However, when I went to look at reviews on the internet about the hotel, the reviews were all bad. Some were bad for no reason, some were bad because the reviewer actually had a bad experience.

Now, here’s the problem I am having with places that have been reviewed on the internet, this particulary pertains to places on trip, hotel, and food review sites: People are more likely to complain than report a satisfactory experience. I am guilty of it: a lot of times, I end up writing about when something makes me angry or I am unhappy with a situation.

You will always have a few people who are going to report on how the situation was regardless of whether or not the experience was good; but more often people will complain than brag. Honestly, the entire situation isn’t very fair to the establishments.

For example, the hotel I’m staying at has particularly bad reviews. I believe on Yelp, this hotel is rated a 2 out of 5, which is not very good at all. It all has to do with the fact that there isn’t wireless internet for free in the rooms (which is stated on the hotel’s website and is fairly common knowledge in my opinion), parking isn’t free (but there aren’t many places in the downtown area that hae free parking), and the bathrooms are small.

I believe that most places should be given a fair chance and that you can’t go by what all the reviews are.

I have a love hate (but mostly hate) relationship with my land line. I really don’t want to get rid of it because I don’t always have cell phone service in my house and I don’t want to miss any important calls (and with my luck, the day I turned off the land line, I would get one of those important calls).

To help with my problem, I started looking into VoIP services. I’m sure that everyone has heard of Vonage. If you have cable, I’m sure at one point in time the company has tried to sell you on its digital telephone package (which is simply VoIP). There are many more providers than just this handful though.

After a brief Google search for VoIP providers, I found some really good deals out there. Most were cheaper than Vonage’s $24.95 a month.

You can choose what provider you want by the features you want. If you have friends or family outside the United States, then make sure you pick a plan that offers free calling to international numbers. Sometimes you can find services that offer calling for free to the UK and Europe.  Most providers offer free calling to Canada and Mexico.

There are also some providers that offer a reduced price for service, but it requires you to leave your computer on all the time. The Magic Jack is the most popular form of that. I wouldn’t use one because I don’t want to have to leave my computer on for days and days at a time, and like I said before, the one time I have to restart my computer, I’m sure I’d miss the call I was waiting for.

I just feel like no matter what you pick, if you have a high speed internet connection, you can definitely save money with a VoIP service versus a traditional phone line. You just have to make sure that your connection is reliable and always on. Also, don’t forget, if you have DSL you may not be able to get rid of your land line.

Don’t even get me started on the Google Voice fiasco that just happened and landed Apple in some hot water with the FCC….

Now the iphone application store has rejected a new application because the application allows the reading of the Karma Sutra. It is to be noted that the book reader Eucalyptus does not come with any books, but the K.S. is available for download onto devices and could be read at another time.

Whether it be the fact that Apple’s development team may decide that your application isn’t good enough for their devices or good enough to be released to their “cloud,” there are different places for software developers to go to have their programs viewed by many.

Apple has also been thinking of releasing a “net book” also. I suppose the net book would run like net books that run on Windows or Linux and are just able to run simple programs or surf the internet. Apple would undoubtedly make a net book that would be impossible to make programs for and far less powerful than any of the current mac books that are out there today.

The mac/pc commercials make me so mad because the pc just gives up when “the Megan” asks for a computer that doesn’t have software issues like crashing or viruses. Well guess what “Megan,” Mac’s have all those same problems too. As a matter of fact, I have been on a Mac many times in the past and gotten their version of a blue screen of death. I mean the iMac may have been the worst personal computer I have ever used, however there are so many people who think that the Macintosh name and product line is the best thing that has ever happened to the computer industry.

Whatever the reason, I think that people will enjoy PC’s and Windows mobile, Android, WebOS, and Symbian phones for much longer once the novelty of the iPhone wears off (like everyone knows it will).

PowerPoint has been around for 25 years now, and while it was first geared toward people who had to present in business meetings and salespeople, the program has now become synonymous with anyone who has to give a presentation of any kind; no matter if you’re a salesperson or a 4th grader.

Over the past few years in college, I gave numerous presentations and PowerPoint presentations were not only expected, but required for all of them. However, after reading the expressions on people’s faces while giving presentations over the past few presentations I’ve discovered something: no one cares.

Perhaps it’s just presentations that people don’t want to go to, perhaps it’s the fact that PowerPoint slides often have too much information on a slide. Whatever the reason, I believe that it’s time for people to start coming up with more creative ways of giving presentations.

I think, especially for those in more creative fields, there should be requirements that they have to give presentations that are far more creative than a PowerPoint presentation; and no, I don’t mean passing out candy or throwing t-shirts at the audience. Marketing professionals are expected to be some of the most creative people in the business school and they’re giving the same presentations as accounting majors, something is wrong there.

Another problem I have with PowerPoint presentations is that the audience has become numb to the presentations. They have taught an entire generation how to stop paying attention. They have also taught that same generation how to rely so heavily on one program.

In the corporate world, people often turn something that can be said in two to five minutes into a 20 minute presentation because they feel as if they need to have the visual aid of a PowerPoint presentation. What a waste of time.

After spending months looking for a job, I finally found something working as a sales associate at a local department store. I’m making $10 an hour and averaging 30-35 hours a week. With an hourly rate like that I’ll barely be able to make my car payment and student loan payment, but at least I’ll be able to make them.

It’s a difficult market to find work in when 80% of the graduating class of 2009 weren’t offered jobs upon graduation and with many of us still out there looking for work.

It really is a full time job to try to find something; in my case it turned from a search for a dream job to a search for a job where I could earn something. Employers really do have the upper hand in this market, they know that they can offer you less money and that you’ll be willing to accept it only because work is so hard to come by.

I recently found a website that said those who graduated with a degree in business administration (just undergraduate) are earning an average of $42,000 a year. I’m getting no where near that number. After taxes, I’m lucky if I’ll be earning $12,000. As much as I want the sales experience so I may be able to get a job somewhere else in the future, I don’t know if this is something that I really see myself doing. The truth is, I really wanted to be making at least $20,000 a year while I lived in my current house and I honestly find the pay of $12,000 a year a bit insulting for all the work I put into college. Yesterday while I was sitting in the break area watching the training videos someone asked me why would I even consider working at that store when I had graduated college and had a business administration degree. I could only say, “because I can’t find a job anywhere else.”

Signing up for classes comes down to three things:

First and foremost: The class you are required to take.

Number two: What time the class is offered (I most often would try to avoid those awful 8 a.m. classes).

Lastly, who is teaching the class.

The professor teaching the class may be the last thing you’re thinking about, but it should be the second after what class is required for you to take. There are also plenty of ways to figure out exactly what you’re getting yourself into when you sign up for a particular professor.

