Online quotes and what to stay away from

Don't you just hate those "free" instant online quotes that are neither instant or questionably free. Several years ago I was dumb enough to fall for one of those instant home loan quotes. I erroneously thought that all I had to to was put in the square footage of the home, the zip and a rough ball park of the family income and I would have at least a rough estimate of the interest rate. Nope, I got a - enter your email and phone number and a rep will contact you. If I wanted to talk to someone on the phone about home loans then I would have called a few local loan brokers but I just wanted a quick non hassle answer. I left that website and went to another one until I found an online loan estimate calculator that actually was instant.

Another one is insurance quotes. Every insurance company has one of those "instant" quote tools n their website. Most are just fishing for your email addys to get you to call them. I had a run in with an instant life insurance quote which put me on a email mailing list that would not stop until I filtered them out of my hotmail account. Even their "unsubscribe" button in their emails didn't work.

The number one thing I will not do is give out my phone number to those companies online. They don't get my real name either. Next I only use a hotmail account for any sign-up stuff. Third thing is when I have gotten the info I seek from them, I either unsubscribe or block their email from my account.

Companies threatening to raise prices due to the new health care bill

I really can't believe it, but some companies are threatening to raise their prices because the health care bill passed. One company, John Deere has made announcements that state they will be raising their prices and to buy their products now before they co up. Are they insane? Since when does a company threaten their customers with higher prices because they are now "forced" to take care of their employees health care costs. I think that any company that takes that kind of attitude should be black listed by consumers.

In reality companies will try and raise prices just to increase their bottom line and the health care bill to them is just another excuse to rip off consumers. John Deere is not the only company. There are rumors that movie companies are planning an increase movie tickets.

What I don't understand is why companies think they can try and squeeze more money from people who are just barely getting by. Forget the Outer Banks vacation, going out to the movies may have been the only entertainment some families could afford once or twice a year and to take that away from them seems very cruel. By the same token if someone has a John Deere product and it needs a replacement part, now they would not be able to buy that part so the item could be fixed.

Raising prices in this economy is outrageous and insane.  Companies that attempt that will quickly find themselves in financial trouble due to customers finding other cheaper sources of their products, or their customers will just find they can do without it.

Search engines like Google and Bing can be so frustrating at times

I recently made an awesome purchase on eBay of an HP PDA that not only takes notes from my own handwriting but plays media like MP3, videos and photos......for only $25.00. I have been playing with my new toy for a few days now. There is not enough memory for good video playback but there is for MP3's and documents. It lacks a wireless card but it has a slot for one so earlier today I started my online search for one.

Both Google and Bing have been very frustrating in finding what I am looking for. I type in one phrase or set of words and believe me I am getting the weirdest results. I actually found what I was looking for only to lose that page again. None of the results could be repeated. I even typed in "SD wireless card" for what I was looking for and I even got results for POS systems because those PDA's are apparently used as barcode scanners in stores.

I guess back to my search, maybe I'll try DogPile next.

I can fix things!!!

I have been so happy with myself for the past couple of weeks. I accomplished something that I thought I would never do. Let me boast about it.

In 2004 I bought myself one of those new notebook computers. They were the fore runners of todays netbooks. It was small and lightweight. In 2007 the notebook started to act up and had frequent bouts of the dreaded "blue screen of death." I bought another laptop to replace it and kept the little notebook for my daughter to use. I managed to keep it usable for her by either using the recovery console or just removing programs that were not needed. That went well until about 18 months ago when the notebook just died and I could not even do a system recovery on it. I thought that the hard drive just went bad and left it at that. The prices of laptops had dropped enough that I purchased a new laptop for my daughter and of course she was thrilled to death.

So the little notebook computer was left in one of our back bedrooms on one of those old time tv stands, sitting so forlorn. That was until a few weeks ago, when I started some early spring cleaning. I was bagging up items for Goodwill and looked at the notebook. I wondered if I should give it another try.

So with my laptop sitting beside the netbook I began to surf the internet looking for solutions. I downloaded recovery disks and diagnostic tools and some worked and others didn't but the problem remained. They did prove to me that there was not as much of a hardware problem with the notebook as I thought. It must be the OS. It had Windows XP and it had always had problems after that first year I had it. So I decided I would do something drastic.

