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
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.
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.
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 19 November 22nd, 2008
++ News -
We hope you and your family have a wonderful ThanksGiving.
Gas news -
Gas prices now average less than $2.00 / gallon in many places. This is good news, especially for people that have to drive quite a bit.
Next week we’ll be taking some time off to spend with our friends and family. We hope you have more time to do that as well. So there won’t be any blog posts or newsletter next week.
The today show had an excellent segment on saving money on your Thanksgiving Dinner.
You can find it by clicking here. (note it’s a video)
Saving you Money - Some Final thoughts on Saving Money for Christmas
1. Make a budget and stick to it.
2. Remember that many times the cheapest present with the most thought behind it, is much better than an expensive gift.
3. Start saving now for next year. Figure out what you want to spend next year and start saving now. If you put $20 back each week in 50 weeks you would have $1,000.00.
4. If you do Black Friday - have a plan. You can find details of our plan here
5. Having fun with your friends and family is much better than spending tons of money. And you won’t have to worry about the bills you get in Jan.
In a couple of weeks we’ll talk about some fun things you can do with your family around the holidays.
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 18 November 15th, 2008
++ News -
Black Friday ads are starting to come out. We’ll have our guide on what to do - the steps you can take to get the best deal on Tuesday. Some details on what Wal-Mart may be offering is here.
Gas news -
Oil is now down to around $57 / barrel with the average price for a gallon of gas - $2.12.
We got quite a few suggestions on the new types of content to include here. We’re reviewing them and will pick the one we think will work the best.
Thanks again for submitting your opinions.
Fun with the Family -
We’ve been working hard on some new pages that will help you have fun with your family. We should have these pages complete early next week.
Saving you Money - Thinking Creatively for Your Christmas List
Think for a moment about your favorite Christmas present.. did it cost a lot. If you’re like most people probably not. Do your kids even remember what you got them last Christmas?
Really great gifts don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. I’ll give you a few ideas with things I’ve done and give you a few links that will give you some more information.
The Big Red Bag.
This is something that I did for my wife. First you’ll need a big bag to hold the presents in. When you go shopping you want to buy many, different small gifts for whoever the red bag is for. I bought my wife about 15 or so gifts (things for the kitchen, crochet hooks, books, etc.). The most I spent on a gift was about $5.00 I think. That was about ten years ago and she still talks about it. I might have to do that again.
The Scavenger Hunt.
Again buy small gifts, but create a scavengar hunt so the recepient will have to find each present and when they find it they’ll get the clue for the next gift.
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 17 November 8th, 2008
This issue brought to you by
Prom 2009 - Everything you need to know about Prom and much more.
++ News -
We’ve started on new series on our blog post titled Saving Money for Christmas. New topics can be found on Tuesday and Saturday for the next few weeks.
++ The Oil Industry
Since the price of Gas has fallen below $2 / gallon in many places - we want to change the focus of the section of our newsletter a bit.
The goal of our site is to save you money. You can help us decide what you want us to put in this section. Just send us a note or leave us a comment after this post.
One overall saving tip is if you’re thinking of making a purchase, wait till closer to Christmas because I think everything will drop in price.
Saving you Money - ThanksGiving Leftovers
We have scoured the web for some great recipes for your leftover turkey. We’ve also included my favorite recipe below.
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 16 November 1st, 2008
This issue brought to you by
Free Crochet Patterns - nothing is better than free. 300+ free crochet patterns. You’re sure to find something new to make.
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 -
We hope you are enjoying your weekend. Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour when you go to bed (Fall back).
Oil was up a little bit on Friday to around $67.00 a barrel. In October it fell about 1/3 (which is a good thing).
++ The Oil Industry - A quiz
Below is a quiz to see how well you’ve been listening over the past few weeks. We’ll post the answers with explanations on Monday.
All these questions are hypothetical since our crystal ball is broken.
1. Next week the $$ remains strong and gains ground in many currencies. The price of oil would…
2. The stock market continues it’s slump and bad news comes every day. Oil prices would most likely …
3. Opec decides to cut production… normally this would make oil prices ….
4. Long range forecasts are out. The winter will be a bad one. This news would usually make oil prices…
5. Who do we import most of our oil from….
Saving you Money
I can’t believe that Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. Below are four ways to save you money (and you’ll still get to have fun).
1. Family get together.
Get 3 or 4 of your neighbors / families together and have a big Thanksgiving meal. The main thought behind this is that everyone pays for a portion of the turkey (see some more about that in buying a turkey below). Each person also decides to bring 1 side dish. Remember that Thanksgiving doesn’t have to be a huge meal… after all you can only eat so much without feeling bad.
So each person brings a dish - decide together what the menu is going to be. Plan now to find out how many people will be attending.
2. Get the right size turkey.
You’ve figured out how many people are going to be at the party. Now it’s time to figure out what size of turkey to get.
While you are there make sure to find out how long it will take to thaw your turkey. Then make sure to buy the turkey before you will need to begin to thaw it.
Usually the bigger the turkey - the cheaper that your per pound price will be. If you really want to save money do the following.
When making plans for Thanksgiving, plan for Christmas dinner as well. Decide to have that meal at someone elses house. Then buy twice as much turkey. Ask your butcher (even the super stores have them… they just hide) and ask them to cut your turkey in half. Remember though when cooking the turkey you’ll need to watch it a little closer.
3. Clip those coupons.
Grocery stores want your business. Be on the look out for coupons and deals. We’ve talked about coupons before so just make sure to review what we’ve talked about.
4. Eat the left overs.
I may be weird, but I love left overs. I’ll include some of my favorite recipes and tips next Saturday.
We hope you and your family have a wonderful weekend.
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.
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.
===============
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.
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.
===============
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.
Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 12 October 4th, 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.
++ The Oil Industry - The Economy.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the big bail out that didn’t happen early in the week, and that the Senate passed on Weds. night.
Did you notice what oil prices did during this? Many times the price plunged - in fact Weds. it was less than $100 / barrel. We’ll talk some over the next few weeks about why it did this.
The first big push on oil of course is demand from consumers. The reason that oil fell (or I should say one of the reasons) is that a weak economy usually means less driving. Consumers usually cut back during tough times, and when enough consumers start to cut back then businesses start to cut back.
So one of the reasons why the price drop was because fear of the economy getting worse. We’ll talk some about what the dollar had to do with it next week.
Saving you Money
Exercising can save you money and here are four reasons why - we’ll go into some things that will help you get started on an exercise program in the next few weeks.
1. When you’re healthy - you’re health costs will go down.
This one is a no brainer.
2. Being healthy means less sick days at work.
3. When you’re healthy you’ll feel like doing more (not only at work but with your family and friends as well). Doing better at your job is always a good thing and may even get you a raise.
4. If you’re working on getting / staying healthy then you’ll eat out less and have healthy meals at home more.
===============
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.
