I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘cool stuff’ Category

After some consideration, today I called our cable company to find out how much more having HD service would be.  Since we now have a HD television thanks to my parents’ generous gift, I thought that if it wasn’t too much more, maybe we would consider working it into the budget at some point in the future when we’re out of non-mortgage debt.  Currently, we have our extended basic cable television, home phone and cable internet bundled into one package.  I was hoping that maybe because we had a lot of services bundled together, it might not cost as much to upgrade.

When I called, the salesperson looked at our service and crunched some numbers, and then told me some startling news.  When we first got our service at our house, we got an introductory price for the first twelve months, and then a few months ago, the price went up about $30 a month to the regular price for the three services bundled that we have.  Well, right now at least, switching to digital and HD service from our extended basic service, and keeping our other services, we are eligible for another 12 months of an introductory special, which is about $20 less than we currently pay right now.  And it includes the HD box.  After the twelve months is up, the price goes up to $7 more a month than we currently pay for extended basic.

So upgrading now saves us $20 a month off our cable bill for the next 12 months.

So I signed up.  I mean, I just saved $240 over the next year for upgrading my service.  That is the kind of deal I will be happy to live with.  We can reevaluate what we want to do a year from now and see if we want to continue with the service, but for now I found another $20 a month snowflake.

This week is becoming slightly surreal. 

My parents purchased a 46″ flat panel plasma TV a few months ago.  To say they love it would be an understatement.  My dad could talk for hours about how great the picture is, how amazing the TV is, etc.  I am not really into electronic gadgets and having the latest and greatest, so I don’t really follow a lot of what he’s talking about, but I am happy that they are so happy with their purchase.

My parents are visiting us right now for a week (we live about 1000 miles away from them) and yesterday  a 37″ flat panel LCD TV arrived for us.  With an upconverting DVD player as a bonus freebie (which I only vaguely understand what that even means).   My dad works in a position where he earns gift cards to major retailers as performance perks, and he did exceptionally well this past year with that.   He decided to turn his perks into Best Buy gift cards, and used them to buy us the TV as well contributed to my spouse’s goal of getting a Playstation 3 so that my spouse would have enough money to get it now (which my spouse did, it is on its way to our house as I speak).

To say I feel overwhelmed would be an understatement.  My dad said that he wanted to get us something that we would enjoy but would never consider doing for ourselves because we have other priorities for our money right now.  And he was right – the TV is amazing and we both really like it, but we would never have considered buying one for ourselves.

We’re not getting the HD upgrade from our cable company though.  We wouldn’t want to go crazy and turn a gift into an ongoing bill for us.  The old TV is going to our August yard sale.  Maybe we’ll recoup some of the energy usage costs. 

I take a lot of pictures.  A lot of pictures.  Through the wonders of digital technology, I don’t print every single picture I take, but I do print a lot of them, because I scrapbook.  I haven’t made the transition to digital scrapbooking so I use actual prints to scrapbook with.  One of my very favorite things to do after a vacation is to go through all the pictures I took, pick out the ones I want printed, and send them off to be printed.

My very favorite thing to do is get those prints as cheaply as possible but still get quality pictures.  I belong to a number of photo printing programs and make sure to keep my eyes peeled for any deals I can get.  Once in a while a really good (to me) deal comes across my inbox and being that we just had a three day holiday weekend, in case you have some holiday or vacation photos you want printed, you might want to take advantage of it.

Snapfish is offering 50 prints for 50 cents, using the coupon code JUL4PENNY08.  In the US, the shipping is $3.44 for 50 4×6 prints, which brings your total to $3.94 before applicable taxes.  Any time I can get prints for 8 cents or less (total cost) is a good deal in my book.  This offer ends July 12th, so if you’re interested, don’t delay!  If you are not yet a member of Snapfish, they have a 50 free digital prints (excluding shipping) offer for new members which you can take advantage of first.  I am consistently happy with the quality of prints from Snapfish and think that their pictures are some of the best I have ordered.

If you want even more prints, ArtsCow is continuing their offer for new members of 200 free 4×6′s and 200 free 5×7′s and a free photo book.  This isn’t all at once – you can order 50 free prints of each size per month for four months.  I wrote an extensive review of ArtsCow a few months ago, and I have continued to use their print services with very good results.  I even used them to print some poster sized prints for my taekwondo studio that came out very crisp and clear.   The shipping on 50 4×6 prints is $3.99 and for 50 5×7 prints it is $5.99.

