Scott On Money

Buying in bulk is a great way to save big bucks. I tend to purchase a lot of household supplies like paper towels and toilet paper in bulk. I save about 30 cents a roll on paper towels and a dime to a quarter on the toilette paper.

I also buy dish soap, dishwasher soap and hand soap in bulk along with printer paper, sponges and frozen foods.

You’ll notice there is not a lot of food on this list. I don’t cook enough to justify buying most foods in bulk. I have a hard enough time using up all my super market consumables like bread before they go bad.

Be careful with foods. Take into consideration how long they will last and how quickly you might get tired of an old favorite.

I once bought a 5 gallon jar of maraschino cherries. It is hard to remember if they went sour on the shelf or in my mind but I only ate about two pounds of the tasty treats before tossing the massive jar.

Go forth and buy in bulk (when it makes sense).

Posted by Scott at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

We frequently hear the advice “You can’t time the market”. The market the advice refers to is the stock market. The idea is that predict the perfect moments to buy and sell stocks is very difficult. But what about other markets? Like the market for bicycles or appliances or cars.

Bankrate.com has an article that goes over many different markets and the best time to be a buyer. You can summarize most of the suggestions as: “buy in the off season”.

Buying in the off season has many advantages beyond price breaks. I have very much enjoyed visits to Boston, Washington D.C., France and Germany during the winter. There was less crowding and better deals all around. Of course you have to deal with the cold and sometimes bad weather.

Even if you find it desirable you may not be able to take advantage of seasonality. If your air conditioning breaks in the summer you might have to deal with it then. If your roof leaks you can’t wait for the summer to fix it.

Read the article and take the time to think ahead to your big purchases over the next 12 months. Taking advantage of seasonality can save you a bundle.

Posted by Scott at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

HSBC is offering 6% on its online savings account for three months ending April 30th. It is great that they are offering this rate. If you haven’t setup your emergency fund in an interest bearing account this is a good opportunity to take advantage of a high rate, at least temporarily.

This doesn’t motivate me to move my money from my Emigrant Direct account. Why? The three months boost isn’t worth the administrative hassle.

It is important to keep your eye out for ways to boost your return and this might be such an opportunity for you.

Posted by Scott at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

I just got another credit card offer mailer. It had a 0% teaser on the outside so I opened it to check out the terms. It had an annual fee of almost a hundred dollars. I tossed it, and so should you.

If you have any credit cards with an annual fee that is just money burned. I have never seen a credit card offer a higher cash back rate or other awards in exchange for these fees. Airline and business cards seem to be the biggest culprits.

So look through your mail, or checkout bankrate.com or creditcards.com and find a better deal. Annual fees stink.

Posted by Scott at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

I had been seeing the little blue checkmark on many websites. Then I saw a comment from on of my readers on it so I decided to check it out. The blue check is a service called Bill Me Later.

Bill Me Later is a credit card alternative for online purchases. It requires you to enter less information with the merchant, just the last four digits of your social security number and your birth date along with your name.

The Advantages
- The system is very easy to sign up for.
- It is very easy to use.
- It is more secure against merchant database security disclosures.

The Disadvantages
- Worse terms than the best credit card offers. The account does not charge interest during the grace period but there are no rewards and the interest rate is 17.99%.
- No pre-approved credit limit. Every transaction is checked and can be approved or denied unlike a credit card when you know in advance how much you’ll be allowed to buy.
- The potential for more frequent credit checks. There is no data on this but only time will tell how often they review their customers credit records.

Ease of payment is not the only hurdle in the path to internet shopping growth, but making payment easier and more secure is certain to help boost sales.

The service also boasts a merchant fee of only 1.5%. This can be significant as I’ve seen other cards charge merchants over 3% in some cases. For merchants with a large volume this can be a huge benefit and if Bill Me Later gets big enough there will be some good competitive pressure on Visa, Mastercard and friends to lower their rates a bit.

Bill Me Later still has a limited number of merchants and I haven’t been through a full service cycle with them yet but they certainly look like they add value.

Posted by Scott at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

Okay, for the 80% of you that haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet: Use your coupons.

I know, I usually throw away all the circulars and other junk mail. This time of year, if you are like me, you spend a good deal more money than the rest of the year. This time of year also sees a good deal of promotions from retailers. Use these offers to your advantage.

Here is just a sampling of offers I’ve received in the past two weeks:
- Best Buy 10% off and 12% off coupons.
- Target $10 off purchases of $100 or more.
- CVS $5 of purchases of $20 or more.
- Linens and Things $10 of a purchase of $50 or more.

I have to say that I’ve blown more than one offer by being overly stressed about shopping this year.

Steps
1) Read junk mail
2) Remove valuable coupons
3) Buy things you need that you have coupons for
4) Use coupon

I’ve missed step 4 a few times and while I had the coupon in the car not remembering it until I left didn’t save me any money.

Better luck with your coupons!

Posted by Scott at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

I got notice yesterday that my old number had been transferred over to Vonage and that all my calls should be coming through Vonage within 24 hours. It seems to be working like a charm.

I didn’t change my number when I first signed up because I wanted to see how well the service worked. I was particularly concerned with my old Tivo and the quality of calls.

Tivo worked well. Quality was good. Doing things this way cost ten dollars but I thought it was prudent.

I have to say the call quality is noticeably better.

I’m now on track to start saving $30 a month. Sweet!

Posted by Scott at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

Remember, if your signed up for your Discover Card’s “Get More” program you get 5% cash back at a bunch of places like restaurants, movie theaters and Amazon.com. In normally shop at Amazon for 40-60% of my Christmas gifts already and this is a huge bonus for me.

Read more here.

Posted by Scott at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati

One of the cool things about shopping on the internet is there are so many bargains to take advantage of if only we take a minute to look. Look at the examples below and you’ll be convinced how easy and how useful this is.

One of the gifts I purchased last week was a package of Omaha Steaks. I remembered earlier in the year seeing a discount on Ebates.com so I popped over there for a look. Sure enough they had a great deal. I ended up with $5 dollars in direct savings plus $3 of Ebates on a $50 dollar package. Total overhead was about ten minutes of time. All told it took less time to find the savings and place the order than it would to run into a bricks and mortar and pick up something similar.

Another gift I purchased was a photo book from Kodak.com. This took me quite a bit of time to put together but this was an effort I expected. I finally finished late last week and fired off the order. This morning I went to clean up my junk email folder and discovered an email from Kodak for 20% off to finish the photo book. Yikes! $10 wasted.

It reminded me to always check for deals before buying. The photo book deal and others pop up immediately with a simple web search. Personally I use Google.com and Ebates.com (and now my junk mail folder).

My Internet Shopping Bargain Challenge to myself and to my readers is to always spend a few minutes checking for coupons, discounts, promotions and other bargians when buying pricey items online. You’ve seen that this can work, now go do it! You’ll save a ton.

Posted by Scott at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Subscribe | Digg | del.icio.us | Technorati