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Saving Money


November 20, 2006

Just got an email from Lee Macenczak, Executive Vice President of Sales and Customer Service. Delta seems bent on insulting my intelligence. Maybe everyone’s intelligence. With a title like that, Mr. Macenczak’s email smells full of spin and farce. They can always fire him, so I imagine that is why no real operatives at Delta signed their name to this public relations workhorse.

Posted in: Management & Saving Money
November 06, 2006

You gotta wonder about Delta SkyMiles. LifeHacker recently turned me on to a great new site called Points.Com. It allows you to easily swap and redeem points earned from one program to another. The site has garnered the cooperation of every major airline, and lots of major retailers, like Best Buy, Amazon, Target, and many others.

Ideally, when your crazy uncle gives you a gift card to a store that isn’t even in your town, you can now go online and swap that card for something you might more readily use. There are lots of online points earning programs that are exchangeable at Points.Com as well. I’m surprised no one has done this earlier.

Posted in: Management & Saving Money
November 01, 2006

I recently discovered a great little website called Portfolio Link. It allows you to very easily create a fictitious stock portfolio to see how good of an investor (or day trader) you might be. However, it is unique from other similar sites in some ways.

I initially had my fake portfolio on Yahoo’s Finance. However, there is no way to prove your merit to others with such a portfolio, because, for ease and convenience, Yahoo, like many other sites, allows you to go back in time and make changes to your portfolio. Thus, I could go back to Google’s IPO date and make a large purchase of its stock and then claim I’m a financial genius.

Posted in: Saving Money
September 28, 2006

I thought I’d take a quick break from the series to review a few things about car dealerships before we get into Part III - The Test Drive.

Let’s review how you might have wound up at a particular dealership in the first place. As you know, car dealers spend an enormous amount of money on advertising - radio, television, and newspaper. They also use a lot of billboards and online advertising. Under “newspaper”, I’m including the little auto trade magazines you see at fast food restaurants, Walmart, etc.

Posted in: Saving Money
June 03, 2006

I’ve been meaning to get back to this series since Obadiah’s death, but just haven’t had it in me. But, I know a lot of people seem to have found this helpful and have been looking forward to the next part. I’m going to try and get through Part 2 of it today.

Today, I’m going to try and cover Step 2 - The First Ten Minutes on the Lot.

Many folks do not understand how crucial the first ten minutes are for them. That is because they do not understand that the whole purpose of going to a car lot is to get the vehicle you want at the price you want. That is the only point of going to a car lot - not to browse, not to check things out, not to get information from a salesman, not to kick the tires. Your only reason for setting foot on that lot should be to get the vehicle you want at the price you want.

Posted in: Saving Money
May 14, 2006

I was going to create a seminar and charge a lot of money for this information, but I changed my mind and thought I could give back to the community by giving away this information - for free. It will be the last free thing you get before you set foot in the showroom of the car dealership. This is going to be part one of what will likely be a four or five part series.

A Few Disclaimers

Posted in: Saving Money