Stocking Up On Household Goods For FREE
For the past few weeks I’ve been laid up with two different, but related back muscle injuries. Constantly pushing myself, I had a minor strain during a long run. Instead of resting then, I spent the remainder of the weekend moving furniture and continuing to train. So now, I’ll be skipping the Marine Corps race (10k, not the marathon) this weekend and letting the wife run it alone. Things have gotten a lot better though, and we went indoor rock climbing last night, but I just don’t think I can manage the race *and can’t allow a so-so time 
.
During this time, I’ve been using a fair amount of heat pads. In need some of more, I recently stocked up on them along with lots of cold medicine. The best part of all – everything I got was… FOR FREE! These aren’t trial sizes either; we’re talking regularly sold products. Continue reading “Stocking Up On Household Goods For FREE” »
How You Treat Your Goods Could Reflect How You Manage Money
Disposable. It’s a word used far too often in describing items we view as single-use and easily replaceable, like disposable utensils or razors.
Reduction in material quality, craftsmanship, and of course, labor rates has super-charged almost all durable goods – making them readily available and extremely affordable. As a result, we’ve grown out of the smaller disposable items like diapers and napkins into larger products like toasters and microwaves.
Hard to believe for $10 you can buy a toaster. For that small cost, it’s not “worth” the time to fix a broken one and instead we default to buying new, allowing the product to become disposable. Once that happens it’s near impossible to realize the product’s full potential. We’re constantly replacing the item before we squeeze out all of its usefulness. Continue reading “How You Treat Your Goods Could Reflect How You Manage Money” »
30 Ways to Wreck Your Career
Originally a slide show on BusinessWeek, I’ve had these fatal career mistakes saved on my computer for a while. Already having sent it to a few people there was something about this particular list that caught my attention, and knew they needed to be shared.
It may have been some of the truly entertaining photos,or the fact that I’ve been guilty of close to 50% of these at some point.
Although… I’d be surprised if there’s someone out there who hasn’t committed any of these no-no’s!
I’ve left the original number as they appeared in the slide show, but reorganized them by severity.
Continue reading “30 Ways to Wreck Your Career” »
Yakezie Round-up: Engineers Edition
Should have figured this earlier on, but we’re experiencing a growing number of engineers coming out of the closet – as personal finance bloggers! Maybe its that natural disposition to analysis or that notorious reputation for penny-pinching, but whatever it is, I’m glad our numbers our growing. After reading Joe’s bio, it inspired me to compile a list of the best posts written by my fellow engineers.
Here’s the highlights for your reading pleasure:
Thousandaire
Kevin and I are only celebrating our 1-week anniversary, but I’ve got to give him top spot. Right from the get-go, his unique sense of humor had me. If you want an example, check out the comical spoof music video he made! OR just leave a comment on any of his posts and receive a hilarious message.
ENGR PHRASES: N/A
Retire by 40
Another new kid on the block, Joe appears to be another engineer. Checking out a few different articles, I couldn’t resist including his September 2010 credit card bill review. Reason? He added an equation at the bottom of the post!
ENGR PHRASES: analyze, compliance
Coping as a Live-In LandLord
My name is Mike Choi and I look nothing like this photo, but I do run a little blog over at rentingoutrooms.com, which is my story of renting out my individual rooms to roommates. The idea is if you own your home, you can rent out an individual room in exchange for rent. This whole idea started when I decided to go back to graduate school, but I didn’t want to take on additional student loan debt to what I already accrued from my undergraduate studies. Today, I’m here to share my story of work involved making money from your extra bedroom.
Being a “live-in landlord”
I call myself a live-in landlord because a traditional landlord is someone who owns a piece of property and rent it out to tenants. However, my case is slightly different – I live in my residence and rent out the individual rooms to roommates. So that’s why I call myself a live in landlord, which is like a separate sub species of landlords.
6 Ways To Save On Electricity Bills
Saving money is on the top of everyone’s minds these days. Between job losses, benefit losses, and the rising cost of just about everything it is easy to see why many people are seeking out new ways to save money. One of the first places that you should look for savings is in your own home and your electricity spending. Most people can cut their electric bill significantly by making small changes that cost nothing or very little. If you have some money to spend there are a few big changes you can make that will cut costs and earn your money back for you in short order.
- Unplug things you do not use – Every item that is plugged into an outlet is drawing power, even if it is switched off. Go through your home and unplug everything that is non-essential. Lamps, clocks, televisions, coffee pots, and toasters should all be unplugged when they are not actually being used. You will be shocked to see how many of those items never get plugged in or only get plugged in on rare occasions.
- Continue reading “6 Ways To Save On Electricity Bills” »
