More money saving computer tips
Before you click print the next time on your computer, consider the following tips (originally from an AARP article at http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourmoney/saveabuck/articles/save_a_buck_cut_printout_costs.html) to save a little bit of green:
Instead of your current font, try using the free to download ecofont (from http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html). This font, available for both Macs and PCs, has lots of tiny holes in the letters. These holes, which are barely noticeable to the average reader, can save up to 20 percent of your ink or toner compared to Verdana (the font ecofont is based upon).
Use the Print Preview function. Then print only the pages you really need (you might be able to not print some of the last parts of a page, for example). On the print preview page, you can also adjust the bottom of a page up to remove some extensive (and ink wasting) graphics like display ads before printing the actual page. Or try GreenPrint which is available free to homes, schools, and non-profits from www.printgreener.com, although there will be advertising. An advertising-free version is available to purchase from the site too.
Protect yourself (and save money)
We’ve probably all seen the TV commercials with a guy singing about how he should have gotten his free credit report. Of course, that particular site may eventually cost you some money if you end up signing up for their service, but there are a number of other free sites that will provide you with the copies of the information various financial institutions have stored in their databases on you. All of the sites mentioned in this post are governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and thus allow you to get a copy of your report once a year. You can also dispute incorrect data within your report by following the process specified on each site.
And correcting these reports can save you money, since adverse information may cause insurance companies to charge you higher rates (or not offer you coverage at all), could stop a landlord from renting you an apartment, or could even cause you to not be offered a job.
Here are some of the various organizations that are covered by FCRA and the websites or phone numbers that you can access to get a copy of your information (including financial, banking, public records, medical related, and insurance).
- www.annualcreditreport.com or 877-322-8228 – The authorized site and phone number for obtaining one copy per year of your credit report from each of the big three credit bureaus. One suggestion, get one copy of your report from a single one of the three bureaus every 4 months. That way you can always keep relatively current tabs on your credit report.
- www.choicetrust.com – Information on how to obtain a CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) report from ChoicePoint. Contains claims information reported by insurers. Too many claims, and your homeowners insurance may be more expensive or even difficult to get. If you are considering buying a home, ask the seller to obtain the property’s loss-history report for you.
- 800-627-3487 – A-PLUS report, sold by the Insurance Services Office, contains information reported by most insurerers to the Automobile Property Loss Underwriting Service.
- 866-692-6901 – Order your MIB report, which contains information from about 470 US and Canadian life, health, disability income, critical illness, and long term care insurers, including medical conditions reported on individual (not group) insurance applications, as well as test results from medical underwriting exams. You actual medical records are not reported.
- 877-211-4816 – Order your IntelliScript report which contains information about the perscription drugs you’ve used over the last five years, including dosage, refills, and prescribing doctors.
- 888-206-0335 – Order your MedPoint report which contains information about the perscription drugs you’ve used over the last five years, including dosage, refills, and prescribing doctors.
- www.consumerdebit.com – Click on “Order Consumer Report” to obtain your Chex Systems report, which contains information on mishandled checking accounts, including information about overdrafts and accounts closed by a bank, including information including your driver’s license number, unpaid amounts, and who wasn’t paid, plus information concerning if the party was finally paid back.
- www.firstdata.com/support/telecheck_home.htm – Click on “TeleCheck Consumer Assistance” to get your TeleCheck report, which contains information on mishandled checking accounts, including information about overdrafts and accounts closed by a bank, including information including your driver’s license number, unpaid amounts, and who wasn’t paid, plus information concerning if the party was finally paid back.
- www.choicepoint.com – Click on “Access to Your Personal Information” to see the information this database has on you, including auto and homeowner CLUE reports, pre-employment background checks, an “Esteem” report if you ever admitted to or were convicting of shoplifting, eviction and public-records search results, as well as national criminal search results.
- www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/for-consumers/request-personal-information.aspx – LexisNexis Person reports, which includes non-public and publicly availalable information on all sorts of things.