Many college offer teacher evaluations as part of the course sign up process. That is, if your school offers registration online.

If your college doesn’t offer teacher evaluations over the internet, you can always check some of my favorite sites to see what other people are saying about your professor.

My favorite for reviews is RateMyProfessor.com. This website has over 10 million comments from users about professors at over 6,000 schools. This one is good because you can see what other people think about the professor, but this is just like a teacher evaluation program offered by any college only when you post something, it stays on the website. Many colleges end up taking down the most negative comments from their evaluations.

My overall favorite site has to be PickAProf.com, its now part of MyEdu.com. On this site you can see how other people did in the class grade-wise. This can really help in deciding if you want to take a teacher who barely passes anyone, or one who will pass more than 3/4 of the class. This one actually really helped me in picking a professor for some of my harder classes.

This map basically means that the lighter color, the more equally the wealth in the country is distributed. You can tell where the most people suffer due to the darker shades of green seen throughout the  map.

The countries with the biggest gap between poverty and wealth are the South American nations and some central to southern African nations.

Canada, Australia, much of Europe, and even some African countries all have fairly good wealth distribution throughout.

The United States falls into the same category as Russia, India, Italy, England, Portugal, and Uzbekistan to name a few.

Source

It can be amusing when a corporation goes through an identity crisis. Usually a corporate name change stems from the board or owner’s desire to move the company in a new direction or to pretend that they know what the consumer wants. I suppose sometimes they actually do know what the consumer wants, but more often a name change on an established company makes customers go, “huh?” more than anything else.

I think that more often though, companies decide to change their corporate name to get out from under a dark cloud that they imposed only on themselves.

Here are some of the worst of the worst corporate name changes:

The Shack::Radio Shack. This was so bad that I had to write about it in a previous post. While I now know that the company isn’t completely changing its name to the Shack, I still am not quite sure what the company was thinking when they decided it would be a good idea to align their company with a rickety old building. When I think Hi Tech, I’m not thinking about shacks.

Xe :: Blackwater. Earlier this year Blackwater decided that it would change its name to Xe because the Blackwater name was tarnished thanks to a 2007 incident that led to the death of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians. Thankfully, even after the name change the government did not renew the company’s contract.

Altria :: Philip Morris Co. When the company changed its name on the same exact day that the company was cleared of responsibility for a woman’s smoking related death in late January 2003, it obviously wanted to escape the bad PR it had been getting. However, all that ended up happening was a magnifying glass on the company. Every time customers are reminded about the name change, they are reminded that this is the same Philip Morris they knew and they only tried to change their name to escape responsibility.

SyFy :: SciFi. This one I can’t quite figure out. All the cable station did was change the spelling of the already abbreviated name.

You can read more about bad name changes as well as the worst offender, I’ll give you a hint, it has something to do about the company who changed the name of the Sears Tower, all at the SOURCE.

There are advertisements that are meant to warm your heart, to inform you, deceive you, and most of all get you to buy something you may not have otherwise bought. However, there are also shock advertisements that are meant to get people to talk.

Across the social sites this morning, everyone is talking about this new World Wildlife Foundation ad that compares the 9/11 attacks on the United States to the Tsunami in 2005. The consensus on the ad is that it was done in poor taste and it’s also a scam ad.

Scam ads have been around for awhile due to the fact that they are typically put on by advertisers and marketing firms that want to win awards. To win an award, the ad has to be published somewhere. In the case of the World Wildlife Foundation ad, it was published in a small Brazilian newspaper. It was also a print version of the ad seen above.

As long as awards for creativity are given out to ad agencies, ads like this one will be seen across the world and it will continue to shock the public when it leaks out to those who were really never supposed to see them.

Not every little thing is caught by spell check on Word. Sometimes it won’t catch a word that is spelled right but used in a way that will ensure you don’t get a job. Here are a few examples of some misspelled phrases that have ended up on resumes in the past:

* “Hope to hear from you, shorty.”
* “Have a keen eye for derail.”
* Dear Sir or Madman.”
* “I’m attacking my resume for you to review.”
* “I’m a rabid typist.”
* “My work ethics are impeachable.”
* “Nervous of steel.”
* “Following is a grief overview of my skills.”
* “GPA: 34.0″
* “Graphic designer seeking no-profit career.”
* EDUCATION: Attended collage courses.

The first thing I thought when I read those was “wow.” However, when you really start to think about it, it’s not hard to make some of those mistakes, especially when you’re a “rabid” typist. People often think that they don’t have enough time to read over something that they’ve typed either, even when it’s something as important as a resume.

I know I have made plenty of typing errors while I’ve been writing for this site; they happen quite frequently and I usually don’t change them until I have published them and everyone else has seen the mistake too.

Some things you can do to help avoid such an embarassing situation is to:

1. Of course, use spell check, but make sure you also do some of the other steps.

2. Read over every word you type to make sure you have made coherent sentences.

3. Print it and read it again.

4. Have someone else read it.

You can check out a list of really amusing resume bloopers here:

Source

Did you know that your credit card may be hiding some quite interesting and beneficial perks that you might be missing out on?

The following perks are from Citi:

- You have dedicated “concierge” staff to assist you. – There is a 24 hour personal concierge service that is around to make dinner reservations for you, get tickets to events, locate hard to find items, and even coordinate business arrangements worldwide. They can also assist you with gift selections and other requests that are said to “simplify your life.”

- You also have extra car rental insurance. Citi provides up to $50,000 in secondary coverage against collision or theft when you get a rental car and charge it on the card and decline the rental company’s insurance.

- There is also retail price protection. – This protects your stuff if it gets stolen or is accidentally broken up to $500 for the first 90 days of purchase when it’s put on the card.

- You have a price protection. If you purchase something with your card, except for online purchases and some excluded items, you have 60 days to find the same item for a lesser price you will get refunded up to $250 of the difference.

- You are not liable for unauthorized purchases online or offline.

- If an airline looses your luggage, you are eligible for up to $3,000 in lost luggage coverage for not only you, but also your dependents, when you charge your fare.

- You also have roadside assistance.

If you want to know what kind of perks your card has, just pick up the phone and give them a call!

Budget cuts in the nation’s public schools means that many states are having to find ways to limit what it spends on public schools in their budgets. I find it ironic in a way because it seems like taxes have increased at the same time that budget cuts for public education is being introduced. However, in places where homes are being appraised for much less, property taxes are much less and therefore, schools have less money to work with.

So where will your children be feeling the pinch?

Many schools will be saying goodbye to band and other music programs. At many schools, extracurricular activities like band and art clubs may be eliminated. Many curriculums are being cut down to the minimums because of teachers being laid off. This has been going on for years in many of the more rural areas of the country. At the same time, most (if not all) states have a requirement for a fine art class in high school. So, some of these classes will have to stick around.

