(February 13, 2009) – I suppose this one goes in the maybe category – maybe you can get away with it. Instead of spending all that money on cards, flowers and gifts, why not surprise your honey with a hand-made gift? O.K., hands down. The question was rhetorical. If you’re brave enough to go on, [...]
February 2009
Tightwad Assignment – Save on medications
(February 12, 2009) – Here’s an idea that sometimes works to save – pill splitting. It works like this. If you normally take a 10-mg. dose of a medication, you might be able to buy a 20-mg pill for only slightly more. If you cut the pill in half, you get two 10-mg. doses from [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Auto insurance
(February 11, 2009) – I just paid my automobile insurance and examined something for the first time. If I paid the entire six-months, I saved several dollars. Before, I had paid the extra thinking that I would make up the difference by keeping the second payment in a savings account. I was wrong. At today’s [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Cheap entertainment
(February 10, 2009) – In the go-go days of a roaring economy, it was easy to just order movies, music and books from Amazon, Netflix or Blockbuster. We aspiring tightwads, however, know a much cheaper way to entertain ourselves. We go to that old haunt of the pre-Internet days, the public library. There are two [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Gasoline
(February 9, 2009) – Some owner’s manuals say certain automobiles require premium (expensive) gasoline. Sometimes that’s bunk. Sometimes the requirement is placed in the manuals so that the manufacturer can advertise a higher horsepower – horsepower that you probably don’t need. The kind of gasoline you require depends a lot on how you drive. With [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Grocery deals
(February 7, 2009) – You can find deals at the grocery store in many ways. First, there are those fliers – they’re stuffed into my mailbox every Wednesday. But, like everything else, you can also find deals online. Go to My Grocery Deals, enter your zip code, and see deals at supermarkets in your area. [...]
Wage and price controls
JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Florida (February 6, 2009) – I was listening to the Rusty Humphries Show on the radio last night, and Rusty (who’s 44-years old) said he didn’t really remember President Richard Nixon’s wage and price controls. I lived through the 1000-days of horror and the subsequent recession. I thought there may be a lot [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Cheap cell phones
JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Florida (February 6, 2009) – There’s a cheap way to get cell phone service if you don’t need many minutes. Virgin Mobile offers various levels of pre-paid service, and some of them are downright cheap. Some of the phones are free, or come with enough free minutes to cover the cost. You can [...]
Governor Crist joins the 37%
JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Florida (February 5, 2009) – Recent polls show only 37% of the American people support the federal bailout bill. Governor Charlie Crist (R-Fl) says he is part of that minority. Here’s the email he sent me. Dear Friend, This week I joined 18 fellow governors from around the country in writing a [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Freecycle
JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Florida (February 4, 2009) – Anyone truly tight with a nickle uses freecycle – both to get things and to get rid of junk. Freecycle.org is a nationwide effort to keep things out of landfills – to give things a second life. You go to the site, then follow the links to the [...]