Learn Something

Everyone who is anyone these days, and even a few nobodies has some form of a social networking account. What qualifies? Everything from Facebook to LinkedIn, Myspace and Classmates.com. These days, everything seems to be about how many friends you have and who they might know, but have you ever thought about how social networking might negatively impact you life? Here are a few examples.

1. Not only does your prospective employer Google you, but they might also look you up on the sites that I've mentioned. You might have innocent photos on there that your prospective or even current employer can deem unsuitable and they can decline to hire you or even fire you because of it. Don't think so? Here is one example. And for all that is holy, assume everything that you write will be seen by your employer whether it is "private" or not.
   


2. Did you know that your creditors also use social networks to find out if you're a responsible customer, or even worse, if you owe a creditor money and have been dodging them, they can use these networks to find you? If you don't already know the story about the "cute girl" that was actually a profile illegally created by a debt collection agency to fool people, read about that one Consumerist.
   
   That one really is illegal because it probably is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) which requires debt collectors to be truthful and treat debtors with fairness, dignity and respect. That and the fact that the fake profile now allows other people to know that you have an account under collections. Also be aware that your current creditors can evaluate your credit worthiness based on your the friends that you have in your social network, so be sure to "friend" Donald Trump, Oprah, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to be safe.
   


3. Are you in the process of a divorce and you're battling it out with the spouse over money? Our good friend, the social network, can really wallop your pockets this time. Did you know that attorney's consider Facebook and other social media sites to be the best source of evidence in a divorce case? According to this article "66% of the lawyers surveyed cited Facebook foibles as the source of online evidence." So if you're telling your spouse that you don't have money for alimony or child support and you post photos of you with your new BMW on Facebook (it's happened), it can, and will be used against you.
   


4. Finally, I present the case - there are more - where you could be sued for libel based on what you've said on your social network posts. Yes, you have the freedom of speech, but hate speech and things considered libelous are not protected. Even if you do win a suit brought against you, just think of the expense of having to pay a lawyer to defend you. This bring us to T & J Towing vs. Justin Kurtz. Justin might have won his case, but others have lost theirs, so think hard about what you say.

I know that I might be slightly paranoid, but just remember that the internet isn't anonymous. Social networking can be great for landing you a job, connecting with friends all over the world, and sharing your life experiences with the people you love. Just be aware that every "friend" that you have does not always mean you well, and just because you deleted something, doesn't mean that someone hasn't screen captured your 2:00 a.m. rant.

This guest post is brought to you by Lisa Grossberg from the Buckingham Hotel in New York. I happen to walk by it almost every day on my way to work. Eating in hotels can cost you lots of money. Learn how you can reduce those costs from an industry professional.

With signs that the down economy is here to stay (a least for now!), travelers are finding more inventive ways to game the system and plan trips on a dime. One of the latest trends is widely being referred to as the BYOF boom – bringing your own food and drink and forgoing overpriced room service and lobby restaurants.

"For the average hotel guest, dining can make up anywhere from a third to a half of the total spend on an average trip," noted Lisa Grossberg, General Manager of the historic Buckingham Hotel in Manhattan which has eat-in kitchens in every apartment-style suite.


Pictured Above: Buckingham Hotel Suite’s Kitchen

Whether you’re headed to a tropical island or a major city, here are 5 simple ways you can save hundreds of dollars on your next trip:

1) Book a condo-style hotel room with an eat-in kitchen. If you’re headed to a major city, you’ll find that many of the early and mid-century hotel buildings, like the Buckingham, came installed with private kitchens. And if you’re jetting to an island destination, more and more hotels are renting out their dormant condo and timeshare units.

"The overdevelopment of timeshares in 2008 has left a lot of hoteliers with a wider inventory than they anticipated. As a result, travelers can find great deals on some very luxe condos, some with Viking kitchens and high-end appliances!" notes Grossberg.

2) Stock your fridge. Even if you have plans to dine out every night of the week, you can still skip paying $40 for a below-average continental breakfast by bringing your own eggs, bagels and coffee.

"We have the great fortune of being located in midtown Manhattan, so we’re blocks from some of the best bagels and lox in the country," said Grossberg. "But every city and town has its own food gems. It’s a great loss if you don’t take advantage. When in Rome!"

