Pentimento

I Slashed Our $72 A Month Cell Phone Bill In Half!

Verizon Is No Longer Making A Bundle Off Us

I wish I had done this a long time ago, but to be honest, I'm not savvy enough to figure out how to do certain things without researching them a bit. Mostly because, I don't want to go to some business and make an ass out of myself. 

No doubt many of you are aware of Pay-as-you-go or PrePaid cell plans, but it might seem a little daunting to try to switch to one. It really wasn't for us, but we did have to pay off our contract. That detail was a personal choice dictated by time constraints (I wanted this new plan in place before summer travel season), and I waited as long as possible to get the pay-off amount down to something workable.

Here's what we had to do to change plans:

• Go to our local Verizon store (not a kiosk) and tell them we wanted to switch to their Core plan.

• We will have to change our calling habits somewhat, but we were only using 27 minutes a month on our old contract plan and that just seemed like a waste of money at around $72/mo. We're not cell phone junkies though, and we only use them to call if we're traveling, etc. Since some of our friends and family have Verizon too, as you can see by the schedule above we have unlimited calling to them.

• It was a tiny bit more involved to change both of our phones over to the new plan, but we had two really adept Verizon employees who got it done quickly for us. We signed the agreement to pay off our contract balance, and opted to pay $100 to the new prepaid plan so we didn't have to worry about running out of paid minutes. (You can also opt for a low balance auto-refill if you so choose).

• They opened up the backs of both our phones and reset them (for the new plan, I'm guessing), leaving intact all of our contacts and settings. One thing to be aware of is that with the plan we went with, should we change phones they do not have the contact backup available through their website anymore. That is for contract customers only. "Daring" people that we are (not), we decided to "take a chance" and we can re-input them again if necessary.

Summary

So, to sum it up, we did pay over $200 to cancel our old contract and put $100 towards the new prepay plan. But, since March 15, 2010 we have only spent $12.79 for calls. That's a big drop from the $72+ we were obligated to pay each month, and in a short amount of time it will pay for itself while still giving us the cell phone service we require.  The Core plan may not work for your situation, but they do offer other plans. Check them by clicking on the Core link above.

This is not a paid article or anything. It is entirely my own opinion and experiences, and I have related them here in hope that it will, in turn, help someone else. 

Free Shipping Today At Toys "R" Us. Wish I Had Known Yesterday!

Yesterday, I ordered $200+ in toys for our grandkids from Toys "R" Us, and had been charged $25.07 for shipping, even though their come-on email was offering free shipping on items. It wasn't until I started adding items from the grandkids wish list that I could see they had little or no free shipping. It irked me, but purchasing from the wishlist was the easiest way to get the right gifts and have them all sent to one address with little or no effort.

Today, I got an email from TRU saying they had free shipping on EVERYTHING. What??? I was ticked off to say the least. So, I called them and after spending about 10 minutes on hold, I finally got Valerie on the phone. I told her what had happened and asked her to adjust my bill for the previous day's order. Nope, sorry, couldn't do that. I then asked her to keep track of everything in that order and then cancel it, and resubmit it today for the free shipping offer. Nope, couldn't do that either because they don't "price match" on shipping. Huh?

At that point I asked to speak to her supervisor. A couple minutes went by and then Stephanie came on the line. Valerie had acquainted her with the request, and I explained again briefly what I wanted (cancel order, and resubmit it). I think by this time, as I pointed out that the whole transaction was going down the tubes, rather than lose a $200 order she made the quick decision to refund my shipping charges. OK, but then that also meant they had to recalculate the taxes on the order, which I pointed out. She said they would be adjusted too.

Stephanie was very polite and understanding, and I hope she will stay true to her word, and that the amounts will be adjusted. In any case, I will be checking my Visa account in the next few days to see if any refunds show up. I wish there was some way to know ahead of time just what an online store was offering, but I guess that would defeat their greed, huh? Again, "buyer beware". Or, should I say, "buyer be aware"?

A Solar Dichotomy Of Sorts

Let's just see if Mitch Battros or one of his minions ever does a search on the web for posts about them, or checks the links back to their website.

