Personal Finance and Investment

Most of people receive numerous offers for 0% APR credit card on a daily basis. Yet, most of us just throw them away. Next time when you receive such an offer, we strongly recommend you not to rush and try to see a window of opportunity. Not only could you consolidate your current debts, but on top of that you could eliminate expenses by not paying unnecessary interests.

First thing we suggest is to transfer all your outstanding balances from high-interest credit cards to your new 0% card. From then on you’ll be only making a single payment each month instead of a few. Secondly, estimate the regular payment you would need to make every month to have your balance paid off by the end of the promotional period.

Stick to that payment each month and you will save a lot of money in interest fees. If you do that, by the end of the introductory period your debt will be paid off and you won’t spend a penny in interests anymore! In case if you don’t manage to pay off the balance, another option would be transferring the remaining balance again to a new 0% card at the end of the introductory period, further decreasing your monthly payments.

However, before taking the plunge and signing up for a new 0% credit card, we do have a few suggestions for you. First of all, go compare all deals available out there! Read the T&C’s very carefully:

• Is there a balance transfer charge, and if there is, how substantial is it?
• Does the 0% offer apply solely to balance transfers or to purchases as well?
• How long is the 0% introductory period?

Study the terms and conditions well or this new 0% card could turn out to you more expensive than the 16% credit card you already have in your wallet. There are much more credit card companies out there than you could possibly imagine - evaluate carefully numerous offers and choose the one, which is the most valuable to your needs. A wisely chosen credit card can save you lots of money!

Do you often worry about money? Are you trying hard to catch up with your bills all the time? Here are some useful tips for saving money for those millions of Americans who are struggling to pay their debts:

CREDIT CARDS

Pay the balances on your credit cards fully each month.

Don’t buy things like meals and groceries with your credit card for. If you cannot find the money to pay cash for those, you can’t afford them, end of story!

Always check your credit card statements to make sure there are no charges for things you never paid for.

BANKING

Choose a bank, which does not charge a monthly fee for its services. To withdraw cash use only those ATM machines, which are affiliated with your bank.

INSURANCE

Review your health and car insurance policies. Shop around to get cheaper insurances that will save you money by offering a higher excess fee.

SHOPPING

Always do price comparison and only buy something when you have found a merchant that sells the item of interest at the lowest price possible.
Discount Coupons

Give preference to shopping at stores that offer instant rebates on regular basis. Visit discount shops for clothing and toys.

Get rid of compulsive shopping addiction by “sleeping on it”. Particularly, when making any major purchases.
Consider visiting yard sales that can be a great option for certain items you want to buy.

TELEPHONE

Cancel extra features on your home telephone such as call barring, call waiting, 3-way calling and caller ID.

Shop around to find the cheapest long distance service provider. Use affordable international calls companies. Use your mobile for emergencies only.

GAS, ELECTRICITY and WATER

If you have a water-meter installed, reduce your water usage, particularly hot water. Reduce your thermostat setting by 1–2 degrees.

Install ceiling fans.

FOOD AND BEVERAGES

Buy your soft drinks in multiple packs instead of getting them from fast-food restaurants or vending machines. That way you could save a lot of money and also avoid germs.

Make your own coffee rather than buying it at a coffee house.

Stay away from eating out. Put saved money in a fund or apply them to pay a bill.

If you do happen to be eating out, order soft drink instead of alcohol. You can celebrate later, when you get out of debt.

ENTERTAINMENT

Cancel your subscription to cable TV channels that you don’t watch. Stay with the basic plan or cancel the cable TV subscription for a while.

Rent DVDs instead of going to the cinemas or, if you do go, choose matinee rather than evening shows.

Check out if your local library rents movies on DVDs - they could be free!

Introduction

These days shopping in “brick-and-mortar” shops looks so outmoded, dated, and tedious. Millions of people every year sit in their chairs wearing their pyjamas, while drinking coffee and shopping for groceries, clothes, gifts, household appliances or nearly anything else you can imagine.

