Coupons, coupons, coupons!  We all love them.  We get them in our Sunday newspapers and just the other day I had about 4 bags of them sitting on my stoop when I got home.  We all love saving money, especially when we are shopping but I have found most people are not very diligent to put in the time to find coupons.   On a recent report on Good Morning America, about 2 months ago I can’t seem to find the link anymore, a lady was able to feed her family of 4 with less than $10 per week.  She was obviously coupon obsessed.  I tried to do this and I found is that it takes a lot of work to make that happen.  It almost becomes a part time job.

Red Plum is one of the many options you have online for searching for coupons.  In my own personal experience of doing this I have found that most of these sites have the exact same coupons available, after all they come from the manufacturer or the store itself.  The real value in this site and others like this is having them consolidated in one place so you don’t have to go looking for them all over the internet.

So what exactly will you find at Red Plum, coupons and lots of them.  Coupons for specific items, coupons for specific stores, coupons to the left of you, coupons to the right of you!  As with most coupon sites you do have to create an account.  Joining is free but membership does have some privileges.  If you do decide to join get ready because you have the option of what types of coupons you want to receive in your email account and they will faithfully send emails.  Personally I am tired of creating accounts because I have enough emails in my inbox that I never read anyway.  However once you have joined you then have access to free giveaways, samples and other great deals.  These are some of the privileges.

When searching the site you can view coupons available but to print them you have to install the coupon printer on your computer.  Again this is how most of these sites work so if you want the coupons you have to follow the orders.  I don’t want you to think I have a negative view of this site because I don’t I just don’t feel I need any more memberships, whether they are free or not, because I can’t even keep up with the ones I have.  Personally you don’t need to join every one of these sites just find one or two you like and just join those.  As I said earlier they will generally have the same coupon information. 

When it comes to coupons the real value is how to use them to get the most bang for your buck.  Coupons give you the most discount when they can be combined with other coupons to get double or triple the savings. I found some good tips on getting the most from you coupons at the sites below:

Get the most out of coupons
Getting the most out of your coupons

If you are up to the challenge there are some savings out there.  Get ready to put in some work but at the same time there is some reward at the other end.

When it comes to financial “gurus” or infomercial giants I am often skeptical of the messages they preach.  Most of my skepticism comes from an old slogan someone told me a long time ago and it still sticks with me today.  “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.”  Now I am in no way trying to make light of teaching as a profession because I think teaching is a very noble profession that requires a lot of skill and training to master.  When it comes to financial “gurus” my question is do they make their money doing what they say or do they make their money teaching other people to do what they say.

Robert Kiyosaki has made a fortune off of his Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, so as a marketer Kiyosaki is brilliant.  The question is can you survive by following his financial advice.  Well obviously you would need to know the crux of his financial advice so I am going to give you what I call the Kiyosaki classics.  By the way when it comes to financial advice you should follow the one thing Kiyosaki said that makes sense, “beware of who you get financial advice from”. 

The Kiyosaki Classics:
If you’re going to go broke, go broke big
Education is a waste of time
Diversification and investing for the long term are bad advice
401(K)’s are the biggest scam ever
One of the ways to make money is through real estate investments
Believes network marketing is a good way to develop long term residual income

If you boil it all down here is what Robert Kiyosaki is.  A motivational speaker – yes!   A best selling author – yes!  A great salesman – yes!   A great financial mind, not at all!  So really then how does Kiyosaki make his money?  My personal opinion is his income is driven by book sales and seminars, again a great PR machine.  Does he even practice what he preaches?  Well it is hard to tell because he refuses to come clean about his actual income.  He estimates it’s between $50-$100 million but there is no verification of that.  And by the way where are the real estate properties he owns, good luck in finding those.  Personally I have nothing against him because I don’t know him, but I see a man capitalizing on an industry full of people who are financially un-educated.  His audience isn’t the wealthy but people who want to become wealthy and unfortunately these can be some very gullible people because they want to believe and change their situation so desperately.  I am not alone in my views of Mr. Kiyosaki’s financial advice, here are some other Kiyosaki detractors:

Get Rich Slowly
The Simple Dollar
John T. Reed

 In my final analysis of Mr. Kiyosaki I will use his own words to sum up what I have been saying.  “We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.”  I don’t think my own words could do any better justice.  SO if you need motivation his stuff is good, if you need financial advice, take action at your own peril after all remember those who can’t teach.

