$10 off 40 Purchase at Walgreens. Hurry ends this Saturday!
I stumbled across this Walgreens $10 off a $40 purchase coupon at CommonSenseWithMoney so I thought I would share it with my readers also. Yes, I realize this may be a day late and a dollar short…(or maybe too much) for most of my readers but maybe someone can take advantage of it.
The coupon is only valid for August 29th and 30th and you can’t use it for alcohol, tobacco, prescriptions allergy medicine for your uncle’s meth lab, prepaid phone cards or gift cards so basically I have no use for it. By the way, has anyone actually received a gift card to Walgreens? I can just see the look of fake excitement already.
For those that do frequent Walgreens, Mercedes put together a potential shopping list that she could use to reach the $40 limit. She also suggests you visit a few other websites that have some ideas. You should also visit SlickDeals.net for a litany of additional purchase ideas. If you recall, I mentioned SlickDeals as a good asset to use when searching for the best prices.
Good luck finding $40 worth of useful items.
Steps To Find The Best Price When Shopping
The easiest way to purchase something is to usually find what you’re looking for and purchase it sight unseen, no questions asked. This is surely the most convenient way to purchase a product but is likely the most expensive way also. I’ve put together a list of steps you can take that are simple to do but can save you a bundle if your flexible and willing to shop around for the best bargain. I shop around for almost any item other than everyday household goods by following these steps.
- Know what you need and when you need it. If you don’t need the product immediately, your savings can add up by comparing prices online and waiting for a bargain.
- First, shop at your local stores and find the product you need but don’t buy it yet. It could be a new pair of shoes, an LCD TV, a book or just about anything. Instead, take note of the price and other details such as size, color and model number. Simply write it down or record it on your phone if you don’t have a pen and a pad with you.
- Online price comparison can reveal huge savings and often times you can avoid tax and sometimes get free shipping. So the next time you’re wasting time surfing the internet at work, perform a quick search for the product. Remember, less is usually more when performing a search. For example, if you’re looking for a specific book, instead of typing in the title Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association simply type the ISBN number 1557987912 and you’ll get more meaningful results. If you don’t know the ISBN number, visit Amazon and find the number there. Enclosing your search in quotes also helps narrow out the unwanted results.
Read the rest of this entry »Student Loan Repayment With Upromise
I received a question from a reader regarding the college savings assistance program offered by Upromise. While his question focused on the student loan repayment option through Upromise, I feel it is important to first describe what the program is all about.
Upromise is the largest private source of college funding contributions in the U.S. OK, so what does that mean? Well, basically, Upromise partners with popular retailers to offer monetary rewards to members for using their products or services. These rewards, which are normally a certain percentage of each qualifying purchase, go into an account which can be used as a method of saving for college, as a supplement to an existing 529 college savings plan or as a way to help repay existing student loans. The free program is intended to foster brand loyalty amongst members and in return Upromise receives a commission for driving traffic to participating retailers.
Upromise, owned by student loan lender Sallie Mae, partners with Citi Upromise World MasterCard to offer you an extra 1% on every purchase you make and 10% extra on qualifying purchases. These percentages are in addition to the normal rewards you earn through the Upromise program. You don’t have to use this specific credit card, you could use any credit card, but in order to get the extra rewards you need to apply for the Citi card. Registering any card with Upromise is as easy as filling in your card information with your Upromise account. You will also want to register your grocery and drug store reward cards to get credit for those qualifying purchases.
10 Secrets Your Bank Won’t Tell You
I recently stumbled across a SmartMoney article published by Yahoo! Finance which listed 10 things your bank doesn’t readily advertise. While there were a few things that were well known to me, they offered some insight into several other things I found interesting.
I’ll provide a summary of each secret with a little of my wisdom or lack thereof.
1. “Our branches are there to sell you, not serve you.”
I almost only use online banking and ATMs as my sole means of banking and I tend to get perturbed if I have to deposit a check it requries me to drive down to the bank, during business hours, to do it. So naturally, I always wondered why there are so many bank branches around town? Well, if I think back, I set up all of my accounts in a bank branch and when I bought my truck back in olden days of 2001 I also talked to a loan officer about a loan. So in addition to the convenience factor, bank branches are there to sell you products and services with one-on-one human interaction that a keyboard and monitor just can’t give you.
