Archive for December, 2008
Posted on December 20, 2008 - by admin
Compare Prices - How to compare prices on the web - OOG 22
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 22 December 20, 2008
++ News -
We would like to take a moment and thank you for visiting us and letting us be a part of your life. We consider it a privilege and want to say thank you.
We would also like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas!
We’ll be taking some time off with our family to enjoy the holidays - we’ll resume normal posting after the New Year… we will have the occasional post if we dig up anything news worthy.
Gas news -
Gas prices fell slightly after climbing a little over the past week. Oil dropped to ~ $34 / barrel.
Useful Information -
One of the best e-card sites I’ve found.
http://www.mypunchbowl.com/ecards
Comparison shopping online - Below is a video - which we hope will help you a bit in your product research.
If you like it please don’t hesitate to leave us a comment.
Step 1: Find your spreadsheet from the previous lessons. You can find those here.
Step 2: Open your browser – go to Amazon. Open another browser window and go to Amazon as well. If you have additional products open a new browser window for each product.
Step 3: We want to open three new tabs for each window. First – right click on any link – then select open in a new tab. Click on the tab – then Select new tab, then do that once again. So you should have four tabs total.
Step 4: Search for your product in Amazon.com
Step 5: Type in the following urls – one in each tab.
Step 6: Search for your product in each of the tabs. When you get the search results, click on the link for your product.
Step 7: Review your findings. Make sure to take into account reviews for the store you may be ordering from. Make sure to include possible shipping costs – and add that to your total.
Step 8: Compare your findings and list the total costs in your spreadsheet.
Step 9: Review your coupons – search for any coupons that may be applicable for the particular store. Make sure to add any freebies / bonuses that may come with the item.
Repeat steps 3 – 9 for any additional products that you have.
Make sure that you bookmark a couple of additional places. They have some pretty good deals.
Amazons Gold Box
http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/
QVC – http://www.qvc.com/
HSN - http://www.hsn.com
Here are the tentative dates for the remaining articles.
- Comparison shopping Off line. January 3rd
- Buy it. January 10th
Ideas for last minute Stocking Stuffers (with a personal touch)
1. A magazine subscription. You can get the subscription and slip in a note. This will help them remember you all year long.
2. Some old photos - buy a small flip photo book and fill it with old photos… make sure to personalize it by adding captions.
3. Get a calendar - make sure to fill it with important dates (birthdays etc.)
4. Make a CD ‘mix’ with their favorite songs / bands (or put it on their MP3 player).
5. Gloves or a Scarf make a good choice as we head into winter.
Posted on December 19, 2008 - by admin
Fun with your family - 7 Fun things you can do Christmas week that won’t cost you a dime.
1. Go Caroling - even if you can’t sing, it can be a whole lot of fun.
2. Since most kids have some days off during the next couple of weeks, why not volunteer your time helping a local charity. It will make you feel good, teach your kids about charity, and help others at the same time.
3. Bake some cookies or another holiday treat and then have the family deliver them to a neighbor you’ve not spoken to in a while.
4. Everyone pitch in and make a card (or create a video message) for Grandpa and Grandma… the goofier the better.
5. Play a Marathon game of Monopoly - instead of starting with the correct amount of cash - divide all the money in the bank among the players.
6. Everyone gets to pick a holiday show they like - research when it will be on television and the whole family watches each of the programs together.
7. Task everyone to write a coupon for the other members of the family - then put them in the stockings.
Examples - I will do you chores for a day - I will clean up your room… etc.
The big thing is to have fun with your friends and family.
Posted on December 16, 2008 - by admin
Finding coupons for online Shopping
You will want to do the next three steps in our guide at the same time.
Finding Coupons.
Comparing Prices online.
Comparing Prices offline.
Today we’ll talk about finding coupons.
First here are some good sites that will help you with the coupons.
Make sure that you bookmark them because we’ll be using them in our next lesson.
http://www.fatwallet.com/ this site gives you both coupons and cash back.
You also want to make a note of the brand names of the products you’re interested in and make sure to check out their site. Usually they’ll have a link - Example - I go to the Canon website and in the top navigation bar is a “promotions” link.
Lots of wild weather around say we hope you stay safe, warm and dry.
