Monthly Archives: December 2016

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How to Get a Seat at a Crowded Restaurant Without a Reservation

And Possibly Save 70% while You’re at It

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When you want to eat at a busy restaurant, making a reservation is great. But sometimes you forget to do so. Or you decide to eat out on the spur of the moment. Or you want to eat somewhere that doesn’t take reservations. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could waltz in to a crowded restaurant with no reservation and still get a seat right away?

There’s a trick my wife and I have used countless times, without fail, to do just that. It works best for parties of two. Here’s how to execute the trick in 5 steps: (more…)

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What to do with Unwanted Gift Cards

4 Ways to Get Value from Them

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Receiving a gift card to a store you’ll never go to is like being given a treasure chest without the key to unlock it. You know there’s value there, but you don’t know how to get at it.

If you’ve received such a gift card, you know what I mean. If you’ve given such a gift card, well, someone else knows what I mean. 🙂

Over $1 billion of gift card funds go unredeemed annually. Neither the giver nor the recipient desires such waste.

So the question becomes: How can you extract value from unwanted gift cards? Here are four suggestions:
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What Christmas can Teach us about Money

2 Lessons We can Take Away

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As someone who writes about money, I might be expected to check my conscience at the door. After all, one cannot pursue both virtue and money, right?

The easy reply is that it’s not money, but the love of money, that is the root of all evil. So as long as you don’t love it, you’re okay.

The problem with that reply is the failure to acknowledge that it’s easy to love the stuff.

Its attractiveness is understandable. After all, together with time, money is one of our very most powerful resources. But whereas time can only be saved, money can be both saved and acquired, so it has an extra way of captivating us.

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Deal-Stacking: How to Save Big on Most Purchases

I Just Saved $547 in 26 Minutes with these Deal-Stacking Techniques

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Would you like to save really big on most purchases you make? I just saved $547 in 26 minutes using techniques that can be applied to many purchases. In this post, I will show you how to utilize these techniques to reap extreme savings.

But first, a warning: this post will probably make your head spin. Now I may be new to blogging, but I’m pretty sure you are not supposed to write posts that make your readers’ heads spin. And if you do, surely you’re not supposed to tell them that that’s what you’ve done.

But here’s the thing. If you want a really great deal, sometimes you have to combine multiple opportunities. And when you do, it gets a little crazy. (more…)

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How I’ve Saved $111 this Year by Renting Movies for $1.00 without Leaving Home

And How You Can Save, too, Unless the Supreme Court Rules it Illegal. . . .

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Do you love the price of Redbox movies ($1.50) but hate having to visit a kiosk to rent? Well, there’s a solution that is cheaper than Redbox, and you don’t even have to leave your home.

The solution is VidAngel. VidAngel allows you to stream movies for $1 (or $2 for HD). (more…)

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3 Reasons to Use a GPS App Even When You Don’t Need It

And My Top Two GPS App Recommendations

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If you know how to get where you are going, using a GPS app is pointless, right? Not in my opinion. There are 3 reasons why I think you should use a GPS app every time you get in the car. These reasons save you time and money.

Following are those reasons as well as my top two GPS app recommendations. (more…)

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Maximize Time and Money with the Minimum Effective Dose

Why to Aim for the Smallest Dose that will Produce the Desired Outcome

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Unlike my last two posts on how to save 46% on a hotel booking and how to save 40 hours per year by having your smartphone read to you, this post is a bit more abstract. That said, the principal I discuss here has much wider application. It will save you even more money and time than the previous two posts if properly understood and applied. This post is about the minimum effective dose.

Entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss popularized the term in his book The 4-Hour Body. There, he defines the minimum effective dose simply as “the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome.” (more…)

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How to Save 40 Hours per Year with One iPhone Setting

How to have Your iPhone or other Smartphone Read to You at a Faster-than-normal Rate

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If you regularly consume written content such as articles, blog posts, and email, it is possible to save over 40 hours per year. The trick is to have your iPhone read to you at a faster-than-normal rate. Utilizing this one iPhone setting can save you the equivalent of one work week per year.

Girl on bike listending to iPhone read to her

Here’s how to enable this powerful feature: (more…)

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How to Save 46% on a Hotel Room with a Hotwire / Priceline Trick

I Recently Saved over $50 in 20 Minutes

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How would you like to save 46% on a hotel stay as I recently did? The trick is to play Priceline off of Hotwire. Let me explain through the lens of my recent booking.

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I needed to stay in Estes Park, CO for one night. Searching on Orbitz.com, the cheapest rate I found was $90 for a 2-star hotel.

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