I don’t know about you but I love to save a dollar and if I can get a good deal I get very excited.  When I was younger I didn’t think about it that much but as I have gotten older and am now married with a child I need to stretch the money farther than I used to.  As you know with a child in the house trips to the pharmacy are commonplace whether it’s for an band aid or Tylenol, we are constantly in need of something.  One of the pharmacy options is CVS.  When compared to giant retailers like Target and Walmart sometimes they can seem more expensive.  However there is a way to take advantage of CVS coupons and to get the most out of your CVS shopping experience.

1-      Sign up for the extra bucks rewards program -  Most stores have membership programs that rewards customer loyalty.  CVS’ program is called Extra Care.  How it works is you earn 2% back from every purchase you make in the store or online.  You will also get 1 extra buck for prescriptions purchased in the store or online.  Every 3 months you can either print your extra bucks online or it will print out on your receipt when shopping in the store.  Some other benefits include special in store discounts for select items for rewards program members.  This rewards program can also be used with Upromise if you are saving for college

2-      Make use of the website – If you go to the CVS website you will find some ready to use coupons available to everyone.  Simply go online, put in your zip code and find the coupons for your area.  From there all you have to do is print and use and save money.

3-      Check the circular – Before you go shopping check the weekly specials.  A simple way to save more money is to find what you need and then search online for additional coupons you can use with these particular items.  Some great sites to visit are coupons.com, couponmom.com and fatwallet.com.

4-      Check the online specials – Often there are items available online that will be available only online and not in the store.  You can see again what you need and again decide if it is cheaper to get it online or to get it from the store.  Remember to add shipping charges to your purchase to make sure it is actually cheaper.  Also if you are going to purchase online there are dollar limits that will qualify for free shipping.  If you can try to spend at least that amount to save the additional money on shipping.

In searching online I actually found a good article on making CVS work for you and here is another one on CVS coupons.   When it comes to saving money the main thing to remember is that it takes some work and effort to really get the good deals.  It is quite possible to spend 2-3 hours per week searching for coupons I know I have done it in the past.  However when it comes to saving money and making your dollars stretch then there is nothing wrong with the time spent doing this.  Remember when it comes to coupons the money you save will be your own.

In today’s economic conditions, more and more people are swimming in debt.  At last check the average American household is carrying over $8,000 in credit card debt.  You may be one of those people carrying the debt however you are still entitled to some dignity in how you repay your debts.  In other words you have rights and you cannot and should not be pressured into the manner in which you repay your debts.  The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act(FDCPA) is what gives you these rights.  If you are in debt and are being called by creditors then keep reading to make sure your rights are not being violated.

Did you know?

The FDCPA was created to counteract the abusive practices of collection agencies.

The FDCPA applies to all types of debt incurred by a household including mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and even retail store cards.

The FDCPA applies only to 3^rd party collection agencies.  For example if you have a huge medical expense and someone from the hospital calls you regarding repayment, that is not covered under this act.  If they send this to a collection agency or law firm for collection then this act goes into effect.  By the way it is very rare you would get abusive treatment directly from a store or credit card company because they want to keep you as a customer.

What can’t they do?

They cannot contact any 3^rd party about your debt.  They can’t call your cousin, mother, father, neighbor or anyone else.

They can’t make idle threats to intimidate you.  For example they can’t say we are going to repossess the items you purchased unless they actually intend to do it.

They can only call you during reasonable contact hours.  Those hours are between 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM.  They also cannot continuously call your phone number over and over.

They can’t call you at work unless you give them permission.

They can’t insult you or use any type of profanity, or racial or ethnic slurs.  So calling you cheap, lazy or a bum is out of the question.

They can’t ask for a post dated check and threaten you if it bounces.  Well my question is why would you want a post-dated check anyway?  If I’m in debt I don’t like the odds that the post dated check will clear.

They can’t charge you any excessive collection fees.  This has always puzzled me about debt repayments.  If I can’t pay the original bill how is adding fees and penalties going to allow me to pay it off any faster

They can’t lie to you by pretending to be something they are not, even though we will often lie to them by saying I’m not home right now when I am the one they are talking to.  They can’t pretend to be a lawyer or a court official or any type of misrepresentation.  They can’t use any type of documents that look like they are official court documents.  They also can’t pretend to be taking a survey to get information about you.

Finally they can’t threaten to have you arrested if you don’t pay the debt.  By the way I don’t know how you can repay if you are in jail.

So those are your rights, know and use them if you must.  By the way companies face serious penalties and legal action if they violate these rules.   So if you are in debt and are working to repay them don’t be afraid to enforce your rights if they are being violated.

