Gift Card Arbitrage: New Way to Save More
Skimming through Jan-Feb issue of Money, one snippet caught my attention:
“Swap that Gift Card for Cash”.
The write-up focused on two sites – PlasticJungle and GiftCardRescue. Both are services for offloading unwanted gift cards. While the article seemed only to consider the selling opportunities I was amazed they didn’t bring up the BUYING potential of these sites. Sure gift cards are limited to specific stores, but these cards are being sold for less than what’s on them – that’s an immediate discount!
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Personal Finance Things to do Before You’re 30
Turning 30 can be a scary, confronting and sometimes even depressing time for many people, as they realise that the carefree days of their 20s are behind them, and ahead lies responsibility and a lot of hard work. It can also be a confronting realisation to suddenly find yourself ‘old’ and this feeling can be compounded when you realise you haven’t achieved all the things you wanted to do before you did get old.
Therefore, to help make sure your 30th birthday is a time for celebration of your achievements, you need to start thinking about your personal finances before you’re 30 years old. In taking control of your finances and putting plans in place for your future, you can be more successful that you could have imaged by the time you’re 30.
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You Need A Budget Software – First Glance
Hearing the name floated around a few other personal finance blogs and having it personally recommended to me, decided it was time to try You Need A Budget.
As a Quicken user, I’m comfortable with the program’s functions and a little reluctant to switch to something new. Recently I’ve become more frustrated with the program’s budgeting capabilities, and considering the strong recommendation came from another Quicken user, I decided it was worth a try.
There are Four Pillars which You Need A Budget is based on.
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Give Every Dollar a Job
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Save For a Rainy Day
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Roll with the Punches
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Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck Continue reading “You Need A Budget Software – First Glance” »
Protect Your Purchases: Free Inventory Software
After our wedding, one of the financial to-do’s* was consolidate insurance. When the agent asked me if I could ballpark the replacement cost of everything we were insuring I jokingly responded – somewhere between $100 and $100,000 should cover it.
Unless you live in a hurricane zone or have a taste for the exquisite, property insurance doesn’t regularly cross our minds. Once you own a home it becomes more of a consideration, but people still fall short in estimating the true value of what they actually own.
Starting out, we have very little, and often discount those items. Seems silly to insure our used futon doesn’t it? Maybe this ties into the disposal mindset we treat our possessions with, but I think it has a lot more to do with lack of documentation.
There’s tons of suggestions for tracking our property from maintaining binders of original receipts to making video documentaries of your residence, but I’ve absolutely fallen in love with this FREE software solution – What Your Own Home Inventory.
From the program itself…
This software will enable you to create a room-by-room inventory of your home. Having an up-to-date home inventory will help you to:
- Purchase enough insurance to replace the things you own
- Settle insurance claims faster
- Substantiate losses for your income tax return
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