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Do you watch more than five hours of television? Do you really need to watch so much boob- tube turned flat-screen? More struggling families are learning less is best and more time reading and sitting around the dinner table with the family is enriching their lives! So how can you save? Read on!
Lifeline Cable Could Save You $420 a Year
Did you know there are more than one type of "basic" cable? All cloaked in different packaging? Maybe not! What many cable companies call "basic cable" is actually their midrange offering and includes dozens of channels.
But there's an alternative to basic cable that the companies don't always advertise. It's called "lifeline cable" or "broadcast basic". For an average savings of $420 a year with lifeline cable you can get your local network affiliates like ABC, CBS, andNBC, as well as the local PBS station and some extras like college channels or government access stations.
Not all cable companies provide a lifeline cable, but chances are there's one in your area that does.
Cancelling Cable Could Save You $720
This might seem drastic, but with the rise of television shows on the Internet, more and more Americans are turning away from the cable box and toward the computer. The average American's annual cable bill is $720, so cancelling it means real savings.
Generally you can still watch your favorite shows, soon after they've been shown on air.
At Hulu.com, you can find thousands of episodes of hundreds of shows, all free.
Another Web site, cancelcable.com, has a show-finder tool to help you watch your favorite show in a number of ways.
Eliminating Mailings Could Save $12 a Year
Many cable companies offer incentives for you to eliminate mailings. Time Warner Cable, for example, offers a $1 credit each month if you go paperless and receive their statements and notifications by e-mail.
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Monday, February 1, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Save Money from Gabbing on the Cell Phone
Everyone knows finding the right cell phone plan to fit your talking needs can make all the difference in the amount you pay. But if you're not an analytical wizard or want to spend the time crunching numbers (like cutting coupons for your weekly groceries) well there's another solution.
For $ 5.00 a company named Validas will do it for you! The Web site claims the service will "analyze your wireless bill for errors, disputes and savings" and says it saves customers an average of 22 percent or $450 a year for a typical customer.
Next scenario: gabbing way over the minute limit. If you don't use the service above, you may still have the wrong plan for your needs and spending more money going over the minute limit. There is help! You can sign up with Web sites like overmyminutes.com, which is a free service that sends an e-mail or text message to let you know when you're about to run out of minutes.
If you have used these services beofre or plan to, return here and let us know about your experience!
(Click on Comment below).
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For $ 5.00 a company named Validas will do it for you! The Web site claims the service will "analyze your wireless bill for errors, disputes and savings" and says it saves customers an average of 22 percent or $450 a year for a typical customer.
Next scenario: gabbing way over the minute limit. If you don't use the service above, you may still have the wrong plan for your needs and spending more money going over the minute limit. There is help! You can sign up with Web sites like overmyminutes.com, which is a free service that sends an e-mail or text message to let you know when you're about to run out of minutes.
If you have used these services beofre or plan to, return here and let us know about your experience!
(Click on Comment below).
[Home Page]
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Two more Free Books by Simon and Schuster
Two more free book Giveaways this time by Simon & Schuster. Click on the picture to order. While supplies last!
To ten-year-old Keeper, this moon is her chance to fix all that has gone wrong...and so much has gone wrong. But she knows who can make things right again: Meggie Marie, her mermaid mother who swam away when Keeper was just three. A blue moon calls the mermaids to gather at the sandbar, and that's exactly where she is headed -- in a small boat, in the middle of the night, with only her dog, BD (Best Dog), and a seagull named Captain.
When the riptide pulls at the boat, tugging her away from the shore and deep into the rough waters of the Gulf of Mexico, panic sets in, and the fairy tales that lured her out there go tumbling into the waves. Maybe the blue moon isn't magic and maybe the sandbar won't sparkle with mermaids and maybe -- Oh, no..."Maybe" is just too difficult to bear. Kathi Appelt follows up to her New York Times bestseller, The Underneath, with a tale that will pull right at your very core -- stronger than moon currents -- capturing the crash and echo of the waves and the dark magic of the ocean.
Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.
Keeper by Kathi Appelt
ABOUT THE BOOK:
To ten-year-old Keeper, this moon is her chance to fix all that has gone wrong...and so much has gone wrong. But she knows who can make things right again: Meggie Marie, her mermaid mother who swam away when Keeper was just three. A blue moon calls the mermaids to gather at the sandbar, and that's exactly where she is headed -- in a small boat, in the middle of the night, with only her dog, BD (Best Dog), and a seagull named Captain.
When the riptide pulls at the boat, tugging her away from the shore and deep into the rough waters of the Gulf of Mexico, panic sets in, and the fairy tales that lured her out there go tumbling into the waves. Maybe the blue moon isn't magic and maybe the sandbar won't sparkle with mermaids and maybe -- Oh, no..."Maybe" is just too difficult to bear. Kathi Appelt follows up to her New York Times bestseller, The Underneath, with a tale that will pull right at your very core -- stronger than moon currents -- capturing the crash and echo of the waves and the dark magic of the ocean.