I decided to go with a completely different operating system. What did I have to lose? The notebook was not being used and was "dead" anyway. I found Ubuntu a Linux operating system. I downloaded and burned the ISO image and put the DVD into the notebook's drive. It came on and the disk told me that the hard drive in the notebook had no operating system on it and would I like to install Ubuntu on it? I hit the "Y" key and it loaded up.

To my amazement the notebook WORKS! I have been using it for 2 weeks now with no problems at all. All that time and the people I had talked to, all told me it was a hard drive problem were almost correct. It seems that Windows XP had erased itself from both the main "C" drive but also in the partition where the backup was supposed to be. The hard drive was completely clean.

Thank goodness for Linux and Ubuntu for saving what was a dead notebook. Now I use it for music, games and surfing the internet. My larger laptop is the work horse that does all of the banking, taxes and printing jobs.

See, you can learn to fix almost anything with the help of the information found on the internet nowadays.

The future of indentity fraud

Identity fraud, the fear of anyone who has money. As much as people want to think that ID theft is a new phenomenon, it has been around as a modern problem since the 1970's. I was living in Australia in the late 1970's when that country was having such a rampant problem. Thieves were managing to get into petitioners bank accounts without their knowledge. Even though I was young at the time, I still remember people talking about such drastic measures as skin id as a way to doing their banking. It would be in a form as an infrared tattoo. I don't remember how they finally fought the problem but the country is still intact and as far as I know no one has been tattooed in the name of banking.

I can fully see that some people here in the USA might advocate micro chipping people just like they do for pets. I can also see that for every method that either the banking industry or government comes up with for ID theft that the thieves will find a way around it.

Auto insurance and your credit score

Did you know that your credit score has a larger affect on your auto insurance rates than your actual driving record? That one little fact would be something I would change if I was in politics. I don't think your credit score should affect anything except loans. Your credit score is also checked when you apply for a job or when you get an auto insurance quote or for that fact apply for any type of insurance. So if your insurance rates just jumped or you are having a harder time than usual getting a job you can probalby blame them on checking your credit score.

With the large number of people that have had their houses foreclosed, they will also have a harder than normal time getting a job due to the credit checks. Those people are caught between a rock and a hard place for sure. In my opinion it is totally unfair.

The economy worries

How are people reacting to this economy? It seems that people are still worried and they are overeating, having sleepless nights, having more verbal fights with their families and just plain stressed out. Just today there was a man who was shot by the police in Portland, Oregon because he took a gun and was threatening to get even for just being laid off.

I must admit that I almost resorted to using sleeping pills back in 2004 when my money worries first started. I am so glad I stayed away from them. Instead I learned not to worry. The world did not end in 2004 nor did my life turn upside down.

I cannot stress to you enough that worry does not help any situation. I know it is hard not to worry about how to pay the bills or getting to work or even having a job, but worrying about it will not help. Just realize that this difficult time in your life will pass and you WILL survive it.

Consumer alert - hair loss pills

Hair loss is a big market for businesses. I think that hair replacement TV ads have been on TV since the early 1970's if not earlier. Men, worried about their future baldness will try almost anything on the market from creams, sprays to pills. Most of them will exihibt some mild success with a vitamin for hair loss since hair production needs good nutrition and often people don't eat right, but be warned that not all pills and topical products are made the same. Read those labels before using those products. If they don't list ALL of their ingredients then don't use it. Those claiming to have "secret" ingredients just might be toxic to you. Write down those questionable ingredients and Google the words. Find out what you will be putting in or on your body. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that not all products are made in the USA. You remember the dog food recalls the last few years where the food had toxic chemicals added to them and hundreds of pets died of kidney failure, don't think that it couldn't happen in the human products too.

Am I trying to scare you, heck yes. I want you to learn, watch and be aware of what you are buying and using.

Dieting ripoffs

I have pretty much learned to ignore those before and after pictures of diet pills. I know all too well how those photos can be faked. Did you know that some people are paid to gain weight for those photos? So in reality those "before" photos are "after" photos. The biggest flaw is when you can actually see that the two photos are not even the same person. Of course there is Photoshop and we all know what that means. The only time I will believe any weight loss success stories is if I know the person and ask them how they did it.

If that is my reaction to those types of advertising, does everyone else think the same way? You would think that advertisers would think up a better and more honest way to advertise diet pills.

