Fishing, Family Fun and Money Saving Also!

Fish R Man said…

Wow have you priced fish lately? Either it looks like it’s been in there a while and really smells strong, or the price is way up there.

Now I know this isn’t for everybody, but fishing can not only be a nice family get together, or a bonding moment between a parent and child, but for a great meal, you can look up the stats on fish taken from your local waters in the guide you get with your license to see if what you caught is in there and the amount that’s recommended to consume.

Bring them home and clean them or stop at a bait store and see if they will do it . Some will for a small fee. When you get home either cook them up for a tasty meal or freeze them to cook later.

This is a great resource, use it. Nothing says a Sport’s Fisherman can’t bring home a good meal every now and then. Visit the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council on-line, great-lakes.org for a great fishing site with a ton of good information for all surrounding states.

Good Luck and Save a Buck! Now please pass me some of that perch, would you!

Pawn Shops Give You Quick Cash.

I wouldn’t pawn anything that I want to keep, but if you have some extra junk you can get rid of then check this out.

Try out your local pawn shops for items that you are looking to Pawn or Purchase. They usually have a ton of things and at good prices. You can really get some good deals.

Look up the numbers of a few local ones and call to check for items or stop in often. If you have your mind on something specific, I would even recommend calling a few that are farther away from you. That’s how good the deals can get sometimes! When times are tough they have quite a selection of items.

Also if you need some fast cash, than this is the place you can get it. ******Just remember you have to follow their rules exactly to the letter, if you pawn something and you plan on getting it back later.

So before you pawn something make darn sure you understand all of their policies and you don’t mind if you loose the item.******** Otherwise you might be pawning your item away forever, and someone might just get a good deal on your things!!!

Magic Jack Saves You Money.

unknown said…
I am getting ready to try the “Magic Jack” and drop my regular phone service which is through the cable company. The Magic Jack plugs into your PC and your phone plugs into the Magic Jack.

The first time you hook it up, you will be provided with a phone number that is permanently attached to the Magic Jack which you can take everywhere with you and use on any laptop or PC with Internet service.

Yearly cost for phone service with Magic Jack is less than $20. The only draw-back is that if your computer is down, so is your phone. BUT, remember that you can take the Magic Jack and your phone with you to a working PC at a friends house or even the local library. The phone call will not cost your friend even a penny.

The Magic Jack does have a few international calling limitations though; so if you frequently need to place international calls you’ll have to double check Magic Jacks calling limitations before getting rid of your home phone.

I am sure that there may be other things that might be objectionable, like having to leave your computer on 24/7 to get phone calls. Overall though it doesn’t sound like to bad a deal, even if you keep your phone service you have now. Click the link for more info on the MagicJack.com

Make a Buck by Selling That Junk.

Have a Yard-sale to get a little extra income for the year.

Clean out the garage or attic. Summer is the perfect time to gather up things for a garage sale. Get rid of that stuff that has been hanging around forever.

Have a buddy or another family get into this idea with you and have it together, not only will you make money but you’ll have fun.

** hint**  We did a yard sale a few years ago and nothing seemed to be going, so I took a candy dish/fish bowl and put a couple of goldfish in it and next thing we knew someone came in, bought a TV and the goldfish! It was history from there.

Make sure to check with your city hall about necessary permits and maybe they have a “free yard sale weekend” also.

So pull out that dusty tennis racket or those old kid skates and make a buck.

Bankruptnooption.

Save by Cutting out the Unnecessary Things.

Cut out all the really unnecessary items that you do not need to live or eat, like cigarettes and pop for example.

By eliminating those items we can save a lot of money over a years time. To help you do this you can switch to cheaper store brands or something else like kool-aid or lemon-aid with just a little sugar until you break your need for the item.

Smokers can switch to the cheapest brands while trying to quit. You can even switch to pipe tobacco and roll your own which is more of a savings.