White Cat by Holly Black
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.
Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Free Subscription Garden Design
[1-7-09: No more subscriptions available. Sorry you missed this opportunity. This went quickly. Be sure to subscribe to this website -see column on right "Subscribe to Posts"--to be the first to get notifications of these great offers]
Another free subscription by ValueMags.com.
Enjoy a 12 issue subscription. No strings attached. You'll never receive a bill. Garden Design is for people who are passionate about their homes and gardens. This magazine is for people who love cultivating them.
May Your Garden Grow!
(While Supplies Last)
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Another free subscription by ValueMags.com.
Enjoy a 12 issue subscription. No strings attached. You'll never receive a bill. Garden Design is for people who are passionate about their homes and gardens. This magazine is for people who love cultivating them.
May Your Garden Grow!
(While Supplies Last)
[Home Page]
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Free Books by Random House Publishing
What better way to relax than sitting or lounging on your favorite chair or sofa with a good book to take your mind miles away from reality.
For your reading pleasure, we introduce the following three books you can order for FREE. Click on the books to order your free issue. While supplies last.
For your reading pleasure, we introduce the following three books you can order for FREE. Click on the books to order your free issue. While supplies last.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Take chocolate candy, add a family business at war with itself, and stir with an outsider’s perspective. This is the recipe for True Confections, the irresistible new novel by Katharine Weber, a writer whose work has won accolades from Iris Murdoch, Madeleine L’Engle, Wally Lamb, and Kate Atkinson, to name a few.
Alice Tatnall Ziplinsky’s marriage into the Ziplinsky family has not been unanimously celebrated. Her greatest ambition is to belong, to feel truly entitled to the heritage she has tried so hard to earn. Which is why Zip’s Candies is much more to her than just a candy factory, where she has worked for most of her life. In True Confections, Alice has her reasons for telling the multigenerational saga of the family-owned-and-operated candy company, now in crisis.
Nobody is more devoted than Alice to delving into the truth of Zip’s history, starting with the rags-to-riches story of how Hungarian immigrant Eli Czaplinsky developed his famous candy lines, and how each of his candies, from Little Sammies to Mumbo Jumbos, was inspired by an element in a stolen library copy of Little Black Sambo, from which he taught himself English. Within Alice’s vivid and persuasive account (is her unreliability a tactic or a condition?) are the stories of a runaway slave from the cacao plantations of Côte d’Ivoire and the Third Reich’s failed plan to establish a colony on Madagascar for European Jews.
Richly informed, deeply moving, and spiked with Weber’s trademark wit, True Confections is, at its heart, a timeless and universal story of love, betrayal, and chocolate.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Opera singer Sabine Conrad is the toast of nineteenth-century New York high society. A celebrated soprano with the voice of an angel, she is showered with adulation by her audiences and courted by wealthy patrons. But behind the scenes, her every move is controlled by a Svengali-like manager, Gideon Price.
When her attempt to escape him goes tragically awry, she flees, leaving behind a grisly murder. Three years later, as Marguerite Olson, she has put aside the prima donna she once was to run a low-class theater in Seattle. Hidden among prostitutes, drunks, and miners, a desperate and determined Marguerite carefully guards the secrets of her old life—until her past returns to offer a terrifying proposition.
Prima Donna captures both the glittering decadence of New York and the rough raunchy waterfront of Seattle, as Marguerite, caught between two worlds, must find the strength to confront the truth of her past and choose which voice defines her in this dark and harrowing novel.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Cora Sledge is horrified when her children, who doubt her ability to take care of herself, plot to remove her from her home. So what if her house is a shambles? Who cares when she last changed her clothes? If an eighty-two-year-old widow wants to live on junk food, pills, and cigarettes, hasn’t she earned the right?
When her kids force her into The Palisades, an assisted living facility, Cora takes to her bed, planning to die as soon as possible. But life isn’t finished with her yet, not by a long shot. Deciding that truth is the best revenge, Cora begins to write a tell-all journal that reveals once and for all the secret she has guarded since she was a young woman. In entries that are profane, profound, and gossipy, she chronicles her childhood in rural Missouri, her shotgun wedding, and the terrible event that changed the course of her life. Intermingled with her reminiscences is an account of the day-to-day dramas at The Palisades—her budding romance with a suave new resident, feuds with her tablemates, her rollicking camaraderie with the man who oversees her health care, and the sinister cloud of suspicion that descends as a series of petty crimes sets everyone on edge.
The story builds to a powerful climax as Cora’s revelations about her past mesh with the unraveling intrigue in the present. Cora is by turns outrageous, irreverent, and wickedly funny. Despite a life with more than its share of disappointment and struggle, she refuses to go gently into her twilight years, remaining intensely curious, disinclined to play it safe, and willing to start over. Breaking Out of Bedlam captures the loneliness and secrets that lurk within families, the hardscrabble reality facing women with limited resources, and the resilience of a woman who survives, despite all the odds, through an unlikely combination of passion, humor, and faith.
