Money Blue Book

Well it’s December and ‘ole 2007 is slowly drawing to a close. Yes that time is still a few weeks away but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start preparing for the new year. How can you prepare for 2008? Why, by securing a year 2008 calendar ahead of time of course! Presenting, the 2008 Freebies Calendar Edition! I’ve already requested and received my free calendar for 2008 – one advertising some weird brand of laxatives. Other than the laxative part, it’s a nice calendar that’s going on my wall in a few weeks. There are many more 2008 calendars offers available on the web right now and I’m eager to let you know where you can go to find them. There are also a few other non-calendar related freebies as well.

As always, the items listed below are available as of the date of this posting, but keep in mind that some may not last too long once people get a wind of them. So get them while they’re still there! Here they are:

1. FREE 2008 Charles River Calendar
2. FREE 2008 Hour of Power Calendar – Call to request a free calendar without making a donation.
   
3. FREE 2008 Houston Chronicle Calendar
4. FREE 2008 Ocean Spray Calendar – This offer is only available in Canada, eh.
5. FREE 2008 On Sacred Ground Calendar
6. FREE 2008 Pennsylvania Lottery Calendar – Featuring the cute and lovable Gus the groundhog
7. FREE 2008 Range Riders Western Art Calendar
8. FREE 2008 Soap Stars Calendar - ABC Daytime and SOAPnet are giving away free calendars featuring some of daytime soap’s favorite male stars from top-rated shows like “All My Children”, “One Life to Live”, and “General Hospital”. If you would like a free calendar, send an email to donna.lampkin@wsbtv.com with your request. Not for me, but perhaps for you.
9. FREE 2008 Turkey Hill Ice Cream Calendar – call 1-800-MY-DAIRY and ask for the calendar.
10. FREE 2008 Vatican City Calendar
11. FREE Dove Haircare Sample
12. FREE Express Bit & Blade Hat Or Mug – I picked the mug…the hat’s a little too trucker-ish for me.
13. FREE Reach Flosser
14. FREE Sweet Debbie’s Organic Cupcakes – I’m not a big fan of sweets but I know you piglets out there do. Just kidding

Remember to check out past Freebies if you haven’t already done so. Hopefully the offers haven’t expired yet.

Review Of Rent.com and Ways To Make Money While Finding An Apartment

I’ve been renting for quite a long long while and have learned a thing or two about apartment hunting. Because of the bursting real estate bubble, I’m going to be continuing my long lasting rental streak for the foreseeable future. Renting is not so bad. You get to live somewhere different every few years and you don’t need to worry about upkeep or maintenance because the landlord takes care of everything. For college or graduate students, it’s usually the only option, aside from moving back home. Unless you want mommy and daddy to rule over your comings and goings though, I would highly recommend striking it out on your own. Of course, if financial independence is an issue, living with your parents will allow you to better conserve your financial resources until you can stand on your own two feet.

Get $100 For Using Rent.Com To Find Your Apartment

I always try to maximize my money and take advantage of money saving and money making opportunities whenever possible. On the subject of searching for an apartment rental, Rent.com offers a unique deal not offered by most other apartment search sites. This eBay owned company will hand you a cool $100 in the form of a pre-paid Visa debit card if you register with them and find an apartment to rent through their online listing. Their listing is quite comprehensive but only includes sites that have agreed to participate in their program. They have a decent listing of all the major apartment properties out there, but there are a few that have declined to participate. Property participants have to pay a referral fee to Rent.com and that is how they can afford to offer users like you and I the $100 for using their service.

The process is quite straight forward. Register a free account with Rent.com and search their comprehensive listing to find your new home. Then tell the property you found them through Rent.com. Make sure this information is clearly recorded on their welcome visitor form or at the very least on the signed lease. Then you log back onto your Rent.com account and report your lease. It may take Rent.com a few weeks to contact the property management office to verify that you indeed listed Rent.com as your referring party, but afterwards you can rest assured, you will receive your debit card in due time.

There are other apartment search sites like Apartment Guide and Apartments.com, but none provide the same enticing cash back incentive that Rent.com offers. Frequently, many of these sites list the same apartment properties, but if you had to decide which one to go with, the choice should be easy – go with the one that will offer you money back for your efforts!

Use Craiglist To Find Apartment Deals Not Listed Elsewhere

Craigslist is the wild wild west of apartment searching. You never quite know what’s out there since it can be filled with an unregulated and wide assortment of people. You have to narrow your search by geographical location but many deals are available if you are careful enough to weed out the scammers and weirdos.

Established apartment facilities occasionally post on Craigslist but most listings are posted by regular Joes and Janes. Although I found my previous apartment through Rent.com (and received a crisp $100 in the process) , I found my current condo rental through Craigslist. I negotiated and worked out my own terms and was able to secure a pretty nice deal.

Use Apartment Review Sites To Help Your Search

Finding an apartment to live in can be a challenging process especially if you don’t have the time to talk to everyone at the apartment property to see what the neighborhood is like. Is there a roach problem? Rats? Drug dealers? Gang activity? All of these types of things you can discover through online review and rating sites like ApartmentRatings or RottenNeighbor. You should always be very, very leery of extremely positive or extremely negative reviews. Apartment competitors will on occasion post on these forum and review sites to boost their own ratings and bash their competition.

But there is no replacing your own visual inspection of the premises. Requesting a walk through of the rooms and facilities is always your best bet. I’d also recommend driving through the area at night as well. Especially for less upscale locations, it’s remarkable how scary and creepy certain neighborhoods become when night falls.

