Tag Archives: money

Suze Orman’s Free Book Download

Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan Suze OrmanDon’t forget (unless you hadn’t heard already) that you can download Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan for free starting today. It’s downloadable in English or Spanish.

Offer expires at 11:59 p.m. CT on Thursday, January 15.

I need to Stop Drinking Bottled Water

I know I should stop drinking bottled water, but I can’t. It’s too convenient to just grab a bottle on the go. It’s generally less than 17 cents a bottle when I purchase a case (this week it’s way on sale for 11.5 cents a bottle for an odd sized case of 35 at Meijer). I keep a case by the car in the garage and I take grab one to go all the time. I generally refill it as the day goes on. It’s just too easy to grab it and go; if I make it more inconvenient I might end up drinking less water and I probably don’t drink enough as it is (I used to hate drinking water).

Brita 42629 Slim Pitcher BritaAnd yes, I do understand that much of the bottled water is tap water.

Why am I talking about this today? Because I just read 10 Reasons To Stop Drinking Bottled Water over at The Good Human and I’m feeling a little guilty. The two statistics that really blew my mind were that it can take nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle itself and that on a weekly basis, 37,800 18-wheelers are driving around the country delivering water.

Nalgene ATB w/ Lid BPA-Free Bottle - 22oz NalgeneI will mention that at home I do drink tap water and while I prefer to run it through the Britta Filter first, it’s not a requirement. I do not open bottled water to drink in the house and I’m perfectly fine drinking non-filted ice from my freezer (hmm, I wonder if there is a filter on the freezer that needs changing?).

I just don’t see me washing out some kind of travel bottle to reuse over and over. If I drink two plastic bottles a day (and that would be a lot) we’re only talking about saving $2.50 a week (not counting purchasing and cleaning the reusable bottles and the time); wouldn’t I be better off saving a gallon of gas or two? I see me needing to get out of the house and wanting some water and the bottle isn’t clean or full or the Britta pitcher is empty or some other barrier stopping me; a few times a week I’d probably have to skip it and have to stop somewhere and buy a bottle for $1.50 which is counter productive. Maybe if I had 3 or 4 refillable bottles?

It’s back – Free Christmas Album from Oprah

THIS OFFER IS OVER.

20081118 Tows Holiday2 284X218Here’s a free Christmas Album sponsored by Oprah. This is the same album from a few weeks ago.

Don’t miss the cover art links too!

Once again – It says it’s only available for 48 hours, but I don’t know when the clock started ticking…

  • Faith Hill, “Joy to the World” from the album Joy to the World
  • Tony Bennett, “I’ll be Home for Christmas” from the album A Swingin’ Christmas
  • Il Divo, “O Holy Night” from the album The Christmas Collection
  • Josh Groban, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” from the album Noel
  • Brian McKnight, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” from the album I’ll Be Home for Christmas
  • Amy Grant, “O Come All Ye Faithful” from the album The Christms Collection
  • Harry Connick Jr., “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” from the album What a Night! A Christmas Album
  • Aretha Franklin, “Silent Night” from the album This Christmas

Gas Prices are pretty low right now!

I cannot believe how much gas has dropped in the last few months. It’s really insane, but in a good way.

Ch.Gaschart
I got this graph from DetroitGasPrices.com. Looks like they shot back up 10 cents in the last few days, but still. Compared to gas prices from 5 years ago, we’re right around the same area but pretty much since then it’s a much better deal.

I was talking two years ago about “how low” prices had dropped but it almost peaked at a dollar less these past few weeks.

FYI, when I buy my gas I try to check DetroitGasPrices.com (I think it’s an offshoot of GasBuddy.com). I’m not going to drive way out of my way for a few cents, but if I’m driving through an area that’s cheap, I’ll wait until I get to the cheaper place…

Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis

At Flowing Data they posted a great flowchart on the current financial crisis (it’s way to big to reproduce here. Informative and easy to follow.

I think they got it from here.

Free Christmas Album from Oprah

20081118 Tows Holiday2 284X218Here’s a free Christmas Album sponsored by Oprah.

  • Faith Hill, “Joy to the World” from the album Joy to the World
  • Tony Bennett, “I’ll be Home for Christmas” from the album A Swingin’ Christmas
  • Il Divo, “O Holy Night” from the album The Christmas Collection
  • Josh Groban, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” from the album Noel
  • Brian McKnight, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” from the album I’ll Be Home for Christmas
  • Amy Grant, “O Come All Ye Faithful” from the album The Christms Collection
  • Harry Connick Jr., “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” from the album What a Night! A Christmas Album
  • Aretha Franklin, “Silent Night” from the album This Christmas

    Don’t miss the cover art links too!

    It says it’s only available for 48 hours, but I don’t know when the clock started ticking…

    THIS OFFER HAS EXPIRED!

  • McDonald’s Monopoly Game 2008

    Just a quick tip on winning: The easy way to remember which pieces are the winning game pieces for this year’s Monopoly game is they are the last piece alphabetically in their set; except in the case of Boardwalk (which is the major winning game piece).

    Be sure to keep me in mind if you use this tip to win the big bucks ;)

    I believe this is the same system they’ve used in the previous five years (possibly longer).

    My problem with this is remembering the other pieces in the sequence to know if it’s the last one alphabetically…

    Water Works – $50 – Odds 1 in 639,000
    Mediterranean Avenue – $100 – Odds 1 in 5,701,000
    Short Line Railroad – $500 – Odds 1 in 311,389,700
    Vermont Avenue – $1,000 – Odds 1 in 106,921,400
    Virginia Avenue – $2,000 – Odds 1 in 106,921,400
    Tennessee Avenue – $5,000 – Odds 1 in 307,947,900
    Kentucky Avenue – $10,000 – Odds 1 in 307,947,900
    Ventnor Avenue – $25,000 – Odds 1 in 769,869,600
    Pennsylvania Avenue – $50,000 – Odds 1 in 769,869,600
    Golden Avenue – $100,000 – Odds 1 in 178,065,100
    Boardwalk – $1,000,000 – Odds 1 in 591,287,650

    Pretty slim odds, even for the low-end prizes.

    * FYI – This is what I found out from looking around on-line and is the system I’m using. I don’t have any connection with the official game/rules.