Classes will become more crowded. In California alone 27,000 teachers have been laid off with more expected to be soon. This accounts for 15% of California’s public teacher pool. And fewer teachers means bigger classes. Many classes are having to bump up the number of kids to a class. Some classes are even going from 20 to a class to 30 to a class. This is what the San Jose Unified School District is doing and it will end up saving the district nearly $6 million for the year.

Summer programs will be, if they haven’t already been, cut. Summer programs in places where budget deficits have led to more cuts in schools, like California which is suffering from a $24 billion budget gap. Parents who usually enroll their children in some kind of public funded summer program will now have to find child care for their children. This also means cutting summer school. So when a high school senior needs that “one more credit” to graduate he or she will be out of luck.

Finally, bus services will be hurt. The number of schools that cut bus transportation routes for the 2009-2010 school year rose to 23%, up from 14% the year prior. If a school decides to cut bus routes, it can obviously save thousands of dollars (per school). However, many students (again, in more rural areas) may be finding themselves without a way to get to school. I can see where this would lead to serious truancy issues.

I think that it is important to cut money from other areas than public schools. Personally, the money should come out of anywhere else first.

For the firm believer that an investor should follow the trends to see real success in investing, it is important to know what the winners are doing right now. To understand that one needs to understand what they are looking at in the market. The first two things you must watch are real estate and unemployment. These are the absolute keys to a real recovery in the market and the economy. Until losing jobs is a thing of the past and until real estate prices stop going down, there will be pressure on our economy, end of story.

The current market is creating one of the greatest opportunities for building permanent real wealth if an investor can see the bargains. It is important to continually look for bargain-basement opportunities in the form of rock bottom prices. In addition to your own screening and research, it is important to pay attention to what those successful long-term investors are doing with their money.

Securities regulations make this very easy to do. Most finance managers are required to publicly release their holdings at the end of each quarter. By tracking portfolio changes and holdings in correlation with locations of investments, you effectively establish a makeshift research department composed of the best minds in the market. You should always do additional investigation of your own, but good research of what investors are already succeeding with is a good meeting of the minds, so to speak.

Just as an example, let’s look at Third Point LLC, the distressed and activist fund managed by Daniel Loeb. It is reported to have earned 16% or so annually without the use of much leverage, if any, just since its beginning in 1996. In his recent letter to shareholders, Loeb said he was less pessimistic about where the economy would be at the end of the quarter. The firm is letting go of what Loeb referred to as “doomsday positions” such as gold, the investments that will not stand as firm as they have once the economy moves forward. As we have established before, there is a relatively negative correlation between gold and Wall Street, simply because when Wall Street is doing poorly, gold has become the industry hiding place. When Wall Street bounces back, people bail from gold and ride the stock market back up, reducing the price of gold once again. (This explains why places like Cash4Gold are advertising the best ever prices of gold. Every active investor has bought some recently.) He said the fund is also finding long positions that offer what he called attractive opportunities.

Third Point established a new position in the home health and hospice company Amedisys in the quarter. As baby boomers age, this is going to be high-growth industry for years to come. Earnings and stock trades are up. Third Point also opened a position in Life Partners Holdings, a life insurance settlement business. Basically, it buys life insurance contracts at a discount from policyholders who are in need of funds. Life Partners then resells these contracts to retail and institutional investors. The company acts as an agent and receives a fee for its services. Earnings and stock trades are up for this company too, because death is truly recession-proof. It does appear that Third Point is leaning toward an aging population. In the last quarter it bought Wyeth, Schering-Plough and Pfizer with Pfizer coincidentally as one of the top investments right now.

Of course, you don’t have to make a trip to the coffee shop to buy your morning pick me up. This may seem so obvious, but you can save a ton of money every month by skipping the coffee to go. You can easily, and cheaply, make your own lattes and cappuccinos at home.

There are so many recipe sites on the internet with “copycat” recipes that can help you replicate those sweet tastes you crave from Starbucks or any other chain.

As a busy mom, I have become an expert in making my own coffee at home. I’m not just talking about straight drip-coffee either. I have been able to snag a free Senseo machine as well as free coffee for the machine. It makes fairly good coffee, but I like to have some flavor to my coffee when I drink it in the morning or throughout the day.

At the grocery store, you can find creamers that come in flavors such as caramel, french vanilla, and hazelnut now. If you go down the coffee aisle, you can even find syrups that have the same flavors. These are great to make lattes with. While the latte you make at home may not have the foam, it will have the flavor. Not to mention, at home you can ice it with as much or as little as you want.

You can even make your own frozen, blended coffees at home. It may take a bit more time and effort than jumping in the car and running to the coffee house for your craving, they can be just as tasty and far cheaper.

When it comes to coffee, I really think that $3 or more for a cup is too much. I really like knowing that I only spend about $.10 on a cup of coffee (give or take $.05 depending on whether or not I add syrup).

Now it is easy to make a custom mug online.

If you search around the internet or just visit the websites of your favorite restaurants, you’ll find a whole lot of places are ready and willing to give you free stuff on your birthday.

Giving away free stuff for your birthday has become such a popular idea in the last couple of years that you can even get into Disney World for free if it’s your birthday.

So here’s a huge list of places that will give you something for it just being your birthday, all you have to do is sign up for their email list or some kind of club offer.

Abbot’s Frozen Custard – Join the Abbott’s Frozen Custard Fun Club to a get a free frozen custard on your birthday. The site says there will also be freebies throughout the year for their members.

Alfy’s Pizza – Get a free mini pizza on your birthday.

Applebee’s – Free dessert and song on your birthday.

Austin Grill – Register for their eClub and get a free meal on your birthday.

Bakers Square – Get a free peice of pie on your birthday at Bakers Square.

Bandido’s – Get $10 off your favorite entree when you celebrate your birthday at Bandido’s in Ohio and Indiana.

Baskin Robbins – Baskin Robbins will send you a coupon for a free 2.5 oz scoop of ice cream on your birthday plus other special promotions when you join the Baskin Robbins Birthday Club.

BD’s Mongolian BBQ – Receive a free stifry on your birthday when you join Club Mongo.

Ben & Jerry’s – Get a free ice cream treat on your birthday when you become a ChunkSpelunker with Ben & Jerry’s.

Bennigan’s – Get a buy 1 entree, get 1 entrée free and a free brownie ice cream dessert coupon on your birthday.

Black Angus Steakhouse – Get a free steak dinner on your birthday when you join the BA Prime Club. You also get a complimentary dessert for signing up for the club.

Blimpie – Get a coupon for a free 6” sub on your birthday at Blimpie’s.