- www.fadvsaferent.com/consumer_relations/index.php or 800-815-8664 – To obtain your First Advantage SafeRent report, containing information about your rent payment history, references, credit ratings, criminal records, etc.
- www.rentbureau.com – Click on “For consumers” to obtain information about your rent payment history, references, credit ratings, criminal records, etc.
Take a free college course
Expand your knowledge and save money at the same time!
Here is yet another way to expand your horizons, while saving your green. Several universities–including U.C. Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT–offer free courses online in several subjects.
These are not-for-credit courses, and you may have to buy textbooks to get the most out of the course, but a wide variety of subjects is available. A comprehensive list of offerings can be found here.
Check out some of these well-known universities:
Protect yourself from scams
Take Charge! California has tips to help you protect yourself.
As we approach the end of the year, we have all worked hard to save some green. The next step is to make sure we all hold on to those savings, and part of that involves not falling for scams. The state of California has set up a website at TakeChargeCA.ca.gov with information about various scams and how to report them.
So, as they used to say on the TV show Hill Street Blues, “Be careful out there!”
Learn a language for free
You could learn a new language and expand your horizons--for free!
If you want to broaden your horizons, but don’t have a lot of money, there are ways to do this. For example, you can learn a foreign language for free at some websites:
- The BBC posts free lessons in seven languages (Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish) at http://www,bbc.co.uk/languages. This site also includes essential phrases and/or other mini-lessons in at least 36 languages.
- More exotic languages (including Farsi, Swahili, and Tagalog) are available at www.freelanguage.org.
Fee-free investing in U.S. bonds
You can invest in United States federal government savings bonds, notes, and bills without paying a maintenance fee or commission. Information is at www.treasurydirect.gov This website also has all sorts of information about the various investment vehicles issued by the government, including notes (longer maturities), bills (shorter maturities), TIPS (inflation protected securities), and savings bonds (including series H, E/EE, and I). If you have lots of savings bonds, there are ways to input the information on these investments, and get a value of all of your holdings.
For normal small accounts, the government does not charge a maintenance fee for an account nor a transaction fee for each investment. Money is pulled right out of your checking account to invest, and deposited back into your checking account when they pay interest or the bill or note matures. You can invest along with the big investors by placing bids or can just submit orders that will be placed at the going rate.
There is also information about upcoming actions of securities.
Top-down drawer approach to savings
The "drawer" system could spur your savings, and give you visible progress toward your money goals.
Now that all of us are saving more, how are we going to put that money towards its best use?
An article not long ago in the Wall Street Journal (the article is by Karen Blumenthal and was published Sept. 23, 2009) suggested a bedroom dresser drawer approach. Just as you have drawers for socks, underwear, etc., design your savings with drawers in mind.
The most important drawer is your emergency fund drawer. Have a minimum of 6 to 9 months of spending in that drawer. If your job is in immediate danger of disappearing, you may want to increase this to a year or more of spending. Then, just don’t touch it.
Other drawers you may want identify and fill are things like retirement (make sure you are saving the maximum towards any company patch), home repair, car replacement, college fund, vacation fund, and even a splurge drawer. As you fill these “drawers”, only pull money out for the identified purpose of that drawer. You may want to create a priority system of how you fund each of these drawers (put the most in the retirement or college drawer and only a little in the splurge drawer).
This system will hopefully spur your savings, and give you visible progress towards your goals. And if you only spend from the account on the identified goal (and put off buying something until you have the required amount of money in the drawer), you might be able to avoid using the credit card for things like vacations or other splurges.
One way to create these savings drawers is to open separate savings accounts at Technology Credit Union. Just like the Challenge Savings account you have hopefully been contributing to, you can create secondary savings accounts with particular goals in mind. And when you have accumulated enough, you can take that money and put it into a CD to earn a higher rate of return on your savings.
So identify your goals, and start stuffing those savings away in your own saving drawers!
