Microsoft Bing Cashback and how it will benefit (your wallet).

Microsoft has been trying desperately to cut into Google's piece of the search engine pie. They overhauled their previous Live Search engine, and are now calling it Bing. As a Google junkie, I find the Bing search to be not even close to the quality of search that Google gives, but they do have one added perk.

They are paying people to use their search engine, and buy stuff with several different vendors.

Here's how it works..

You go to bing.com/cashback and sign up for an account. You link the account to your paypal account, or your bank account. I chose to let them paypal me the money. Every purchase that you make using the website will give you a certain percentage of "cashback", which is money deposited into your account 90 days after the transaction is over.

They make you wait 90 days to stop people from returning items, then collecting the cash.

Over the Holidays the cashback was 15% or more in many stores. I bought a Nintendo Wii for 15% cashback, and saved quite a bit over normal store prices.

Forums such as slickdeals.net usually post more secret deals. If you do a search using specific keywords on bing, an ad will come up for a certain store. If you click the ad, you will get even more cashback. Enter CASHBACKR..

Cashbackr is a pretty good website. They track what the percentage is right to the last second, and what the trends are. eBay is a very large Bing Cashback sponsor, and there was a a time near christmas where you could get 20% cashback on ANY item that you used "Buy it Now" with on eBay.

This could add up to some serious bucks. Cashbackr does a great job of tracking special keywords that you need to search on bing to get the highest amount of cashback.

Right now as I type this, the highest cashback on ebay is 8%, and the top keyword is "silver roll". This will change at any moment. Cashbackr can even email you when the cashback goes over a certain percentage, so you can start shopping like mad.

My experience with Bing cashback has been a pretty good one. I netted about 150 dollars this past holiday season. I even used it on buying some expensive wheel bearings for my car on eBay, and got 15 percent back.

My only gripe is that it takes 90 days to get the cash back, but I understand why they do this. If you just think of it as a mail in rebate, then you will feel better about it also.

Cheers,
Justin

Praise (And Savings) for a $10 shower head. Oxygenics.

I happen to own a duplex here in West Seneca, NY. I never really paid too much attention to the green movement for saving water. Luckily, water here is very cheap. For 2 units, I pay around $40 per quarter ($160 per year)..

A trip to Arizona introduced me to Oxygenics shower heads. Out west, water is costly. The hotel that we stayed at had a great high pressure shower head. It was such a great shower that I actually took a look at the brand on the side of the shower heat. I then took a look at the company website.

Oxygenics is a company that has some huge clients. Arizona State University, the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, and plenty more. These are places that require a good feeling shower, and require water savings.

Oxygenics has a savings calculator on thier website where you plug in values for your old shower, and the new one. They figured that I would save about $80 per year with just one shower. Imagine owning a 500 room hotel. The savings gets insane.

I got home and ordered 1 on ebay from an Oxygenics vendor (about $11 each). We have been enjoying the shower for about a year.

Then I got a complaint from our tenant upstairs. They were constantly running out of hot water. I checked their 30 gallon water heater. It is small, but should be OK for 2 people. I then ordered an oxygenics shower head for them, and the complaint went away.

I would estimate that we cut their water usage for the shower right in half. I'll have to wait for the water bill to confirm, but they have no problem running out of hot water.

The problem here is not really saving water, it is saving HOT water. Natural gas is very expensive. The shower head does an excellent job of saving both, and saving dollars every day.

Check out keyword "oxygenics" on ebay, or the Oxygenics web site.

My favorite Job Career website, and search engine.

With the recession in full swing, and unemployment numbers skyrocketing, I figured that this would be a pretty useful post. This is a real world review of ways to locate a job online, and apply to it. Now actually getting a call back, and landing the job is up to you, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I used to spend hours per day looking at all the stupid job sites. Monster, Careerbuilder, Yahoo Jobs. Most of these sites are filled with ads, sponsorships, and junk scam jobs. I would get nothing but scam callers during the day offering me "jobs". If you aren't sure what I mean, then just put your resume in "public" mode on Monster, and wait back and let the phone calls come in.

Right now, I am using a service called Indeed.

Indeed works a lot like Google, and that is a huge compliment. I would say that Indeed is the Google of job search websites. It pulls the data from EVERY job website, and gives you direct links to the job in most cases.

The website appears to be very simple, but it is extremely powerful. You answer what you want, and where you want it. The advanced search is very powerful.