Blue Bell – Members of the Blue Bell Country Club will receive a gift certificate for a free half gallon of Blue Bell Ice Cream during the month of their birthday.

Bob’s Big Boy – Get a free hot fudge ice cream on your birthday.

Bob Evans – Sign up your child for their birthday club and they’ll get a free kids’ meal on their birthday at Bob Evans.

The Body Shop – The Body Shop will give you a free birthday gift up to a $10 value during the month of your birthday. **No longer valid**

Boston Market – Kids 12 and under will receive a birthday coupon good for a free kid’s meal, drink, and dessert at Boston Market.

Buffalo Wild Wings – Get a free dozen hot wings on your birthday at Buffalo Wild Wings. **No longer valid**

Burger King – Sign up your child to be a member of Club BK so they can get a free kid’s meal on their birthday.

California Pizza Kitchen – Sign up your child (10 and under) for CPKids and they will receive a free CPKids meal during the month of their birthday.

Captain D’s – Kids get a free kids meal and birthday greeting on their birthday at Captain D’s.

Caribou Coffee – Create an account and be sure to update it with your birthday. They will send you a coupon for a free coffee drink on your birthday.

Carrows – Join the Carrows E-Club to get a free dessert on your birthday as well as one for joining.

Cattlemen’s – Join the Cattlemen’s E-Club and get a free dessert when you come in on your birthday.

Charlie Brown’s Steakhouse – Get a free gift on your birthday as a member of the Charlie Brown’s Handshake Club as well as gift vouchers and special members-only events.

Chevys – Join Chevys Compadres Club and get a free dessert on your birthday.

Claim Jumper Restaurant – Join the CJ E-Club and get a free dessert on your birthday.

Cold Stone Creamery – Cold Stone Creamery will send you an email with a coupon for a free ice cream creation to enjoy on your birthday. All ages are welcome!

Country Buffet – Join the eClub and get a free birthday coupon in the mail.

Crazy Buffet – Bring a friend and your ID into Crazy Buffet on your birthday and get a free dinner buffet.

Dairy Queen – Join the Dairy Queen Blizzard Fan Club and get a free ice cream cone on your birthday as well as a coupon for a blizzard when you join.

Dave & Buster’s – Get a free $5 game card credit on your birthday.

Denny’s – Fill in and mail out this form to enroll your child (10 and under) in the Denny’s Kids’ Birthday Club where they will receive a birthday card entitling them to a free kid’s entrée and sundae.

Desparados Mexican Restaraunt – Come in and get a free meal at Desparados on your birthday.

Discovery Cruise Line – You get a free one-day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas. You do have to make the trip with another fare-paying adult and will have to shell out the $20 for the Bahama departure and harbor fee.

Disneyland – Get free admission on your birthday when you register in advance. You will need to bring the confirmation along with your ID to the park.

Dockside Restaurants – Get a free meal on your birthday.

Duke’s ChowderHouse – Get a coupon for a free lunch or dinner entree on your birthday when you sign up on Duke’s website.

Famous Daves BBQ – Free food coupon via email on your birthday when you join the Famous Dave’s P.I.G. Club (could be free cake, an appetizer, or some ribs!).

Firehouse Subs – Jon the Firehouse Subs Birthday Club and enjoy a free sub on your birthday.

Friendly’s – Sign up for Friendly’s E-News and get free ice cream for your birthday. This is now for kids and adults!

Fuddruckers – Join the Fudds Club and gett a free burger on your birthday.

Garozzo’s Ristorante – Bring in your driver’s license to get a free spedini meal at this Kansas City eatery.

Hana Japan – Get a free birthday lunch or dinner when you bring in 4 or more people on your birthday.

Hard Rock Cafe – Come in and get a free dessert on your birthday.

Hollywood Video – Get a free rental at Hollywood Video on your birthday with card membership. In fact, anyone on your account can get a free rental on their birthday.

Hometown Buffet – Join the eClub and get a free birthday coupon in the mail.

Houlihan’s – Visit Houlihan’s on your birthday and get free cake and ice cream.

IHOP – Come on into IHOP and get a free meal on your birthday.
Joe’s Crab Shack – Go to Joe’s Crab Shack on your birthday and get a free piece of cake.

Lone Star Steakhouse – Sign up for the Lone Star Steakhouse e-club and you’ll receive a coupon for a free entree (up to $15 value) to help you celebrate your birthday.

Luby’s – Free kid’s birthday meal (ages 9 and younger) on their birthday as a member of the Luby’s birthday club.

Macaroni Grill – Come on into Macaroni Grill on your birthday and get a free dessert plus a song.

Marie Callender’s – Join Marie Callender’s E-Club and get a coupon for $5 off your meal and piece of pie when you visit during the month of your birthday.

McDonald’s – Free Happy Meal for your child on their birthday. This offer is only good in certain locations, so you may want to check with your McDonald’s first.

Memphis Barbecue – Receive a coupon good for a free rack of ribs and a dessert when you join the free eClub.

Moe’s Southwest Grill – Get a coupon for a free Moe’s entree on your birthday when you choose to “stay in the moe.”

Noodles & Company – Join the Noodleville Noodlegram to get a coupon for a free dish on your birthday.

Olan Mills Portrait Studios – Get a free Olan Mills portrait package that includes (1) 8X10, (2) 5X7 and (8) wallets when you join the birthday club.

Old Country Buffet – Join the eClub and get a free birthday coupon in the mail.

Old Spaghetti Warehouse – Join the Warehouse Club and get a coupon for a free meal on your birthday.

On the Border – Get a free appetizer on your birthday when you join On the Border’s Club Cantina. When you initially join you will get an instant coupon for a free bowl of queso or empanadas.

Outback – Get a free dessert and a song when you go to Outback on your birthday.

P.F. Changs – Come in and get a free dessert on your birthday.

Pancho’s – Join Pancho’s Birthday Club to get $10 off the bill for adults or $5 off the bill for kids.

Perkins – Receive an email for a free kid’s meal and birthday greeting on their birthday when you sign them up for the Bakery Buddies Kid’s Birthday Club.

Provino’s – Come on into Provino’s on your birthday and show your ID to get a free pasta speciality dinner (which includes salad, garlic rolls and a birthday dessert!).

Red Lobster – Join the Overboard Club and they will email you a surprise for your birthday.

Red Robin – Join the Red Robin eClub and get a coupon for a free burger on your birthday. This is for all ages!

Rock Bottom – Join the Mug Club and get a free appetizer on your birthday.

Round Table – Get a free personal pizza when you visit on your birthday.

Ru Sans – Visit Ru Sans to sign up for their birthday card to get free food on your birthday.