And if you want to spice things up with a mimosa, pick up a bottle of Freixenet cava. It retails for just $10 at the liquor store and is what many restaurants use behind the scenes. Just pour out half a flute of Freixenet and top off with another half of OJ — and you’re set, brunch style…

3) Stock your bar. And if you’re tempted by that packet of peanut M&Ms or miniature Jack Daniels calling your name late-night, make your own mini-bar by hitting the liquor and convenience story for far less. Stores like Walgreens even sell theater style box candy or a 1 oz bag of mini-Oreos for $1 instead of $6+ mini-bar prices. And if you really insist on having the Thelma & Louise experience, a site called beerliquors.combeerliquors.com actually sells miniature bottles of your favorites in bulk, and on the cheap.

Also, with wines incurring a hefty mark-up dining out, pick up a great $20 wine that would cost you $50 from a restaurant’s cellar.

"It’s on the rise right now for even five-star restaurants to open up their Mondays for BYOB. So you can have a great meal and pick up a great bottle at cost,” added Grossberg.

To find local restaurant specials check out deal-of-the-day sites such as Groupon.com

4) Buy local. Also treat yourself to the best of whatever your particular city has to offer. If you’re in New York City, hit the H&H Bagels or at least a great deli. Seattle? Fish market! Bay Area? Replace your in-room Sanka pod with a small bag of the cult-favorite Blue Bottle coffee.

And if you’re somewhere tropical, hit the market for a couple of pineapples and coconuts and make yourself a far better piña colada than the swim-up bar is serving. Here’s a simple piña colada recipe with fresh ingredients:

Island Piña Colada Recipe

Ingredients
1 Pineapple
1 Coconut or Vita Coco
1 Can of Goya Coconut Cream
1 small bottle of dark rum


Instructions:
Combine ½ cup of chopped pineapple, ½ cup of rum, ¼ cup of fresh coconut juice or Vita Coco, ½ cup of coconut cream and ice cubes. Mix in a blender and serve with a sliced pineapple wedge as a garnish. Top off with a small pool of dark rum over the top.

5) Live off the land. Even if you’re planning to eat out most of your trip, sourcing a recipe with local ingredients can make for one special and inexpensive night in.

"If you’re somewhere where’s there’s fishing like Alaska or the Bahamas, nothing will compare to the satisfaction of catching and preparing your own meal," said Lisa. "And if you’re hiking, or strolling by a green market, spice things up by picking some herbs."


For more information on frugal travel tops, contact Lisa Grossberg, General Manager of The Buckingham Hotel. You can call toll-free at (888) 511-1900.

It's time to review the best posts that I ran into on the internet. The Yakezie's were very busy last week putting out some seriously decent posts that you should read. I'll list them here for you.


Goodbye 10% of My Salary! over at Budgets are Sexy. How much of a lower salary would you take to keep your job? I guess we all have to know our salary floor.

The Hidden Costs of Moving Out over at Studenomics covers costs that you don't really think about when you're moving out of your parents' home.

I'm such a New Yorker that my BS detector is on high at all time, but if you're not like me, then the Amateur Financier tells you how to develop your own BS detector. I love it.Building Up Your Bulls*** Detector


My post on a friend's financial situation was included in the Festival of Frugality hosted by Nerd Wallet and in the Carnival of Personal Finance by Pop Economics.

I also revamped the site a little bit. You'll now see a contact form as well as an area where I will list websites for alternative income. I hope to add more useful content as I have more time and as you request more information.

I'm going to buck what everyone else is going to tell you about your personal finances. Come closer, I have a secret to share: living paycheck-to-paycheck won't kill you. I know that if I am being responsible I shouldn't say that, but let's drop all that responsibility mess out of the window and be real for a moment. Have you ever lived from one paycheck to another? You're breathing aren't you?

According to a 2008 survey by Career Builder, almost half of all American workers sit by the ATM waiting for their deposits to show up on Fridays. Well, maybe they didn't put it exactly that way, but you know what I mean. What does paycheck-to-paycheck mean? If you do a search on Wikipedia for that terminology, you are redirected to the "working poor" entry. So, the Wikipedia entry says, "Working poor is a term used to describe individuals and families who maintain regular employment but remain in relative poverty due to low levels of pay and dependent expenses. The working poor are often distinguished from paupers, poor who are supported by government aid or charity." Sounds like a lot of us. I my friends, am the the working poor. Or am I?