Click here to get more perspective on FDCPA
Read what Mr. Credit Card says about FDCPA

When it comes to financial software I have been an Intuit fan for years.  In case you didn’t know they make the Quicken financial software.  I use a windows platform and I have heard from Mac users that Quicken isn’t as Mac friendly, but they don’t have many other options.  When it comes to software in general, Windows is still by far the leading operating system.  This is true in the financial software world as well.  However peaking over the horizon is a version of financial software known as Moneydance. 

Moneydance is a financial planning software that was actually created for the Linux platform but is functional in the other operating systems.  It is a multi functional tool that provides functions that may not be found in other financial software such as the ability to work with multiple currencies.  In fact they have users in over 75 countries.  In addition to paying bills and managing your bank accounts online, Moneydance will also allow you to manage your budget, schedule loan or mortgage repayments, track your investment portfolio and has the ability to import into Quicken software if you use it for tax purposes.

This software has been around for a few years and early Mac users felt it didn’t quite fit the bill as a great piece of software.

Read Goodbye Quicken here
Read Moneydance good but not great here

Moneydance has recently released their 2010 version and I have highlighted some of its new features:

• A new sidebar which shows account status and allows for toggling between accounts, reports, graphs and budgets
• Capital tax gains reporting
• automatic merge and categorization of all downloaded transactions
• more filtering options for graphs and reports
• Quick search feature on the home page

So what is the verdict on the new 2010 version of Moneydance?  There is some early excitement over the release of the new software, especially with some of the new updated features.  They claim to have addresses some of the issues of previous users.  The brand new version was released just about 2 weeks ago so most users are now testing all of the features.  As I have said before I am a Quicken man and I use a Windows platform, however if you are a Mac user this appears to be one of the best options available for you.

If you purchased a previous copy of Moneydance on or after March 28, 2008 then you are eligible for a free upgrade to the 2010 version.  If you purchased your copy before that then you will be able to purchase it for half price.  The actual cost of Moneydance is $39.99.  If you are a Mac user and are new to the world of financial software you can then download a free version to try it out.  You will be limited to 100 transactions but that should give you a good feel whether you like the software before you buy it.  If you are a Windows user, you can certainly use this software but I believe Quicken is a better option and since Quicken just bought Mint.com I think that is a winning combination.

Orbitz doesn’t have William Shatner.  Orbitz doesn’t have a garden gnome.  How are they supposed to compete against those who do?

Apparently, it’s tough.  The Chicago Sun Times recently reported that Orbitz has just announced another change at the helm of their marketing and branding efforts.  According the paper, their most recent hiring is “a familiar–and somewhat disturbing–occurrence…”  Apparently, Debbie Italiano will be the third person in charge of battling traveling statues and Captain Kirk in the last five years.

One way Orbitz has been trying to build and maintain its customer base over the last several years has been via the use of Orbitz promotion codes.  If you have a code, you can snag a nice discount on your Orbitz purchase.

Some businesses will offer online coupons that aren’t worth their weight in bytes.  That’s not the case here.  Orbitz promotion codes are often quite generous.  Let’s put it this way–they justify spending the time necessary to find them.  Just in case your past experience with online promotion codes leaves you skeptical, just look at this list of promo codes, all of which were available at the same point last year:

15% off Texas hotels: ORBTEXAS [book by 3/20, travel by 8/31]
$25 off 2+ nights: ORBTHANKS25 [book by 3/31, travel by 3/31]
$40 off 3+ nights: AORB40 [book by 3/31, travel by 4/30]
$75 off 4+ nights: 4ODWR75 [book on 6/1, travel 6/1-8/15]

$100 off 3+ night Grand Bahama Island package: GBI100 [book by 4/6, travel by 12/15]
$200 of 4+ night Grand Bahama Island package: GBI200 [book by 4/6, travel by 12/15]
$200 off 5+ nights international package: GAYPASSPORT [book by 4/30, travel by 6/15]
$50 off 3+ nights air & hotel package: PRIORITY [book by 5/31, travel by 5/31]
$75 off 3+ nights air/hotel or hotel/car package: 75ORBDOT [book by 7/31, travel by 8/30]
$75 off 3+ nights air & hotel package: DEALOVACA [book by 12/31, travel by 12/31]

That’s pretty representative of what’s going on at any given point in time.  If your travel plans match up with an Orbitz promotion code, it can save you a nice little chunk of change.

So, where do you find these?  Shatner isn’t going to help you find them, after all.