Sephora – Sign up as a Beauty Insider and get a free gift from Sephora on your birthday.

Shoney’s – Get your child (10 and under) a free kid’s meal on their birthday when you sign them up for the the Kids Club.

Sonic – Members of the Wacky Pack Kid’s Birthday Club will receive a coupon for a free Wacky Pack during the week of their birthday.

Taco Bell – Get a free combo meal of your choice on your birthday at Taco Bell. (May not be available in all areas.)

Taco Time – Taco Time send kids ages 12 or younger a coupon for a free kid’s meal on their next birthday.

Texas Roadhouse – Become a Texas Roadie and come into Texas Roadhouse to get a free dessert on your birthday.

TGI Friday’s – Receive a coupon for a free appetizer to use on your birthday when you sign up for Friday’s E-Club. You also get a coupon for a free appetizer just for signing up!

Tony Roma’s – Get a free dinner on your birthday from Tony Roma’s.

Toys ‘R’ Us – Children ages 2 – 10 will receive a birthday card and surprise gift from Geoffrey when you sign them up for Geoffrey’s Birthday Club.

The Transformation Studio – The Transformation Studio (TX) will give you a free makeover or express facial for your birthday! Be sure to mention the birthday special when you book your makeover or express facial and bring in your ID.

Walt Disney World – Free admission on your birthday when you register in advance and bring the confirmation along with an ID.

Zio’s Italian – Come in and get a free dessert on your birthday at Zio’s.

Source

Over the past year, unemployment has been on the near-constant rise. Every time I turn around it seems as though some other company is cutting 20% of its work force. Many of the larger companies, however, are doing something to try to ease the layoffs before actually being forced to simply fire the workers.

They’re offering buyouts.

These buyouts, depending on the company, are typically a few thousand dollars ($10,000-$25,000) and are a one time payment. With the payout, the employee is immediately terminated and he or she is free from any contract that they might have with the company.

However, even when GM decided to offer buyouts to some of its employees that included a free car, employees weren’t taking the offer and instead were opting for the risk of not knowing whether they would be fired without a buyout or not. Many GM workers who could have taken the buyouts were fired with no money to help cushion the blow.

Most recently, the United States Postal Service has decided to offer a $15,000 buyout to anyone who wants to quit willingly. The offer extends to those seeking retirement or early retirement, a total of about 30,000 employees. They would get $10,000 now and the other $5,000 in October 2010. I’m sure that many of these people will not end up taking the buyout.

The problem is, many of these people know that their job is worth more than the buyout being offered. There aren’t enough jobs to go around right now and if they decide to quit and take the buyout, then they are much less likely to be able to find work again especially because these are the people who are eligible for retirement. They are the ones who will end up scrimping and saving because they can’t keep their electricity on if they burn through their savings.

In some ways, I don’t blame the people who decide to not take the buyout, but on the other hand, many of these people will be terminated without any financial compensation of any kind. The buyouts do leave a bitter taste in your mouth, don’t they?

My freshman year in college in 2004, when I went to the bookstore, my books totaled just over $640 for 15 credit hours plus two labs. This is not including calculators, paper, pencils, etc. Without a credit card to put it all on from my parents or wherever some other students get their money from, I had to get creative with how I spent my money.

I started looking around the internet for ways to get the books cheaper; and while it may sound like a cheapskate thing to do, I wrote down the ISBN’s of all the books I needed and searched for them on CampusBooks.com.

Over the past few years in college here are the main things I learned from the book/supply buying experience:

1. Never EVER pay retail. This means don’t go to the college bookstore and just buy whatever they have. At least try to price compare on the internet. If you’re strapped for time, you may have to buy the book from the bookstore, but usually you can either wait or find a friend in the class to share with for awhile.

2. Don’t buy your books before class starts. This is not applicable to Math classes or Labs (you will ALWAYS need those books). The thing is I noticed that a lot of teachers would require books for their classes but never use them, or end up doing lectures with PowerPoint presentations that covered everything that would be on the test. After the first year, I couldn’t figure out why I was paying $100 for a book that I never used, so I stopped buying them before the semester started.

3. Ok, so you’ve ordered your book too late, now what? Ask your professor for copies of the problems. I came across this problem when I ordered an economics book from an international seller (by the way I really recommend international books because they’re much cheaper and you can sell them back on the internet for what you paid for them) and I didn’t get the book for the first week of a summer school class. I asked the professor if he could copy the problems out of the book for me because of the situation and he did. It seems like professors are really willing to help when they can, all you have to do is ask.

4. IChapters.com can be your best friend if you have a class that uses a book and you only need a few chapters from it.

5. At the end of the semester, sell your book back on the internet.

6.  Save more money through lower tuition costs by attending Albertus Magnus College.

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four years ago this week. It just so happens that people are still getting caught today for trying to trick the government into giving them thousands of dollars for rescue money when they didn’t even have a residence on the coast.

Living close to Memphis, when the hurricane hit, many people fled here. There were a few people who were already living here that decided to cash in on some of the hardships that people who lost their homes were facing.

One woman, Jennifer Blaye from the Memphis area, was indited on federal charges for defrauding FEMA to the tune of $140,000. All the money was supposed to be for disaster relief and was meant to go to the people who actually lost every thing from the storm. However, she used false names and social security numbers to get the money. Of course, she has plead not guilty and so, she is not yet a felon, but we’ll see.

I believe that the majority of people try to do good things and not harm others, but there are always going to be a few who will cheat and scheme anyway that they can to make a few dollars. There are even people who will try to cheat the system and steal from other people if it means that they can get ahead. Those kinds of people are the few that makes the good people not want to donate to charities and hate the welfare and disability systems in our country.

I’ve been to both New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the past year and I have to say, they have both come a long way from where they were. The areas of New Orleans I saw were all pretty much the older parts of the town that stayed in tact, but on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, most of it is new and rebuilt. There isn’t anything on the coast that is old. Even the roads were new. It was just a bit eerie, even now.

A new study from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom has come out saying that nice guys really do finish last. The nicer the guy, the less he will earn per year versus his more aggressive counterparts.

On average, it is 1,500 pounds per year less than the more aggressive coworker.

The study was conducted over 3,000 men. They were divided into five different personality types then it ranked their salaries. The lull in pay even accounted for education, occupation, experience, as well as training.

I suppose that this could come from the fact that nice people tend to be more complacent where they are and how much they’re making. Nicer people are often less likely to ask for more when they feel underpaid. Instead, they’ll just complain about it to their friends or keep it to themselves or even make everything better by convincing themselves that everything is ok.

Sometimes being nice can be a bad thing if you’re in business, but being nice is one of the only ways to actually get your foot in the door at any place where you may not have any connections to.

Nice guys may finish last, but they often end up with the jobs.