Bankruptnooption.

bornbakwrd said…

I stopped buying soda (Pepsi) and started brewing iced tea at home. I get about 30 quarts of iced tea for about $4 (including the cost of sugar) as opposed to the $1.25 (or more) that I used to pay per 2 liter bottle of Pepsi. From time to time I will pick up a 2 liter of soda, but not very often, and I’ve saved nearly $60 per month….and that’s just on beverages.

Save a Penny!

You all remember the penny jars that used to sit on the shelves and in the bedrooms in most homes in America don’t you?

I will simply say that it is time for us to go back to that old fashion routine of throwing our spare change in a jar or some kind of a container to try to save a buck.

It’s sort of paying yourself at the end of each day and it can really add up over a period of time.

Place your spare change at the end of the day into a container and do this every day, then count it at the end of the month or year. You might have enough to pay for Christmas presents for the grandkids like my father in law does.

Or here is what one man did. He built a huge nightstand that was about 3 feet square and placed it next to his bed in the corner. The stand consisted of four sides and a top and bottom that were all securely attached. In the middle of the top he cut a slot for coins and he kept his night light on top of the slot on a decorative plate. He said he would throw his spare change in the plate and then put it in the nightstand when he had time. He did this over his thirty years of work. When he retired, he cashed in all the coins and bought his first new vehicle that he could ever afford. He also said that he always had the coins to think about as a security blanket in case something drastic was to happen that he couldn’t afford.

Now you can argue that if he had invested right or banked the money he could have been much much richer. His thought on that was if the money was in the bank he would have spent it. So being scared to bank or invest and being poor at saving money, he did the next best thing by saving the way he did and pretending he didn’t have the money at all.

Anyone got some wood and a saw or an old jar I could borrow?

Bankruptnooption.

Drop the Satellite or Cable and Save.

I know we all like to watch TV and we have to keep up with the Jones’s on a lot of things, but dropping these and changing to regular Over the Air Digital TV, will save you bucks.

Drop the cable or satellite bill if your contract allows but be careful of early termination fees, most of these can cost you up to hundreds of dollars to quit the contract if you aren’t near the end. This also applies to your cell phone contracts as well.

Just add up your bills for a year and see what you would have saved. It’s enough for a good set of tires or would have fixed that problem with the car. Another thing is that the next time someone asks to borrow some money, just tell them that you wish you could but you can’t even afford cable and that will shut them up instantly because most everyone has it.

With the new digital TV signals you get pictures as clear as cable and there are some more channels added in because the new TV signals take up less space to transmit. Now we have a 24 hour movie channel, a 24 hour cartoon channel, a 24 hour home and travel channel, a 24 hour retro TV channel, and a 24 hour weather channel, plus all the channels we had before and all just by adding a converter box to the old set.

Try it You may like it!

Bankruptnooption.

Watch your lottery tickets!

More and more people have heard of this and if it’s true you better watch out.

What’s happening is a scam by the sales clerks who are handed a lottery ticket and then asked to check to see if it is a winner.

What is going around, is that the clerk checks the ticket and throws it in the garbage while telling you it was not a winner, when in fact it actually is a winner. Then after you leave they turn it in and collect your winnings.

Do not do this. Simply ask for a printout of the winning numbers for that day, then take them home and see if you won. If you are unable to do this for yourself, then only have a close trusted friend or family member check or buy your tickets for you.

Remember you can get the winning numbers in all these places so you can check them for yourself if you are able.

1. The TV. News. Usually that night or the next morning.
2. The Newspapers. Usually the next day.
3. The News Radio stations. Usually that night or the next day, once an hour.
4. The Internet Lottery sites. Couple hours after a draw time, most have archives.
5. Printed out from any lottery retailer. From the draw time, with archives.
6. Your close friend or family members can get them for you.

So have fun and good luck . If you hit, I will ride shotgun when you go to collect.

Bankruptnooption.

The throat sighs!

Remember, Smoking not only is an extra expense that if set aside would buy you many necessary things while being laid off, but in the long run, it can cause you all kinds of complications that can shorten your life.

