Gas Savings Blog

Archive for March, 2009


Posted on March 28, 2009 - by admin

Saving money on interest rates OOG 33

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 33 March 29, 2009

++ News -

We had a great time on Spring Break.

++ Savings Tip of the Week

An excellent site for all things related to credit and loans.
http://www.bankrate.com/

We have a twitter account so we can send updates when we find good deals… one thing that is the only time we’ll tweet.

You can follow us here - http://twitter.com/savingmoneyon

Saving Money The Nitty Gritty -

Your house payments and interest

First if you’re having trouble making your house payment then Obama’s housing bill may help you.

Details of that bill can be found here - http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/18/business/0218-housing-graphic.html

I’m definitely no expert on mortgages so below are some links for you to check out.

One thing I would caution is to never put your email address for more information or you will have more email than you could read in a month.

Getting the best mortgage (more than an interest rate)
http://www.realtor.com/home-finance/mortgages/how-to-get-best-interest-rate.aspx

From the Federal Reserve
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/mortgage/mortb_1.htm

A Refinance Calculator
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc_vml/refi/refi.asp

Next up:

Car -
Overview
Gas
Maintenace

Entertainment -

An Overview
Doing the Audit
Entertainment alternatives


Posted on March 27, 2009 - by admin

3 Ways to Save Money at the Movies

During our recent road trip one thing we did was go to the movies.  I’ve spent more than $50 bucks at the movies before and we now watch most of our movies at home. I figured that if we got all the movie channels, the money we saved from one trip would be worth it (and it has been).

But sometimes there is a movie that your kids “have” to see, or one that you want to see. Here are some tips to help you save a bit.

1. Go for the mantinee - in the town we live in that saves you about 50% on the ticket. You will also get to see the movie better because it will be less crowded. We went to see Witch Mountain (which we enjoyed) and there were about 10 people in the theater, counting us.
2. Eat before you go. If you’re full before you go then you will get less requests for popcorn or a candy bar that costs 5 bucks. My wife packs a bottomless purse (don’t ask me how much it weighs) and she brings some water and small snacks.. for just in case.

3. Stay away from the games.

Our trip for 3 cost us less than 20 bucks.

Have a wonderful Friday!


Posted on March 26, 2009 - by admin

Saving Money on Road Trips Part 2

We talked some in our last post about saving money on your hotel room. Here are some tips on saving money on your shopping.

There were more sales going on than I’ve ever seen even around Christmas. They were also lots of coupons around, especially for visiting a store later (at Michaels we got a coupon for 20% off the next visit, another store we got a card that was good for between $50 and $500 off our next purchase).

1. Find out about any of the after you buy coupons from previous customers, so if I know I want to purchase two items from a store, I would buy the cheaper item and then use the coupon on the next visit.
2. Check the paper, online, in the store, manufacturers site for coupons.
3. Talk to people - ask them what kind of deals they have going on.
4. Comparison shop… even between stores with different locations.
5. If you’re not really shopping for a specific item (you’re just looking for clothes) then set a spending limit.

Have a great Thursday.


Posted on March 24, 2009 - by admin

Saving Money on Road Trips Part 1

We took a road trip over the weekend to Lexington (about a two hour drive from where we live … if you drive the speed limit). The biggest thing I would like to tell you is if you’re going to save money, you need to get your family involved and turn it into a game.

Talk it out with your family… tell them that you’re going to work on saving money, tell them why and how it will benefit them. Trying to shove the concept down a tween or teens neck won’t work, but if you make it fun then it will work.

The carrot always works better than the stick, and my Daughter is a budding entrepreneur so she negotiated her way into getting 10% of what we save at the end of the year.

We started saving by planning the trip. We decided that we wanted to stay two nights. The timing of our trip was pretty much set since it was during Haley’s spring break. Unfortunately this was also during the time of the state tournament so hotel rooms were at a premium. We decided to spend one night in a hotel and another night with relatives who lived in the town. That saved us the expense of a night in the hotel. We have trips only a few times during the year anyway and we want to make it special (and Haley likes to swim) so we got our usual spot with an indoor pool.  If we had wanted a budget hotel we could have saved an extra $50 but then we would have had a riot, but I did get a consensus on staying one night with relatives. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about how the trip went… how we saved money while shopping.


