Tag Archives: Save Money

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How to Live the 80/20 Rule for What Matters Most

Why the 80/20 Rule is a Key Principle for Having More Time and Money

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The 80/20 rule states that 80% of effects are determined by 20% of their causes. The rule is also known as the Pareto Principle, after the 19th Century Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto noticed that 80% of the peas in his garden came from 20% of the peapods. (Weird thing to notice.) He also showed that about 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.

Man contemplating how he can use the 80/20 rule to achieve 80% of the result with 20% of the input

The Pareto Principle is not a law, like gravity. It’s a rule of thumb. It fits a wide array of phenomena. Consider, for instance, these applications of the rule across a variety of fields: (more…)

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How My Family Just Took a $5,218 Vacation to Cabo San Lucas for $42

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My family of five and my folks returned last week from a great vacation to Cabo San Lucas. I’ll tell you a bit about the trip via the pictures and captions in this post. But mostly I want to share how the seven of us paid a total of $42 for roundtrip flights and 5 nights at a 4-star resort. I want to give you ideas for how you can do the same. Because you can.

McAdam Family at Sunset in Cabo

My family attempting to pose for a picture on our recent trip to Cabo San Lucas

We had expenses on the ground such as transportation and food that went beyond the $42. But that’s how much we spent on hotel and flights. Here’s how: (more…)

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How to Save an Average of 15% at 640 Stores with Raise.com

Even the 40 Most Popular Retailers Still Average a 9% Discount

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How would you like to save 12% on iTunes purchases, 15% at the Gap, or 9% at Toys”R”Us with very little extra effort? These are just some of the great deals that can consistently be had by using Raise.com.

Display of 8 Most Popular Raise.com eGift Cards

Raise.com is a gift card reseller. But Raise differs in an important way from other sites that enable you to buy discounted gift cards. (more…)

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2 Quick Steps to Give Free Money to Charity via AmazonSmile

How to Financially Support Charities You Care About Without Costing You a Penny

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Would you like to give more to the charitable causes you care about? Do you shop at Amazon? If you answered “yes” to both of those questions, you should take advantage of AmazonSmile, an easy way to benefit the charity of your choice at no additional cost to you.

Girl extending hands to give wad of cash

The way AmazonSmile works is simple: (more…)

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4 Steps to Receive Deal Alerts Before Anyone Else

How to Get the Best Deals Before They’re Gone

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Have you ever missed a deal because you were notified about it too late? Maybe the perfect car you’ve been searching for on Craigslist came and went before you had time to act. Or maybe you just keep missing out on free donuts at work. In any case, there is a simple trick that will give you a leg up on the competition.

Getting notified of a deal before everyone else is like getting a head-start in a race.

From free food at work to ultra-cheap flights to a great price on a used car, I find that the best deals are usually gone in a matter of hours, if not minutes. Unless you are glued to your email—which kills productivity—it is easy to miss out.

Fortunately, it’s possible to know about the best deals without watching your email like a hawk. The trick is to set things up so that whenever a deal is sent to you via email, you receive a text message alerting you to the deal.

I have used this trick successfully in many scenarios, and I probably receive two such texts per day with deals I want to know about. As I type this very paragraph, in fact, I was just alerted by text to a deal for $75 round trip flights from my home airport in Denver to New York. If I wanted, I could take advantage of that deal before most anyone else was even aware of its existence.

The four steps to being the first to know about a deal are: (more…)

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Great New Site Notifies You of Ultralow Fares from Your Chosen Airport(s)

“All the Flight Deals” Overcomes the Limitations of Other Sites to Consistently Provide Fantastic Deals, Including Many Flights to Europe for Under $450 Round-trip

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Do you want to travel cheaply without any credit card or mile and point shenanigans? If so, you should check out this great new site: All the Flight Deals. It has consistently provided me with fantastic fares including many from my home airport to Europe for under $450 round-trip.

All the Flight Deals notifies you of the cheapest fares from whatever airport(s) you want to monitor to anywhere in the world. In doing so, it differs in important ways from all the other airfare sites I’m aware of. Consider these differences: (more…)

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Last Day to Lock in $10 AwardWallet Plus Price

The Price Rises to $30 Starting Feb. 1, 2017

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I’ve written before about how I use AwardWallet Plus to track the miles and points balances and expiration dates of my family’s accounts.

There is a free version, which displays the expiration date of up to 3 miles and points programs. I use the $10/year version, which displays the expiration date of an unlimited number of programs. You can compare the differences here.

I just wanted to let you know that today, January 31, is the last day to lock in the $10/year price for AwardWallet Plus. Starting tomorrow, the price will rise to $30/year.

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It Pays to be Kind

How Kindness May Recently Have Saved Me Between $70 and $525

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My wife and I recently returned from dinner to our hotel room while on vacation. She soon realized that she couldn’t find her iPhone. Because she is a sane person, she doesn’t have it glued to her 24/7 like I do.

I called her phone, but we didn’t hear it ring. We listened more carefully: we didn’t hear it vibrate. Uh oh.

I used the “Find My iPhone” app to track her phone from mine. I could see her phone moving at a pretty good clip up and down nearby streets. That was actually good news because it all but confirmed her suspicion that she had left it in the taxi we had taken to the hotel. Having not gotten a receipt from the driver, I had no way of getting in touch with him through the cab company.

I called my wife’s phone again. I texted it. I used the “Find My iPhone” app to play a sound, which overrides even silent mode. No response. “$700 down the drain,” I thought (and maybe said aloud). (more…)

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Leveraging Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses for Free Travel

How to Travel for Free: Part 2 of 7

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In my last post I shared some of the amazing travel opportunities that can be enjoyed for pennies on the dollar or even for free. Free travel can enable the enthusiast to travel more. But it can also enable those of us who would pay some amount to travel anyway to divert those funds to other priorities.

There are lots of tricks that help enable free travel. But today I want to share the single most powerful technique by far: signing up for a credit card that is offering a big sign-up bonus.

(more…)

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Imagining the Possibilities of Free Travel

How to Travel for Free: Part 1 of 7

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Sharing amazing experiences with people I love is part of what matters most to me. Travel has always provided such experiences, and as a result I’ve always loved to travel.

The view, overlooking Oahu's Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head, from my family’s room at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel

The view, overlooking Oahu’s Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head, from my family’s room at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel

About 4 years ago, I got to a point where my family was expanding and I wanted to continue traveling, but I didn’t want to spend every nickel I earned to do it. At the time, I definitely did not know that free travel was possible, and I didn’t know how to do it.

I began to hear about mile and points experts, but at first I wasn’t sure what to think. Were they for real? Did they have a terrible credit score and a heap of debt?

(more…)