Quitting smoking takes a solid conclusion made by you to do just what you decided to do. Not some over night thought like a New Years Resolution.

My decision has been made from a friends diagnosis of throat cancer. Thinking about it seriously, anyone who knows someone that has physical complications or lost someone from smoking, has good solid knowledge that will back their own decision to quit.

Willpower will become a big part of whether or not you succeed on your task. To overcome that factor during your weak moments, just take a tally on how well you have been doing, then with pride in yourself and a glow on your face, simply vow at that moment to start another attempt again before you give in. Then get yourself away from the temptation.

That’s the key to overcoming a lack of willpower. Give yourself the opportunity of starting over again while looking back at your success up to that point, before you fail. You will choose not to fail if you are truly proud and actually determined. Before you know it you will have won the battle and temptation will no longer be a factor. You will have succeeded.

So good luck if that’s what you choose to do, before,  The throat sighs!

Bankruptnooption.

Hey — Turn Off the Lights, Would You.

We all could jump on the band wagon and do our part to Go Green and save some energy for the future. It isn’t really hard to do and it does keep more money in your bank account to use towards other things.

The problem is that most of us just can’t mention more than a couple of things to do to get us on the right path. There is a wealth of information out there about Going Green and saving energy that we can all use.

But for now, before you start your crusade to make your household completely Green, lets try to change our habits first. What do habits have to do with Going Green? A lot!

We are creatures of habit and we get into routines in every aspect of our lives. Routines that either work well and that’s why we have the habit of doing them, or not so well but we still have that habit of doing them also.

The key to Going Green successfully is to change the wasteful habits that we continue doing, even though we know they are costing us money and wasting energy at the same time.

Do you have the habit of getting paid on Friday and then going to the car wash to get your vehicle ready for the weekend? Well lets say that you start to change that habit and wash your vehicle at home on Saturday morning while listening to some good tunes on the radio. That doesn’t sound to awful bad and besides getting the extra exercise and the fresh air, you are beginning to changed that old habit from an expensive energy hog, into something that will end up putting money back in your pocket at the end of the year.

That’s what we all need to do to get going Green. I have seen two TV sets going at the same time in different rooms with the lights on and no one was watching either set!

We all have to get in the mind set of saving energy and making sure that we turn something off after we are done using it, because that is a great and easy way to start Going Green. This not only gets the ball rolling but it gets you thinking of more ways to save energy and then there is no stopping you.

Don’t worry, you wont become someone with a compulsive behavior disorder, you will just become a conscious American concerned about the waste of energy in your home and you will become wealthier on account of it.

Go work for someone who owns a small business that gives them the right to say they are a millionaire. Not to big but bigger than small. Spend a week following around the owner and you will find that they are very concerned with energy usage in their business. You will even see them telling different personnel to turn off unnecessary lights or close doors that are propped open because they know that a major part of their operating cost is for energy, and those types of little things waste a whole lot of energy over time.

So getting on the band wagon isn’t to bad after all. All we have to do is break our bad habits that involve energy usage and develop different routines that are more energy saving. That’s just a complicated way of saying we have to remember to turn off the lights when we don’t need them, that it, simple hey!

Now get out there and Go Green. It’s simple and a money saver and you can’t beat that! So go to bed now and sleep on it.

Bankruptnooption.

Hey— You forgot to turn off your computer.              Good Night.

Save by Sharing a Food Club Card.

Ever heard of food clubs? Well they are out there and in full force, bringing you some good deals on food and household items with pricing and bulk packaging.

Yes we all know about these food clubs and if you shop wisely you can get some great deals. The bad part about it is that you have to pay for a membership card to shop there.

So how do we save money here, you might ask? Split the cost of membership with someone else that you could go shopping with. Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, Aunt, Uncle, Friend, Neighbor, just pick someone that you would like to shop with occasionally and split the cost of the card.

When you sign up, put the card in the name of the person who would use it more. Who has more money, who has the bigger family, who just goes out shopping more, decide from those factors who’s name should be on the card.

