Bookmarked: Carnivals and Links - May 18
It has been an incredibly busy few days, with quite a bit of traveling, but I have been able to keep up somewhat with other personal finance blogs and carnivals. From the last week:
Carnivals
This week I participated in the Festival of Frugality #125 - Save Some Money If You Are Rich Edition hosted by Mike over at Quest For Four Pillars. Included was my post on The Outrageous Cost of Movie Tickets.
Links
From the #125 Festival of Frugality, I particularly enjoyed:
- Over at Money Smart Life, an excellent post on Money Tips for New College Graduates - Spending, Saving, & Budgeting Advice. Those first few months are crucial — the financial choices you make (or don’t make) can have a significant impact on your financial security down the line. Get started on the right foot!
- Over at Five Cent Nickel, Nickel tells us about Saving Money with CFLs, which can both save money and save energy. I’ve been using CFLs for a while, and I’ve been quite happy. Pretty much a win-win situation.
- At brip blap, Steve takes a closer look at whether American kids are stupid about personal finance -I’ll be honest, I have always registered the news headlines regarding these surveys of high school students, but had never bothered to actually look a the questions carefully. Definitely an interesting read.
Rewards Network: Free and Easy Rewards for Dining
This afternoon I ate dinner at a burger shop in town, and after charging the dinner to my Visa card, I earned about 100 American Airlines AAdvantage Miles — 3 miles per a dollar — simply for dining at this specific restaurant. What’s the deal?
Introducing The Rewards Network
The Rewards Network (formerly known as iDine) is a program that offers cash back or frequent flyer miles for each dollar spent at participating restaurants across the United States. How does it work? After choosing an iDine program (see below) and setting up an account, you need to register at least one credit or debit card (several can be registered, though). Then, every time you use that debit or credit card at a participating Rewards Network merchant, you are automatically credited for the dine, without ever having to do anything.
The best part about the program is that you can set it up and largely forget about it — you do not need to actively do anything when dining out except for using your registered credit or debit card. Obviously, to truly build rewards you need to actively go to restaurants that are in the network; however, I occasionally accidentally end up visiting a Rewards Network merchant, and since my default credit card is registered, I sometimes get surprised with rewards.
Most importantly, the program is free! No charges are ever made to your credit card — the only reason you need to register your credit card is so that they can automatically recognize your card when it is used at a participating restaurant.
Finally, there is no need to awkwardly mention the discount to the restaurant — everything is done independently and automatically when you use the credit or debit card.
List of Rewards Network Sites
Almost all of the major airlines offer a branded Rewards Network that offers frequent flyer miles. There is also a Rewards Network program for UPromise, and a standard cash-back program.
Earn Cash Back
- Standard Rewards Network Program - http://www.rewardsnetwork.com/ (From their page: “We’ll retain the first $49 in savings you earn per year. After that, additional Cashback Rewards are automatically credited to the card you used a couple days after you dine. “)
- UPromise Dining Rewards - http://rn.upromise.com/
Earn Frequent-Flyer Miles
- Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles - http://mileageplan.rewardsnetwork.com
- American Airlines AAdvantage Miles - http://aa.rewardsnetwork.com/ -
- Continental Airlines OnePass Miles - http://onepass.rewardsnetwork.com/
- Delta SkyMiles - http://skymiles.rewardsnetwork.com
- Midwest Airlines Miles - http://midwest.rewardsnetwork.com/
- Northwest Airlines Miles - http://nwa.rewardsnetwork.com/
- Priority Club Hotel Miles - http://priorityclub.rewardsnetwork.com/
- United Airlines Mileage Plus Miles - http://mpdining.rewardsnetwork.com/
- US Airways Dividend Miles - http://usairways.rewardsnetwork.com/
Some Rewards Network Tips
- In order to receive benefits, you have to use a credit card that has been previously registered. You can’t register after the fact!
- Unfortunately, restaurants tend to enter and leave the Rewards Network frequently, so check carefully before visiting a restaurant to earn rewards.
- Keep an eye out for bonus promotions that Rewards Network often runs — these can make dining even more lucrative.
- If you dine frequently, you can eventually reach elite status in the Rewards Network program, which offers greater rewards each time you dine.
- Pay careful attention to the details on the Rewards Network directory — some restaurants only offer rewards on certain days or for certain types of credit cards.
You won’t get rich using the Rewards Network program, but given that there really is no harm in signing up, you might find yourself slowly earning some useful rewards. What do you have to lose? You might be surprised which restaurants in your area participate — in my home town, there are very few, but around my school there are quite a few restaurants that we occasionally go to.