A few years ago, when I was more flush with money, I subscribed to Earth Changes website so I could have full access. At the time, I used PayPal and now I wish I had not. As it turns out, two years ago I quit subscribing to the EC site and marked my PayPal account subscriptions showing that I did not want to auto-renew. Or so I thought.

Last year in September I got an email notifying me that my subscription had been renewed. I didn't want that to have happened, and so I contacted PayPal and got them to get my money back. I thought it was all settled and would never happen again. Poor, silly, gullible me. Yup, you guessed it. This year, just like clockwork, they renewed my subscription again!!

I went through the whole process to try to get it undone and I can say that PayPal was absolutely NO help at all. It was like they didn't want to be bothered with my trivial little transaction. I wrote a letter to Earth Changes in Seattle, WA and told them I had not subscribed. No acknowledgement of that letter since I sent it two months ago. I guess I should have sent it registered mail.

Now, here's the dichotomy part of this whole deal. While I am not interested in being a subscriber to Battros' website anymore, I do find his theory of the sun affecting our planet and weather very plausable, and if I wasn't now on a fixed income I wouldn't even be balking at this subscription thing. I have nothing against the man, or his message, but as a website doing business here in Washington, his business practices are crap. There is a mailing address on his site, but the only phone number is a FAX number.

I did find an email address on their website tonight and wrote them a letter using that method, so now the ball is in their court regarding the refund.

Yes You CAN Buy USA Made Items

I hear a lot of people complaining all the time that "everything is made in China". It does seem that an inordinate amount of things we buy all have the Made in China sticker (sometimes), but we do still have many things we can buy that are made right here in the good ol' USA.

As noted on the site tabs, not everything on the Made in the USA lists is entirely from our country, so do be aware of that as you search the site. For instance, as I was writing this I clicked on the Tools tab and I noticed Harbor Freight as one of the stores, and I know from personally visiting those stores that they do carry Chinese products too. But, you can also find many USA made tools on their site also. We all need clothes, so I checked out the Clothing tab too. While there, I found

Union Made in the USA.

I know some of you are still waiting for your own money "economic stimulus" checks, so instead of supporting China's economy, why not spend some of that cash and support our own?

Here's another site I found too: Still Made In the USA . This site has a little different look, but with the same theme. I noticed too that they update a site and highlight it in bold when it no longer sells USA made items.

Are you trying to buy more USA made products? What cool places have you found? Leave a comment and tell us!

 

Tell Starbucks Your Idea!

Are you a Starbucks addict? I wouldn't call myself one, but I do "reward" myself each day with a nice frosty cold Frappuchino from my refrigerator. If there is something you have always wished that Starbucks would do, why not share your idea with them?

I posted a couple of my own ideas, but they may be a little "out there" for them. My first one was that they should deliver! Yeah, I know, they probably won't, but a girl can dream!

My other idea was that they use SmartLids. You might have seen me talk about these lids on iPentimento before. They are such a great concept. I think any place that sells coffee to go should be using these. Click on the link to my previous article to get the full story.

Don't forget to tell Starbucks your idea too!

Banks: The Real Terrorists With Fiat Money

Don't look now, but every day you deal with terrorists. No, they don't have guns or roadside bombs, but instead they have fiat currency. Alan Greenspan, the toady of banks and our government took us along the road to further calamity by allowing them to create more and more fiat money.

Fiat Money: Currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact that it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves. Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith.

It is all smoke and mirrors as our government doles out the fake currency to everyone. It isn't just our government, but many of the nations of this world are doing the same thing. Worthless, meaningless, script that eventually will ruin us all. Why? Because it is a giant sucking machine of credit. And it is backed by taxes. Taxes that we are all expected to pay to support this no-value money.

The Fall of the Human Empire

This has happened before you know, and civilizations collapsed because of it. Here are some examples:

 

910 AD - China experiments with paper money - It takes several hundred years but the system is abandoned due to unacceptable levels of inflation as money printing exceeded production.