2. “Our fees will only go up.”
This is a no-brainer. The article suggests that overdraft fees earned banks $17.5 billion with a “B” in additional revenue in 2006. The article also uses a woman as an example of someone who gets charged $100 a month in overdraft fees because her Chase credit card changes the order of her purchases so that large debits get paid first, increasing the likelihood of her incurring overdraft fees on smaller purchases. First of all, who just lets that happen. It’s her own fault for staying with Chase. I was once a long-term customer of Wells Fargo but moved my banking to Capital One because Wells Fargo nickel and dimed me every way they could. Capital One even reimburses my ATM fees. Thanks Capital One!
3. “We change our interest rates all the time.”
I have a co-worker who had this happen to them with Bank of America. They maintained a balance on their BofA credit card and one month their interest rate shot up to 21% from 12% for no apparent reason. When they called to complain, BofA said it was their right under the credit card agreement and they notified all card holders of the change. Well, I know from personal experience that every time I get a bank statement there is on average 3-4 advertisements tagging along with my bill so I know how one might overlook these card agreement changes. Ohh, my co-worker transferred their balance to another card.
Don’t Pay Your Old Debts
You were young, you made some bad financial decisions in your life and you have past debt that you’ve never paid. Now it’s 7 years later and you get a call from someone claiming to be an attorney demanding that you pay your past debts or you will be taken to court. 1-2-3 Panic! Slow down and take a deep breath. You may not have to pay those past debts and the law is on your side.
First I must emphasis that the title to this post may sound misleading and I highly encourage everyone to pay their debts. I would hope that you don’t put yourself in this position in the first place, but bad things happen to good people and sometimes you just can’t make ends meet. This is when you must know the statute of limitations that applies to debt in your state.
Once your past debt has been written off by the original creditor and you have been punished by damaging your credit score, the statute of limitations begins to tick. Once the statute of limitations expires in your state, you are legally not required to pay that specific debt - with a few exceptions I point out below.
Here is a generic flow of events that tends to happen. 1.) You miss your payments and the creditor demands payment 2.) You can’t pay and a period of time goes by and the creditor decides you will not pay the debt 3.) The creditor writes off the debt 4.) The creditor turns the debt over to a collection agency to attempt collection who is also unable to gain payment from you 5.) The creditor then sells the debt to a company commonly called a scavenger debt collector for pennies on the dollar and they will threaten you with litigation unless you pay the full amount plus interest.
Tips On Financing Your Next Vehicle
Have you ever wondered how car dealerships make money? Well wonder no more. If you guessed by selling cars your right, but only partially. The profit in selling a new car is usually very small or maybe even at a loss. Car dealerships make their money from the ability of their salesmen and finance managers to sell you a multitude of other products which boost margins.
The number one way car dealerships make their money is through their financing arm. Of course they rip you off with other extras such as Scotchguard, VIN etching on windows and extended warranties but the finance department is where the most money is at.
Listed below are a few tips on how to avoid paying more for a car loan than you should:
- Know what you need/want before you step foot into a dealership.
- Take some time to research the different car options that interest you. Many auto manufacturers allow you to build a car online. Other websites such as Cars.com or vehix.com allow you to search for exactly what you want so you know how much, on average, your future car should cost with the options you want.
- Pull your credit report and know your score. I touch upon this in a previous post about free credit reports.
- Visit your local bank, credit union or loan shark and inquire about new (or used) car financing rates.
- The only way a lender can quote you a solid rate is if they run your credit report so go ahead and let them do it. You want the most accurate information at your fingertips not just an estimate.
- After speaking with a few lenders you should have a pretty good idea of what current rates you can command.
- Since you already researched the general price of your dream ride, ask for an amortization schedule so you have a good idea of what your payments will be for a given financing term and rate. You can also use a Bankrate calculator to find out your payment information.
- Request the quote in writing if possible and ask if they can pre-approve you for a car price range.
Can You Negotiate Lower Rent?
It is not widely known but negotiating your rent is something anyone can do. It doesn’t matter if you are signing a new lease or renewing an existing lease. People never accept the advertised price of a new or used car but most people just accept the landlord stated rental rates as the be all end all rent they will have to pay each month.I’ve worked in commercial real estate for the past 6 years and I am very familiar with how apartment owners and their management companies work. Many of the same practices apply to both apartment renters and single family house renters but for this post I’ll focus on apartment renting.