The Microsoft Office Burden
Term papers in Microsoft Word, lab reports in Microsoft Excel, presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint — if one set of software has become increasingly essential in a student’s world, it is the Microsoft Office suite. Unfortunately, Microsoft Office is certainly not free, and can at first glance seem incredibly expensive, especially to a student on a budget. There are steps that can be taken, however, to minimize the financial impact.
Do You Need Microsoft Office?
The first question to ask is whether or not you even need Microsoft Office. Almost every student should have an office productivity suite of some kind in order to perform various commonplace tasks; however, there are several free alternatives to Microsoft Office out there that might suit your needs just as well as the expensive alternative. Consider:
- OpenOffice – OpenOffice is a completely free product of the Open Source community. Once you get past the name differences, you’ll find an extremely powerful word processor, spreadsheet manager, and presentation designer, all of which interact almost seamlessly with Microsoft Office. For the types of tasks most students perform, OpenOffice should work great — only seriously power users of Microsoft Office products are likely to notice significant differences. Read PC Magazine’s Review or download OpenOffice at OpenOffice.org.
- Google Docs — Google Docs is a rather impressive service that operates entirely online. Google Docs can create presentations, spreadsheets, or presentations. While many of its features are still quite limited–especially its presentation service–it is becoming more and more comprehensive. In particular, it is quite strong at sharing documents with other users. It also makes it quite easy to upload or save copies to your computer. Check it out at http://docs.google.com/.
One thing to keep in mind when deciding whether or not either of these products would work as an alternative to Microsoft Office is that almost all schools provide free computer labs with free access to Microsoft Office. If that is the case for you, consider whether or not either of these services would work most of the time; if that is the case, you could do most of your work using your free alternative on your computer, and whenever you run into something OpenOffice or Google Doc can’t handle, you can run over to your computer lab.
If You Must Purchase Microsoft Office…
However, I will fully admit that Open Office or Google Docs are not for everyone, and that, for some people, Microsoft Office is a better fit. If that’s the case for you, read on…
- First, find out which Office products you need. It used to be mildly confusing when Microsoft Office came in a couple different versions. As of Office 2007, things have gotten more confusing — eight different versions! You can compare here, but for most students, Microsoft Office Home & Student will do the job, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote — but does not include Outlook.
- Check out Microsoft’s tip page for students. It has some useful information, but I think this page is more helpful!
- In most cases do not buy it with your computer. Just because its packaged with your brand new computer does not mean you are getting the best deal. The last time I checked Dell, they wanted $149 for the Home & Student version with a new laptop, which is the full price, and as you’ll see, definitely not the best deal.
- If you can wait until August, and are a student, take advantage of Microsoft’s The Ultimate Steal program. It just ended for the academic year, but the program will be back again in the fall and offers the full Ultimate Edition for $60. This is -by far- the best deal for students, so if you can wait until it returns, do so!
- Your next best bet is to check your school’s IT department for school discounts - many schools offer the full Microsoft Office Standard Suite for $65 - $70 dollars through one of their online partners like e-Academy or JourneyEd. This is the route I went, and it worked out well.
- Also, check your school’s campus bookstore - but only after checking your school’s official resources. At my school, the bookstore is not affiliated with the University, and while it offers a Microsoft Office discount, it is not as nice as what my school’s IT department offers.
- If you can’t find a suitable educational discount, you can always buy it at full retail — but check around for the best price. The full retail price for Microsoft Office Home & Student is $149, but Amazon.com has it for $110 (plus, you can use an appropriate credit card to save 5% at Amazon!)
- Finally, and this is not so much a frugality tip as an ethical one - resist the temptation to steal Microsoft Office. I know plenty of college students do this, but regardless of how you try to justify it, it is wrong. Don’t compromise your ethics.
Hopefully these tips can come in handy. Anyone else have any tips for saving on Microsoft Office?
Bookmarked: Carnivals, Links, and More - May 07
It has been a very busy week for me, but I did find time to participate in my first two carnivals ever, as well as continue to enjoy reading other blogger’s posts and contributions.
Carnival of Personal Finance
Kimberly Palmer over at US News & World Report’s Alpha Consumer blog hosted the 151st Carnival of Personal Finance this Monday, and I was lucky enough to have my post “Keeping Track of Rebates and Promotions (Remember the Milk)” included in the list. Thanks to Kimberly for hosting this week!
Festival of Frugality
Dawn over at Frugal for Life hosted the 124th Festival of Frugality (”The Name Edition”), and I was honored to have one of my posts included — “Avoiding Airline Fees“. Again, thanks to Dawn for taking the time to host the festival this week!
