the officials. Kentucky got the ball and in 2 or 3 plays they had a touchdown. There defense held out and 2 or 3 plays we had another touchdown. Then the defense got an interception and held the ball and we won by one point.

So why do I tell you this. Some time you may feel that your efforts to save money are hopeless… but don’t give up. Even small changes will add up, just Don’t Give UP!!

Posted on October 17, 2008 - by admin

Oil prices are down - Not much change at the pump - OOG newsletter

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 14 October 17th, 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 have fallen about half from their high of $147 on July 11. Today trading is around $71 / barrel. Lot’s of speculation about why the huge drop, the biggest reason though is demand and the fears that the demand will continue to go down.

++ The Oil Industry - Oil is way down but the price at the pump isn’t.

I know that we mentioned earlier that we would talk some about the article we had in issue 12, but my Father In law had a pretty good question this week as we chatted. Why does it take so long for the price of gas to fall even though a barrel of oil is way down.

The main reason is that the price you see on CNN tonight is for oil futures. It is the price that companies will be paying when oil is delivered in November - and the delivery we’re talking about here is when it gets into it’s first mode of transportation. So that could be an oil tanker in Saudi Arabia.

That is the big / main reason. The other reason was the price that the station owner paid for the gas.

Saving you Money

Did you have fun keeping track of what you spent last week. The only way that you will ever be able to tell how much money that you are saving is to track what you spend. It does take some effort. This week continue to track your spending. Make sure that you keep track of what each penny goes to. If you give your kids snack money or money to buy a Coke (or Pepsi), keep track of it. If you buy something from the snack machine, write it down… you get the idea. The more you track the better you’ll be able to save money.

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Thanks so much for sharing your day with us and we hope you have a wonderful weekend. We’ll resume publishing on Saturday next week.

Posted on October 14, 2008 - by admin

What the bail out means to you.

Like many of you, I was wondering what exactly the new bail out plan means to you and me… after all there will be billions spent but how will it make a difference for us. After some searching I found a few articles that may help you figure some of it out.

http://www.dolans.com/invest_wisely/gallery/how-the-market-affects-you.html

http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/what-does-this-bailout-package-mean-to-you-as-a-small-or-tiny-business/

Posted on October 11, 2008 - by admin

Out of Gas Newsletter 13

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 13 October 11th, 2008

This issue is a little briefer than usual as we’re spending some time with our kids on fall break.

Note: Next week we’ll be sending out an issue on Friday since we’ll be out of town for the weekend.

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 -

Based on what you’ve learned so far and if you hadn’t heard the news what would you have predicted would happen to Oil prices when -

The stock market fell as it did this week.

If you predicted that a price of a barrel of oil would fall sharply, then you win the prize. The silver lining in all of this is cheaper oil.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/10/news/economy/oil_prices/index.htm?postversion=2008101013

++ The Oil Industry - The $$.

We’ve talked briefly about how oil is priced in dollars.

Here is an excellent description of how it works.

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/08/oil_and_the_dol_1.html

This is some pretty heavy reading we’ll work on explaining it next week.

Saving you Money

This week keep a list of everything that you spend Money on. Next Friday we’ll talk about your results and how changing only a few things will save you Money.

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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 October 10, 2008 - by admin

Fun With the Family

This weeks tip is short and sweet (since we’re on Fall break with our kiddos). Think back to when you were young. What is something that you did that you remember. Memories are funny - you will usually remember things that were fun, exciting or both. One of the things I remember is building a huge camp fire and making smores, camping out, and going to get a strawberry pie after church almost every Sunday night. There is nothing stopping you from reliving some of your memories with your own kids. You can also tell them stories about how you did it when you’re younger (and no matter how boring you think it may be) they will enjoy it. It’s not how much money that you spend on them they’ll remember… it is the time that you spent with them that they will cherish.

Enjoy your weekend.

Posted on October 7, 2008 - by admin

Save Money - Get Fit - The plan

We talked some in our weekend newsletter about how getting fit can save you money. Today we’ll give you some resources that will help you get fit. I decided that I needed to get off my but and start exercising some recently. My pants were getting too tight and pretty soon my but would have had a hard time sitting in my office chair. The good thing is that things are going well and that I now can not only fit into my pants but I need a belt to keep them from falling down. The big things to remember are -

1. Make a plan - decide on a time to exercise and stick to it. I exercise in the morning right after Lisa (my wife takes the kids to school).

2. Don’t over do it. You don’t have to exercise an hour a day. A half hour is plenty. Take it slow - you don’t have to be able to run a marathon in a week. The key is to enjoy it and not make it a chore.

3. Do things that you like to do - I enjoy walking on the treadmill and working out on the total gym. You may enjoy doing yoga, or an excercise ball or riding a bike. Try different things until you find something that you enjoy. If you start getting bored with your routine then change it up - try something different.

4. Check with your doctor before you start doing any excercise program.

Here is a post that has 20 sites where you can get more information on starting your fitness program.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/20/20-sites-to-get-you-in-shape/