A new method for job searchers

I just found out that many people are now submitting video resume's to get that job now. It seems that people are willing to pay several hundred dollars to have that video made. I make music videos as a hobby and made one as a presentation to a college class. The subject matter was careers. After the class several students approached me and wanted me to make a video resume' for them. That was the first time that I heard about the fast growing industry. 

People are now willing to finance job search up front to get that elusive job. The students informed me that the average price was around $100-$200 for a 5 minute video resume'. Of course the person making the video would have to scan in photos, awards or other career boosting evidence to include in the video. They would also need to do an interview of the person that they are doing the video for to get a good idea of what they want the video to project about them. The person making the video also has to have a strong grip on how music can make or break a video and the mood of the person watching it.

I might do one video resume for a student just to experience the process and if the video helped get them the job they were looking for.

Cheap alternatives to expensive items

Everyone wants to save money but from experience I also know there are some items we each choose not to scrimp on. Take for example my husband who will only eat Heinz ketchup, it has to be that brand or he will not touch it. I have been often tempted to buy a cheaper brand of ketchup and just put it into a Heinz container.

I know women who will only buy a certain brand of cosmetics or hand cream. Of course those brands are not the cheap ones. I only shake my head because those fools wrongly believe that price dictates quality and often it is the opposite. Take for example those expensive acne spot treatment creams. There is a much cheaper alternative and I used it when I was a teenager and now my daughter uses it, it is yogurt.

You need to look at your own shopping list and decide if you have been shopping based on brand names, taste, quality or if the product works or not. Only after you realize how you shop will you be able to save money when you shop.

Some things save you money and others simply don't

How many gizmos have you bought or had installed in your home that were purported to save you money? I am currently looking up at my ceiling fans that came with the house that are suppose to save us money on our energy bill, but quite frankly I rarely turn them on. I know I was warned a few years ago not to install those thick air filters that filter out even the smallest micron in our heating system simply because the whole house fans would be using more energy just trying to pull more air through the filter. The result would also be a burnt out fan motor.

The common item you hear on the local TV news stations for saving money on your energy bill is to install drapes. Quite frankly I think that drapes are a trade off. Install them and you have to turn on your lights more often as they cut out natural lighting. I firmly believe that drapes actually do nothing in insulating your windows. The only way to insulate your windows is to have double pane windows installed.


One of the easiest ways to cut your energy bill is to have your house shaded by trees in the summer and shielded by cold winter winds in the coldest months. You can do that by landscaping with the right outdoor plants.

Are you getting spam comments on your blogs yet?

Many new bloggers have their blogs set to automatically approve comments. That is usually just fine in the beginning of a new blog since it has no PageRank yet. Just wait until your blog starts to get some visitors. Your comments will run the gambit from, "I like your blog," to people trying to sell you advertising on their websites or "we can get your blog listed with 500 search engines." All of that I consider spam, but why? The "I like your blog," seems innocent enough unless they have listed their URL (website) as some obscure web addy like www.hydrolyzereviews.net or worse some porn website. What happens it that their name becomes the link to that website and the search engines are finding their website via your blog. Now you have 2 choices at this point, either to delete the comment or publish it without the link. If you have a blog that is using Wordpress.org software then you can publish the comment then edit the comment to remove the link. In blogger you do not have that option. Why should you care what people have linked to in your comments? Consider those links as free advertising that you are now doing for some stranger. If you don't like their website why would you give them free advertising? I personally check out every link someone puts in a comment that appears in one of my blogs. If I find those links helpful to my readers then I leave it, if not I tend to delete the entire comment. How you will handle your blogs comments will change over time.

Making lemonaid from blogging assignments

If you ever join one of those paid to blog companies that give you nothing but assignments about "the best website hosting company," or "diets that work," type of blog posts for you to write about but your blog has nothing to do with those subjects, don't fret but do what I did. For some odd reason I kept getting dieting posts to write about so instead of turning down good money from those offers I started up a dieting blog. Why fight it when you can be making money? If you get lots of technology post offers then start up a techie type of blog. Who knows, you might be making more money writing about stuff you are not passionate about but the advertisers love it.