Now whenever you talk or see each other you can set up shopping dates or even make out a schedule. The choice is up to you. So go and sign up with someone and have some fun and savings while shopping.

Just a word, most of those clubs sell many things in bulk containers or packages, so plan on doing a little splitting of the goods with the other person to get the amounts that you each can use. But you will have paid bulk price for all that stuff and that’s a bargain.

Now does anyone want to buy 1/2 a case of Hot sauce, because I think I will have enough for a few meals.

Bankruptnooption.

How do you like the Over the Air Digital TV?

You know, the kind that you get with an antenna and I’m not talking satellite either. I mean rabbit ears or the old rooftop or tower antenna.

Have you had any problems or complaints about it? Trouble hooking things up? Well overall it really isn’t to bad. The pictures are better, and many stations now have more channels which offer more programing options than before.

The main problem that I’m hearing is that some people have channels that they can’t get anymore. There could be several reasons for the trouble. Here they are.

1.   Your station simply decided not to go digital. Find their number and give them a call, or ask a neighbor who uses an antenna also, they might know.

2.   Your antenna might not be pointed in the correct direction. Try moving it a little at a time and rescan your box every time you do. You may get lucky and find it again.

3.   You may need a bigger or higher antenna for that station now. You could live on the edge of their broadcast area and have a weak signal. A bigger or higher antenna may help. Check The Shack or a TV store for more antenna help.

4.   Try a little trick. Simply move the antenna to different locations in the room if possible. You could be in a dead spot and when you move it you could get it to come in. Remember to rescan you box every time you move the antenna or TV.

5.   Try this, set your antenna on top of something that won’t burn to simply raise it up. Get it up as close to the ceiling as possible. Then try moving the direction. Remember to rescan each time. My neighbors son couldn’t get the new cartoon channel on his TV, it was only coming in in their living room. So I told him to put a milk crate on top of his TV and set the antenna up on that. After he did and rescanned he now gets more channels on his set than they do in their living room.

Two tips.  1.   If you get a pass through converter box, you could possibly receive more channels, depending on where you live. Canada and other countries still broadcast analog signals and you may pick up a channel or two.   2.   You can get antenna amplifiers that you can connect to your antenna, from Radio shack and TV stores. They may help pull in that elusive station.

Visit Antenna Web.org and follow their instructions. Just by entering your zip code and centering your location on their map, it will suggest the proper antenna and the stations you can expect to receive for your location! Try it, it works pretty well. Remember that some of the stations shown will have others that you may receive also!

I hope this helped to make your viewing better, so for now, pass me the popcorn because channel 4.2 is a new 24-7 retro movie channel in my area and “White Lightning” is coming on again.

Bankruptnooption.

If you need help with anything digital just click on Q/A’s up top and ask.

Remember, If you are buying a new TV, Recycle the old one to help save the planet from more pollution.

Or you can collect them like this guy in Germany did.

Cash for clunkers could have done good for more people.

We all saw everyone who was thinking of purchasing a car, run down and trade their clunkers on a new one. Most of the buyers have money or they wouldn’t have been down there.

Also most of them had cars that were actually in pretty decent condition that they traded in. So what am I getting at? Once again the government failed to take a good plan and push it from just good to great!

What they needed was a part two to the plan. Because the cars that were traded in were just scrapped anyway. So what could have been part two?

Part two would have taken anyone on welfare, unemployment, or anyone who’s car was blue-booked at less than 2 thousand and had them bring in their oil burning rags. You know the ones that you see blowing a cloud of dark smoke, that are rusting apart and barely chugging along as they roll down the road. The real cars that should have hit the junk yards years ago but due to financial circumstances the owner had no choice but to keep it on the road.

Why bring them in you say! So they could hand over the keys to their junk and get the keys to one of the traded in cars that was in much better condition than what they were driving.

By doing this they would have still had a car to scrap for every trade in and they would have gotten the cars off the road that really needed to be scrapped. Not to mention helping out a bunch of needy people and at the same time making our roads safer and the country greener for everyone.

