We all need a Charles Barkley in our life

Man, I sure wish I had a Charles Barkley in my life. I have some hella student loan debt. And some kid will not have any thanks to Charles Barkley.

According to a story I saw on Yahoo, Charles Barkley will be paying for college tuition for a busboy he met. Apparently he liked what he heard about the guys plans. And he wanted to help him out. Pretty awesome all around.

Two more banks failed

Wow, can the economy get any worse? I saw a headline on Yahoo today that two more banks have failed and been taken over by the FDIC. The banks in question are National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank.

Just like with Netbank, their offices were closed and taken over on Friday. The banks will re-open on Monday. But they will open as Mutual of Omaha Bank branches. Kind of scary stuff that makes you want to have your money under your mattress, eh?

hooray, lower gas prices

I had to do a little driving last week. Gas prices were remaining constant then. And they have been dropping this week! It seems like as soon as I got back the prices started dropping. Don't get me wrong - dropping gas prices is a good thing. I just wish it had been a few days sooner! But I am stoked to see the gas price of $3.73 down the street. Hooray for gas under $4.00 a gallon!

Ugh, gas prices and traveling

I am about to set off on a 6 hour drive. The vacation part is exciting. But the gas price part is not so exciting. Not at all really. Of course, it is cheaper than flying. I am just really thankful that I have a Corolla as it is good on gas. Too bad it's not a hybrid though!

Extra fees on event tickets

I hate buying event tickets. You see the price and think something is fairly priced. Then you go to buy it online.

Guess what?

There are loads of fees!

I was looking at some tickets for a show that were only $25.00. Then the 'covenience fee' was $8!!

Ugh, I really hate that they do not keep the box office open all the time. I hate paying fees for nothing.

The Today show this morning

For some reason, I had my TV on the Today Show this morning. I never watch that show. So I am not real sure why I had it on there. But they were talking about budgeting and when a deal is not a deal. So, I stayed on that channel to see what they said.

Wow, talk about stating the obvious!

The first point was that anything that you put on a credit card is not a deal. No, really? I mean, that seems like common sense to me. But maybe it is not for a lot of people out there. And if so, that is just sad, right?

The only other point I remember was something about not buying on eBay.

I think the real point was that a deal is not a deal if you are in debt because you can't afford it! Just saying :)

Spicy Doritos masquerading as regular Doritos

I bought some Doritos the other day. Actually I bought two bags because they were buy 1 get 1 free. So the first bag was yummy. Then the second bag got opened. It started out yummy too. Then it got spicy. It appears that this bag is not really plain Doritos. It seems that Spicy Doritos got into a bag that's labeled regular.

Great deal on domain names from GoDaddy

I register most of my domain names with GoDaddy. I have done so for a little over a year. And I like their service. I always pay extra for the privacy protection thingie. And it is not cheap. Well, I just read on SlickDeals that there is a promo code to get that for free! Woot, woot!

Here is the info:

Register or renew as many .COM domains as you want for 25% OFF, just $7.49/yr!

INCLUDES FREE "DOMAINS BY PROXY" REGISTRATION!!!!!!!!! (this usually is $8.99 per domain name)


www.godaddy.com

Coupon Code:
gdp0705ac


This works for an unlimited number of domains, from 1 to 1,000 domains.

EXPIRES JULY 31 2008

PayPal & eBay

So, I've been posting stuff on eBay lately. All part of my quest to de-clutter life. And I noticed something interesting. Now, I knew that eBay owns PayPal. What I did not know what this.

If you want to sell on eBay you are REQUIRED to accept PayPal or credit cards for your auction.

Otherwise you can't sell on eBay. What a crock. Seriously.

Need a reason to not dine out tonight?

Are you trying to cut back on the amount of money that you spend dining out each month? I know how hard that can be. I used to be the same way. And it actually took a while for me to get to the point that I am at now. Basically I only dine out if it can't be helped. And I define that like this:

• Meals with family/friends
• Job interview/appointment/etc. that necessitates being away from home at meal time
• Travel (if I didn't bring food)
• Any other reason that has me away from home at meal time and I am without snacks (like traffic or an errand that takes longer than expected) - but only if I can't wait to eat till I get home!

If I had not gotten to this point though, I know something that would put the kibosh on dining out. It might work for you. Just go to the Consumerist and read the recent story titled: "Whole Chicken Breast" Actually Chicken Part Composite and then throw up in your mouth a little bit and vow to never dine out again.

The end.

Selling stuff on eBay can be a real pain

I am in the process of getting rid of a lot of stuff. And I am trying to sell most of it so that I have a little extra cash to throw at debt and what not. Well, eBay is the easiest place to unload stuff like that. And that means that I have been putting auctions up. And that is working out real good. But man, it can be such a pain. People ask the dumbest stuff sometimes!



I had one person email me three times within an hour of their auction ending wanting to know how much their combined shipping was. They wrote in all caps in each email. And in the their email they got rude and demanded to know why I was not responding to them!



Why do people on eBay thin that you are sitting at your computer just waiting for them to contact you? I mean, clearly that is what this person thought. And the people that email you a question about an item when there are 5 minutes left also must think you are sitting there waiting for them!



How annoying.



If I wasn't making money selling stuff on eBay I would really avoid it like the plague that it is.

Fuel efficient cars

I have a car payment. That much is obvious from my debt r0undups. So, I can't trade in my car for a more fuel efficient one. I have a fairly fuel efficient car already. But it would sure be nice to have the gas saving Prius. Of course, I guess I should be thankful that I got this car instead of the sporty car I was looking at. It would have not been as fuel efficient. And I suspect I would have been up a bit of a creek now.

Summer is expensive

I like paying off debt. I like seeing those debt balances dwindle down. But it does not seem as easy in the summer. For some reason summer seems just more expensive. It's like summer is more of a drain on the finances. And that is no good! It almost makes me wish it were winter again!

Ugh, summer

I just can't win. When it was cold I was looking forward to summer. But now that it is summer I am looking forward to it being over. It seems like it was easier to lower the gas heating bill than the AC bill. And that just doesn't seem right! It really makes me want to downsize to a smaller apartment.

Even Starbucks is hurting!

I read online earlier that Starbucks is going to be closing some stores. Actually it is 600 stores that they are closing. That is a heck of a lot of stores. Of course, when they put so many of them in such close proximity I guess it is not too surprising.

I guess this shows how bad the economy is though. It looks like more people are opting for coffee at home instead of on the way to work at Starbucks. It really sucks though for all of the employees that will soon be out of a job!