Once you get a good search result, you can have indeed exclude all jobs from employment agencies. Then you can have it only show you jobs based on a certain salary. Furthermore, you can drill it down between the type of job that you are looking for (Full Time, Part time, Contract). That is a great way to pick maybe 10 good jobs out of a search of 5000, without spending all day looking at garbage jobs.

Now, once you get a good search going, you can save your search through My Indeed. It is very hard to stay motivated, so you can have Indeed email you job search results as often as you want.

Here is my absolute favorite feature of the website. If you open an account with Indeed (Free of course), then you can set a block button on any job search result that comes up in your search. You can block jobs from a certain company, jobs posted on a certain job board, or certain job titles. This is an awesome feature, even with a great search you will get some junk jobs mixed in there, or some weird job sites that you do not want to see. I have a huge ban list, and right now, I get mostly quality search results.

Right now, one of my main searches is

computer "A+" in location FL
or computer "A+" in location AZ

You are telling the engine to search for computer and the exact phrase A+ (A computer certification) in the job data, then only give you the results for the state you want.

If you are searching in your local area, just punch in your zip code, and tell it to search within 25 miles of your house.

It is a very great website, and it has saved me tons of time.

If this post has been of any use to you, please click the links and visit our site sponsors.

Thanks, and good luck.

Buy Verizon Fios Service through a 3rd Party and Save Money (Discounted Rate).

The signs are posted all over my neighborhood. "Verizon Fios is being installed here". I was pretty excited to get the service, now it is finally here.

So right now I'm eligible for Fiber Optic Internet and Television direct to my home. Sounds great. They even offer me $150 dollars to pay the Time Warner cable termination fee. Even better.

The service is amazing, just a little pricey. I suppose you don't pay Chevrolet money for a BMW, you get what you pay for.

I'll stick with my Time Warner, I like to watch Sabres hockey games in HD, and local Canadian channels.

Anyways, here's a deal to buy the Fios service through a reseller.

The service is http://www.dslextreme.com.

If you listen to any of Leo Laporte the TechGuy Podcasts out of California, you will know the sponsor very well. They seem to have decent ratings, but I have never tried their service.

Here is the deal they are offering. It comes out to be about 10 bucks per month cheaper than buying through Verizon, and maybe you save on extra fees. There is a 1 year commitment.

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, and Seaworld Orlando Discount Tickets.

This is a good link for anyone planning a trip to any of the Busch Properties this summer or fall.

I bought this link on eBay, from a coupon hunter.

It is a link to print out your tickets at home for use at the gate. You buy the tickets directly from Busch, its not a weird ticket vendor. I think the link was for friends of people affiliated with Busch.

http://commerce.4adventure.com/eStore/scripts/skins/PAW/Promotion.aspx?companycode=P@WAccessVGLLCEmployees


Discount Tickets are available for

SeaWorld Orlando
SeaWorld San Diego
SeaWorld San Antonio
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Sesame Place
Aquatica
Adventure Island
Water Country USA

We ended up buying 2 length of stay tickets for Busch Gardens Tampa, and SeaWorld for $82.95 per person. A savings of about $20 per ticket..

The deals on that link seem to be changing, they are getting cheaper as we get to the end of summer, and in to fall.

Click my Google ad's if you found this information useful..

Google Voice + Gizmo = Free Calls, and Free Number.

I've been waiting for this one for quite a long time. Would you like the ability to make unlimited calls anywhere for free?

By using a combination of two free services, and your high speed internet, you can make calls for nothing. This works great for me, as I can keep a cheap cell phone plan, and I can pick my area code that I want to be calling from.

I signed up for the Google Voice Beta about 9 months ago. I finally got approved for it this past week. Google Voice is a service that offers you a free telephone number for life. If someone calls your google voice number, you can have it ring any number of your other lines at once.

I have it set to ring my cell phone, and my girlfriends at the same time. Google also offers call screening and a voice mail box.

The best part about it, is that we could pick our phone number. I chose a 480 area code, with a Scottsdale, AZ extension. We live in New York, but having an AZ line will be beneficial on the job hunt.

Google Voice is at www.google.com/voice

The second free service is Gizmo5. You can get a free account and install their software at www.gizmo5.com

Google Voice will dial any phone, and use your phones airtime to make the call, but they do not offer phone calls for free. Gizmo allows you to answer incoming calls, and talk for free.

