Be Rich Blog Knowledge is the currency for success

Woot!! Cool Stuff CheapPosted by ahc99 on October 16th, 2008

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If you are ever looking for great daily deals, check out Woot.com and Sellout.Woot.com. They sell one item per day until it is sold out or until 11:59pm central time when it is replaced by another item. If an item sells out before 11:59pm, a new item will not be shown until the next release time. The awesome thing about Woot! is they usually sell really cool stuff cheap (from roombas to temperature air sensors to large LCDs). Also, I love their shipping: the cost for shipping is $5 no matter how many you buy (up to 3) or how small/large the item is.

The last thing I bought at Woot.com was an iPod Touch 16 GB for $295 and that was a while ago (before the 3G came out), I think it was about $40 cheaper than the Apple website’s refurbished version. So all in all, it was a good deal and I still use it regularly with no problems.

Note: Watch out for woot-offs! You can tell a woot-off is going on when the orange lights appear. They usually happen once or twice every month and instead of just one deal per day, a succession of items are able to be purchased from 24-72 hours. I’ve bought 2-3 things during a woot-off, but often the things I want are sold too quickly before I can make a purchase.

Why You Are Not RichPosted by ahc99 on October 11th, 2008

Photo by Gaetan Lee

A recent article from TheStreet gives some useful reasons why a lot of people are not rich.

• You care what you’re car looks like - Like the article says, a lot of people view a car as a reflection of themselves and spend money every two years trying to impress other people. I don’t get that. A car’s purpose is just to get you from one place to another. I don’t see how it reflects who you really are. Personally I think it is far more impress to just buy and drive an used economic car (a new car loses 20% of its value just driving off the lot) and then pocket the extra money you saved to do some investing and make even more money.
• You feel entitlement - The new generation has often been called the entitlement generation. Every kid thinks that their parents should buy them designer clothes and shoes, pay for expensive colleges, get them a brand spanking new car (see point above), and score them all the shiny new gadgets as soon as they come out (PS3, iPhone anybody?). Recently I heard of the 12 year old that has an iPhone. Seriously, does a 12 year old need an iPhone? Great way to teach the kid the idea of working hard for things they want. This sets up people for disappointment later on because from an early age they already believe they are entitled to whatever they want.
• You lack diversification - Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The golden rule in investing is to diversify so that you don’t wipe out your savings in one fell swoop when a company goes under. A good example would be the Enron employees that lost everything because their retirement consisted basically of Enron stocks.
• You started too late (to save) - There’s no day like today. Don’t put off tomorrow what you could do today. If you don’t start saving early, most likely you will never save enough for retirement. Consider this scenario: If you begin saving for retirement at 25, putting away $2,000 a year for just 40 years, you’ll have around $560,000, assuming earnings grow at 8% annually. Now, let’s say you wait until you’re 35 to start saving. You put away the same $2,000 a year, but for three decades instead, and earnings grow at 8% a year. When you’re 65 you’ll wind up with around $245,000 — less than half the money. So start saving early, you will gain much more than if you start late.
• You don’t do what you enjoy - If you hate what you do at work then you won’t have motivation to work harder in order to climb higher in your job. Also you will most likely blow through your hard earned money as a way of dealing with the stress at a job you hate.
• You don’t like to learn - Learning doesn’t stop at school (actually the stuff I learned at school seem pretty useless cause I never use it again). But if you are willing to learn more then you will be able to excel beyond your peers at your job, giving you more opportunities for advancement. Besides, if you read more you will also find more ways to become wealthy.
• You buy things you don’t use - You waste money and space when you buy things you don’t use. Enough said.
• You don’t understand value - If you don’t understand value then you end up wasting money on things that could have no value for you.
• Your house is too big - It is very expensive to upkeep a house that is too big for yourself. You need to pay extra mortgage, insurance, and property tax. In addition, maintenance and utility costs are also greater. I previously had heard of the story of the couple that bought a McMansion in southern California and then had to declare bankruptcy because they could not afford all the expenses for upkeep and couldn’t sell their house.
• You fail to take advantage of opportunities - Don’t end up being the person that says I could have done that too. Just go do it.

Find Coupons and Discounts with RetailMeNotPosted by ahc99 on October 6th, 2008

RetailMeNot is an online repository full of coupon codes, discounts, and promotional codes for a whole bunch of websites from food to travel to consumer goods. It has saved me some money when I want to quickly find if there are any online deals I qualify for.

In the past month I have already used it three times: buying a Papa John’s pizza; saving money when booking at Hotels.com; and discounts for buying and hosting a domain from GoDaddy.com (it was actually for this current blog). Each time it only took me about two minutes to find the coupon code and then input it into the online website. On average I have saved about $20 for each purchase so that two minutes was definitely worth it! Saving money has never been this easy.