My planned speech on HB2677

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On Wednesday the 16th I plan to go to the capital and speak about HB2677, here is what I plan to say.  If you read this and can think of something major to change please leave a comment.   This is my first time trying to change a law.  At the end I suggest a change to the bill that would actually result in the intent being accomplished, with almost no negative side effects and a few positive ones.  Here is what I plan to say.

Hello. I am Jason Dragon, I am an elected PC and State Committeeman in the Republican party. I am here to talk to you today about HB2677.

The intent of this bill is to find a way to tax people who are here illegally and use the money to build the border fence, but it fails miserably in both of these goals. I think that we do need to protect our border, and I am for building a fence but I am against this bill.

The first, and main reason that it fails is that it will tax everyone who sends money using a wire transfer service to any nation for any reason. The bill says that this is refundable, but it is only to the extent of a tax obligation. On top of the sender will need to wait up to a year so that they can file their taxes, and then they will need to keep records of these sends, and if needed will likely be required to provide these to the DOR. The majority of citizens in Arizona do not have an Arizona tax obligation due to many deductions or other credits and not enough income; all of these people will not receive a refund. In addition many other people and businesses may send money from Arizona who do not reside here, and thus will not be able to receive a tax credit.

Illegals don’t use these services. Existing state laws, designed to stop money laundering and criminal activity, already have strict ID requirements to send money using these services. They can not pass these ID requirements if they are here illegally unless they have very professionally forged documents, so the vast majority of illegal immigrants don’t send using the services this bill intends to tax. They often will hand the money a friend who can send.

As someone who has lived overseas, operated a business overseas and sends money overseas often I know that there are much easier and cheaper ways to send money than using wire transfers that this bill simply does not cover. Illegal’s and legal’s often also use these methods to send money. The most common way would be to open a bank account in the US and receive a debit card, or buy a PrePaid credit card and simply mail that card to your receiver in the foreign nation. Once they have it you simply deposit money into that account here in the US and the person in the other nation goes to an ATM and withdraws it. They also could choose to use the card at any major merchant for purchases. Because these are withdraws and not wire transfers they are not taxed. This does not even touch on the ability of people to simply mail a check or cash to a loved one overseas. Before this law even goes into effect I would bet that some smart company located in another state will offer a service where someone can send money to them and they would resend it overseas, and they only need to charge a fee slightly less than the tax charged by Arizona to get a lot of business.

The government is going to severely hamper these money transferring businesses, while other methods will prosper. The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.

This bill would also make our state even more business unfriendly. We would pass the burden of collecting and tracking this tax onto local businesses. We also would harm businesses that import, have overseas offices or overseas workers, taxing the money that they pay. I for one have freelance web programmers in a handful of nations in Asia, this would cost me more to pay them. I also send money every month supporting kids in Christian schools in Asia, this would cost me more to do that. I have already been contacted by missionaries who receive support from Arizona who are shocked by this bill and hope that it will not pass. I have figured that this bill would cost me about $800 per year if it passes, and the rate of 5%, as has been published in the media, would be charged.

And that leads me to the next major problem in this bill, the fact that the actual rate of the tax is not set, we should not leave ANY tax rate up to the discretion of some unelected director to decide. Where is the oversight?

Because of the complexity of international money and other existing laws this simply is not a workable bill, and it will never generate the funds needed to build a complete fence.

I don’t like to speak unless I have a solution to the problem. I have an idea of a way to amend this law to make it actually achieve the advertised goal without creating a new tax and by only targeting illegal aliens. Basically you would strike this text and replace it with text that would create a law enforcement activity, stating that during the course of law enforcement activity if someone other than a victim was discovered to be an illegal alien they would have their real and personal property confiscated. This property would then be auctioned off to generate funds to build the fence. Some protection would need to be put in there to make sure that property of a business or citizen is not swept up. You could even expand it to include people who apply for social services but are found to be here illegally. Then once the fence is built and a maintenance fund established, extra funds would go to help pay for education. Such a bill would likely be about as popular as SB1070 was. It would also function as a great deterrent to an illegal committing a crime or asking for social services in Arizona.

Thank you for your time.

My take on Arizona’s HB2677

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If you have not heard there is a house bill that was introduced that will dramatically raise the cost of sending money internationally.  It is called HB2677.  It will tax everyone who sends money internationally with the intent to build a fence between Arizona and Mexico.   The problem with this bill is that it is a large new TAX.  They are going to use it for one of the favorite causes of the tea party, to build a border fence, but let’s not get suckered into that.  The tea party is first and foremost an anti-tax group, even if they will use the money for one of our favorite causes.   It is just a bribe, and I am shocked and dismayed that the leaders of the tea party have gotten behind this new tax.

The major problem with the bill is that it taxes “Any entity” that sends money overseas.  That means that the next time there is a natural disaster in some faraway place Arizona will have their hand out, take money from the poor and hurting who are in crisis.  I have heard from some sources that they want a 5% fee on all transfers.  The typical fee right now is about $3.50 for the first $500.  This would add $25 to that fee, an outrageous amount.