If you add your Gizmo SIP number to google voice, Google will call your Gizmo line, and connect you to any number. Basically you can talk for free for nothing.

Even the caller ID works great. It shows my Arizona number.

I have been using this FAQ that spells out all the details.
http://nyquil.org/archives/1218-Unlimited-Free-Calls-Using-Google-Voice-and-Gizmo.html

For talking, I am using a $9 Xact plastic USB phone. It works great. I suppose you could use a headset, or get an adapter to use a regular house phone.

The sound quality is better than my Sprint PCS cell phone. I have a 10mbps Time Warner roadrunner connection herer.

Could Redbox put the bite on Blockbuster, and others?

Over the past year, Redbox vending machines have been cropping up in my neighborhood.

They started in local grocery stores, now they have moved to Walmart.

The pitch is $1 per movie, per day. Automatically billed to your credit card, return it whenever you want to. You can rent from any redbox, and return to any redbox in the country.

You rent directly from an electronic kiosk. You can even reserve movies online, and have them waiting in the Redbox when you arrive.

It is a perfect fit for a down economy. People are staying home more, and $1 DVD's provide a great value in entertainment.

Personally, I have thrown out my Blockbuster and Hollywood Video membership card, and stopped ordering On-Demand movies from Time Warner cable. I spend $0 with these 3 companies.

The days of the video store are growing darker and darker.. Its pretty hard to justify charging $4.29 movie rental fee on a DVD that will end up for sale at Walmart for under $10 in a few months.

Kudos to Redbox, I'll keep supporting them, actually giving them my money.

Here is a site dedicated to Redbox promotion codes. I haven't used any of them. I just pay the $1 per day plus tax, and am glad to do so. Redbox is currently running some free movie nights on Monday. Dig up a promo code on this site, or just pay the buck like I do if you want to support their efforts.

Inside Redbox

How to file your taxes online for free. Why pay fees?

Here's one for those of you who are paying big dollars to H&R Block Taxcut, TurboTax, and others.

The IRS has a list of ways that people earning under $56,000 can file their Federal Taxes for free.

Read the fine print at each offer, some programs will file only the Federal for free, then hit you with a charge for the state. Others are totally free.

Link to IRS E-File

Pass along any good results to me, I'd like to hear 'em..

Switch your Natural Fuel Provider and Save Money.

This one turned out to be an absolute no brainer for me, and a home run as well. Thanks to utility deregulation, consumers are now free to purchase their natural gas and electric supply from any company that they choose.

If you are buying your Natural Fuel, or Electricity from the gas company or the electric company then you are paying "retail" so to speak for your utility.

This has brought many companies into the market, most of these companies will save you money, but are for profit companies. Off the top of my head, in the local Buffalo, NY market, there is a gas station called Noco that has been running ads to switch your supply to them to save money.

I did a serious cost analysis on their program, and decided to pass. They wanted to lock you into a certain price rate for an entire year, when we all know that the price of natural gas changes every month. Their electric offering was even stranger, saving you dollars at off peak hours, and charging more during on peak hours.

After doing some digging, I decided to go with a not for profit company to provide my natural gas and electricity. This company is the Energy Cooperative of New York.

The signup process was simple, just sign up online, and provide them with your account information for your utilities. The process was seamless, National Fuel still sends me a bill, but the supply comes from ECNY. National Fuel still reads my meter, and provides any service that I may need. Same deal with my Electric company, National Grid.

The only difference is that I am saving huge on the supply portion of my utility bill. When you get a electric or gas bill, there are two charges on there. One is for delivery, one for the actual supply of the electricity or gas.

The chart above will show the actual savings using ECNY versus buying retail from the gas company. Last month I saved 17.6%, which translated to be about 18 bucks in a month for my little 1100 sq foot apartment in my duplex...

Imagine the savings if you have a large gas bill already.

Right now the electric savings has been a wash, I only have a 60 dollar bill on average for electricity, so the savings is less than 5 dollars per month..

First Time Homebuyer $7500 Tax Credit (Well Kinda)

Bought your first house between April 9th 2008, and July 1st 2009?

The government is going to bail you out for $7500.. Well not really, you have to read between the lines on this one, and understand what you are getting into before you take the money.

I was excited to see this program, because it applies to me, I meet all the qualifications. Then I learned the real deal, and became slightly less satisfied, but heck I'll still take their money.