Most of the time the apartment owners purchase a property with the intention of increasing their cash flow by either raising the complex’s occupancy or increasing the rental rates of existing tenants. Sometimes the landlord offers concessions to entice people to make that apartment complex their home or they make improvements to the property with the intent of increasing rental rates on existing tenants when their lease expires. Sometimes they do none of the above and just pass rental increases on to tenants in a take it or leave it fashion.
How To Buy New Tires And Save Money
Buying tires is expensive any way you want to look at it. While I generally liked the idea of cruising around town on my racing slicks and peeling out on the tiniest bit of moisture on the road, I knew that my safety and the safety of my passengers required me to bite the rubber bullet if you will and find some new tires.So when I set out on my tire search, I narrowed down the tires that would be suitable for my truck and then I started price shopping. Amazingly, tires are a pretty competitive business in my part of the world so prices were competitive. I did find some good deals at online retailers such as Tire Rack but in my case the shipping ate up my savings. So in the end I decided to go with Discount Tire since I had several local stores to choose from and they offered free lifetime balance, rotation and flat fixes. Luckily Discount Tire has an “Out the Door” quote they offered online so a breakout of my total tire expense at full retail would have been as follows:
- 4 Tires $680
- Tire Disposal Fee $10
- FREE Installation and Lifetime Balance, Rotation and Flat Repair $60 [wait, I thought it was free]
- Tax $56.43 Total $806.93
- Ouch!
I needed to save some cash so I set the money saving wheels in motion. I went down to the closest Discount Tire store and talked with one of the showroom managers. I explained that money was an issue and asked if they had an promotions or special offers they could extend to me. He said he could drop the tire disposal fee but that was about it. I needed more. I asked about what all went into the total cost and he explained that the lifetime balance, rotation and flat service had an upfront cost of $60 but was free as long as you owned the tires. I also asked him how much it was for just the tires, nothing else, and he quoted me $736. So I got his card and said I needed to shop around before making a decision.
The Only Free Credit Report Site!
Do a quick Google search on “free credit reports” and you get find hundreds of websites trying to convince you to get a free credit report from them. Better yet. Sit in front of the TV with a bag of Cheetos and wait 10 minutes for that slappy young guy who sings about his life woes while promoting freecreditreport.com to come on. These services sound great right? I mean, after all, they’re all free right? Wrong! Most free credit report sites will give you a free credit report but you’ll also be enrolled in a totally worthless credit monitoring service costing upwards of $15 to $25 per month. As they say, the devil is in the details so always read the fine print. The only truly free credit report site you should EVER use is the site established by the three nationwide credit reporting agencies Experian, Equifax and TransUnion after some poking and prodding by good ole Uncle Sam. This site is www.annualcreditreport.com. This excerpt from the site sums up what the site is about and why it was created.
“AnnualCreditReport.com provides consumers with the secure means to request and obtain a free credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies in accordance with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act).”
For those that don’t trust sending personal information over the interwebs, you can request a report over the phone or by mail also at ( 877) 322-8228 or by mail. Click here for a copy of the mail-in form.Navigating the site is pretty self explanatory but there are a few tips you need to keep in mind when requesting your report.
My Philosophy on Saving Money When Grocery Shopping
As grocery prices keep rising, more people are desperate to find ways to save money on groceries. Personally, I’ve gone from the good ole days of spending roughly $55 a week to about $75 per week on my grocery bill. I keep a grocery price log and buy pretty much the same items every week so I know all too well how basic grocery staples have gone up in price. While there is nothing I can do about grocery prices or my receding hairline, I do have good handle on how to save money at the grocery stores.
First of all, a grocery price log seems like a hassle and is definitely a nerdy thing for a young guy like myself to carry around, but you’ll have to trust me that it will save you a ton. How many times have you walked into a Super Wal-Mart or Kroger or whatever and saw something that you always buy but don’t really know if it is a good deal or not? If you had your price log in your purse or wallet you take the guesswork out of it. Who cares if you went to the store to buy that item in the first place, if it’s a great deal, why not buy it? And once you’ve logged all the items you buy on a regular basis, it’s almost effortless to update the log with one-off items or price changes.