Posted on December 13, 2008 - by admin
Researching Your Product - OOG 21
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 21 December 13, 2008
++ News -
Gas news - The good news for the economy is that gas is now about $1.66 / gallon. Over 80 or so days it has fallen more than $2.00.
Useful Information -
If you’re wondering when stores may be offering free shipping or need a coupon - make sure that you check this site out.
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Saving you Money - Below is a video - which we hope will help you a bit in your product research.
If you like it please don’t hesitate to leave us a comment.
We want to make sure to bookmark things as we go along. First make sure that we have a folder created within our bookmarks – that will make finding things much easier. As you open new pages you will want to open the new page in a tab – again that will make things much easier.
The first step in doing any product research is going to Google. What I’m going to be looking for / researching are camcorders…
There are a few different ways to approach this. If I have plenty of time the first thing you want to do is to check out some forums.
So I would search for camcorder forums. If you’re short on time you can search for
Camcorder reviews (just remember to insert the product you’re researching where I’ve put Camcorder).
Camcorder buying guide.
One thing you’ll want to do as well is to change your search preferences so you get more results on the page. To do that you click on preferences – then make the number of results 50 or 100.
After visiting a few flops – I found one that I liked. If you had the time you would post something that would detail what you were looking for. Or you could ask in the forums what are some good sites to learn about the item you’re researching. BUT before you ask you want to make sure to use the search function.. after all nothing is as aggravating to frequent forum goers, and that is a repeated question of a few days ago. You can find the search box here. It is usually a link or a big box. Don’t forget that if you’re having trouble finding something you can use your browser search function. For firefox that is ctrl – F .One thing I can tell by the number of posts, is that Canon and Sony are big sellers.
Make sure to save good sites that you find in your favorites – otherwise you’ll just have to find them again.
I have subscriptions to a ton of different magazines. During the past few months they’ve had camera reviews. Clip those pages and put them into a folder where you can find them. Also the magazines listed some good review sites. One thing with review sites is many of them are spammy and only want to make money from advertising… so there views can be prejudiced.
We’re going to go back to Google and search for camcorder buyers guide.
You want to find two or three sites to help you with your research.
Couple of notes –
1. Especially if you’re wanting recent technology, you’ll want recent information.
2. A few sites I’ve had good luck with are about.com / Yahoo / CNET / Consumer Reports.
After you plunder around in these sites you should have an idea of the features that you want.
Go back to the spreadsheet that you made and include those features.
After much browsing I really like the camcorder.info site. Now you want to find at least two or three models that you like.
I like the Sony HDR-S12 and the Canon HF 11.
On Tuesday we’ll work on Finding some coupons.
Here are the tentative dates for the remaining articles.
3. Finding Coupons - December 16th
4. Comparison shopping online. - December 20th
5. Comparison shopping Off line. January 3rd
6. Buy it. January 10th
Fun with your family -
This is fun for the whole family - http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/
You get to turn you and whoever you happen to have a picture of into a group of crazy elfs.
You can even send the results to your friends and family.
You can make some really cool snowflakes - check them out here.
http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/index.html
We hope you have a wonderful day!
Posted on December 12, 2008 - by admin
Having Fun in the Snow
We got some snow last night so I thought I would post some things you and your family could do in the snow.
Here are a few fun ideas.
Build a Snow Mountain.
http://www.familyfunshop.com/sledmountain.htm
Some more ideas -
http://www.divavillage.com/article.php?id=34966
http://www.homemadesimple.com/en_US/nbrcontent.do?contentType=op&articleId=ar010
Check out some videos of driving in the snow (in Iceland)
http://www.4×4offroads.com/4×4-fun-sun-and-snow.html
Build a snow fort -
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Snow-Fort
Enjoy your day and Stay safe!
Posted on December 9, 2008 - by admin
Finding Good Deals Online - Getting Ready
The first thing we want to do in our search for finding a great deal online is to get ready.
The big thing we’ll want to do when searching for a deal is to be able to track the good deals that we find.
1. The first thing we want to do is create a spreadsheet. For the research spreadsheet I used the following headings -
| Item | Feature A | B | C | D | E | Company URL | Base Price |
Amazon Reviews |
Other Reviews |
Getting the best price I used these headings -
| Store | URL | Cost | Ship | Coupon | Tax | Total |
you can of course include any relevant headings.