So, you can claim up to $7500 as a tax credit on your taxes this year. Since it is a dollar for dollar credit, Uncle Sam will increase your tax refund by $7500, or reduce what you owe to zero, and send you a check for the rest. The keyword here is up to $7500. They only pay 10% of the amount that you paid for your home. In my case, I'll get 10% of my meager 43,000 house, or $4300.

This may upset you a bit, but keep reading, you will be just fine with it. So, this is not a traditional tax credit, like when the government gave us stimulus checks that we were free to do what we chose with them (booze, cigarettes, electronics, hookers, and the like)..

This tax credit must be repaid within 15 years, over that period of time.. You start the repayment 2 years after you take the money, and they recapture the entire amount 17 years after you take the money.

I'm still taking their money, and you should too (if you qualify)... Toss the money in a CD or other safe investment tool, or even a high interest savings account. Right now the best ones pay about 4 percent.

Not calculating the yearly payback (you would pay that yourself), at 4% APY that $4300 would turn into $7744.06 after 15 years.

Plus you would have access to the cash in case of emergency.

Sounds like a decent deal for me, I'll take the money and run.

Here is a link to the dirty details.. Click my adsense links to buy me a beer..

Federal Housing Tax Credit

APY Interest Calculator (figure your earnings)

Bankrate Savings Account APY rates

Just got this in from the FINE folks at Rockauto.com..

The New 5% Off Discount Coupon..

Enjoy, and if my site helped you out at all, please click the adsense banners a few times.
Justin

Thank you for being a www.RockAuto.com customer! To show our appreciation, we have a special discount for you.

Your discount code is:

1127806982885

Using Your Discount Code

Enter the code above in the "How did you hear about us" line of the shopping cart. If you are using our traditional HTML catalog, please click the "Apply" button to the right of the field. Your discount will automatically appear, subtracted from your order total.

Please note: We sometimes get calls from people who put the word "discount" in front of their code and do not get the discount. Please enter ONLY the discount code, no other words or numbers. The discount takes 5% off our already-low prices. There's no limit on order size or the number of orders. Use the code for your next order, and share the code with friends, neighbors, relatives, the guy at the corner garage--anyone you know who works on cars or trucks.

This discount code expires on November 16, 2008; so don't wait!

How I get my daily deals, AKA the early bird catches the deal.

I can't remember the last time that I paid full price for well.. Anything..

As I read this, a box of oil filters was just dropped off from Amazon.com. They are $8.99 each in the store, I found them online for $1.25, and bought a dozen of them.

Yesterday I bought a case of CFL light bulbs for 19 dollars. They go for 3-4 bucks each in any store in America. The deals keep rolling on, but I don't have to look too hard for them..

Add these websites to your favorites, and check them every day. If you have any more really good ones, feel free to post them up in comments.

1.) Slickdeals.net

http://www.slickdeals.net/

Ah, the mothership of deals.. This site posts a bunch of deals every day, and has a great discussion forum. Everything from sneakers, to electronics, to travel deals. I have seen it all on here. If you watch this site every day, you find some great deals (and curse yourself for whipping out your credit card)..

2.) Techbargains.com

http://www.techbargains.com/

I just found out about this site about a year ago, it has become part of my daily routine. If you want a low price on a computer, this is the site. They post all the coupon codes for DELL, and other vendors. It is amazing how cheap some of the computers are on that site.

But it is not only for computers, its everything relating to electronics as well. I have found great deals on a HDTV for myself, and friends with this site.

Thanks for reading,
Justin

The real deal on traveling on the cheap with Priceline..

Hey Everybody..

I've gotten seriously good at getting the bottom line price when traveling. People in my family and social circles are now calling me to help them book a trip.

Here are a few steps to get the lowest price on your next trip. Its really simple..

First of all, you aren't going to get anywhere booking on Expedia, or Hotels.com, or sites like that. Those sites are only good if you need to stay at a specific hotel, and want to pay a little bit off book rate.

There is a time and place to use those sites, but honestly if you are like me, then you don't care exactly where you stay, you just want it to be a nice place, and you might enjoy the element of surprise.

Priceline is the only way to stay for a place super cheap. I have walked into many 3.5-4 star hotels, and have been wondering how they even LET ME IN THE DOOR for the 39 bucks per night that I had paid.