I know that I am supposed to have 6 months of income saved in an account somewhere, but I don't. You know that I don't. If I lost my job tomorrow, I'd be looking around for a job that night and applying for unemployment the week after. But does a job loss immediately mean financial ruin? I don't think so. Over the past year I have worked hard at establishing alternate sources of income. In the case of a sudden loss of employment I would turn to that list...in addition to unemployment. Monthly rent from the house is $525 which is more than one week of pre-taxed unemployment in New York. I would also drop any unnecessary services. That would mean cable and internet. I have no problem grabbing my laptop and sitting outside my mom's house (conveniently across the street, a couple of houses down) and stealing, uh, borrowing her internet. I already learned how to clean my suits and clothes without the dry cleaners. I would drop full coverage insurance on the car and walk my butt up to public transportation. Gym membership? Gone. Meat? Big bag of bulk hormonally induced chicken. The student loan people would give me a hardship deferment. eBay and Craigslist would empty out the house. Puppy might have to get a job.

At this point you're probably wondering why I haven't done that already to get myself out of debt. The reason is simple, like many other "working poor", I'm not really part of the working poor. I've made decisions to spend money on certain things that makes my life more comfortable. It causes me to not have much savings which lands me into the paycheck-to-paycheck category, but I am not "in relative poverty due to low levels of pay". The sad fact is that lots of people with paychecks much bigger than mine and yours live paycheck-to-paycheck. The problem is not the pay. The problem is living outside of your means. That, my friends is the real problem.

You can successfully live paycheck-to-paycheck, however, if you find yourself paying overdraft fees while waiting for your check to clear; or if you are dodging bill collectors; if your rent and other bills are always paid late; if you skip critical services; if you have to stop at the bank every single time that you are paid to make it through that very day, then take those things as warning signs. Be prepared to reduce your spending and live less comfortably before your status changes from "working poor" to "pauper".

Image found at moniqueschlosser.com

This is totally off topic and the first off topic post that I'll make in almost a year-and a half of having this blog.

I've resisted all social media for a long time. I have no Myspace, no Facebook, no LinkedIn, no Flickr and I don't even have this blog on Wordpress. That all changed when I joined Twitter. I am now a Twitterholic. There is just too much deliciousness on Twitter not to pass it up. I'm spending way too much time on Twitter reading stupid little minuscule posts by people that I would never spend 5 minutes with, and I can't tell you why!

Yesterday I must have spent a good half-hour watching all of the dumb posts on #cincodemayo. I did not realize just how many alcoholics there were behind the screen. People can't spell. They don't write in English. For the love of God someone needs to explain to people when to use "your" versus "you're". And if I see "ur" on my screen one more time I might fall off my chair in an epileptic fit. There, I said it. You know you're thinking it. But really. Someone help me. I can't help myself.

Oh, and if you're on Twitter, check out my feed @yesiamcheap. I post freebies all day, every single day. You can also see my feed to the right of this post. Shameless plug.

Twitter cartoon courtesy of BradFitzpatrick.com

The dog ate my money. I mean it. Stop laughing. The dog really did eat my money. Let me backtrack a bit. I typically don't carry more than $20 in cash on a daily basis but I do donate around 15% of my tax return to the cause of "stop my mother from calling me". I was being the dutiful daughter and trekked over to Chase during my lunch break to get some cash to give to mommy. Yes, I'm 32 and I still call my mother mommy...except when she's annoying me in which case I call her "mother". She hates it. I do it anyway. Okay, back to the story.

I had 5 crisp $100 bills in the nice Chase envelope ready to pull out my $100 for the week and hand the rest to my mother. Thankfully I did get to pull my $100 bill out and left the envelope on my bed so that I would remember to actually give the money to my mom. Puppy and I snuggled up to watch The Dog Whisperer since it's our favorite show together. Somewhere in the program I realized that the dog was munching. I reached over and felt a soggy Chase envelope in her mouth...along with 4 formerly crisp $100 bills.

Now, for those of you that have ever lost more than $20 and not been taken to the local psych ward, this is probably nothing for you. For the rest of us humans, $400 is a lot of money and allowing the puppy to have such an expensive meal at the expense of my labor was not going to happen. I had to wrestle, yes, wrestle the remaining bills out of the dog's mouth. What I was left with were pieces of each bill. I didn't freak out because I knew one fact that many of you probably don't know; the Treasury department exchanges "mutilated" currency for new ones as long as you've got the entire serial number or more than half of a bill or at least 3 corners of the bill.