Another problem is that it is easily circumvented.  People who are smart will avoid this law by setting up intermediaries.  An example would be that someone would set up an office in Nevada, and have their offices in Arizona collect the money, send it to Nevada and then it would be wired from Nevada to the receiver.  They would do this for a fee but it will be well less than 5%.  People are smart and this would really reduce the amount that is collected.

This bill is designed to build a wall between us and Mexico, so I would be FOR this bill if they restricted it to only personal remittances to Mexico.  They may even include Central American nations if they like, but adding this tax to everyone who sends to any location is way too broad.

The key to success for Arizona is to be free to do business and this bill puts a transaction tax on any money sent out of the country from Arizona. The bill does not state the rate of the tax but I know the fence will be costly so it will likely be at least a few %. Most importers have very slim margins and such an added cost will make them flee our state to go to ones that don’t have this cost.

This punishes people like me who want to do nice things and send money overseas. This bill will dramatically increase the current cost of sending money. Right now I use Wells Fargo for most sends and it only costs $3.50 no matter how much I send. Sometimes I use MoneyGram and they charge $10 for the first $500. Even a 3% tax on these transfers would take money and food out of the hands of the people I try to help.   I also send all of this money to either Asia or Europe, and that has very little to do with a fence between us and Mexico.

I would be for this if they changed it to state that it would only effect personal wire transfers going to Mexico, or even Mexico plus central and South America. But this idea of doing it for all business, charity and personal wire transfers for the entire world is a crazy dumb tax that should not be passed.  I am shocked that someone as conservative as Judy Burges would put her name on this totally unfair and punitive tax.

Jason Dragon

Peoria South Tea Party Leader

Area Coordinator, PC and SC in the Republican Party in LD9.

Business Owner, Importer and Entrepreneur.

ALERT: I just posted a follow up to this CLICK HERE!

The secrets of how to dispute things on your credit report.

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The quickest way to improve your credit is to work to remove things on your credit report that are negative.  This is not as hard as people think.  Before going forward, remember that is against the law to lie in any of the forms that you will sending to the credit reporting agencies.  But also remember that the law also says that an item in your report needs to be 100% correct for it to remain in your report; so even one small mistake in data is ground for deletion.  The problem is that the credit reporting industry make more money from someone who has poor credit, because they buy more reports, they try to fix their credit by many very expensive means and they try more often to get credit letting the credit companies to make money when they sell your reports to the companies you apply with.  They have many reasons to try to keep your report as negative as they can.

But the law is on your side.  Now here is the secret that I have seen presented at least twice at really high priced seminars presented by very successful multi-millionaires.  The law states that the info on your credit report MUST be 100% correct.  But there is a conflicting privacy law that forces them to redact most of your account information.  This turns account number 123456789 into xxxxxx789.  Because of the conflict of these two laws it has created a loophole that millionaires walk through.  It allows them to dispute that the information is not 100% correct and MUST be deleted.

They simply send a letter to the credit agency that says something like this.  “Hello my name is John Doe, and I am writing to clarify an item on my credit report.  My SSN is 111-11-1111.  You have listed an account with account number xxxxxx789.  This account number does not match the number that is on my statements from MegaBux Bank.  Because the information about this account is not accurate I ask that you remove it ASAP as the law requires.”    The credit agencies hate it when they receive a letter like this because they know that there is no way they can keep the item on your report.  The MAJOR problem with this tactic is that it totally removes the trade line, and many people have poor credit more because of a lack of trade lines than from negative information.  If you have a 6xx score and you have less than 12 trade lines, it would actually hurt you more to remove an item with a few 30 day late payment than it would to keep it on your report.   But if you are in the 7xx range and have 20 trade lines it will likely be much better to remove the trade line.  (On a side note, the reason most millionaires use this trick is not to remove negative items, they use it to remove mortgages on investment real estate, because many banks have a limit on how many mortgages you can have at one time…doing this makes them not show up on the credit report.  They still must declare them all in the application but for some reason banks look at the credit report more than the loan application and give the credit anyway.)

If you want to keep the trade line you often can change it to make it less negative by disputing minor issues with it.  What follows is a set of instructions on how to dispute your credit the way most people do it.  Start with this first, you may get 50% or more of your negative items changed to positive, which is much better than deleting them.

With this economy you need all the help you can get to fix the last few years, and I truly hope that this blog entry helped someone.  If this helps you please comment below.

Start the dispute process

You have every right to dispute inaccuracies in your credit report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and the credit bureaus and your creditors are obligated to correct inaccurate information in a timely manner.