One of the terrific benefits with online shopping is the various coupon, discount and money-back programs are available. If you click on a link, or use a discount coupon code, you can make substantial savings. Besides, you are getting get all the countless benefits of online shopping - no kids to drag through stores, no petrol expenses to drive there and back, and no crowds getting on your nerves.

So, once you appreciate the benefits to shop online, how can you find those savings? There are quite a few ways to save money while shopping online. We shall start with coupons.

Coupons

This is a rather standard method. Visit one of the rebate coupon websites (a few will be given below) and search for the store you want to shop in, or search by category, depending what you prefer. Make sure you hit “apply” or “claim” while entering the coupon code at the checkout.

If in the old days of online shopping, discount codes were abundant and generous (frequently you could get $10 off a $10 purchase including free shipping), these days decent coupon deals are difficult to find. Some stores hardly ever offer coupons, while others may offer free delivery on on orders of any amount. When you place an order, or even if you just came to do window-shopping this time, take the chance to register or sign up with the website for coupon newsletter. These direct coupon emails are frequently the best deals you could ever find.

Here are some first-rate coupon websites to help you started:

MyBargainBuddy.com - offers your compilation of excellent deals and coupon codes. A lot of the best deals require no coupon whatsoever, but if there’s a bargain that goes together with a coupon code, it’s even better.

DiscountCouponsOnline.co.uk - This websites offers the largest discount coupon and offers collection for all major UK online stores. The coupons and offers are daily updated and carefully looked after, and all expired deals are removed in time. So you can be sure that with this site you will find only current and 100%-valid discount coupons and offers.

MyCoupons.com — The most valuable feature of this website are the message boards, which are teeming with the voice of people saving money. First, explore the posts are marked as “sticky” in the beginning of each forum - there are often a number of useful links to printable coupons for favourite stores like Amazon and Toys R Us.

FatWallet.com - Many coupon codes are listed here together with alive message boards where you can find other great deals as well.
NB: If you are seeking a code for a particular store, don’t presume that if it’s not presented at one website, it doesn’t exist at all. Different sites offer different codes. Go to a few coupon websites before abandoning hope that a coupon code for that merchant does in fact exist.

Rebates

Here’s how one of the major online rebate programs works. Visit Ebates.com and open a free account. They offer a $5 bonus just for signing up, thus you automatically receive a free $5 off for your any purchases made through them. After that, when you decide to shop online, check out Ebates prior to going directly to any online store. Even if you found a discount coupon at another website, click on the store link at Ebates to make even more savings.

Suppose you are looking to buy a jacket from Kohls and you founda $10 off a $65 purchase. Fantastic! Now, with the coupon code in hand, go to Ebates and look for Kohls in the list of featured stores. Let’s say the store offers 2% money-back, so you click on the Kohls link at Ebates and make the purchase. Doing so, not only will you benefit from the discount code you used at the checkout, but in addition you get an extra 2% money-back from your purchase. Not bad, isn’t it?!. Here, Ebate can either send the money to your Paypal account or a cheque to your postal address.

Points

Not many people are aware of the different point programs on the market, but as you can obtain points without the need to buy anything, it’s worthwhile to find out about the points programs available.

Head to MyPoints.com and open an account. The website will send you emails with links (daily or, sometimes, even a few time a day). Every time you click on a link in the mail, you will automatically earn 5 points. However, if you sign up for an offer or purchase anything via that link, you can get additional hundreds or even thousands points per offer.

Although you can use those points for offline shopping as well, MyPoints is most efficient when shopping online. Basically, you get points for every link you click and every purchase you make. Majority of stores offer a particular number of points (on average - 2 to 5) per every dollar spent. As soon as you have collected at least 1,000 points, you can redeem them for gift certificates for groceries, clothing restaurants, petrol, travel etc.

Unfortunately, you can’t use both My Points and Ebates for the same purchase; i.e. if a store is featured through both websites, you’ll need to make a choice which offer is the best. However, as far as coupon codes from other suppliers are concerned, you can always try to combine them with deals from either the Ebates or My Points.