Using your blog post title to attract the search engines

Notice how I just put the whole idea of this blog post in the title sentence? That was to get the search engines attention. If you are writing blog posts to get people to visit your blog, you HAVE to use the correct words in your title that people can search on. If you are writing a blog post about the cure for hemorrhoids, don't title your blog post "I had a bummer of a evening." Then talk about the cure. No you need to put your idea with the key word hemorrhoids, in the title of your blog post.

Some of the worse blog titles are "what a day!" and "wordless Wednesday." Just do a search on those titles and see what you come up with.

Search engines use titles of blog posts as the words they include in their searches. By adding the main idea and a few keywords in your title you WILL see an increase of traffic from search engines. Blog post titles are not an after thought, they should be well thought out and often written after your blog post is done.

Where to put your investment money

With the stock market doing a roller coaster ride and real estate not yet recovered, where do you put your money as an investment? I have heard everything from loose diamonds, bars of gold to green technology.In reality, my personal opinion is that real estate is still a good investment provided you don't have a loan on the property. Buying rentals makes for a good steady income, again...only if you don't have any loans on the property. People got carried away when those who could not afford to invest in real estate started to get involved in real estate investments. No doubt on the advice of some marketing gurus selling their books on infomercials.

Another thing to do to invest your money is to pay off any of your debts. That also means your home. The less you have to pay out in interest rates the more money in your bank account. If you have borrowed on a life insurance policy then pay it back too. Those life insurance policies that you can borrow from usually have a higher interest rate then regular bank term accounts so it is like paying yourself back.

The government and health care

Are you as sick as I am when it comes to hearing about the utter fiasco of the US government and that health care bill? The ones who are arguing about it have health care they can afford. The rest of us worry about deductibles that won't leave us with hair loss, from pulling our hair out or an unpleasant visit to bankruptcy court. Did you know that the majority of bankruptcies are not dead beats that overcharged their credit cards but people who had a major health issue that they could not afford to have? That makes sense to me. If you have the major bread winner of the family get sick, injured and not able to work anymore then most of the time they can go on disability, but disability does not pay very much, not when you have a family to support.

If you have ever received a bill from a hospital with some outrageous itemized bill then you would know that a lot of the excessive charges are from the health care providers and not at the insurance end of the bill, but I am sure that they add on a nice chunk of expenses to your premium.

The one part about the bill that I have heard about so far it the fact that everyone will be forced to buy into the system. The problem with that is that everyone cannot afford to "buy into it."

Have nothing to sell online? Sell other people's stuff

Did you know that most people are making money by selling or promoting other people's stuff online? That my dear reader is where the big bucks are at. Take for example some of the top bloggers on the internet. They are expert salesmen and women. They know how to convince their readers to part with a few extra dollars. One of the top bloggers that makes over $80K a year does not make most of his money blogging but he has 2 blogs. One of them is his hobby blog where he does reviews of cameras. He writes in his money blog that he recently made $17K in one month just by having a few ads to Amazon that showed the cameras he was reviewing on his hobby blog. Amazon has a really nice affiliate program that you can take advantage of. I actually make a few dollars from them every month too. If you have a hobby blog then you just need to join the Amazon program and put links to their items on your blog. Your readers need to buy something on Amazon through one of your links and I think that they have to buy the item without going away and coming back to Amazon at a later date for your link to be credited with the sale. The Amazon program also offers a full store you can put up. Keep in mind that Amazon sells everything, not just books anymore. Here is a sample of a large widget you can put on your blog or make a whole online store from:

A wireless society

I wondered how long it would take for our society to become completely wireless and it looks like we will be there in the next 10 years. With new inventions like that handheld device charger that you simple lay the phone, iPod or little gizmo on and it charges the device, how much longer will it be that we wouldn't even need wall sockets in our home? We have wireless security systems, cameras that you can set up that will transmit a visual to your computer or phone almost anywhere in the world via the internet. Right now I am typing this on a laptop that has a wireless connection to the internet.

At the same time I was in Staples just yesterday and noticed that they still sell phone with corded handsets. Now I must admit that most people don't know that when there is a power outage you can plug a corded phone into a phone outlet and still have a working phone line for emergencies. The phone is powered by the phone line and does not need to be plugged into a wall socket. Of course only phones with a corded handset will work because the cordless ones need AC power. So still having those old fashioned phones around are still very useful.