Its unreal.

Here is a link to my Tripadvisor page.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-reviews/JustinH

Tripadvisor is an excellent tool for reading actual reviews on a property before you stay there, also you can get some excellent tips on the area from fellow travelers, not from the hotel itself. Also you can get real world pictures of the rooms, the property, and more. This tool is amazing. I contribute to that site nearly every time I travel. Heck, they even sent me a ball cap in the mail they like me so much.

I always post the price that I paid for the room on priceline, so that other people can get a similar deal. You should too.

I'll break down this instructional into the different things that you may need to book for your trip.

1.) Airfare-

With the way that airfare in this country is getting (expensive), I have only had look booking in advance with Southwest.com using their Internet Rate. Usually priceline can not beat the price that they give, but you do need to book in advance. Southwest does not fly everywhere, but if you find yourself having to go somewhere that they do not fly, then use the ITA Software search engine.

http://www.itasoftware.com/

You will need to click on search airfares, then login as guest. ITA software is a company that makes the engine that MANY different aggregators on the internet use. Take a look at Priceline search, then use theirs, it is the exact same thing. Many sites use this engine, and they all report the same prices.

The ITA Software will get you the cheapest price on airfare, and you can go directly to the airlines website and book direct from them, with no overhead from an aggregator.

This my friends is how you get the cheapest airfare.

2.) Car rental-

You will probably need to rent a car, but it is tough to compare prices unless you use an aggregator. The big boys like Priceline do not include all the car rental companies, so you are usually stuck with their major overpriced company, unless you make a lowball offer.

Here is where carrentals.com comes in.

http://www.carrentals.com/

This site is awesome for getting the lowest posted price at a specific airport or city. They search all the no name car rental places, and you can use your judgement if you want to use them or not.

I have rented in vegas for 11 bucks a day, and orlando for 18 bucks per day.

Always rent the economy car, about 8 out of 10 times, you will get a free upgrade at the counter to something else.

I usually get the lowest price on CarRentals.com, then try to bid a few bucks cheaper on Priceline to save a few bucks. Usually Carrentals will be cheaper than priceline, they usually don't take your lowball offer.

3.) Hotels-

The way to a cheap hotel is priceline. Nothing else is even close.

http://www.priceline.com/

But the main question is what do you bid? People overbid all the time, and Priceline is ready to take your money. There are a few really good sites on the web, where actual people post what they bid, and if their offer was accepted or not. This is an excellent way to figure out where your bid should be.

These sites also show you what hotels are located in what areas, and it gives you a good idea of what hotel you will be assigned before you bid. You can go on tripadvisor, and see if you are ready to take the plunge before you do so.

The first site is BiddingforTravel.

http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com/

The second is Betterbidding

http://www.betterbidding.com/

These websites are a source for an amazing amount of information, to figure out exactly what to bid on your hotel, and exactly what you may be assigned.

In conclusion, Priceline hotels are amazingly cheap. They are non refundable travel. You do not know exactly what hotel you will be assigned, until after they charge you for it. Honestly I don't have a problem with this. I have never been assigned anything but a nice room with Priceline, and have used them for years. Most times, I am overly impressed with the accommodations received for the price paid.

GOOD LUCK,
Justin

Rockauto Rockauto.com Auto Parts 5% Discount Coupon (Expires 9/16/2008)

Hey Guys,

I don't usually post ads for companies, but here is a company that I really like to deal with.

Rockauto.com

They stock a ton of parts that the other big auto parts stores do not have, and they are sometimes 50% cheaper than the auto parts stores.

If you need a part right away, then read my blog about parts store doing a price match to rockauto, but if you want to order online, they ship right away.

Enjoy!
Justin

Discount on RockAuto Parts!

Thank you for being a www.RockAuto.com customer! To show our appreciation, we have a special discount for you. Your discount code is: 1127806982885 Using Your Discount Code Enter the code above in the "How did you hear about us" line of the shopping cart. If you are using our traditional HTML catalog, please click the "Apply" button to the right of the field. Your discount will automatically appear, subtracted from your order total. Please note: We sometimes get calls from people who put the word "discount" in front of their code and do not get the discount. Please enter ONLY the discount code, no other words or numbers. The discount takes 5% off our already-low prices. There's no limit on order size or the number of orders. Use the code for your next order, and share the code with friends, neighbors, relatives, the guy at the corner garage--anyone you know who works on cars or trucks. This discount code expires on September 16, 2008; so don't wait!

