FEATURED POSTS
[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]
Yesterday when we went to do our laundry at our apartment's laundromat, we spied upon a bunch of kids playing with crayons. When one of them looked up at us, we spontaneously smiled. Well she liked it and smiled back. Soon the other kids were smiling at us. Before we realized, we were already engaged in a conversation about their crayons' colors and the importance of their drawings. Kids are so spontaneous and beautiful, they selflessly passed their hearts' joy to us. That's when we realized the power of an innocent smile ...
Have a wonderful weekend filled with innocent smiles and joy :).
Image Source(s): Friend's email
Have a wonderful weekend filled with innocent smiles and joy :).Image Source(s): Friend's email
» Click Here to Continue Reading
While the U.S. economy is in recession and the stock market in shambles, is it a good idea to invest in 
When we began disciplined investing through a 
On hindsight we wish that we knew about this new money rule of considering our earning potential and its stability while designing our portfolio. Present times are teaching us that no career is high paying or stable forever. We need to adapt to new cash cows and skills with changing times. In that light, capital preservation (a good percentage) should be on our agenda right from the start. This will give a person some bandwidth to create fresh cash inflows according to new necessities.
For some people, it just makes more sense to rent. Renting is good if we don’t plan on being in the area long enough for prices to appreciate to cover our closing and maintenance costs. Or, if real estate prices are depressed in our area and are continuing to fall. Buying too high will only cause distress for a homeowner. Elderly and single parents often choose rentals and town homes because of the lack of maintenance and some property oversight by someone who has more time or mobility.
Now we explain how we went about lining our trash cans with grocery bags. Luckily for us, we had invested in small trash cans for our home. So the grocery bags were a perfect fit! If you are planning to replace your trash cans, we would advise you to go for medium sized rectangular models. Most empty grocery bags fit these models pretty well.
After emptying grocery bags, we neatly fold them and store them in a Rubbermaid basket. We also take an extra step and classify the recyclable ones and put them in a separate stack for use elsewhere. Next we separate the big sized shopping bags from the normal sized grocery bags. We use the big shopping bags for our kitchen trash and the smaller ones for our bathrooms and bedrooms.
While using a grocery bag to line a trash it is advisable to make sure that the bag does not have any holes. If it does, then we set it aside in an empty box. On our next grocery trip we carry these holey bags for recycling (most supermarkets recycle plastic bags).
A caveat that might arise by using smaller trash cans is that we may have to empty them frequently. But we are not complaining since we are getting FREE bags. Not only that, this policy is more environmental friendly since we are trying to reuse the plastic stuff (most of which is not biodegradable) as much as possible before it ends up in land fills.
We know that we shall not be able to retire on our savings by not purchasing trash bags. But our humble efforts to reuse materials before they hit the landfill is our little way of thanking Mother Earth for sustaining us.
Thankfully we had successfully built an emergency fund which had about 8 months' worth of our living expenses. This fund protected us from an immediate financial disaster. You can say it was one of the most practical personal finance advices that we've implemented in our lives. More so, since a falling market had erased about 50% of our portfolio. In addition, we have also saved cash for some unavoidable big ticket expenses which are in the horizon for next two years. Now we are considering how we can trim our expenses further to stay afloat longer.
Create a nice weekend and enjoy it thoroughly :).
Liz P Weston has put together a very informative and useful list of 100 sites that will save us money. Along with sites that save us money, it also covers those that will help us to:
Patients whose needs can be fully satisfied with generics could enjoy 52% savings in the daily costs of their medications.
Any drug which is biochemically identical to a brand name drug in dosage form may be termed as a generic drug for that particular brand name drug. Further, FDA requires that the generic must also have same strength, route of administration, performance, quality, characteristics and intended use. In other words the generic and its brand name drug are exactly the same in the way they work.
Not all brand-name drugs have equivalent generics. As explained above, when the patent is in effect, no other manufacturer is allowed to develop and sell an equivalent drug. But there is certainly hope once the patent expires.
The FDA estimates that we can slash our drug bill by 30% to a whopping 80% simply by purchasing generic drugs instead of brand name prescription drugs. According to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, in 2004, the average price of a generic prescription drug was $28.74, while the average price of a brand-name prescription drug was $96.01.
If you have any tips or question(s), we'd truly appreciate it if you could kindly 
Finance Blogs ...More News