It looks like one of the things that has always been seen as a “sure thing” could be coming back to bite investors. Life insurance companies have been offering policies to people for years and premiums often go up as the insured begins to age.

An investment scheme that has popped up in the last few years is when someone who is insured can no longer afford the premiums or is looking to “cash out” a life insurance policy that he or she has been paying on, someone will come along and buy it for a fraction of the payout and sell it off to investors who will pay the premiums until the original insured person dies.

There have been over a dozen life-settlement scams to come under investigation since 2008. Life settlements get capital by promising high returns. The business also gains the attention of other senior citizens who have empathy for the policy holders that have looked to cash out. And so, there have been a lot of companies ready to take advantage of those people.

Like when the market for securities became bloated and backed by homes created the subprime mortgage mess, the market for life settlements has created a surge in fake insurance policies called STOLI’s or stranger-originated life insurance. These STOLIs are illegal and begin with a life insurance agent who is also a life-settlement broker. The agent talks a senior citizen into taking out a big life insurance policy and wines and dines them. Then the agent agrees to pay the premiums and the ownership of the policy is transferred to investors.

Again, the problem with these STOLIs is that they are illegal and could endanger the policyholder from being able to collect any insurance in the future. Some scary statistics are that more than 50% of life settlements right now were on policies that were less than 4 years old. The reason for the increase and the large amount of settlements on policies that are less than 4 years old is the STOLIs. These policies equal out to huge losses for the insurance companies also and could potentially hurt the insurance companies to the point where they are unable to pay out real insurance claims.

It appears as though the government is taking note. Last month Senator Herb Kohl led up a special committee on the problems associated with life settlements. The committee meeting ended with the IRS and SEC being contacted to talk about gaps that are left in legislation in life settlement procedures. The SEC has agreed to look into the issues facing the industry. Due to this activity, it seems as though the market has cooled down a bit.

A year or so ago I couldn’t see the point in using Twitter. I often called it stupid and pointless, now I update my Twitter at least 5 times a week with pointless things about how my day went. I have downloaded programs just so I can update my Twitter and also installed plugins for my Firefox browser to update my Twitter, it’s not an obsession just yet, but I’m trying to get into it.

Twitter has actually become kind of useful to those who are trying to save some money also. Companies like Sears, Fiji Water, and Gold’s Gym are looking to be your friend on popular social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. They are even offering discounts and side deals for those who follow them on Twitter or add them as a friend on Facebook.

Last week, for example, Fiji Water used its Twitter feed to tell followers about a 40%-off sale on bottled water purchased through the brand’s web site. Subsequent updates dropped the discount by a few percentage points until the promotion expired. Meanwhile, The Melting Pot chain is offering a free chocolate fondue — worth $16 — to Facebook users who try the company’s free application to match up their friends. (For more current deals, see charts below.)

Fifty nine of the top 100 online retailers have accounts on the social networking websites.

“There’s definitely a business advantage to having a presence there,” says Tim Ross, principal of Kendall Ross, a Seattle-based retail branding firm. “It’s free, targeted advertising.”

If you want to add a company as a friend think about this before you do; you’re giving the company access to your profile so you need to make sure you’re aware of the privacy settings that the site offers so you can limit how much personal information the company can see.

You can track coupons that are posted on Twitter at CouponTweet.com and CheapTweet.com

I think that using Twitter as a marketing tool for a company right now is pretty valuable. I can definitely see where it comes in handy for some companies that might be hurting right now for business or who just want to get their name out. I like the idea of getting coupons and deals from being friends with companies on the social networking sites.

Some companies I don’t quite understand why they would have a Twitter and use it frequently is places like my bank, which updates its Twitter account with birth announcements and promotion announcements. It’s a regional bank and I don’t know one person who works there, so why would I want to follow them just to see who is getting a promotion or having a baby?

If you’ve ever read on the internet about my next tip, then you know that there are some out there who take it to the extreme. I want to make my tips for the everyday person.

So here’s tip number two:

Coupon clipping isn’t scary and it can be your best friend.

Alright, so this topic is kind of obvious, but I think that everyone should be reminded about this money saving tool whenever they can. I know that sometimes I can get waist deep in coupon clipping tips on the internet and just want to not use coupons at all, but then I wouldn’t be saving any money at any stores!

Using coupons does not have to be limited to the grocery store. When times get tough, a lot of restaurants and entertainment facilities start putting out and accepting coupons.

My very favorite place to get coupons is not the internet. I actually love the Sunday edition of the newspaper. Now, don’t get me wrong, before I shell out the $2 or so for the paper, I always check to see if there are coupons and if the coupons are worth the price of the paper. I typically come out not only recovering the cost of the paper, but actually saving up to $50 in groceries and other items.
My second favorite place to find coupons is online. Websites like CouponMom.com, Coupons.com, and CoolSavings.com. There are plenty of coupons available on these sites and they are updated frequently.

Here’s the thing about coupon clipping that you have to understand:

You won’t save ANY money if you start clipping and using coupons on items you don’t want or don’t need.

With that being said, just remember to always make sure that you’re clipping coupons for items you actually already use or could be substituted for an item you already use.

So now you have a stack of coupons, it looks pretty intimidating doesn’t it? Well, it doesn’t have to be. The best way to make sure those coupons get used instead of just becoming a stack of expired coupons is to organize them into the layout of the store you plan on using them. For example, I “could” use my coupons at Wal-mart, but there my favorite grocery store offers “double” coupons on some days. So, when I organize my coupons I lay them out according to where that item would be in the store and the path I would take to get to them.

I also have a small “coupon-organizer” that I can separate the coupons by aisle or type.

Coupon clipping may seem like a very small thing, but if you manage your time in the grocery store, organize your coupons, and (again) only clip the coupons for items that you will use, then coupon clipping can be one of the biggest parts of the frugal life. And you don’t have to have a doctorate to do it either…

Do you remember when shopping on the internet was scary and mostly a really sketchy thing to do? I do. But now, shopping for just about anything on the internet has become not only acceptable and safe but (for the most part) much less expensive than shopping for things in stores.

I’ll give a good example for clothing purchases. I recently stopped into a store, that I typically shop at on the internet, but was with a friend of mine at a mall, and saw a pair of blue jeans that I had to have. Well, instead of buying them on site, I went to the retailer’s website on my cell phone, only to find out the jeans were discounted on the website and were only 2/3 of the price the store wanted. I was amazed.

This kind of thing happens all the time. You don’t have to be at a store in the mall to notice price difference between a retailer and its website. For example, if you want an item from Wal-Mart that isn’t food or things like toothpaste, they are typically cheaper on the Walmart.com website and the store offers free site-to-store shipping. One thing that kind of irritates me though is that the store will not accept the internet price in store.

