Last night we went to a party and needed to bring an appetizer to share. I didn’t want to bring the crockpot and try and figure out a place to plug it in so that ruled out hot appetizers. Crackers, chips, salsa, and veggie plates seemed a bit to predictable and I figured other guests would bring those types of dishes. There had to be a cheap, tasty, finger food that would be instantly recognizable that I could whip up overnight. Then it hit me! Why not make some deviled eggs!
Okay, so they aren’t a dime a dozen, at least not anymore. Eggs are quite cheap, and the great thing about deviled eggs is that they are cut in half, so a dozen eggs will actually make 2 dozen self serve appetizers. I’ve never made deviled eggs before, or for that matter even hard boiled eggs so with a little guidance from AllRecipes.com and some pointers from Shae I made up a batch of bacon, cheddar deviled eggs.
We had a great time at the party. There was even horse and buggy rides around the park (we opted not to go on that because it was raining on and off). Oh, and the eggs were scarfed up within 15 minutes of arriving! What are your favorite party appetizers?
April, the dreaded tax month, is on the horizon and it isn’t too early to start thinking about what you may owe to Uncle Sam.
The nice thing about crunching some numbers now is that there is still time to play the numbers in your favor. For instance, if you make estimated quarterly payments (like I do for my home business) then you can still adjust your Q4 payment, due 1/15/2014. This might help you avoid a penalty for paying too little. It might also save you from getting a refund (aka a 0% loan to Uncle Sammie). Also, you can still contribute to your tax protected retirement plan until April. If you are toeing the line between tax brackets a large contribution to your retirement account may put you into a lower bracket. Below are the tax brackets for 2013.
The end of the year is quickly approaching and thanks to the usual seasonal ailments, I have some time to write. I thought I would change the tune for the start of 2014 by talking not about how I am scrimping, but how I am earning a few extra bucks each month.
This kind of income is often referred to as “Beer Money”. Urban dictionary defines the term pretty well.
1. Extra money for non-essential payments,
available for spending on luxuries, hobbies,
or a fresh pint of your favorite draft.
2. Also known as discretionary income.
There are probably millions of different ways to make some beer money. For instance, Shae fills out surveys on the internet when she feels like it in exchange for gift cards. The hourly wage could probably be measured in cents, but she can do however much or little work as she wants.
I on the other hand prefer to capitalize on work that I am already doing. As part of my software business, I am signed up with an affiliate link program where I earn a %7 commission on all digital media sales from a particular vendor for a 24 hour period after a person clicks on one of my links. What the heck did I just say?
Let’s use an example to help clarify:
One of the apps that I sell is Stock + Pro, for Mac, and it currently retails for $9.99. The normal store link would look something like this:
Then I earn 7% of any purchases that person makes even if they don’t buy my apps. So if they did use the second link and bought my stock app then I would make an additional 70¢ on that sale. That may not seem like much, but remember, once it is set up, I don’t have to do any work at all!
The affiliate program gives me nice reports so I can monitor how many link clicks, items purchased, commission earned, and total cost of the items purchased has been.
As you can see, in the month of December, there were around 3,200 clicks on links. About 23% of those clicks resulted in a purchase (could have been a free download as well). The combined value of all of those purchases was about $1,600 and at 7% commission rate, I earned roughly $115.
Now $100 a month isn’t going to let you quit your day job, but it will build up in a bank account, pay for a nice vacation each year, or cover some hobby expenses.
What do you do to earn “Beer Money”? What does that money go towards?
You’re driving down the road and all of a sudden the check engine light comes on. Oh no! What do you do? Well, unless it is flashing or you heard a loud clunk, you might as well keep on driving.
Such a scenario happened about 2 months ago while I was driving our 14 year old car around town. The check engine, or in some cars, the service engine soon light simply means that at your next earliest convenience you should have your car checked out.
The great thing is that you can do this for free. Just head on over to the nearest Autozone, Advanced Auto Parts, or any of the DIY centric car parts stores. Most of them will offer a free service where they connect a small handheld device to your cars OBD 2 port. OBD stands for On-Board Diagnostics. This nifty port, located by the drivers left knee, allows handheld diagnostic devices to talk to the cars computers. The cars computer will have stored a code and that code helps explain why the check engine light is on.