Now when ever we see an old rusted out oil burning rag going down the road, next to a new gas saver, we can’t help but wonder how good the car was that they traded in to get the clunker deal and just how actually wasteful the mentality of our elected officials in Washington really is.

They could have gone the extra mile and the benefits would have been much greater for everybody. They could have really gotten rid of the cars that should be taken off the roads of America, not the moderately, but still usable vehicles that they scrapped.

America will never go truly green without helping some people do it. Some people just can’t afford it and by passing this opportunity to really make the deal green, by also helping the ones who can’t afford to get a brand new car, they showed how much they really care about every class of citizen and how much they really care about getting green any quicker.

Bankruptnooption.

Gas and Electric Companies Charging for Nothing.

DTE Energy recently sent someone a gas bill for a house that they are in the middle of fixing up. The homeowner stated that the first month, all they have done is have the gas turned on and the meter read. Paying the first bill which was a turn on charge. Funny thing is while the gas guy was there, he told the homeowner that the gas had never been shut off to the home and was already on, but the homeowner was still billed a turn on fee.

When the homeowner called DTE to complain, they were told the charge was relevant whether or not it was already on, just because someone came out.

Then they called out a furnace company to test the furnace and the test was so quick the meter didn’t move a full digit. Now here comes the fun part. They receive their second monthly bill in the mail for almost $10.00 dollars and there has been no gas usage. All the gas appliances are still shut off during the repairs.

The start and end readings on both bills and the meter are still exactly the same as the initial read, showing no usage at all. The ten bucks is all for administrative fees and special charges for having gas service to the home or just for having the account.

What a crying ripoff that is. The bite about it is that more and more companies are doing it. The only reason they get away with it, is that the fees mostly go unnoticed because we usually use some of the product during the month. So the extra charges just blend in. If we do notice them then all we do is complain about them to ourselves, and then pay it anyway because we need it.

I fully understand the need for administrative and service charges to pay for processing of payments and upkeep of the actual systems, but to charge someone those fees when they had no product usage for the month I feel is nothing but a pure ripoff.

If you have an account for something that you purchase one unit at a time according to your usage and you didn’t use it for a month, than there shouldn’t even be a bill sent out for that month.

But they send out a bill anyway showing you there is no charge $00.00 because you didn’t use the product. Then they add on service fees for using their lines and pipes, plus administrative billing charges for sending a bill out for no usage charges and now you have to pay $10.00 bucks for not using anything.

This kind of unjust billing must be stopped before all the companies charge you a flat monthly fee added on to your bills whether you used their products or services for the month or not.

The next time you receive your bill take a look at all of the charges above what they say you owe for the product or service for the month. Then use a calculator and add up all the other charges and then divide that total by your actual usage charge. This gives you in percentage, how much of the bill you are paying for other charges. It’s becoming outrageous. Especially if you are using less to try to save money.

It’s a pure ripoff and the companies and the government both know it. But it won’t change any time soon unless we start to complain to the companies and to our elected officials about it.

Like anything else that is sold and measured in some manner. Any extra fees and taxes should be tacked onto each unit of the product that is sold. With nothing being owed if you didn’t buy any!

P.S. The homeowners electric bill charged them almost three bucks for having interrupt-able service for the air-conditioner. The air-conditioner doesn’t work! OH COME ON! THIS HAS TO STOP!

Bankruptnooption.

CONDRON.US

http://www.condron.us/

To find a bunch of Great blogs on all sorts of topics imaginable check out the link above.

Condron.us is a register of hundreds of thousands of blogs. It is not only fascinating to flip through them, but it’s also a spot to find some you like.

So check em out.

Bankruptnooption.

Petticoat Junction.

Who Remembers Petticoat Junction?

I needed a dose of Petticoat Junction. That theme song used to just take you to a place where life was daily and a summer day was spent fishing or sipping cold lemonade while sitting in a comfortable chair on the old wood front porch of the slow moving Shady Rest Hotel.