How to file a dispute

  1. Contact the creditor with the incorrect information
    • We’ve created a sample letter that you can use to start the process
    • Some creditors will correct minor errors over the phone, so we recommend that you contact the creditor first
    • Your list of creditors can be found in the Creditor Contact section of your credit report
  2. Contact the credit bureaus
    • Disputes may be sent to the credit reporting agencies online or in a letter:
    • Experian – Disputes are not accepted by telephone, but you may file a dispute online(link to Experian online form)
    • Equifax – Disputes are accepted online (link to EFX dispute page), or you use one of our sample letters and mail your dispute
    • Trans Union – Disputes are accepted online (link to TU dispute page), or use one of our sample letters and mail your dispute
    • Once the credit reporting agency receives your request, it has 30 days to investigate and provide a response to you in writing. During its investigation, the credit reporting agency will contact the institution that provided the disputed information to seek verification of its accuracy. If the disputed information cannot be verified, it must be removed from your credit report or updated per your request. Information that is verified as accurate may remain in your credit files for as long as allowed by law.
    • You may file more than one dispute at a time. You may also file disputes with more than one credit reporting agency. Each dispute will be investigated separately, but may be processed simultaneously.
  3. Follow up
    • If you have not received a response to your request after 30 days, write a letter to the credit reporting agency indicating that you have not been notified of the results.
    • We’ve created a sample letter that you can customize as necessary to explain your case. Print, sign and mail the letter to the appropriate credit reporting agency, keeping a copy for your records.
  4. Don’t give up
    • If upon receiving the results of the investigation you are still not satisfied, you may request information regarding the person or institution that supplied the information.
    • We’ve created a sample letter that you can customize to your needs and include any additional information necessary to explain your case. Print, sign and mail the letter to the appropriate address, keeping a copy for your records.
    • You may also wish to add a 100-word consumer statement to your credit file explaining the reason for the disputed information so potential creditors have the total picture.
  5. If you do not recognize information on your credit report and suspect that you may be a victim of identity theft, in addition to filing a dispute, we recommend you file an Identity Theft claim.

The story of freedom and I

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So why do I do this.   Why do I want to be in the tea party and why am I involved politically.  Why did I take time and money away from my family for office.  I think it all really boils down to one principle.  Freedom.

When I was growing up I was told time and time again that we live in a free country.  I went to private school and I was not there to be indoctrinated by the public school system.  By the time I was in high school it was too late for me.  I was already a staunch conservative.  I remember during high school staying up late each night to catch the Rush Limbaugh show.  I grew up living a fairly free life, a life with few rules, but I had morals so I did not stray away from the proper path.

I went to the business school at NAU, and in business school they teach you to be creative and to be a business leader, they teach you that the world is yours if you just go out and grab it.  The funny thing is that in the management track of business school they never tell you about the Government and how they control business, how the restrict business.  I graduated and was eager to start being an Entrepreneur, start my own business and get the success that I was promised, and right away I was hit with Government.  Many pages of paperwork needed to be filled out and many different government offices.  And along with this paper came so many rules that they offered free classes on how to follow all of their rules.  I ran across a few rules when I was in school about running a business out of my dorm room but now I needed to file reports each month to 3 different government offices telling them about all of my sales, if I paid someone to do something for me then it was much more paperwork, all in this free country.

After a while I moved to Phoenix, and my business got larger and larger, I rented a store and started hiring people.  Soon the paperwork was so much that I started to just ignore it all, believing I lived in a free country I figured that the Government was not entitled to this information.  I still got larger, opened up a second store, and even had a huge area at the state fair.  And for this success I was rewarded by being audited.  Nothing much ever came of it but it shocked me at how much control our government has over us.  That you must do what they say, no matter how stupid or unproductive, or else they could eventually go so far as take away your freedom. All just for doing nothing more than seeking your happiness by offering a service that people want and giving people jobs, without letting the government be your business partner.

After all of this I was just depressed by it, burned out I sold my business and move on.  I had a friend who invited me to see the world with him so I did and left the united states.  Soon I was in the Philippines, and I saw a level of freedom that surprised me.  They have the freedom to do what they want to be successful with limited influence from the government.  The government is very weak there, with most of the power in local government not federal.   With the freedom to have success they also had the freedom to fail, and many more failed than succeeded.  It was not total freedom, there was still some fairly major places that the government made it hard, but at least you knew all of the rules, they were simple, and mostly fair.

Photo I took in Hong Kong

Then I went to Hong Kong, you know, the former British enclave that is now owned by China, and for the first time I saw what I would call real freedom.  Success was everywhere, I never seen a place with so many nice cars and buildings.  By almost any measure it is the most successful city in the world, and they did it by making business easy.

I came back the US, and by that time the business I built was gone, so I decided to rebuild it, it was the easiest thing I could do to earn a living.  I started to educate myself more on Freedom, and what makes a culture flourish.  I quickly came to the conclusion that we have lost our freedom.  I became active trying to talk to people and try to wake them up to this fact that we don’t have freedom in the United States.  I watched the presidential race with passion, and I was always telling people who I would vote for.  I was very unhappy with the person that my party chose, but after seeing the other guy I was very afraid for our nation as to what would happen if he won.  I spent months talking about it and telling everyone I could of the dangers that our nation was facing.  The people then chose the worst of the two of them.  Who would blame them, it was able bodied, charismatic and most people never really knew where he stood.

Joe and I at a tea party meeting.....
Joe and I at a tea party meeting.....