Posted on March 22, 2009 - by admin

Saving Money on Tweets Weekly Updates for 2009-03-22

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Posted on March 17, 2009 - by admin

Some Savings Tidbits for Tuesday

I know I had mentioned on Saturday that posts would be light this week… the reason is my daughter starts her Spring Break tomorrow and we’re taking a trip. We’ll be gone for several days and I’m going to save money at least five different ways on our trip … leave a comment and guess how we’re going to do that. The best posts will have a surprise next week.

Have a wonderful day!


Posted on March 15, 2009 - by admin

Saving Money on Tweets Weekly Updates for 2009-03-15

  • 2 funny http://tinyurl.com/c7vwdj tweeting is a blast just remember that if your competition has 2 brain cells they follow you. Tweet wisely #

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Posted on March 14, 2009 - by admin

Saving Money on your House Insurance - OOG 32

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 32 March 15, 2009

++ News -

Last week we had temps in the 80’s - Thursday it snowed six inches… don’t you just love March?

Next week our kids will be on Spring Break - so there will be no OOG on Saturday and we’ll have less posts too.

++ Savings Tip of the Week

Lots of good finance videos here -
http://www.genxpense.com/

We have a twitter account so we can send updates when we find good deals… one thing that is the only time we’ll tweet.

You can follow us here - http://twitter.com/savingmoneyon

Saving Money The Nitty Gritty -

Saving Money on your Home Owners Insurance -

There are several parts of your homeowners policy -

The Property Protection Part

This portion is usually broken down into several sections.

Your house
Other structures (like outbuilding, garage, fences, sheds).
Personal property (the stuff in your house)

Then there is

The Liability Portion

This just covers you if someone falls off your porch or slips on the sidewalk. These are usually mandated by your state.

So how do you save Money?

1. Become friends with your agent.
2. Find out what your coverage is for the items we listed above.
3. Make sure that you have adequate coverage - if your contents are worth 50k and you have only 20k of coverage, if something happens then you’ve lost 30k. This past year we bought some major purchases and we added about 10k or so to the ‘contents’, and it cost about $100 extra a year.
4. All policies have a deductable - this is one area where you may be able to save. Get some quotes on what happens when you increase the deductible… you may be pleasantly surprised.
4. Start shopping around for a better price - when you shop around make sure that you ask your friends and neighbors. A lower cost won’t help a bit if they take six months to pay a claim.
5. If you find a better price then ask you current agent can they match it, they usually will.

Other tips

– Put your deductible in a savings account and don’t touch it.
– Make sure you have pictures or a video of the contents of your home. Keep those receipts.

Next up:

Housing -
Payments / Interest

Car -
Overview
Gas
Maintenace

Entertainment -

An Overview
Doing the Audit
Entertainment alternatives


Posted on March 13, 2009 - by admin

Basketball Tournament Time - Fun with your family

It’s one of my favorite times of the year. The NCAA basketball tournament starts next week, so during the next weeks there will be plenty of fun to have with your family.

I’m sure that you’ve had a tournament pool at work. You put the teams that you want in your bracket, pay a fee and then the person with the most wins gets the pool.

You can do the same thing at home, without the money of course… but you can have prizes. The first thing to do is get a bracket - on Monday there will be tons of them in your paper and online. We’ll put a link on a blog post on Monday as well. Even if you have kids in your house that don’t like sports if you make the prizes interesting enough - then they will want to get involved.

1. Get everyone to fill out a tournament bracket.
2. Every person that watches a game with the family gets 5 points (no matter if their team wins or not).
3. Every time your team wins you get 5 points.
4. During games that the family watches each person chooses a team to cheer for. If the team you’re cheering for wins - you get five points.

Add up the points at the end of the tournament and give prizes to everyone… not just the winners.

This is also a good time to go to local basketball games… we had our regional tournament in our town last week. Tickets are usually not that expensive.

Have a wonderful day.


Posted on March 10, 2009 - by admin

Saving Money on Home Maintenance

Hope your week is going well. It is still Summer time here with temps supposed to hit the 70’s again today. It will be short lived though as temps will head back down to the 30’s for the rest of the week.

The big thing about maintaining your house is to keep small problems from becoming big problems. You do this by working on things before they become problems, things like cleaning your gutter out and if you have a chimney making sure that it stays clean.

Here is an excellent list of things you need to be maintaining around your house.

http://life.familyeducation.com/home-management/home-maintenance/47872.html

Some things you will need to get a professional for - but many things you should be able to do yourself. The great thing about the internet is it is an awesome tool for getting information. Don’t forget if you find a great site don’t forget to book mark it.

I hope you have an awesome day.


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