There is also a lot more selection when it comes to shopping on the internet. Sometimes Bryce and I shop at Old Navy for our clothes because they are stylish and inexpensive, not to mention our kids like the clothes too. The problem is when we go to the store, it usually looks like it has been hit by a train. Everything is scattered all over the place, and the clearance section is particularly bad. But because Old Navy’s sizes are usually the same no matter what style you’re getting, we can shop for the clothes on the internet now. We usually save a bit of money there too because we’re actually able to find clothes that fit and we like in the clearance section.

When we’re shopping online, we don’t have to make the journey all the way across town to get to the store either, so we can save that money and save it, or spend it on something that we need like groceries.

These days, you can buy anything on the internet (and usually for cheaper too). While I wouldn’t buy it right now, Amazon sells groceries on its website. If you look, it is kind of like Costco.

Where I live, health food stores are hard to come by, but I do know a little about their goods. So, when I came across this article called “10 Things Health Food Stores Won’t Tell You” on SmartMoney, I just had to talk a little about it.

1. Organic doesn’t mean healthy all the time. A survey recently found that consumers believe that organic foods have more nutrients in them than other non-organic foods do. This is very debatable. While organic doesn’t mean more nutritious it does mean it is a FDA monitored word that means that no synthetic or harmful (like pesticides) substances were used in growing produce and that no antibiotics or growth hormones were used in raising livestock.

2. Label standards are guaranteed to be the same today as they were yesterday. Once there were regulations on what was to be considered and labeled organic, lobbyists started hitting up senators for weakening of the regulations. It has worked on a few occasions, such as when two Alaskan senators sponsored an amendment to a wartime bill that would open the door for seafood caught in the wild to be labeled organic.

3. Our store sells overpriced prepacked goodness. Heath food doesn’t have to eat up your entire grocery budget for the month in a week. You can do things like shop at farmer’s markets or join a co-op to get healthy organic (and locally grown) produce. I find it absolutely ridiculous to pay 3 times more at the grocery store for organic beef versus regular beef.

4. There is no regulation on dietary supplements. The dosing instructions as well as the daily amounts on the bottles of dietary supplements (sometimes called vitamins if the store can get away with it) is not regulated by the FDA. Claims that the companies make on the bottles don’t have to be entirely accurate and things can end up being banned in the future. What you may be taking right now as a supplement, may, in the future, be a banned toxin (see: ephedrine).

5. Just because it’s from a health food store doesn’t mean you won’t gain weight. Recently, in my small town, a Smoothie King store has popped up in a strip mall. Everyday in class, I would see a quarter to a third of my classmates with the cups ranging from the “small” 20 oz size to the behemoth that they call a “large.” Smoothie King drinks are good, but they are FULL of sugar, and where there’s sugar, there’s calories. Many of the smoothies offered are meant to be meal replacements, but many times I would see people having a Subways sandwich with the smoothies. Now, I don’t know what they had in the cups, but I’m sure they weren’t looking at the nutrition facts when they were ordering (I always have to because too much sugar makes me really sick).

It can be amusing when a corporation goes through an identity crisis. Usually a corporate name change stems from the board or owner’s desire to move the company in a new direction or to pretend that they know what the consumer wants. I suppose sometimes they actually do know what the consumer wants, but more often a name change on an established company makes customers go, “huh?” more than anything else.

I think that more often though, companies decide to change their corporate name to get out from under a dark cloud that they imposed only on themselves.

Here are some of the worst of the worst corporate name changes:

The Shack::Radio Shack. This was so bad that I had to write about it in a previous post. While I now know that the company isn’t completely changing its name to the Shack, I still am not quite sure what the company was thinking when they decided it would be a good idea to align their company with a rickety old building. When I think Hi Tech, I’m not thinking about shacks.

Xe :: Blackwater. Earlier this year Blackwater decided that it would change its name to Xe because the Blackwater name was tarnished thanks to a 2007 incident that led to the death of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians. Thankfully, even after the name change the government did not renew the company’s contract.

Altria :: Philip Morris Co. When the company changed its name on the same exact day that the company was cleared of responsibility for a woman’s smoking related death in late January 2003, it obviously wanted to escape the bad PR it had been getting. However, all that ended up happening was a magnifying glass on the company. Every time customers are reminded about the name change, they are reminded that this is the same Philip Morris they knew and they only tried to change their name to escape responsibility.

SyFy :: SciFi. This one I can’t quite figure out. All the cable station did was change the spelling of the already abbreviated name.

You can read more about bad name changes as well as the worst offender, I’ll give you a hint, it has something to do about the company who changed the name of the Sears Tower…

Your life is currently a jumbled mess. You can no longer figure out what time you need to feed your cat because of your busy lifestyle. So, you decide to go pick yourself up a netbook and a smartphone thinking that life will get less complicated. Well, my friend, I believe that life may just get a bit more complex with that many electronic devices hanging around…unless you can utilize them properly.

Speaking from experience, I currently own a full size laptop, a netbook, and a Palm Pre and I use them all but it has taken me just about a year to figure out how to utilize them all to get the most out of owning each electronic.

I’ll start with the smallest: The Smartphone. In my honest opinion, everyone could use a smartphone. I think they’re great for doing just about anything you could possibly need. With a data plan, anytime you need to find anything the internet it is only a few clicks away. I basically use my phone to schedule my days and surf the internet…oh and make phone calls. I just decided that if you’re going to carry a small device to make calls and text during office meetings, then why shouldn’t it also surf the internet and have a good scheduler?

Secondly, I think having a laptop (or other personal computer) is important…vital even. In our “connected” society, having a full sized computer is imperative in most cases. There are so many things that you can do with a full sized computer that the smartphone can’t do, like (until recently) copy and paste. Multitasking on a personal computer is a breeze. Also, at least I find it to be true, it is so much faster and easier to type and find things on the internet with the computer. If I have my phone in my pocket, but am only a room away from my computer, I am going to get up and go search with my computer.

So, that’s when I get to the netbook. For months, my netbook laid lifelessly to the right of my laptop, plugged in and just sitting there. I’m sure that you’ve noticed by now that my life revolves around staying constantly connected. So, how did I finally begin utilizing the netbook with my phone and laptop always around? When my laptop started acting up badly (I can’t unplug it without it immediately losing power), I started traveling with my netbook. Now, I carry it everywhere. Even when I’m sitting at my desk with my laptop open, I typically leave my netbook on and on a site like Facebook with another instant messaging program open. This makes it easier for anyone who needs to get in touch with me to get in touch with me.

I think it’s all a balancing act between the three if you own them and you have to figure out if they are necessary for you.

