The Shopping Nazi

Summer be will soon here. It will be time to get out and enjoy the great outdoors. Spring and summer are great times for family fun along with taking pictures of those events. The quality pictures you take from those events will determine how you remember them. This will be determined the camera used in taking those pictures.

Before you look to get a new camera or maybe up grade to video camera there are few important facts that can save you a lot of money and frustration down the road.

Almost everyone with a cell phone has a camera built into their phone. These cameras are good for 3 to 10 feet, usually with the subject posed.   Taking pictures of kids on a stage in a school play,  or playing soccer does not produce good results.

I have a 5 mega pixel camera on my phone. Every time I have taken a picture where the subjects were at a distance, I deleted it in disappointment.  The camera has what is know as digital zoom.

Some point and shoot digital cameras have optical zoom. However, most digital cameras have what is known as digital zoom. They both claim to make your target image 10x or 30x larger. Read the rest of this entry »

Once again, how much is enough? How much square footage does a person REALLY need?  How many rooms in a house are full of “stuff?”

It is a universal principle that if you are a good steward to what you have you will gain more. Those who are bad stewards will lose what they have. You see these people who never seem to have anything nice. They don’t take care of what they have, or they are replace what was stolen from them.

I hang my head low in shame over the amount of stuff I have had stolen or lost over the years. I must admit it was through carelessness on my part. I either did not lock locks or I left valuables in open tempting people to come by and steal from me. Read the rest of this entry »

As much as everyone of us does not like to think about death, it will happen. We are going to leave behind family members, friends, and stuff. What we want our family to do with that stuff after we are gone is a very important issue.

I am not big on stuff. I realize that I am only going to be on this planet for a very short time. So I am not into collecting a lot of stuff. What concerns me when I am gone is my family and how they will live when I am gone. Read the rest of this entry »

Setting priorities and watching where our money goes can be a very painful thing. Especially when it gets close to pay day and there is not money to buy lunch a McDonald’s.

Some time back, I was watching a group of people leaving working from a local business that employed a 1,000+ men and women. Over 90% of them make the same hourly wage. However, you would not think that by the way each one dress and the car they were driving. Read the rest of this entry »

In the first part of February, I set down with James Stocker to talk about insurance we progressed from auto insurance to homeowners insurance. From that meeting he help me write Auto Insurance – Get the Facts.

It was in that meeting, James was telling me that he has seen about 95% of the family’s who group their homeowner and auto insurance together save up to 20%.

All mortgage companies require homeowners insurance. Many realtor’s, mortgage companies refer or recommend certain insurance companies for homeowner insurance. The truth be known you can shop around for the best company and best rate for your homeowner insurance. Read the rest of this entry »

TV Commercials are one of those loud neighbors that you wish would just move away, because they serve no useful purpose.

Back in ancient history when everyone got their television through rabbit ears or rooftop antennas, the television stations got money for programs by selling advertising in the form of commercials. This I could understand. Today, when many of us pay a cable or satellite, this makes us paying two times to watch the same program.

It has often been know that the volume of the typical television commercial is louder than the current episode of NCIS. That is so you will hear some fast talking smiling individual sell you a car. Did you know that there is a bill before the US Congress to force TV commercials volume to be no louder than the TV show itself? Read the rest of this entry »

There has been years where our whole tax refund was used as a bail out. We were so far behind in bills that we needed that tax refund to get our heads above water. Times were hard.

This year we are floating on top of the water. We can take the income tax refund money to treat ourselves. Well, not all of it. We have allocated the refund money into three areas.

1. Treat Ourself
2. Donate
3. Save

Read the rest of this entry »

We all trade up or trade down. We trade down to save money, then trade up on the things we want.

A cigarette smoker will trade down on clothes and food, just to buy a $5 for a pack of cigarettes.

A jock will trade down on apartment to trade up for the right gym membership and meal supplements.

A husband and wife will trade down on clothes and time to trade up on a private school for their children.

I have done, this very same thing myself, and I have seen others well meaning people, when it comes to trading down make the same mistakes that I have done. What is that mistake?

Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a movement for years to get us away from using paper and going all digital. Regardless of there efforts we are still using paper. The high cost of printer ink cartridges has driven many to look for new ways to reduce cost.

Quality Logic takes the time to figure the cost of printing from you printer. In their latest report, (December 2009) shows that average printed color page will cost you from 7 to 27 cents per page. Then you ad the cost of the paper, the cost per page could reach 30 cents per page. Read the rest of this entry »