Biz opp magazines — the right way

You may have run across business opportunity (“biz opp”) magazines in your travels. These magazines have a lot of advertisements for turn-key businesses like vending routes, personalized mugs, windshield repair, etc., and a few articles here and there ranging in quality from generic to okay. But it’s mostly advertisements for buying startup kits for businesses, … Read more

What free software do you use?

No Credit Needed has a post on free software he uses every day. I’m a big proponent of open-source software, since I think it’s every bit as good as commercial software, and often is better. It’s also usually really frugal — there’s great stuff out there! If I need something done with software, two of … Read more

Don’t get over-educated

Or rather, get educated for the right reasons and with full knowledge of the payoff. College probably is all right to pursue. The payoff is decent for the money and time you spend. Financial Freedumb has a good discussion. The less money and time you spend in college, the better — if you can test … Read more

The Costco upgrade from Star Trek

I was checking out at Costco with a purchase of about $100.  Right before I leave, a line manager comes over to chat with me. LM: “Have you heard of our Executive Membership, John?” MBH: “Huh?” LM: “Well, you’ve spent $3,200 with us since you began your membership with us last August.” MBH: “OK … … Read more

We richly deserve expensive gasoline

I don’t often get into largely political issues too much, but allegations of oil companies gouging their customers get old really quickly. Beginning with Katrina, the big oil companies were under Congressional scrutiny and the targets of possible “windfall profits taxes” for all of these “excess profits.” Now, I hear this on NPR’s Marketplace on … Read more

Thrift store finds

We recently took our daughter to an allergist, and we found out that she was allergic to a bunch of common things. Meaning: Our food bills just went up a bit. Bread that our daughter could eat was $4 a loaf! So, we started looking for a bread machine. We picked up a Hitachi Automatic … Read more

Really, REALLY cheap magazines

MyMoneyBlog had a post recently on getting some cheap financial magazines. His source, MagazinePriceSearch.com, is pretty good, and sometimes rivals the deals you can get on eBay. Well, it’s possible sometimes to do even better! MagazinePriceSearch does very well by keeping up to date on the best deals and coupons on about two dozen different … Read more