I thought I had found the mother lode of promo codes at CouponLoco.com, but it turns out that the only loco thing happening there is pretending that linking to various Orbitz special offers is the same thing as providing a valid promo code.  Obviously, it isn’t.

RetailMeNot.com was slightly more helpful.  They provided links to the special offers, too, but those were clearly marked as “sales,” and not as coupons or promotional codes.  They also had four different Orbitz promotion codes listed on their site at  the time of this post’s writing.  They weren’t all up to date, but they were genuine codes.

Savings.com had a few codes, too.  One of them was an apparently universally-applicable 10% off deal.

Other coupon and promo sites yielded similar, if not downright redundant, results.

I found that big list of last year’s promos at the Flyer Talk Forums.  I wasn’t able to locate a similar, updated list for current Orbitz codes, but I wanted to mention the site because it seems like it offers a real wealth of information to anyone interested in scoring the best possible deals on travel.  It appears to be a very active forum and the “Online Travel Booking and Bidding” area could be handy for anyone planning to set up their travel plans online.

The bottom line:  You’re going to need to do a little digging to find Orbitz promotion codes and many of those that are available probably won’t match your planned itinerary.  However, it is worth doing some investigation.  If you find a code that DOES match with your plans (or one of the generic x% off codes), it will more than compensate your for the research time.

You’ve just bought your new home, if you can afford one in this economy and all of a sudden you start getting the offers in the mail.  A few years ago the rage was refinancing to a lower interest rate and since you’re refinancing why not take some extra cash to pay off some bills in the process.  Well there is a new player in the game and that is the mortgage accelerator, I mean who wouldn’t want to accelerate their mortgage payments and pay off their home faster.  Well when it comes to financial products I have yet to see the product that doesn’t first benefit the primary lender.  It may be of value to the user but know for sure the lender is benefitting from it.  Mortgage Accelerators are no different. 

For those who are unaware a mortgage accelerator is a loan that combines the qualities of a home equity line of credit and a checking account.  Each month you would deposit your regular income checks into this account.  By doing this you are reducing the overall balance of your mortgage.  You will then pay your monthly expenses out of this account and at the end of the month whatever is left over will go towards the principal of the loan. The objective here is that you would accumulate interest slower over the time of the loan and be able to pay off the debt much faster.  I won’t go into great details of the intricacies of these programs, you can read a great article here on that topic.  What I want to comment on is why you don’t need to do this.  Here are 2 other articles on that subject:

Mortgage Accelerator Programs
Avoid Mortgage Accelerator Programs

The underlying philosophy of any mortgage acceleration program is that if you can lower the principal, you will pay less interest and pay off your mortgage faster.  Let me ask you something, would you pay someone to give you that piece of advice I just gave you?  Well when you use a mortgage accelerator program that is basically what you are doing.  You have all of the wherewithal within you to do this very thing without having to pay someone to do it for you.  There are many ways to pay down your principal if that is your goal, here are a few.  Two of the simplest are adding more money to your mortgage payment each month or by sending in an extra payment or payments each year.  Those two simple things alone will lower your principal.  By the way if you want to pay me for that please feel free to do so. 

If you have trouble saving enough money to come up with an extra payment then here is a simple suggestion.  Open a savings account, and set up an automatic deposit into that account each week.  Let’s say your mortgage payment is $1500 per month.  You can have $30 per week automatically deposited into your checking account.  At the end of 1 year you will have saved $1560 and you can make your mortgage payment.  It will take some discipline, but you can do it so save your money and go pay off that mortgage.

You may have seen them on the Today show or read about it in USA today, but what does it take to be a mystery shopper?  Well I used to be a mystery shopper and here is some of what I learned along the way.  First of all mystery shopping is a wonderful way to earn extra money and pick up some free stuff along the way.  Companies use them all of the time to keep tabs on the level of customer service their employees are providing.  They are also used to check to see if employees are offering promotions, offering various up-sells or if they are doing things according to a certain company format.   I’ve personally done shops in restaurants, retail stores and even convenience stores.  When I was mystery shopping, sometimes if the employees did a good job I could go back in and give the employee an award for performing their job properly and they always loved the recognition.

As a mystery shopper your job really depends on your ability to keep your emotions out of the process and to keep your identity concealed.  If employees sense you are a mystery shopper they will immediately be on their A game and you won’t be able to get a fair picture of what’s really happening.  Your job is really to observe and take lots of mental notes.  It is important that you remember the things you observe because you won’t be able to write anything down while in the store but will have to wait until you have left.  What companies want from you isn’t ranting and raving but a full clear picture of everything that happened during your experience shopping, so the more details you give the better.  I found that companies want information that will help them improve their customer’s experience and it was my job to help management know what that experience is like.   