After I kicked the dog off the bed and assessed the damage, I started laughing. Who else but me could things like this happen to? As it turned out, I had enough of each bill left to be able to exchange them at the bank without having to send them in to the Treasury but can you image me waiting for the dog to pooh in hopes of getting the balance of some chewed up currency?

The lesson here today is this: If your grandma buried money in the back yard 20 years ago that she just remembered; if moths have even away at your money; if your money has been burned, ripped, shredded, or in any other way mutilated, you can still get it back. You will have to send your mutilated currency in to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Their Director has final say on how much you get back.

If your currency has been damaged (that means that you clearly have more than 1/2 of each bill) you can just take it in to your local bank for replacement. That's what I did. I walked over to Chase on Monday and got crispy new $100 bills. That was after a small crowd of tellers, laughter, tape and one person telling me that I should have spanked the dog. I forgot to take a photo of the damaged bills but I have one of what was left of the envelope. The envelope actually was in 10x better shape than the money.

Second lesson: If your puppy is teething, always have a chew toy handy.

This is Earth Week and you'll be seeing everyone advertising their green credentials this week. I've always wondered how I can help in a way that makes a meaningful contribution but won't have my purse screaming. Last year I told you how to go green cheaply and save money. This, year I'm writing part 2.



Ten Cheap Ways to Go Green Cheaply

1. Participate in your town's garbage recycling programs. This helps to divert tons of garbage from landfills and saves your town money which in turn saves you from paying higher garbage/property taxes.
   
2. If an appliance dies, consider switching to an Energy Star rated one. Before purchasing any appliance, check to see if there are special offers or rebates for that appliance. If you purchase an energy-efficient product or renewable energy system for your home, you may be eligible for a federal tax credit. Before starting any home project, see how if your changes will qualify for a tax credit.
   
3. Instead of tossing out unwanted clothing, donate your gently used clothes to your local shelter, Salvation Army or church. If you have the money to afford designer duds and want to sell it, consider selling your clothes to a consignment shop or on eBay. You might have something that someone else is willing to pay for. My brother once sold a pair of his "collectible" sneakers for something like $100 and he had worn them! I didn't understand it, but I understood that $100 bill. If not, consider turning your old clothes into rags that you can use to wipe the floor.
   
4. Do you read a lot of magazines every month? Does a friend? Have you considered swapping? Various people in my office get different magazines and we now have a magazine recycling bin in the copy room where we dump our magazines every month and anyone can rifle though the bin for their favorite magazine. I've dropped my subscription to 2 magazines because of this casual exchange.
   
5. Are you still getting your bills in the mail? Back in the Ice Age when everyone had AOL my amorous mailman used to drop the mail off wherever he felt like it so that he could finish in time to visit the women on my street with whom he was having affairs. The result was that one of my neighbors ended up with enough of my mail to rack up 15K in identity theft spending. Since then I get all of my statements online and I pay all of my bills the same way. You save the cost of checks, envelopes, stamps and bail money for attacking your neighbor...allegedly. And you generate less trash.
   
6. If you're still falling for it and spending a lot of money on bottled water don't do it! Go out and get one of those cool metal water bottles that are everywhere. You'll save yourself from toxins that the bottle can leech into your beverage if it's heated and you save another bottle from sitting in the land fill for decades. Since plastic bottles are petroleum products you also reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
   
7. Have you eat vegetables? Consider planting your favorite vegetable. Last year I mad a ton of mesculin greens. I wasn't the only one that benefited. My mom and coworker also received bags of the lettuce every week. My coworker had a bumper crop of Japanese cucumbers so we had a nice, unwaxed cucumber every week. If you live in a small apartment consider growing a planter with herbs. You can toss them in as you're cooking or just use them to perfume your apartment.
   
8. Do you have a lawn? How do you water it? You can save money on your water bill by setting up a simple rain water capture system. I would go with a simple rain barrel with a spout at the bottom.
   
9. When was the last time that you checked the seal around your windows and doors? If it's been years, go back and put some sealant or corking around all of your windows and doors. This will help to keep the cold air from getting inside in the winter and keep the warm air out in the summer. It should also lower your heating costs.
   
10. Consider switching to more natural cleaning products. Our ancestor's did not have all the magical chemicals that we now use, and they made out okay. Try using things like borax, vinegar, and baking soda.

If you like these tips check out my eHow article on how to go green cheaply. Because the green you save might just be the green in your pockets.