Soon after this I was shocked at the direction he and his congress were taking the nation and I decided to become very active with the Republican party.  I was really inspired by Glenn Beck and I educated myself on the real history of this nation and about all the freedoms we once enjoyed. After a while the tea parties started up and I quickly joined them also.  And a bit later I found out that I could run in 2010 for city council in Peoria.  I figured that it was time for someone with my views to be able to win.  What I did not count on was an unemployed, charismatic and much more liberal opponent who would use my non compliance with our unconstitutional and overbearing government against me.  It was a very close race, and we actually technically tied the first time and had to run a second time.  I had 100’s of people telling me I was on the right track, and that I was just what was needed for this time.  My opponent took huge amounts of money from special interest groups and unions and was able to spend twice as much money attacking me as I spent on the entire race, by the end of it he spent over 20k to my 3.5k, and he won by a few hundred votes.  The unions and special interest groups bought him the seat, and I wonder who he will owe when he takes it.

I was depressed about this and how I felt that it was so unfair.  For all my work trying to make the city a better place I was rewarded a week later with an audit of my business by the city.  This made me almost lose hope in the system, there is no fairness in our government.  At least the guy at the city who was auditing me was nice and said he did not like this audit and would make it very easy on me.  It really made me feel bad about the future of our nation, that even if you stand up and try to do the right thing there are more people trying to preserve the status quo, and block you.

The Governor and I

I decided that I needed to keep trying but on a much different level.  It will be very hard to change government, and I don’t see that we can go down this path much longer.  I decided that now is the time to talk to people about how to prepare for the future that is likely to come.   A week later the chance game, the leader of my tea party group got a job in a different state, and basically it was up to me to lead the group or the group would be disbanded because no one else would take the role. I took it, I am excited by what will happen.  I also decided to change my business and actually develop some ideas that I feel are really good.  And I decided to focus on services so that I don’t have to deal with any future sales tax audits.

From here I think the future for me is bright.  I have a great skill set, great connections and even if everything falls apart I am confident that my family and I will be able to endure it, even if we have to move back to the Philippines.

I’m Back Again.

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It has been a while, about 11 months, from the last blog entry.  I did this because I really needed a break.   I had posted a lot of stuff, but I started to feel that I was simply rehashing things that others had said, and that they said much better than me.  But this is no longer the case.  I have done a ton of reading, a ton of meeting with people in the interim.

For the last 8 months I even ran for office.  I ran for city council here in Peoria Arizona.  It was a hard fight but at the end of it all it turns out that people in this area much rather have big government than someone who will sit there and stop the goodie train like I would try to.  I ran for office because I wanted to make a change and simply being a leader in the Republican party was NOT enough.  I also am active in the Tea Party movement.  But after doing all of this I decided I wanted to do more, so I ran for office.  I basically put my life on hold.  It cost me about $2700 to run but the real cost was my distraction from my normal life, from the business I enjoy, the family I love and even from blogging.  I did learn a lot, and I got a new perspective on life.  All told I am glad that I did it, and looking back I made a few mistakes that if I had not made them I would have won.  I think the biggest mistake was being so openly Republican in an area that is mostly democrat.  The next biggest mistake was trusting people so quickly, and having these people become traitors and use the information I gave them in confidence against me.

But now that this is all over I am going to make life simple again.  Focus on making money, getting my thoughts together by blogging, focus on my family, and I will even try to get into shape.

10 simple ways to save money in tough times, #9 Be more energy effecient

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#9 SAVE ENERGY

There are many ways to save energy and therefore money.  Some do a lot while others are more of a myth.

Time of Use plans

One of the best ways to save a lot of money is to select an energy plan for your house that fits your usage model.  When a utility makes electricity they do it in a few different ways.  Most power comes from what we call BASE power plants.  These are plants that are always on, day, night, 24/7.  Most of these are Coal and Nuclear.  This electricity is cheap and efficient.  Wind and solar energy are not really created under the control of the utility.  A utility tries to have enough base power to provide all the power that their customers need at least 80% of the time.  For the rest they turn to DEMAND power.  This is power that they can either buy or turn on as needed.  Hydroelectric is a great example.  These plants are mostly turned off during the night, but during the top of the demand time they could be at full force.  In addition power generated in cold climates can be sold to warmer clients during the summer and visa versa.

Because of the much higher cost of this DEMAND power electric companys want you to not use it, so they offer programs to encourage you to shift your usage to non peak times, and they also have programs to encourage you to use a more steady amount of power during these peak time.  So it is simple, here is in Arizona I have APS, and I use a program called Combined Advantage.  With this program I pay only 4 cents per kWh from 7pm until noon each day.  But from noon until 7pm on weekdays I pay 6 cents during the winter and 9 cents during the summer.  On top of that I have a demand fee of $13.40 per kW used during the highest 1 hour of usage during peak time.  What this means for me is that I can use almost as much power as I want from 7pm until Noon and pay almost nothing.  I just have to keep my usage down during the peak time.  I have been able to never go above 6kW during my peak hour.  By using this model I used 20% more power than last year but enjoyed bills over 30% LESS.  Last year I was on the 9pm until 9am program, but it had no Demand Charge.  I already had them look into how much it would cost if I was on the normal rate program and it would be over DOUBLE what I am paying now.   So change your plan and cut your power bill in half.

