Well, Phillips is running some incredible deals on their LCD HDTV’s. My personal “Buy” trigger was a 42″ 1080P TV for < $800.

Well, I just placed an order for a 42″ Magnavox 1080P HDTV and it came to just under $540 shipped to my door! WOOHOO!

—Zach

Woohoo! Canonical just released Ubuntu 8.04! Ubuntu is one of the most incredible free pieces of software that I have ever encountered.

Ubuntu is basically a free alternative to Microsoft Windows. While it doesn’t allow you to run Microsoft Office, it does include OpenOffice.org. A completely free, robust alternative to Microsoft Office. It even comes with a great instant messaging client - pidgin and a web browser that is much more secure than Internet Explorer - Firefox.

For a huge portion of individuals, Ubuntu will do everything you need your computer to do out of the box. For everyone else, you may have to do a bit of work, but you’ll be glad you did. :).

If you want to try it without messing your computer up, check out wubi. It lets you install Ubuntu while leaving windows completely intact, and is incredibly easy to do. Then next time you buy a computer avoid paying the Microsoft Tax and buy a cheap laptop or desktop from Dell with Ubuntu pre installed.

—Zach

Well, I am now withdrawing my bonus for signing up with Revolution Money Exchange. Total funds: $75. Not as high as some people I know, but still a nice chunk of change. I’ll be dropping this into my new house fund…

—Zach

As I talk with some of my friends, I discover more and more of them don’t have any idea what kind of retirement accounts are out there, or what kind of benefits these retirement accounts give. Some have heard of IRAs, some have heard of 401(k)’s and still more have decided to utilize their sock drawer as means of storing their wealth. Read the rest of this entry »

—Zach

Well, I ran across a blog post from Mr. debtbeater about a new money transfer service called “Revolution Money Exchange.”

It seems interesting, after a bit more reading it turns out that their running the business as a loss leader for their RevolutionCard, a visa/mastercard alternative. Basically they think that if people use their service for money transfer, they’ll be more apt to use their Credit Card, and the more people use their credit card, the more $$$ they make.

Basically I’m signing up, connecting it to my bank account, and transferring the $25 signing bonus to my personal bank account. Free $25 ;). If other people start using this, then I may actually use it to send/receive money. As it stands now it’s a free $25.

If you want to sign up, follow my referral link which gives you a free $25, and me a free $10.

—Zach

One of debtbeater’s articles referenced snowflaking and provided some pretty good analogies about what snowflaking is and how it works. I’d like to give some more specific examples in regards to the question of building wealth.

Building wealth isn’t about striking it rich. It’s about making small, conscious decisions to either A) spend less or B) save more or C) both. It doesn’t matter if you’re spending $5 less per month, or saving $5 more per month. It matters that you’re doing something. Have the expanded cable package so you can watch some show? Why not see if you can find the shows episodes online at the networks website, or through joost. Cancel the added package that’s “Just $5 a month!” and put that $5 into debt reduction or savings accounts.

One of the hugest advantages of snowflaking is it generally involves a lifestyle change. Winning the lottery will not necessarily leave you rich, when you’re used to spending all the money you make. However if you make a commitment to decreasing spending and increasing savings you’ll slowly but surely come out of any hole of debt you’ve dug yourself into. On the other hand, if you’re already debt free you’ll be able to improve your net worth drastically.

—Zach

To me, one of the most important methods for controlling any aspect of my life, be it spending, wasting time, overeating, etc. is to track it. For spending I have a few little tricks I use to make sure I can keep track of my spending.

1. Have an “In” portion to your wallet. My wallet has a divider in the middle. I put all my receipts and money people give me in one side of the divider, and the other side has all my cash.
2. Clear your wallet daily/weekly. Every Saturday I take all the receipts and cash in the “in” portion of my wallet, and enter it into a spreadsheet. This lets me categorize things while they are still fresh in my mind.
3. Don’t use cash. Admittedly, some people spend more when they don’t use cash, but for those of you who follow rule two strictly using a credit card unlocks excellent tracking potential.
4. Use online accounts. This way you can see the things you forget to get a receipt for. They also let you see when transactions clear your checking account, and allow you to balance your books weekly as opposed to every month when you get a statement.
5. Balance your books weekly. Simply put, if you balance your books weekly, you’re going to have a far easier time of knowing where your money goes. If you know where your money is going, then you know how to control it better. I generally wake up Saturday mornings, grab some yogurt, start a load of laundry, and balance my books in the time it takes the washing machine to finish.