If you have never seen the show than you should try to find it on the web. It was funny and laid back and it succeeded in taking your mind off of things for a while.

I just wish there were more shows along that line nowadays, because life tends to get to fast for everyone every now and then, and just like a good vacation everyone needs a good break every once in a while.

Bankruptnooption.

Free Scale Sized Train Rides.

The Great Lakes Steamers in South Eastern Michigan put on free steam train rides for kids and adults. They ask for a few buck donation to upkeep the tracks and the trains they run.

They run the trains at two local parks once a month. I have personally rode the trains around the parks quite a number of times and each and every time I do it’s a blast, and the kids love the rides. You ride right along with them

Like I say these guys do this as a hobby and all they ask is a little donation.

I give them five bucks and the whole family rides for four hours.

Bring a picnic lunch, and some pops, and you will be there for hours.

For Information on days and times visit their site at Great Lakes Live  Steamers.

Bankruptnooption.

Get the better backpack and save.

It will save you money in the long run, if you get your child a better book- bag in the beginning.

All the stores sell those cheep plastic ones with the plastic zippers that only last for maybe a year and that’s all, so don’t buy one of those no matter what cute funny character is printed on it. Doing so will cause you to shell out almost 20 bucks a year every single year.

What you want to do is to go to your local sports outfitter. Most of these stores have back packs that start in the forties and go up from there. There is one major difference between the two book-bags though. The ones that you pay forty on up for will last through many grades with your child and not only have more pockets and features, but will continue working because of the better craftsmanship and materials they are made of.

Now, if your child must have some cartoon characters on it, just go to your local craft and fabric store and get some iron on pictures of their favorites. By doing this they will be happy with the decorations and they will be able to tell which bag is theirs a whole lot easier. You can even get fancy and put on some stones, stars or other decorations they use on blue jeans. Your imagination is the limit here.

Have Fun and Be Creative. Remember – Let the Kids Help Too!

Bankruptnooption.

Kids are tough on book-bags and buying a good one is a way to prevent having to buy a new one each and every year.

Here are some important backpack tips.

Save on School Supplies.

Save money on school supplies, simply wait for the teacher to give the students a list. Most of them do, at least for the younger grades and most of the older kids will be able to tell you after just a couple of days, what they need for their classes.

Sure you can jump in on all of the before school sales but don’t buy to much. Overbuying just wastes you money in the long run. The goal is to only buy through out the year just what they need and nothing more.

Sure you could stock up on all of the common items they need every year and get enough for a few years, but then you have to store them all somewhere in your home.

So unless you have some spare money now, for supplies or the sale is to good to be true, just wait and get what they need when they let you know.

By the way, You got a Pencil I could Borrow?

Bankruptnooption.

Sitcom Themes and Content are a Bad Influence on Kids. Hollywood to Blame.

Things sure are different now days when it comes to kids shows, especially sitcoms that are directed towards younger viewers. The shows use to be more laid back and with more general topics and Theme Songs were more about the characters themselves.

Today the songs that introduce the shows are a little more descriptive about problems and the attitudes of the characters. The best example I can give is Malcolm in the Middle. The shows intro sings “you ain’t the boss of me now, you ain’t the boss of me now”.

The problem I have with lyrics like these is that it is boosting younger children into being more rebellious than they would normally be at their age.

These songs and shows are taking a lot of what normally would be good kids and pushing them into the next stage of life a little sooner than they should be. The kids are missing the good messages and absorbing all the bad things in the show.

These shows are pushing the kids faster than they can handle and something has to be done to restore shows for kids to a more general family level.

Parents are responsible for everything their kids watch, but Hollywood could be a little more responsible when producing these shows, which would help the parents and society in general. Hollywood needs to be more aware of what they produce because they are influencing many audiences in ways that are not only hurting that audience, but are hurting society in the long run.

They have the power to influence people in both good and bad ways and they need to work more on the good, because they spend to much time on the bad.

More shows need to change their writing so a wider and younger audience can all sit together and feel comfortable watching, like they used to do.

Bankruptnooption.