Space Heaters

Here in Arizona it does not get that cold.  We have found that it is not a good idea to heat the entire house.  When you heat with your large central heating system as much as half the heat you create escapes out of the unit itself or through the duct system.  Even if you have a very efficient Gas heater like I do it is still much cheaper to just heat the rooms you need, especially if you are on a time of use electrical plan and only use it during the off peak time.  When we stopped using the central heating system our gas bill went down by over $70 per month while our electric bill for the space heaters was only $10 more than the previous year.

Fans

Fans are another way to save money, a good ceiling fan will make you feel 5 degrees cooler than it actually is.  With a fan an 80 degree room will feel like 75 degrees and that fan costs just pennies a month to run.  Invest in ceiling fans and save money.  Another way to save is to have door and window fans to draw in the outside air during the times of day that it is cooler.

LCD Monitors

I am a computer guy so of course I need to talk about technology a bit.  An LCD monitor is much more efficient than the older CRT monitors, in fact the average 19″ CRT uses over 300W of power, while a LCD uses less than 25W, a HUGE difference.  If used 40 hours a week, at the normal power rates this adds up to about $9 per month per monitor.   With the cost of an LCD being about $120 that means that you would save about enough money in the first year to pay for the new monitor!  So why are you still reading this on an OLD CRT.

While we are talking about saving money with computers, modern computer use MUCH less power than older ones.  The NEW cpus use laptop technology to scale back power usage and use less power and less cooling.  A new computer could be faster while saving as much as $3-5 per month in electricity.  If you are like me and leave it on 24/7 that comes to more like $15-$20 per month.

Vehicle

Your car also uses power, in the form of Gas.  You can do all the normal things like Tune up your car, and keep your tires inflated and you will receive a good 20%+ boost in the amount of mile you can drive.  Of course you can also reduce unnecessary weight in your car, select routes that have fewer left turns but it turns out that one of the best things you can do is to NOT drive a steady speed.  Don’t accelerate too fast, I try to keep my RPMs under 4000 at all times.  It will use much less fuel if you accelerate for a time, then coast for a time, going back and forth, you could increase your MPG by 20% or more by doing this.

There are many more simple ways to save energy, many power companies will help you pay for an Energy Audit.  This is where an expert will come in, usually with a infrared camera, and look for cold or hot spots on your house where you leak energy.  Most energy is spent to heat of cool things so this is a real eyeopener.

10 simple ways to save money in tough times, #2 Use Coupons More

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#2 Use Coupons More

For many things in life a coupon can be a great way to save a lot of money.  Grocery store coupons are usually small and not really worth it but there are plenty of big ticket coupons that save huge amounts of money, and these coupons can often be used with price matching to make for stellar results.  In this economy many businesses offer coupons and many of these coupons are just begging for you to come in the door.

20off100My favorite coupons are the ones where you spend a set amount at a store and then receive a dollar amount off.  Even better is when you can simply print these as you like.  For example the other day Cabela’s sent me a coupon for $20 off of a $100 purchase.  It was a coupon that could basically be printed as many times as you like.  The key to these coupons is to first price match, to get the best deal, or buy the things that are really on sale to start out with.  I bought Ammo, they had a great deal on it and they had it in stock which is rare, add that with $20 off makes the best ammo deal.  Staples, and OfficeMax also send them out via email, sometimes even $20 off a $50 purchase.  I also get them in the mail from time to time.  And when you don’t have one you can often use Google to find a valid one online.  I often thought about how easy it would be to print out 100 of these and sell them to people who are ready to check out for half of the face value, what an easy way to make money.  The key to the best deals is to always sign up for their free email newsletters.  GoDaddy has so many good coupons that I never buy from them unless I use one.

The next coupons that I love are the restaurant ones.  Many restaurants want you to visit them, at least once, so they give away coupons.  Many are buy-one-get-one-free.  You simply go there, order two entries and only pay for one.  My favorite of these is a small burrito restaurant near my house called Moe’s.  It is nice and upscale, and they send me at least 4 coupons each month in various publications, on top of that the food and environment is awesome.  It gets even better, I can go online to the Az Clipper website, find their coupon and print as many out as I like, and they NEVER expire.  So awesome!

I receive a ton of great coupons in the mail, this is where I get most of the good restaurant deals.   But there is much more than just restaurants that do this, there are dentists, auto repair shops, car washes and much much more that will let you bring a coupon and get a huge discount.

Almost every publication that sends out print coupons also has a website where you can download and print unlimited coupons for free.  Az Clipper is one of the best, but it is only in Arizona.  SavvyShopper is another good publication with national reach, their coupons are located at couponclipper.com.   Money Mailer and ValPak are national companies that send out lots of coupons in one envelope, and you can search and print all the coupons.  You can even do this for areas you don’t live in, great for traveling!

Another interesting site that I like is called 8coupons.  Basically they gather up all the deals they can find, including online circulars and post them in one place.  You video a map of your location and click on the deals to see what is there.  It does not have all of the best local deals but has many of the national chain and online deals.  It also has ton’s of really dumb things like listing dollar menu items from McDonalds or Burger King as a deal alert, those are the prices everyday with no coupon needed.