So you’re trying to take out a loan, get a credit card with a reasonable APR or trying to buy something, anything on credit, but your credit score is too low for your liking?  Well, the first place to start when trying to rebuild that score is to find out what exactly makes up your credit score.

35% of your credit score is from paying your bills on time. To help improve this part of your score, start marking due dates on your calendar. This is the single largest section of your credit score. Setting up automatic bill payment is also another way to ensure that your bills are paid on time. This also keeps you from getting interest rate hikes on credit cards and loans. Someone who pays their bills on time, every time, has an average credit score of 706. Someone who pays 99% of the time on time’s average score is 658.

30% of your credit score is how much you owe. You need to make sure that you keep your balances from equaling up to 30% of your total credit line. Your credit score is partly based on the credit utilization ratio. If a credit card company ends up reducing your limit, what you owe actually becomes a larger percentage of your credit line. So, if this happens try to get in touch with your creditor and get the limit reversed to avoid a negative mark on your credit score.

15% of your credit score is the length of your credit history. In this case, someone who has had a credit history for 20 years is going to obviously be doing better than one who just graduated college. A trick to utilizing this 15% is to keep the first credit card you ever open, open. Use it a couple of times a year and pay it off.

10% of your credit score is credit expansion. Here’s a problem, when you apply for too much credit your credit score can be harmed, however having new credit accounts can also help your credit score. Open new accounts over time rather than trying all at once. This will help your credit score in the long run as long as you’re paying your bills on time.

The last 10% of your credit score is credit diversity. If you have all your credit in cards then you’re credit isn’t diverse. However, if you have a variety of credit cards, mortgage, car loans and pay the bills on time while keeping the accounts active, then you’re diversified in this aspect of your credit. The key is to keep the accounts active because not using the accounts won’t help your credit at all.

First there was regular American beer. It was filling and had a bunch of calories to go along with it; around 150. It also had about 5% alcohol content per bottle. Then came along its fewer calorie cousin the light beer; it had about 100 calories and 4% alcohol content per bottle.

Now there is a new fad that is taking over the country’s breweries. Ultra light beer that has between 55 and 64 calories and has less than 3% alcohol content per bottle.

The commercials were the first things that drew my attention to the ultra light beers. MGD 64 is a beer sold my Miller Brewing Co. It only has 64 calories and 2.8% alcohol. The ads feature someone being able to order a “regular” size beer with 64 calories and his or her friend ordering 64 calories of their favorite beverage and coming up quite short.

The trend has continued because now Anheuser Busch is going to start marketing its newest ultra light beer, Budweiser Select 55, in more markets starting this month.

Of course, all of these beers are targeted toward the people who do not want to be drinking their calorie s or lose their figure to a beer belly and there is a huge market for this here. However, this beer is unlikely to appeal to anyone outside that group.

In an MSNBC article, when people tasted it, they said that it was watered down and one guy went as far as to say that it was like drinking beer flavored water. This is not, in any way, my opinion of how a beer should taste. Then again, the same interviewee said that he didn’t care about the alcohol content because he was “not a college kid trying to get wasted.”

When it comes to the beer brewing process, because there are less of the ingredients such as malted barley during the fermentation process, the end result is a more watery brew with a lesser amount of alcohol in each bottle.

You would think that we would learn something from our bubbles bursting every time we see some kind of “new” money making thing that catches on. However, this isn’t the case. As a matter of fact, as a capitalistic nation, we tend to try to make money the greediest and fastest ways imaginable. In the case of the recent housing bubble, there were a lot of shady business practices that were happening to lead up to the burst.

So what are some of the things that economists are looking to in order to try to figure out what the next bubble will be?

Number one on the list might just be gun sales. While some Americans are anticipating anti-gun legislation to be passed down from Congress, they are in the stores buying the guns and ammunition up. There have been many places across the country that have simply run out of ammunition and factories can’t keep up with demand. Many guns have already started to ascend in value and the trend is expected to continue.

I find that the gun sales thing has no merit simply because it’s scared consumers driving up the prices themselves. This is all thanks to what these people are seeing as severe gun control and they are creating false demand for the products. Most of the fears will not subside unless they have another gun-loving Republican in office.

Another item that may soon be finding itself in a bubble is incandescent light bulbs in Europe. The European Union has banned the old, traditional light bulbs and wants everyone to switch over to the CFLs or other energy efficient types of lights. The ban has caused many of the consumers in those nations to begin hoarding the light bulbs in anticipation of the ban. Companies that produce these light bulbs have seen a huge increase in demand, and in September, when the law goes into effect, the bubble will burst and these companies will have to start churning out the energy efficient bulbs instead.

Thanks to a drying up of endowments, higher education may be another one of those bubbles to watch and its happening now. Some colleges rely heavily on endowments and many schools aren’t getting the money that they were even a year ago. This has caused over dependence on the endowments and colleges are really feeling the pinch now.

Maybe sometime far in the future alternative energy will become a bubble and it too will burst. For this to happen there has to be an update of the energy grid on a national level and there also has to be a new way of getting credits for tapping into green energy sources.

Sure, this time of year usually means that you’ll be spending lots of money (or at least wanting to) on your friends and family. You really don’t have to blow your entire bank account on gifts and entertaining though. There are ways to cut your budget and still get something for everyone on your list and make sure they’re fed while visiting.

One thing you can do to help with food is to go halfsies on food items at warehouse stores. If you go in with a friend or family member, you could actually find yourself saving money. There’s no way that one person (or family) will need 10 pounds of Stove Top.

Speaking of food, at Christmas my family has turkey again and we never get a huge turkey. Sure, we all like leftovers but our turkeys are rarely over 16 lbs. I read that the rule of thumb is to get 1 lb per person and 2 lbs if you want lots of leftovers.

When it comes to Christmas gifts, there are always ways to save money without looking cheap. This year, for our family members that aren’t immediate family, we’re giving out cookie tins. I am going to personally make everyone’s favorite types of cookies and hand them out at Christmas-time. Homemade gifts are always a great way to show that you not only have thought about the person but that you took the time to prepare and make the gifts.

If you don’t have the talent to bake or create gifts and still want to save some money, there are treasures to be found at thrift stores. This way you can find unique gifts and even some antiques that people will really enjoy. Recently, a family member got married and someone found a beautiful jewelry box at a thrift store in their area; not only was the box beautiful but it was one of the best gifts she got in her opinion.

Of course, Christmas isn’t only about food and gifts; almost everyone decorates their house in some way. The best way to save money on decorating is to use the same decorations from last year. There are ways to salvage those strings of lights that you can’t seem to get to work even if it does seem like a pain. Then, if you want to save money for next year just make sure to buy decorations after Christmas to get great deals on discount decorations as well as other things.