A quick $50 for opening a Bank of America Free Checking.

Hey Readers,

Well, it used to be $100 for signing up with Bank of America, but since the economy is in the dumper, they are only giving $50 for new personal checking accounts.

I've had BoA checking for about two years now, and honestly I haven't had a problem with them...yet.

Its nice to go on vacation and have a branch available and a free atm. Thats why I went with them.

Check it out.

Click Here for the link

http://www.bankofamerica.com/promos/jump/uspsmovers/

(Don't forget to click my adsense links a few times, it usually goes to beer money :) )

Avoid the Free Credit Report Scams, it really is free.

Many of you have probably seen those so called "Free" credit reports all over television, the radio, and the Internet.

I can't believe how people fall for this scam. The 3 major credit bureaus offer a look at your credit report for free once per year.

Here is some great links--

First of all, our friends at the FTC have us covered. This page outlines what is a scam, and what isn't.

The only site that is free is annualcreditreport.com

The only hook is that you are only allowed to check your credit on the 3 major bureaus once every 12 months. What I do is check one bureau every 4 months using the annualcreditreport.com website.

When you get into the reports, here is what to expect. You will see a snapshot of all the credit that you have out. Every loan, every revolving credit account, every credit card, etc. You will also see a bunch of old accounts that you had closed, paid off, etc.

You will not see your actual credit score. They want a little under ten dollars to get your score. If you take a deep look at your credit snapshot, you won't need to pay the money, unless you really would like to.

I recommend that everyone has a good look at their credit, and figures out how they can improve their score.

I recently applied for a home mortgage, and wanted to make sure that my credit was in order before applying. Everything on the 3 major bureaus looked excellent. When I applied for the mortgage, the broker ran my credit. He came back with a score of 761. I'm pretty pleased with this score, but there is room for improvement.

The credit snapshot offers codes, or ways to improve your score. Mine was to "reduce debt on accounts." So basically I had to pay off my student loans..

Wish me luck!

I bought a house, you can too.

I've been pretty busy this past month, hence the lack of posts.

Anyways, this is a major money saver that I wanted to share with all my viewers.

I bought a house!

If you are able to look past all the gloom and doom on the nightly news, then you will see that there are many deals to be had in the real estate market. That combined with cheap interest rates is a good buying market, and an EXCELLENT buying market for first time buyers.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the loan procedure, and what to expect, as well as the loan program that is PAYING ME to use their loan product.

First thing is first. Get a competent mortgage broker. I made this mistake at first, but thanks to my realtor and brother (I'll introduce him later), I was able to correct it in a BIG way.

It is so important to look around and get a good mortgage broker. It is the difference between someone looking after YOU and someone looking after their commission checks.

I had decided that I wanted to go with a SONYMA home loan. This loan applies to residents of New York state, but check around with your local broker, and see if they have a similar program.

Now, here is what the SONYMA program was able to do for me. I decided to go with the Achieving the Dream SONYMA program. The link will explain the loan program, and it worked great for me. My terms were a 30 year foxed loan, for 5.5% interest, with only 1 percent down. Plus SONYMA is giving me a $5000 grant to pay my closing costs.

Linking from the SONYMA website was a few banks. I took a look at the top of the page, and there was Bank of America. I thought great, I have a checking account with them, I'll do the loan with them.

Boy was I ever wrong. The woman I was dealing with kept pushing me to do a conventional loan with Bank of America, and wouldn't even consider doing another loan for me. It was either the fact that she didn't know how to do the SONYMA loan properly, or she was acting in her own interests, not mine. She was very rude on the telephone, and very pushy.

I then asked my brother, who was acting as my real estate agent, to help me out. His name is Joel HusVar, and he works for Farley Real Estate Enterprises.

He put me in touch with M&T Bank.

That was a great turning point for me. I worked with a true professional, and learned that M&T specializes in doing this type of loan, they had a whole floor of people who just did that loan. I spent two hours with my mortgage broker, talking face to face. He acted in my interests the entire time, and did a great job with the loan. His advise and service was absolutely excellent. Send me a message through the comments, and I'll get you in touch with him.

So, I had a loan secured, and it was time to go house shopping. I worked with Joel HusVar in his office, and he was able to do an interview with me, asking what I wanted in a house, and what I didn't want.