For the person who eats out a lot these links and ideas can really save you a ton of money.  I know more than one person who does not even buy much food for their home, they eat out almost every meal because it just is cheaper.  It also saves me money on oil changes, car washes, bowling and much more.

Thanks for reading please click a link below to see the other 9 ways to save money in tough times…

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10 simple ways to save money in tough times, #1 Price Match

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Almost everyone I know right now is concerned about ways to save money and I have had many people ask me about ways to help them to save money.   So I decided to write a list of 10 ways that I use to save money, these work well and help me live better for less.

Of course saving money is only part of the formula to making ends meet, earning more money and investing your money correctly are also two major parts.   I think that everyone should have a reserve equal to at least a few months of expenses…more on all of this in my other blog entries.

So here are 10 ways that I know that can really help your budget, help you save, and help you get ahead in the world.  On some of these I will tell you exactly who I do business with, most of them are local so if you don’t live in Arizona than you are out of luck.  This may be a bit long so I am going to post it as 10 separate entries.  Please read them all, Even if you only do a few of these things it could really help.

1.    Price match all your purchases.

Many companies out there are very willing to price match.  Most people know about this but very few ever use it.  Basically most stores buy from the same supply chain and have basically the same cost so when one store has a huge sale, even if they sell it at or near cost the other stores are still happy to have the business.  So all you need to do is find the best deal on an item that you want to buy, and then show proof of that deal to the store you actually plan to buy the item at.  This lets you get the best deal, but still buy from the store that gives you better service and quality.

If you have an android based smart phone you can use ShopSavvy, a free program that will scan the barcode of the items you plan to buy and show you the best deal, locally or online.  If the local deal is better than what you are paying now simply show the phone as the cash register and you will get the lower price, it has worked every time I have tried it.  If the online price is much lower then forgo the purchase for now and get it online because most stores don’t pricematch online ads. I know that other apps for other phones also exist.  But the best deals are usually found the old fashioned way, by checking your mail and getting the newspaper ads.

For me the BEST result that I have when I go to Wal-Mart and get groceries.  For many households groceries is one of their main expenses other than housing and taxes.  The grocery business is highly competitive.  Companies also do things where they have loss leaders, this is an item that “leads” their advertisement, and it is usually such a good deal that they are actually selling it at a loss.  They figure that people will buy these few items from them and stay to shop for the rest of their weekly grocery needs.  Here in Phoenix, there are at least 8 grocery stores that mail out weekly flyers.   So I just put these in a stack and take it with me when I go to Wal-Mart.  They all seem to take effect on Wednesdays, so that is when I shop.  So just follow a few simple rules and let the savings begin.  The item does not always need to be exact, just similar.  There is a grocery store called “Ranch Market” here in Phoenix.  Shopping there is terrible, they are messy, noisy, smelly and the food is not so fresh, but they have great advertised prices, often they are 1/5 the price of other places.  So I don’t shop there, I just take their ads to walmart, less than 200 yards from my house and get their higher quality and cleanlness for the ultra low price.  Today I bought over $20 in fruits and veggies and paid only $6.42.    I went on to price match doritos, sour cream and 5 other things for a total savings of over $30, while paying only $24.  That is a savings of over 50%.  Combine this with stocking up and you have a great way to save lots of money on food.

Price matching also allows you to buy things that are out of stock at the original company.  The other day one store did 32oz Gatorade for only 40 cents, a very good price, the problem is that they were out of stock after the second day, and they had a limit of only 5 per person.  Not a problem at Wal-Mart, they had plenty in stock and did not care about the limit.  It does not really go bad, so I bought enough for a 6 month supply.  At thanksgiving they did the same thing with 12-pack coke products, just $1.25.  I still have 30 unopened a month later.

On top of price matching you can use coupons, but personally I found that most coupons are not worth the time they take.  For me price matching is very simple.  I usually don’t prepare much, I don’t even look at the ads until I am at the Wal-mart, and then I only buy things that are on sale.  And I stock up on items that are on a huge sale. By doing these things I have found that I am able to save over 50% off of my grocery bill on average.  That comes down to $200 or more per month.

Thanks for reading please click a link below to see the other 9 ways to save money in tough times…

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How to take care of your laptop.

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I have been in the computer business for a very long time and one of the most common questions I have ever received was from people asking about how to take care of their laptops better.  Here is a list of some of the things I tell them.  With this list you should get many more years of life from your laptop.

I have mostly gathered this list from trying to fix many broken laptops and looking at why they are broken, and how it was caused.  Yes you do need to baby them a bit, but not too much.

The screen.

The screen is a very high tech, very thin and fragile thing.  Of course we have all seen the guy who drops his laptop and cracks the screen, that can not always be avoided but there are many other things that cause damage to the screen.

The first one is the keyboard, when you close the screen on most laptops made before 2008 the screen touches the keyboard.  This was not a problem years and years ago because the screens were matte but with the shiny polish that most modern screens have the oil from your skin is transferred from your hand to your keyboard and then to the screen, and it burns little holes in the polish, causing damage forever.  In 2008 it seems that laptop designers noticed this and most laptops moved the screen farther from the keyboard, so they don’t touch.  To fix this many other makers would give you a cloth to put between the screen and the keyboard.  If you don’t have one you can make one yourself out of any semi rigid cloth.