2. Create a mail box in your email program called “Deals” or something similar. That will help you to keep track of any email offers that we want to get.
3. Create a favorites folder - again call it “Deals”. When we book mark sites that’s where they will go.
Posted on December 6, 2008 - by admin
Holiday shopping and shipping Tips - Out of Gas 20
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 20 December 7, 2008
It is chilly here this morning with temps in the … teens. Go grab you a good cup of joe and relax a bit with us.
++ News -
Gas news -
Oil was down again Friday to $41 / barrel. It went down about $8 a barrel last week. Now if the people who make the products we use everyday would remove the increases (which they said were because of the oil prices). Do I think that will happen? Probably not.
Useful Information -
When you’ll need to order when you order online and the type of shipping you’ll need to use in order to get your presents by Christmas.
Post Office
http://www.usps.com/holiday/shippingcalendar.htm
UPS (this is a pdf file)
http://compass.ups.com/uploadedFiles/UPS_Calendar_PeakSeason_pw_1112.pdf
FedEx
http://www.fedex.com/us/holiday/shipping/lastdaystoship.html
Saving you Money - 6 Steps for finding a great deal online.
Below are six steps for finding great deals online. We’ll go in depth with each one in future issues.
1. Getting Ready - December 9th
2. Product Research - we’ll include a video - December 13th
3. Finding Coupons - December 16th
4. Comparison shopping online. - December 20th
5. Comparison shopping Off line. December 30th
6. Buy it. January 3rd
Fun with your family -
Below are some sites that you and your family we enjoy as we approach the holidays.
Games - Birthday cards - Coloring — our favorite The Good Deed Calendar which you can print out.
http://blackdog.net/holiday/christmas/
The decoder games are my favorite at Black Dog. The Reindeer food recipe is a lot of fun as well.
Some fun elf games.
http://www.miniclip.com/games/adventure-elf/en/
We’ll include some more fun stuff for you to do as we get closer to the big day.
We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Stay warm and safe.
Posted on December 5, 2008 - by admin
Saving Money on Sending Greeting Cards - Elf fun with the kids.
I saw an excellent piece today on the show today - it talked about saving money on Christmas cards. They should have a video up shortly and when they’ll do I’ll put in a direct link to the video. They may also put a link to it on their home page.
You can find that here:
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My Tip -
Use the internet - first have the whole family create a card. Scan the card and make it a picture. Then you can upload the cards onto a free photo sharing site like http://www.flickr.com/. Then email your card list and ask them to choose their favorite. When you email the card list make sure to make it personal. They can of course choose to print any cards from the photos that they wish.
Here’s something fun that we’ve been doing for a few years now.
We have an elf that leaves small presents hidden on the Christmas tree. You can get as elaborate as you want to (one year we had a mystery that the kids had to solve, another year there was a shortage on candy). You get the idea. You don’t have to go crazy on gifts, anything small works great. You can also let the kids write letters to the elf. Use your imagination it can be a lot of fun.
Here’s a list of a ton of ways to save money.
http://beingfrugal.net/2008/11/26/holiday-money-saving-tips-contest-by-nickelodeon/
Enjoy your Friday.
Posted on December 2, 2008 - by admin
My Black Friday Fun and some money saving sites
My Black Friday experience went well (if you have an experience you would like to share, please don’t hesitate to post a comment). I had a few things that I wanted after scouting the Wal-Mart Friday ad I had a list of things I wanted to get (after all when you can buy things for half price…. So I got up early on Friday. I had been checkings out on Amazon and decided to check it out. I found out that they had the items I wanted even cheaper than Wal-Mart and with the Super Saver shipping - the shipping was free. So I ordered the things on Friday and as of now have received all the boxes except for one, which is on the way. I still haven’t figured out exactly how much that I saved, but I’ll be sure to share that with you.
Here are a few sites I’ve stumbled on that you may enjoy as well as you’re looking for deals.
http://www.ebates.com/ - these folks give you a gift card or cash for signing up.
A place to find free shipping codes - http://www.freeshipping.org/
Coupon codes and a whole lot more - http://www.retailmenot.com/
I hope you have a wonderful week. We’ll have some ideas for fun on Friday.
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