Free music and video on the Web
Sites like Amazon.com and Hulu.com offer free music and shows.
You can save some money on music by finding free, legal versions of music on the Web. While this may seem like a scam, two of the biggest music sites offer just that. Both Amazon.com and Apple iTunes have free music available.
Amazon.com
To find the free music on Amazon.com, use the website http://mp3.amazon.com, which will take you to their download store.
Click on the left side where it says “Free Songs and Special Deals.” Amazon.com currently shows a list to the top 25 free songs, and a link to over 500 more free songs.
One hint when viewing lists of music that includes both free and paid music; sort the music by price, and the free songs will appear first in the list. The music you download is yours to keep.
Amazon also offers a larger number of free videos on demand by going to http://vod.amazon.com.
Clicking on the “Free Videos” on the left side of the screen (this is in the “Deals & Freebies” section). The majority of video is streamed, so it is not yours to keep.
iTunes
Apple’s iTunes store also has some free music, as well as some video content. On the iTune Store home page, scroll down to the “Free on iTunes” portion, and click on “Show All”.
iTunes usually offers at least 2 free songs per week (starting on Tuesdays each week). You can download the video content, and it is yours to keep.
As mentioned, iTunes also offers other free content including a few videos, some behind the scene content, some children’s content, some selected scenes from popular movies, as well as some pilot episodes of TV shows, although the content is often a bit limited.
Hulu.com
Another website that offers free TV shows and other video content on demand is Hulu.com. Again, since this is streamed video, you cannot keep it.
ABC, CBS and NBC
And don’t forget to check out the individual networks (abc.com, cbs.com, nbc.com). Many of your favorite shows can be viewed over the Internet for free within a few weeks of airing. Don’t wait too long though, the network sometimes remove them after some period of time.
So save your money and make use of the music and video that is legally available on the Web.
PC tips: Go green, save green
Use these tips to conserve energy, reduce energy bills and your carbon footprint.
If you’re running Windows on your PC, you can save some green (as well as reduce your carbon footprint) by following some simple advice and setting your desktop or laptop computer to sleep during periods of inactivity. Microsoft offers some cool tips:
Turning off a PC: FAQ
PC Sleep and Hibernation: FAQ
According to Microsoft, sleep mode on a desktop computer uses only about 10% of the power required if you just left the machine on, while mobile computers could use as little as 1 to 2% of their battery power per hour when in sleep mode. Microsoft also explains the differences between sleep, hibernation, and hybrid sleep modes–in case you don’t already know.
At energystar.gov, you can find this neat free program called EZ Wizard that will help you enable power management features on your monitor and computer in just a few minutes.
The first is an exe program that will automatically configure your sleep settings and monitor (the program, which only works on Windows XP and 2000, can be run directly from here.) You can also find manual instructions for Vista, which can also be directly accessed at here.
Get a FREE day at the museum
Get a free day at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
There are a number of museums in the Bay Area that are either always free, offer a free day weekly, or are free one day per month.
The guide at About.com is useful to find these absolutely free deals. This particular Web page not only provides information about free days in San Francisco, but also in other parts of the Bay Area.
Of particular note: Cable Car Museum (always free), Cantor Arts Center at Stanford (always free), Asian Art Museum (first Sunday of month free), de Young Museum (first Tuesday of month free), Museum of Modern Art (first Tuesday of month free), and the Exploratorium (first Wednesday of month free).
Although I didn’t see the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park on the list at this website, I do know they offer free admission on the 3rd Wednesday of the month (and this is listed on their own website).
Another website listing free days at museums in San Francisco is www.museumfreedays.com. This website lists free days for museums in Boston, Chicago, LA, Miami, and New York City, in addition to San Francisco. So, you may even be able to find a free day at a museum while traveling on vacation.
Be sure to call to double check that the free admission is still offered on the day you plan to visit before heading out. Also, some museums may be very crowded on the free days (in particular, I waited in line at the Califronia Academy of Sciences for more than an hour to get in).