We narrowed it down to about 150 properties, then down to 50, then 25. We ended up viewing about 10 properties before I found the one I wanted to make an offer on.

We ended up making an offer on the house, and after a few counteroffers, we did get the house under contract!

Time to get the property inspected..

I again turned to Joel for advice. He recommended an excellent service, that had reasonable rates. This guy was fully licensed, and totally professional. He spent about 3 hours with me showing me everything in my house, and what to look out for. I left with a large binder of information and his report.

We are going to be closing on the property in Late April.

Wish me luck in the new world of home ownership..

I'm using Google Calendar to pay my bills on time.

Here's a quick and dirty tip for those of us who are known to "forget" about bills. I used to be one of these people myself. I literally had a stack of bills piled on my computer desk, and absolutely no organizational system to get them paid on time.

Here is my new system, and since I started it, I have not had one late bill, and I am right on top of what is due, and when it is due. This is one of the most popular "Web 2.0" apps on the planet.

Google Calendar is an absolutely free application, all it requires is an account with Google, which is very simple to setup. If you have a Gmail account, you already have calandar, now put it to work!

Here's what I do..

When bills come in the mail, I open them up, then fire up Google calendar. I setup an event for each bill that is due. If the bill is paid on the same day every month, then I setup a repeat monthly event, and that will save a little time.

I list the event as the companies name, followed by the amount due. For example Geico, $100.

I then set a reminder to email me a week before the bill is due. Google makes it really simple to set this up. You can do whatever a reminder that you require. You can even have Google send you a SMS text message on your mobile phone saying "time to pay your bill".

I then pay the bill, and update calendar's title with the word paid.

It's simple, now you try!

calendar.google.com

So could you get rid of your Cable or Satellite Dish?

Think about what your cable bill costs you on a monthly basis.

It is pretty easy to rack up a bill over $100 per month.

Think about how many crap channels are out there that you are paying for, but never watching.

Personally, I could go mostly without television, but not fully.

I tried this experiment when I first moved into my apartment. I didn't subscribe to cable, but instead just put up an antenna out the window, and was receiving mind blowing HDTV quality.

I could watch all the network television that I wanted, all the PBS, and that was fine and dandy.

After a while, this grew a bit tiresome, and I turned my gaze to my cable modem.

Could you get by with Internet television, in combination with your free over the air signal?

I'm going to try it.

Here are some links to some great free television available on the Internet.

1.) Fancast.com

This could be one of the greatest new sites to hit the web for Internet television. First of all, its ran by Comcast, and its not all screwed up. I'm shocked. The premise is that is asks you what you want to watch, then it shows you where you can watch it. It will also show you listings for your local cable of satellite provider. There are a ton of full episodes of your favorite shows. I just finished watching an episode of NBC's Las Vegas. It came right up over my slow 3 megabit dsl connection, and played great.

2.) Beelinetv.com

Here is another one for those who would like to watch a bit of international television. The quality is much lower than Fancast, but watching something in your home language would be interesting. Not my cup of tea, but worth stumbling upon.

3.) Joost.com

This service is one of my favorites. It does require registration, and the download of a player, but I'm very satisfied with the service. The video quality is excellent, and there is a ton of shows on there. I watched a few PBS documentaries on Joost, and will keep using the service.

4.) Quicksilverscreen.com

This is another service that scours the net looking for divx movies, then it streams directly to your PC. There is a huge selection of movies, videos, and tv shows.

Now I'll have to rig a computer to watch all this content on my bigscreen, and I'll be all set.

Later..

The Spitzer Money Grab.

Here is another money grab from the Albany machine.

Governor Elliott Spitzer is proposing a bill that would result in NYS sales tax being collected on items purchased via the Internet from stores that do not have a presence inside the state.

The key Internet store being singled out is Amazon.com, which is based in the state of Washington. Spitzer claims that the state is losing out in millions in tax dollars from Amazon.com alone.

Surely, the next move would be assigning a tax to every item shipped into the state of New York.

The state currently relies on the honor system, and residents are expected to log what they purchased on the Internet, or brought into the state, and pay taxes on that at the end of the year.

When does it end?

Here are some links to articles discussing the story.

Story from Syracuse.com
Another story from Syracuse.com
Story from DailyGazette.com


And of course, they deserve a raise for all their good work!

Link to NYtimes.