The next common problem is the fact that the screen is not too strong and that pressure can hurt it if it is applied in enough force in one place.  Many people hold their laptops when closed by putting their thumb on the screen and then holding it like a book.  This causes a lot of pressure in a very small area.  I have had at least 5 clients crack their screen this way, and countless others cause damage to the backlight causing a region of their screen to be much darker than the rest.  Please avoid this, try to always hold the laptop with two hands, and when you can’t then please remember to always put your thumb on the bottom side of the laptop so that your firngers will be on the screen side and spread out the force.

The next common problem of long term use is a weak hinge.  This is very annoying because the screen does not stay in place and moves around when you don’t want it to.  This is often caused by people twisting their screen, usually they have a bad habit of opening and closing their screen with one hand, and they do it on one side of the screen.  Just like putting on and off glasses, over time this makes them twisted and loose.  The solution is simple, just open and close it from the middle, or use two hands.  Over a few years this habit will make a huge difference.  The other main reason that a hinge gets loose or broken is when people close their laptop when something is inside.  People create the bad habit of putting ink pens at the bottom of the screen, or they may put it in their bag and a wire gets in the wrong place.

The last screen problem I will talk about is the problem of too much weight.  Be sure to keep your laptop in a nice protected bag, and then don’t stack too much weight on this bag, it is best to always stand your laptop bag up on edge when moving it, and be sure to not pack things in the bag that could focus the pressure on the screen.  One major cause of this problem is the power adapter, it has this large brick like AC/DC converter that you lug around.  You put the laptop in the bag, then the converter on top of it and bam, enough pressure and it damages your screen.  The solution is to always put your laptop in the bag in such a way that the bottom of the laptop is towards the converter.

The Battery and power system

The largest failure of laptops seems to be the battery and power system.  Some simple good habits can really extend the life of your laptop.

First the battery.  Laptop batteries (And cell phone batteries) are Lithium Ion and this battery type does not form a “Memory” like the older NiMH batteries of the past.  You do not need to drain them completly to keep them working at full power, in fact this damages them.  In fact is it best to never let them get under 10% full.  Try to keep them plugged in as much as you can.  Of course laptop makers don’t want you to know this, they make a large amount of money off of selling new batteries, so they program the laptop to try to totally discharge the battery.  This is done with “Stand By” (Aka “Sleep”) mode in windows.  What stand by does is to turn off most everything in the computer and just use a little power to run the RAM.  The allows you to “boot” up in a matter of a second and start using your laptop.  It is a great idea in concept, allowing you to hit a button and be up and running.  You will know your computer is in stand by when the power light is flashing.  The problem is that the default configuration for every laptop I have seen, and the way that windows itself installs the operating system is to have your computer go to stand by for everything, even when you hit the power switch.  This makes you think that you turned off your laptop and you put it away.  Then when you open it up the next day to use it you find out that your battery is totally dead, your battery totally discharged.  Do this a dozen or so times and you just killed your battery.  The solution is to go to windows power options and make it turn off your computer when you hit the power button.  There is another great feature in windows called hibernate.  This feature takes your current info that is in RAM, saves it to the hard drive, and then turns off the computer.  When you turn it on it simply reloads this saved data.  It takes about 10 seconds to load.  I love it and make it the default setting on every computer I work on or own.  Here are the power settings that I use.power options

You will also notice that I have it do nothing when I close the screen.  I do this because when I move from one location to another in my house I just close the screen and don’t want it to do anything to mess up what I am working on.  I have a good habit of always hitting the power button before I turn it off.

I live in Arizona and another problem that I have seen is when people leave their laptop in their car during the day.  It it hot enough outside, but air trapped in the car can climb to over 170 degrees, baking your laptop.  Most of your laptop is ok with this, except for the chemicals in your battery.  It does not do major damage just once but over time it can really add up to a dead battery.  I have no experience with cold, but I doubt it would be very good for the LCD screen.

The next huge problem is the jack where the power plug goes into.  They are just a small plastic thing, usually just soldered on to the motherboard, or, if you are lucky, ran to the motherboard with a wire.  The problem is that you have this wire sticking out of them, bump the wire, pull on the wire, or just use it a lot and it breaks inside the laptop.  It is a difficult and costly repair job.  Some laptops have a much better design than others, but most will still fail with a huge pull to the wire.  My solution to this is that I never move the laptop when the plug is plugged in.  I just unplug it, move the laptop, then plug it in again after I moved it.  I do this almost every time I get up.  If the kids enter the room I unplug it, just in case.  And I now only like to use laptops that plug in on the side.  When you plug into the back it is just too hard to use it on your lap in bed without pushing against the back.  The best laptops have NOTHING that plugs into the back of the laptop.  My last two have been like that, and I totally love it.

Of course you also gotta keep the wire itself safe.  Doing the above things will help in that, also don’t wrap the wire too tight when you put it away.  I usually don’t wrap it at all, it makes too much of a bulge in the bag, I just stuff it in.