So if you have pictures you’d like to have printed – you can take advantage of one of these offers and get them done on the cheap!  I am still working on my son’s baby book so my free prints are printing pictures from 2005…

The M-Network blogs are doing a series on vacation tips this week. On Tuesday I talked about getting deals on airline tickets and my methods for doing so in the past. Today I have tips for dealing with an emergency while traveling. There are a number of different types of emergencies that could arise, but I am going to focus on two major categories: health emergencies and financial emergencies.

Health Emergencies

So you’re on vacation, and someone gets sick or hurt, and you know that they need more than a little TLC. When you are away from the familiarity of home, what can you do?

How to prepare in advance: Call your insurance company and find out what your specific coverage is. Know if you can use your insurance in hospitals away from home. If you are traveling to an area where you have specific insurance coverage, find the name of a doctor you may be able to see on your trip if needed. Know where the nearest hospitals are to your location, and if possible, along your travel route as well. Write a card with important health and home information on it, including who to contact in case of an emergency, for each member of your party. Bring your own medicine so you’re not out in an unfamiliar place buying common over the counter items such as pain relievers and fever reducers.

What to do when the emergency arises: If you’ve prepared, then take yourself or your child to the nearest medical treatment facility. If you cannot transport yourself, generally in the US, call 911. If you aren’t sure where to go or who will treat you – call 911 and go anyway. If your illness is severe enough to warrant immediate medical attention, please seek it and don’t try to tough it out until you return home.

Financial Emergencies

No one likes to lose their wallet or have their credit card refused for reasons beyond their control, but when it happens when traveling its even more of an issue. What can you do to minimize the inconvenience and hassle?

How to prepare in advance: Create an information sheet of everything in your wallet. Please. Go do it now. Know what is in there, because you never know when you’ll need it. If you are traveling with more than one adult, split up important cards between people so no one wallet has everything. Carry more than one bank or credit card for use in case a problem arises with one of them.

What to do when it happens: If you lose your wallet or it is stolen, report all your credit cards and bank cards as lost or stolen immediately. If you’ve lost your license and you’ve flown to your destination, call the airline and find out their requirements for flight – some will still let you fly if they know the situation in advance, they just subject you to extra security.

Above all – stay calm and be as prepared as possible in advance. I’ve lost things on vacation, I’ve had sick children, I’ve even had to find a pharmacy in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar place. If I’d done more research in advance everything would have gone a lot smoother. Do as much preparation for the “what if’s” as you do for the sightseeing and chances are, things will turn out better than you expect.

Today, we of the M-Network are doing a series on vacationing. Frugal tips, ideas, experiences, personal accounts…everything. Check out the other M-Network blogs for more. My topic today is airline tickets – how to get the best deal, when to fly, strategies for using the internet to help – it’s all here. Enjoy!

There are several things to consider when buying airline tickets. First off, how flexible are your travel dates? Can you travel on a less busy day (such as the middle of the week) versus a high traffic day? Are you flexible about arrival and departure times? How far in advance are you planning? The more flexible you are, the better the deal you may be able to procure. For example, my mother is visiting us this week and next, and through Northwest Airlines, when she flies on a Tuesday or Wednesday versus any other day of the week, she flies for over one hundred dollars less round trip. Not bad for being flexible.

Once you know your general travel dates, bookmark a few of the major airline ticket search engines and start looking at tickets. Remember – flexibility is key. It is best to be able to look over a range of dates, both departing and arriving, and at least several weeks in advance. I use orbitz.com, cheaptickets.com, and expedia.com to do my initial searches. The key is to try and find tickets at a discounted rate. Don’t just look one day and buy tickets. Look over several days, or weeks if you have that much time. Flights can vary day by day and week by week in price.

But I do not stop my search there. Something that has been very successful for me in the past is once I identify a potential flight – I go directly to that airline’s website and search there. I often find the same tickets for a slightly lower rate than the ticket search engine when I go directly to the airline website. If you have ultimate flexibility, you may be able to use a discount service like priceline.com to buy tickets – but you have to be prepared to fly at any time that day. Any. Even 11:59 pm or 12:01 am.

Be flexible and keep looking – these are my best pieces of advice. Once you’ve identified potential flights – look for those same flights multiple places. And be ready to take advantage of a good deal. Have fun and good luck planning your vacation!