After you read the books, return to this posting and share your review by clicking on "Comments" below.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
25 Days of Free Christmas & Holiday Songs
It's that time of year again where Amazon is offering one free downloadable Christmas song every day until Christmas.
CLICK HERE to download your song to enjoy at home, with family, friends, kids and you can even leave it playing for Santa Claus!
Merry Christmas!
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CLICK HERE to download your song to enjoy at home, with family, friends, kids and you can even leave it playing for Santa Claus!
Merry Christmas!
[Home Page]
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Get Black Friday Deals without Dark Circles under Eyes
Wait before you plan on skipping eggnog on Thanksgiving night and sleep in your clothes so you can roll out of bed and stand in line at retail stores at 4am to get ahead of the Black Friday squatters.
Save those dark circles under your eyes for a good time.
If you have a specific item in mind, typically electronics, here are some helpful tips this year so you don't waste your time and wish you got drunk on eggnog and slept in like normal people.
1. STUDY the circular for the fine print that appears next to an advertised "doorbuster deal" at the bottom of the page in this year's circulars.
It will either say "While supplies last," "Minimum 2 per store," "No rainchecks" or "All items are available in limited quantities." Is it a sleasy practice for a major retailer to only offer 5 items that is advertised in a nationwide circular? It is.
A quick scan through a few of this year's Black Friday circulars show quantities as low as a "minimum of 5 per store" on some models of large plasma and HDTVs and popular brands of home appliances such as a washer-dryer pair.
2. Beware of "derivatives". You heard of "refurbished". Well this time the key word is "derivates". Some of the holiday electronics with those low sale prices are derivatives, models that have a few less features than a standard model in that product line.
A report earlier this month in Consumer Reports called attention to HDTV models from Samsung and Sony advertised in Black Friday deals that appear to be "derivatives." The report said these one-off TVs "with unfamiliar model numbers" are usually cheaper than the standard model in their class.
Our recommendation is two fold:
a. Study the model you want. Write down the model # and ALL the features. When you get to the store, check the model number of the item itself and on the box.
b. Right before your purchase at the register (so you have the product and don't lose it to the hordes of shoppers), ask the manager to write on the receipt "This [item and model #] is not refurbished or a derivative", signed by manager with printed name. It will make them double-check before committing the company to a signed statement. This is one of our favorite tips that has saved us from buying either a refurbished or derivative item. And if we still wanted the item, we negotiated a lower price!!!
3. Don't order online on Black Friday. Often retailers don't have live inventory of their items and many customers waited months or sometimes received a different model. Wait for Cyber Monday--the biggest Black Friday online, after Thanksgiving weekend. Deals may not be doorbusting but the savings can still be significant.
4. Rainchecks are not waterproof. In other words, even if retailers offer rainchecks on items which run out on Black Friday, there is no guarantee you are protected and the item will arrive down the chimney by Christmas or post the New Year.
Save those dark circles under your eyes for a good time.
If you have a specific item in mind, typically electronics, here are some helpful tips this year so you don't waste your time and wish you got drunk on eggnog and slept in like normal people.
1. STUDY the circular for the fine print that appears next to an advertised "doorbuster deal" at the bottom of the page in this year's circulars.
It will either say "While supplies last," "Minimum 2 per store," "No rainchecks" or "All items are available in limited quantities." Is it a sleasy practice for a major retailer to only offer 5 items that is advertised in a nationwide circular? It is.
A quick scan through a few of this year's Black Friday circulars show quantities as low as a "minimum of 5 per store" on some models of large plasma and HDTVs and popular brands of home appliances such as a washer-dryer pair.
2. Beware of "derivatives". You heard of "refurbished". Well this time the key word is "derivates". Some of the holiday electronics with those low sale prices are derivatives, models that have a few less features than a standard model in that product line.
A report earlier this month in Consumer Reports called attention to HDTV models from Samsung and Sony advertised in Black Friday deals that appear to be "derivatives." The report said these one-off TVs "with unfamiliar model numbers" are usually cheaper than the standard model in their class.
Our recommendation is two fold:
a. Study the model you want. Write down the model # and ALL the features. When you get to the store, check the model number of the item itself and on the box.
b. Right before your purchase at the register (so you have the product and don't lose it to the hordes of shoppers), ask the manager to write on the receipt "This [item and model #] is not refurbished or a derivative", signed by manager with printed name. It will make them double-check before committing the company to a signed statement. This is one of our favorite tips that has saved us from buying either a refurbished or derivative item. And if we still wanted the item, we negotiated a lower price!!!
3. Don't order online on Black Friday. Often retailers don't have live inventory of their items and many customers waited months or sometimes received a different model. Wait for Cyber Monday--the biggest Black Friday online, after Thanksgiving weekend. Deals may not be doorbusting but the savings can still be significant.
4. Rainchecks are not waterproof. In other words, even if retailers offer rainchecks on items which run out on Black Friday, there is no guarantee you are protected and the item will arrive down the chimney by Christmas or post the New Year.
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