In my case, I had a code P0440. You can either look that up on the internet when you get home, or the store employee can usually print out a list right there at the store explaining the code and possible fixes. P0440 is an Evaporative Emission Control System Malfunction and while scary sounding, all it really means is that gasoline vapors were leaking out of the fuel system somewhere.
Unless you live in an area that mandates emissions tests on vehicles, you can safely drive for another 50k+ miles and suffer no consequences except a slightly worse fuel economy. There are a number of potential causes and fixes for a Evap Emission and the printout should list them. The only simple fix that doesn’t require a lot of speciality equipment was to replace the gas cap. So that’s what I did.
About a month later the light turned off all on its own. Yay!
Ahh the cable bill. If ever there was a archetypical love/hate relationship between the American household and a service provider then this has to be it. On the one hand, people love tv, and internet connectivity has become almost an essential utility (especially for the younger generations). However, people hate the prices that they pay for these services. If you want to see what I’m talking about, check out the Consumerists annual “Worst Company in America“. Comcast, Time Warner, Direct TV, Dish, Cablevision, AT&T, and Verizon make regular appearances and often fare quite well (err, bad) in the bracketed tournament of hated companies.
I would consider us lucky because where we live we actually have a choice between two internet providers, Comcast and Frontier. Back when we rented an apartment, we used Frontier and paid about $42/mo (after all the taxes and fees) for a 7 Mbps internet connection. Mbps stands for mega bits per second and shouldn’t be confused with MBps (mega Bytes per second). Generally, whenever you see internet speeds folks are talking about bits. There are 8 bits in a byte so a 8 Mbps is the same as 1 MBps. Confused? Good, let’s move on.
When we moved into our house 6 months ago we decided to try out Comcast’s internet only service. Comcast frequently runs promotions for new customers where you pay a set rate for the first 6 months of service and then they jack up that rate for the next 6 months and then you end up paying the ‘retail’ rate from then on. You are free to cancel at any time so I figured I’d give it a go. Our promo deal was for a 25 Mbps connection for $30, then it would bump up to $50, and finally to $65.
November was our first month at the $50 level and I already knew what I was going to do back when I signed up. I called Comcast to negotiate a lower rate. 20SomethingFinance.com has a nice how to that I roughly followed. There were a few differences and some omissions that I think merit some discussion.
Before calling, do your homework and see what other companies are offering, this is extremely important!
After dialing the number, the menu options are a bit different than what he has listed so don’t blindly hit #4 followed by #2 or you may end up ordering “Chairs, Rails, & Extreme Wrestling Pay per View”.
After getting a retention/cancellation rep they will ask for your account details, address etc. It will seem like they are going to happily cancel your services without even giving you a chance to negotiate. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in a second, just stay calm and confident.
Finally, after verifying your account the rep will drop a short little line like “why are you leaving?” That’s your cue!
Explain the fantastic deal the competition is offering and make sure to stress that your current bill is too high. If there is no competition in your area, they probably know and you’ll need to get creative.
Be patient and friendly, especially if they put you on hold.
If you get a counter offer, make sure you understand it. If you don’t like it, either try calling again or cancel your service. This is where doing your homework before hand pays off.
I looked up Frontier’s rates and they had indeed changed from our renter days.
$30 – 6 Mbps
$40 – 12 Mbps
$50 – 24 Mbps
The Comcast rep offered me a 50 Mbps connection good for the next 6 months for $35/mo, a credit for this month, and access to streampix, Comcast’s (weak) version of Netflix. Yes sirree. Sign me up. Amount saved over the next 6 months by making one simple phone call, $90. Time spent on phone, 9 minutes. Internet speed twice as fast, cherry on top.
We had a great time at the party. There was even horse and buggy rides around the park (we opted not to go on that because it was raining on and off). Oh, and the eggs were scarfed up within 15 minutes of arriving! What are your favorite party appetizers?