What I Have Been Reading
I have been considering doing a mini-road trip at some point this summer, and with talk of “How Gas Prices Will Ruin Your Summer” (ABC News), the issue of gas prices has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Naturally, this subject has been getting quite a bit of discussion lately, and I found two blog posts in particular interesting: Ron over at The Wisdom Journal’s entry on “10 Simple Behavioral Changes That Save Gas” and DR over at The Dough Roller’s entry on “25 Ways to Save Money on Gas“. Both posts offer some very useful tips that I plan to keep in mind.
On the subject of protecting yourself when making large purchases, Money Blue Book has a useful post on how to “Get A Free Extended Warranty By Purchasing with a Credit Card” — extended warranty protection is something that I always knew some credit cards had, but had never really bothered to investigate. Turns out that among my cards, the Citi mtvU card has the Visa extended warranty protection, which means that I can continue to use the card for the effective 5% back at Amazon and receive extended warranty protection.
Of course, even with extended warranty protection, sometimes you just want to get rid of the thing, which is why I enjoyed learning more about what happens when Buying and Returning Heavy, Expensive Products on Amazon over at Clever Dude. His experience makes me more comfortable purchasing large items online at Amazon.
The Outrageous Cost of Movie Tickets
Last Friday, for the first time in a long while, I went and saw a new movie in theaters (Ironman, which was definitely an entertaining, if not lighthearted, movie), and I was somewhat shocked at the amount of money simply buying a ticket cost – $10.75 for an adult ticket, with no student ticket option, and that was before any sort of concessions.
Now, I realize that ticket prices are inevitably going to creep up, if for no other reason than inflation — looking at Box Office Mojo’s list of ticket prices by year adjusted for inflation helps illustrate the extent of this creep, though (As an aside, if you are interested in the economics of movie theaters, you might want to check out a pretty interesting article from Slate, “The Popcorn Palace Economy” by Edward Jay Epstein). Since 2000, ticket prices have gone up a little over 25%, to a current estimated average price of $6.88 for the year. That is a pretty significant increase in price. What can we do?
Do you need to see it in the theater?
The obvious way to save money on movie theater tickets is to simply not go. Over at the Get Rich Slowly blog, Kevin at No Debt Plan recently had a post “Dumb Money: The Movie Theater,” assailing the movie theater experience as largely a waste of money (as opposed to seeing movies at home), listing a variety of ways where movie going is an inconvenient and sometimes unpleasant experience.
If you’re willing to forgo the theater experience for your own living room, its not hard to see how microwaving your own popcorn and loading a DVD can save money. Some tips for saving while renting:
- If you watch movies often, give Netflix a try. I have been a subscriber for years, and have nothing but positive experiences. I stick with the 1 DVD at-a-time for $8.99 a month plan (so for the price of one movie ticket, you can get a good four or five movies a month).
- If you don’t watch movies often, check your public library. My public library offers movie rentals for only a dollar or two. While the selections are often limited, libraries are often quite receptive to suggestions for new acquisitions. (Better yet, you could read a book…)
- You can also check out Redbox, the new DVD kiosk service, which offers DVDs for $1 a night. The kiosks aren’t everywhere, and they often have a limited selection, but for new releases Redbox is a great option. Plus, with creative Google searches, you can often find coupons for free rentals.
- Try to avoid renting from major chains - at my local Blockbuster, it costs almost $5 to rent a movie, which is simply absurd. Try to find a local family-owned rental store, which often have cheaper prices and much better service.
Coincidentally, Mike over at Living the Frugal Life recently posted “Never pay to rent a movie again“, which has a much more extensive list focusing on getting free movies (one recommendation that Mike didn’t include - Hulu.com, which now includes some free movies in addition to their growing selection of free television shows).
If you need to see it in theaters…
While I understand and appreciate the arguments for avoiding movie theaters, sometimes it is just too hard to resist seeing a new movie in theaters, especially one that is generating a lot of buzz and excitement — it is never fun to be culturally out of the loop (I fully plan on seeing Indiana Jones 4 in theaters, for example). Plus, there is something to be said for the movie experience. So, if you absolutely must see a movie in theaters, here are some cost-saving steps that can help mitigate the blow from ticket prices:
Free Museum Admission (Bank of America)
This is a nice deal for those that have Bank of America ATM, debit, or credit card — Bank of America has brought back and significantly altered its “Museums on Us” program that provides free access to selected museums nationwide.