Of course all the tracking in the world won’t effect change in spending in and of itself, but it is an incredibly powerful motivator when you see that you spend $100 in the last two weeks on eating out (not unfeasible). It also helps you evaluate when you go to swipe your card whether you can actually afford buying that new toy, or if you really should order pizza tonight or have a sandwich instead.

—Zach

In a previous post I mentioned how to make dough simply by using credit cards for your regular spending habits. I came under a little bit of flack in a comment on fivecentnickel. So I figured I’d clarify since my original post missed some important points.

This isn’t about taking on debt to build wealth. This is about leveraging a payment method with some additional benefits. Credit cards offer excellent buyer protection from identity theft, rewards points (in my case 1-3% cash back, with a $50 bonus for getting $200 cash back), and are accepted nearly everywhere.

However, these benefits are immediately negated the instant you don’t make the full payment. As such, I do not view this as taking on debt. If you pay the minimum payment you are, for lack of better terminology, screwed. 20% interest is bad.

Now, 1% cash back isn’t a ton, but we’ll use this as a baseline. Calculating out all my regular expenses, such as heating bills, cell phone bills, groceries, eating out, etc. I spend in excess of $20K per year. If I charge them to my credit card, I wind up with an extra $250 in cash every year. If I write a check, or use cash, I wind up spending the same amount, but get no money back. Plus, it is significantly harder for me to keep track of my cash spending vs. my credit/check spending.

Now, for people who would have a hard time paying off their credit card, or who would tend to overspend with their credit cards, then I would suggest not doing this… But for people who are fiscally responsible, it’s a nice little extra cash infusion you can get every year without doing anything extra.

—Zach

So I woke up Wednesday morning. Life was pretty good. Then on my way to work I got a call from Chase, informing me that they needed to talk to me about some unusual transactions on my Freedom Card. They then asked me to press any key on my phone to continue. As I viciously dug about in my coat pocket attempting to find my phone the call hung up because I spent to long. No biggie.

Not giving any personal information on a call you do not initiate is a wise policy. So I called them back when I got to work, and discovered that, yes, some people in California used my credit card to pay for their gas at a 7-11. They then tried to get a $20 cash advance at an ATM. They asked if I recognized these transactions, and I said “no.”

They stated they have already frozen my card, and are reissuing a new one, transfering my balance to the new card, and sending it in the mail.

The flags that triggered it was probably the fact that They used my CC in California. Something I’ve never done before. I live in Michigan, 2/3rds of a continent away. A pointer to people stealing my identity, stay local! I’m far to lame to go some place cool, like California.

All in all a surprisingly painless experience. Just checked my Chase Online account, and the new card shows up already there. All rewards and transactions carried over just fine, and the invalid transactions do not. Pretty good experience, IMHO. It feels good to know that Chase has my back.  The only question that remains is “how many false positives they get?”

—Zach

A couple people found my post on a 0% interest no-fee Citi Balance Transfer Card useful, so I’d like to follow up to make sure they get the most they can out of this incredible offer.

As I’m sure you most are aware, if you don’t pay off the 0% interest balance transfer cards by the time the 0% period expires, you will be charged the interest you were not charged during that 0% period. What does this mean?

It means if you have 0% loans, PAY THEM OFF within the 0% period. How do you do that? I mean, if you have $10K in debt and you’re paying it off @ $500 a month, that’s only $6K in a year. The easy way to do this is to get a second balance transfer card a month or two before the debt becomes due. This way you can do a second balance transfer for $4K without having to worry about it being in time.

Now, how do you remember what those magic dates are? I would suggest a service like Sandy. I mentioned her earlier. Basically send an email that looks like this “Remind me January 1st 2009 to get a balance transfer card to transfer my 0% balances to.” and on January 1st, Sandy will send you an email reminding you to get a balance transfer card to transfer your 0% balances to. I would suggest including links to prospective cards, or maybe links to places which have good 0% balance transfer cards, such as this fivecentnickel post. Then in 12 months when you’ve got your $10K balance down to $4K, you can simply browse the best 0% balance transfer cards out there, pick one, and apply with a month or two to spare. That way there’s no huge urgent rush that will increase your stress levels and offset all the hard work you did paying that 0% balance down :).

—Zach