If you always leave your laptop plugged in, on a desk, then remove the battery.  On some laptops it always tries to charge the battery and could cause damage from over charging.  On most modern laptops this is not a problem because the battery reports to the computer when it is full and the computer stops trying to charge it.

Other Problems

Another problem is with the Fan on the bottom of many laptop.  People set their laptop on something plush and the fabric stuffs up the fan.  If it is furry then often the fur may even go inside of the laptop and clog up the cooling system.  Most laptops use very unique fans, making a replacement costly and hard.  Dust and dirt is also a common fan clogging problem.  If you are unlucky enough to have a laptop with a fan on the bottom then keep it in mind when you are working.

Of course, as with any electronic device, be careful with food and liquid.  They can really fry the laptop.  If you do spill something on the laptop, please unplug it and take out the battery as fast as you can.  It can’t really damage circuits too bad if no electricity is flowing though them.  Then you can let it dry, maybe a week or more, and it may work.  Take it to a professional first. Here is an old but correct video.

I clean my laptop about once a month with a soft cloth and rubbing alcohol.  It works really week, and keeps it looking and feeling great.  You can clean the screen directly with light pressure, and it works awesome on the keyboard.  On some screens you need avoid alcohol, and just use distilled water.  I like alcohol because it evaporates quickly.

You, or someone paid a lot for your laptop, respect it and treat it nicely and it will last much much longer for you.

My take on windows 7….

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Today I got my hands on Windows 7.  I have used it a few times in the past just to do a task and it always worked just like Vista.  Today I had the chance to install it on a computer that I own.  Here are my impressions.  

The install was almost exactly like Vista, many of the screens were exactly the same except a different background.  It seems to have taken about the same amount of time as Vista to install.  The installed size was 6GB smaller than when I install Vista.  When it came up it looked almost like vista, except the icons on the QuickLaunch were larger.  But then after more examination I noticed that it is a hybrid sort of QuickLaunch, putting programs that are running and those that are not on the same bar.  Basically you see the icon and when the program is running it draws a box around the icon.  If you run more than one it draws more boxes out to the right.  If a program is running and you click the icon again it minimizes the application.  You can right click and select the program name again to launch a second copy.  If more than one is running and you click on the icon it will show you a thumbnail of each copy that is running.  Not a bad way to do things, but will take some getting used to that is for sure.  I am not sure that I really like this idea, and there is no option to do it the old way.

The major thing I noticed is that it was almost exactly like vista.  Almost every menu is exactly the same.  The Gadgets that come with the OS are all the same, except they added a launcher for Media Center, and you can zoom some gadgets to make them bigger and provide more info.  The games that come with the OS are the exact same group that comes with Vista, and the screen saver list is even shorter.  I was really looking for a really nice new screensaver or game idea, but alas there is not one.

Some really nice things I noticed about the OS is that is DOES seem to be quite a bit faster.  AVG installed much faster.  Also when it connected to a network it automatically started to set up sharing.  No more having to turn on sharing in 5 different places in Vista to get it to share something.  Also it has a really cool feature where it changes the background every few minutes, really making it seem alive, and it was very easy to download themes online.  There also was a large amount of great sound themes installed from the get go, much nicer than vista.

Another feature that I have been wishing that windows had for many years is the ability to simply make EVERYTHING bigger.  Before windows 7 if you wanted to make everything bigger the only real way to do it was to use a lower resolution, but this was so bad, especially on LCD monitors, it would make things blurry and such due to not having a 1 to 1 ratio between the resolution and the native pixels on the screen.  If you wanted to make things bigger you had to do things in many different location.  And vista and xp considered the resolution part of the hardware, so if one user changed it, it would be changed for all users.  Now with this zoom you can and should simply set your monitor to the highest resolution that it supports and then zoom for each user that needs it.  I did notice that some legacy gadgets that I installed did not scale, but everything else did.

Wireless was also easier to connect.  In vista you have to right click on the wireless, and choose to open the connection window, and there you can connect.  Now when you right click it shows a list of wireless networks and a connect button next to each one, so easy.  I also liked how all of the buttons were only white…I am not sure if I will still like that in a few days.  There are also many other minor changed that I have seen.  One thing it does by default now, something that I have been telling people to do for years, is that it puts all of the music, videos, public photos and such in a “Library” a place that all users have access to and it sets it up automatically for network shares, and such.  Very nice that it finally is automatic.  And to make it even better it even installed some modern codecs so that the videos actually play.

After installing a few progams I also noticed that there are many less confirmation dialog boxes, also the put all of those taskbar notifications together so that they bother you less.  3rd party notification are also put all in one area with no more annoying balloons.  I am sure many of the people I help will really like this.

Conclusion. This OS is basically the same as vista with a few nice and useful enhancements.  If you are installing an OS on a new computer I would go for Windows 7 for sure, there is no real down side at all.  But if I had a computer that was working great with Vista and I had to pay to upgrade I would really think twice, that the benefits are not enough for all the trouble.  All and all it is a good and stable OS, because it basically vista with a new interface, so no one should be afraid to upgrade like they were with vista.  If you still use XP, then WHAT ARE  YOU WAITING FOR, get windows 7, it should run on your computer and it MUCH better.

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