On the first weekend of every month Bank of America cardholders can gain free admission to some 70 museums across the country simply by showing a BoA card. From the Bank of America press release:
“Participants in the program range from some of the nation’s largest institutions — such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago — to a number of regional cultural institutions”
In the past, this was a one-month promotion that provided free admission during the month of May to selected museums in the Northeastern United States. This year, they have a much larger list of museums nationwide, however, the offer is only good on the first weekend of the month. Also note that the free admission is only for the cardholder.
However, free is always good. More information on the promotion can be found at the Museums on Us promotion page.
Keeping Track of Rebates and Promotions (Remember the Milk)
Despite their negative reputation, mail-in rebates and similar promotions have the potential for being very lucrative and rewarding. The key to rebate success is not a secret, although a lot of people certainly have problems following it: pay attention to the details. This includes reading the fine print, following through with all terms and conditions, documenting your submission, and following up — all well covered territory (see “13 Ways to Track Down Wayward Rebates” at MSNBC’s Red Tape Chronicles, for example).
The hard part for me, though, has always been staying on top of promotions once they have been submitted. Invariably every now and then rebates and promotions fail to come through. Regardless of whether you take the optimistic outlook (mistakes happen) or the cynical outlook (companies purposely denying valid rebates hoping you’ll forget), the bottom line is that you will need to often times track and follow-up your rebates and promotions.
Enter “Remember The Milk”
I have recently begun using the web-based (and free) task manager “Remember the Milk” to keep track of things that I need to do. Remember the Milk is essentially a high-tech “To-Do” list, allowing you to keep track of tasks in a simple and fast method; it includes the ability to categorize, tag, and prioritize tasks, set due dates, schedule reminders, and more. Over at Lifehacker, they have pretty much fallen in love with Remember the Milk, and have a very helpful and highly recommended beginners guide to “Get Organized with Remember the Milk.”
Using “RTM” to Manage Rebates and Promotions
Remember the Milk is an amazing task manager, but it can also be particularly useful for staying on top of the details of rebates and promotions. Here’s my system:
- Create a “List” for Rebates and Promotions - In RTM, you can do this by going to Settings, then Lists. Creating a list just for promotions allows you to keep these items separate and isolated.
- As soon as you decide to participate in a rebate or promotion, create a task for the promotion. RTM allows you to include quite a bit of information on the task, so make use of it! I usually include: a title like “$20 - Norton Antivirus Rebate” that describes the reward and from where its coming, the due date for submitting or completing the promotion, and notes with information on the promotion — such as a copy/paste of the rules, a link to the promotion online, or even the file location where I’ve saved a copy of the rules on my computer. For purchases made online, I may include a copy of the receipt as a note.
Any tasks in my “Promotions” list during this stage are meant to help me make sure I complete specific requirements for the promotion. For rebates, this is often a quick process (fill out form, copy receipt, copy UPC code, etc.). This is more useful for complicated promotions, though. For example, Delta Airlines recently had a promotion where they offered bonus miles for every five partner activities, and I used RTM to keep track of my partner activity progress towards the requirements. - Once you complete the promotion, immediately update the task in RTM. For me, this usually means two steps: (1) updating the due date to reflect when I should expect the reward to arrive (such as 8-10 weeks), and (2) adding a note that includes when I submitted the rebate, where I can find supporting documentation (i.e. in my physical “rebates” folder in my desk, or virtual “rebates” folder on my computer), and (most importantly) who I can contact for support.
- Sit back and wait, and watch for any updates. Frequently rebate companies will send you some sort of tracking number for your rebate or updates you on the process — when I get these updates, I immediately add them as a new note to the task in RTM. In this way, each promotion in RTM becomes a sort of mini-portfolio folder including information on when I submitted and any update information I received.
- When you successfully receive a rebate, mark it as completed in RTM.
- The most useful part of RTM is that it will present your promotions in order of their due dates – so you always know what promotions have deadlines coming up or when to expect payment. It also gives you an easy and straightforward way of seeing what rebates and promotions you have outstanding and that need to be followed-up on. When a task becomes overdue, RTM will show it at the top in bold, and you’ll know you need to act.
- If you run into problems with a rebate, you can use the information attached to the task in RTM to follow-up with the rebate or promotion organizer. RTM adds a time stamp to all the notes you add, so you’ll have a clear record of when you sent things, and where you can find supporting documentation. Note: Often times when you follow-up, rebate companies will process your rebate but tell you to expect it to take another month or two — don’t forget to update with the new expected arrival date!
Having used these steps for a few months now, I can say that it has drastically improved both my organization and my promotion yield — I’m batting almost 100% for successful promotions. I should also add that you could use a similar system in Microsoft Outlook or a similar task manager, but Remember the Milk seems to provide a sleek, elegant, and easy-to-use interface.