(February 15, 2009) – Here’s an easy way to avoid impulse purchases – make a 30-day list. When you think you want to buy something, put it down on your calendar for 30-days later. If you still want to buy it on the day it pops up on the calendar, go ahead. Or just keep [...]
Tightwad Assignment
Jax Beach Journal articles on surviving the Great Recession of 2008
Tightwad Assignment – Valentine’s Day
(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, [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Free food at Denny’s
JACKSONVILLE, Florida (February 3, 2009) – Denny’s Restaurants hit a grand slam with the chain’s offer of a free Grand Slam Breakfast to anyone arriving at one of its locations between 6AM and 2PM today (Tuesday, Feb. 3). Web trackers in Los Angeles, Dallas and Seattle reported the company’s site suffered outages today – they [...]
Tightwad Assignment – Shaving savings
JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Florida (February 1, 2009) – Sunday seems a good day to begin shaving. The object is to test a money saving idea promoted on The Clark Howard Show – dunking a cheap razor into mineral oil to prevent rust and oxidation. The premise is that the razor can be used for months. I [...]