Sorry folks, but due to some pressing and personal events that clammered for my attention, I was not able to post for the last few days – and it happened on a weekday too (most people do their blog reading on weekdays). Sometimes you want life events to be stable and everything to go according to plan, but then something occurs out of the ordinary, requiring you to shift course momentarily. But it’s okay – these things happen and we just have to be prepared and deal with them as they come.

Blogging Is Hard Work But Rewarding

When I first started out this blogging adventure, I was inspired by those who wanted to make money by blogging. I planned to treat it like a true part time job, and dedicate sufficient time to keep it running smoothly by posting new entries everyday. Some online writers post every few days, but I was determined to make it a daily goal.

Blogging has truly been a labor of love since I’ve come to discover that writing on a regular basis can be quite time consuming with little immediate financial rewards. It’s true what those in the industry say – to run a successful blog site, you have to be truly passionate about the subject matter you write about. If you are not truly inspired or have a genuine desire to explore the subject matter to its full potential, it will be very difficult to sustain your efforts long term. Thankfully, lack of passion or interest has not been my problem. But life likes to throw little monkey wrenches at my plans sometimes. I’ve tried my best to write diligently and keep my personal life events separate from the continuation of my pet projects, but occasionally they will bump into each other. When that happens, it’s inevitable that I might need to take a momentary breather, to step away from blogging for a day or two before returning to start anew.

It’s All Too Easy To Develop Procrastinating Blogging Habits

Unlike working at a regular full time job, blogging on the side requires a good sense of self motivation. Since all of the content writing and operations are performed online, there is not the same strict requirement to make a daily appearance as would be required at a regular full time job. Since I write on my blogs part time, it is very easy to get sidetracked by home and work events. Unlike a regular brick and mortar business where there is an actual physical store front, I have no customers or visitors that walk up to my store daily to demand service – so I have to depend on self motivation.

Although the online world is not physical and it’s easy to brush it aside as not real, it is still largely a social network based on maintaining good long term relationships. Like any budding business, if you don’t attend to it properly, it will sputter out of gas and fail in the long term.

Blogging can be extra difficult, particularly if you blog about a subject or topic that requires extensive research first. I have two types of posts. One type is substantive and the other is primarily opinion based. The substantive post requires significantly more time since I have to research and organize statistics to support my claim. For example if I’m talking about credit cards or a particular investment, I have to research the terms carefully to make sure my numbers are correct. But on the flip side, opinion based posts are relatively easy and quick to crank out since they are based entirely on my own opinions and views. I am essentially writing from memory and typing extemporaneously. To strike a good balance between content and efficiency, I usually incorporate both substantive and opinion type writing into my everyday posts. This helps to make the time consumption less draining.

Although I was strapped for time and wasn’t able to sit down at my PC for the last few days, things have calmed down again. Trying to blog daily and do it part time can be like working a burdensome second job, but overall it’s been quite an enjoyable hobby. I really like the social interaction and information exchange I get out of it. So it’s back to writing I go!

The subject of whether having children is a financially smart decision is a sensitive one that touches many brainy issues, including the meaning and purpose of life. Frequently this discussion is moot since not all births were carefully planned and many were simply unexpected accidents. I’m sure parents have secretly pondered this question before but were afraid to speak too loudly on the subject. No one wants to doubt their decision to have children and everyone instinctively wants to convey the impression that children have brought them nothing but pure joy and lifetime fulfillment.

Since I am not yet married and don’t have children of my own, perhaps I can comment on the issue from the perspective of someone who has not chucked the dice and thrown himself into this path of eternity, so to speak.

Having Children Is Extremely Expensive and Will Deprive You Of Some Of Life’s Financial Enjoyments

Raising a life from scratch into full adulthood is a lengthy and expensive journey. No one can deny that it requires a substantial and personal willingness to sacrifice one’s own personal wants for the betterment of another. Medical and educational costs bear the greatest financial brunt and some parents frequently have to work multiple jobs to provide financially.

I know couples who made the conscientious decision not to have children, but sometimes I wonder if they are happier as a result. I have an uncle and aunt who decided a long time that they were not going to have children. They never caved to family pressure and didn’t succumb to “accidents” (*hint hint, wink wink*) and now they live a financially admirable life. They have a beautiful massive house, big screen TV, and they take frequent vacations to lavish destinations – things that they would not have been able to enjoy if they had children in their midst.

But Children Bring Intangible Happiness That Cannot Possibly Be Duplicated By Anything Else

Now whether they are truly happy with only their material possessions to show for their efforts is a different matter. I’m sure that their material possessions have brought them a certain level of financial happiness. They get to enjoy all of the newest and coolest technological gadgets, and get to visit places that others can only dream and hope to save up for. But as they eventually approach old age, I wonder if they will find a void missing. Having children provides a type of life purpose and joy that money and material possessions can never full replace. I know it is a tremendous financial and social sacrifice, but I personally think the potential fulfillment is so great that is hard for me to understand why any couple would choose to give up this very humanistic desire to create a reflection of yourself and to instill it with love.

It’s interesting that this type of lament and reflective thinking usually occurs closer to old age, but I can see myself pondering this question down the road already. I enjoy making and planning a financial fruitful life, but when the time comes to make the financial sacrifice for my family and children, to give up my expensive hobbies, my computer, my big screen TV, and to be willing to forsake my own material wants, I think I’ll be ready to make the right choice.