As far as pay goes, from my experience as a shopper, I found the shops paid anywhere from $7-$20, depending on what the shop was, but I did find some that paid more.  Generally these shops will last anywhere from 5 – 20 minutes, unless it was a sit down restaurant.  When I was doing your shops if I had  to purchase anything I always got reimbursed for it and I kept whatever I purchased.  It was nice picking up some new things and eating at nice restaurants without paying for it and getting paid to do it.  As a mystery shopper you will be an independent contractor so you can work with as many companies as you want and when and where you want. 

To find mystery shops you will sign up with a company that will provide you with a list of all of the mystery shops in your area and you can decide which ones you want to do.  The terms of the shop will be clearly spelled out as well as the payment for doing it.  If you like the terms go forward and if not you don’t have to do it.  When searching for companies you will find there are lots of companies out there that will charge you money to give you access to all the mystery shops.  You should never pay for any of these services because the legitimate companies don’t ask for any money upfront.  I have a couple of links below with companies I have worked with.

For me mystery shopping was fun and simple and I made some extra cash.  I have since gone on to do other things, but every now and then if I feel the need to get a free meal at a restaurant I may put on my mystery shop hat and go to work.

Here are some great links for mystery shopping:

Suite 101
Market Force Information
Intelli-Shop
Mystery Shopping Providers Association

Costco.  Home of the cheap.  Or should I say inexpensive?

You know what I mean.  It’s a good place to snag the occasional super bargain.  When they send out those “Passport to Savings” coupon books, it can be a really good place to save.  Many times, they have a handy coupon in there that will cut a nice big chunk off of a tire purchase.  Even when they aren’t rockin’ the coupon, they usually have pretty good deal on rubber.

But there’s a controversy.  Should you really buy your tires at Costco or not?

Here are a few reasons why you might want to do it…

• If you have one of their coupons, it can be almost like getting a free tire.
• They will rotate your tires for you once every 7,500 miles without charging you.
• They sell tires with a pretty cool lifetime warranty arrangement.
• They als do a lifetime balancing thing for ya.
• The sell name brand products at a competitive price.
• You can have a famous CostCo hotdog while you wait for installation.

That’s a pretty compelling list.  Here are a few of the reasons some people are staying away…

• Installation can take a great deal of time.
• Your average CostCo employee isn’t a genius and may know less about tires than you do.
• They won’t let you make an appointment for rotations, etc.

You can read a lot of customer reactions about CostCo tires right here if you’re still trying to make a decision.

Now, there’s one other bit of weirdness that deserves a mention.  Costco tires don’t come filled with air.

No, they don’t give them to you flat.  They just fill them with nitrogen instead of air.  That’s right, nitrogen.

They say that nitrogen holds up better and that you won’t need to top off the tires as often as you otherwise would.  I’m not a scientist, but that seems a little strange to me.  If I remember right, air is largely comprised of nitrogen in the first place, so I can’t imagine it makes a whole heckuva lot of difference.  Some of these other non-scientists agree with me.  As such, I’m just calling the nitrogen thing a wash.  It isn’t entering into my decision calculus one way or the other.

So, what’s the bottom line?

In my estimation, it’s pretty simple.  If you aren’t worried about waiting around a little bit and the price for your particular tires happens to be considerably lower at CostCo than a local alternative, you might as well buy them there.  If you’re constantly in a hurry and can’t imagine waiting to for a tire rotation or installation, look elsewhere.  Time is money, but not all time is worth the same amount of money.

Personally, if I could save some money and had some other shopping to do while the Costco tires were being installed, I would go for it.

The fact that many of the Costco employees are something less than tire experts doesn’t really bother me.  Tires aren’t that complicated.  Installation isn’t that tough.  The computer diagnostic equipment and tools used in the process would seemingly allow even less-than-Indy-pit-crew talents to slap that rubber on your rims without putting you in jeopardy.

I get the feeling that many (not all, but many) of the people who have reservations about CostCo tires believe that the whole process is a little more complicated than it is and may mistakenly believe that the kid who’s on tire detail at a dedicated auto shop is some sort of Goodyear Guru.

If you like the deal, buy the tires.  That’s the way I see it.  Unless you show up and the line is three miles long, it seems reasonable to me.