1500'S - Spain gathered gold from Mexico and the new world, becoming the richest nation in the world. Instead of developing their own economy they sent gold to trade partners in a consumption orgy not dissimilar to the US today. Then they went on a military rampage to extinguish pirates, (terrorists?) in an imperialistic march into other lands, dropping any distinction between terrorists, (I mean pirates) and the countries that harbor them. Their excessive consumption ran through their gold hoard, so they turned to financing the war with debt, bankrupting them.

1716 - John Law convinced France to use paper money and declared all taxes must be paid with it to gain acceptance. The idea snowballed and paper money became more desired than coin. It led to excessive printing, additional moneymaking schemes and fraud. Exaggerated values coinciding with money printing eventually blew up the system.

1791 - The French Government again tries its hand with a paper currency. The Government confiscated land from aristocrats and issued "assignats" which paid interest against the properties. Land was auctioned off in exchange for these notes, inflation rose to 13,000% by 1795. Napoleon ended the revolution and replaced the "assignats" with the gold franc, which set off over a century of prosperity for France. In the 1930's Socialists came to power and brought the Bank of France fully into the Government. They quickly removed gold backing of the currency and made the franc a managed fiat currency. In only 12 years the currency lost 99% of its value.

1853 - Argentina went on a gold standard and thrived for close to 100 years. A central bank was created in 1932, beginning a long downfall. Juan Peron took charge in a 1943 coup and depleted reserves causing trade to fall. Argentina continued on this path of paper money, falling from the eighth largest economy to a mere shadow of its former self, which it has not recovered from as of today.

1862 - Abraham Lincoln passed the Legal Tender Act allowing the Government to issue paper money, backed by nothing but government promises. A huge inflation transpired that caused the practice to fall out of favor until the Federal Reserve System was put in place in 1913.

1923 - Weimar Republic - After World War I, Germany, crippled from its loss in the war, was held accountable for its war reparations. The country was destitute so found no other choice but to simply print the money in massive quantities to pay the reparations. The result was the plundering of the entire middle class, wiping out all value of savings, and paving the way for Hitler in front of an angry public.

The US dollar went off the gold standard in stages: 1934 - President Roosevelt revalued gold from its official price of $20.67 to $35 an ounce in an attempt to print more money, with the hope that this would lift us out of the depression.

1944 - The Bretton Woods Agreement was made to treat the dollar as a substitute for gold, since a dollar was defined as 1/35th of an ounce of gold, which was pegged at $35 per ounce. The door was opened worldwide to print money; foreign nations could print if they had gold or US dollars.

1971 - President Nixon closed the gold window, ending convertibility of dollars to gold. This came about because the US was printing too many dollars and living beyond its means. Foreign nations led by France, recognized this and began demanding payment in gold, breaking the system as the US experienced a major gold drain.

Do you see a pattern here? We are headed for a mighty fall when all of this hits the fan. Maybe it already is hitting the fan. I am not an economist. Nor do I own any gold of any quantity. I wish I did. But that is a whole other subject. This is not a doomsday prophecy like "the sky is falling" or "The End of the World is Near", but our whole economic structure is based on fake money and faith. No amount of praying will save us folks.

Today's price of gold: $919.20 USD/oz

Banks vs. Person to Person Lending

If you haven't heard of this before, join the club. I hadn't heard of person to person lending (other than the last time I bummed some dough off my mom) until I read an article this week in the Kitsap Sun where they talked about Prosper.com and LendingClub.com.

The premise and purpose of the two sites is to by-pass the banks and lend or borrow directly from other people. Her is a short excerpt from the About page:

People who want to lend set the minimum interest rate they are willing to earn and bid in increments of $50 to $25,000 on loan listings they select. People who lend can easily diversify using "standing orders", which automatically make many small loans to different borrowers.

Borrowers create loan listings for up to $25,000 and set the maximum rate they are willing to pay a lender. Then the auction begins as people who lend bid down the interest rate. Once the auction ends, Prosper takes the bids with the lowest rates and combines them into one simple loan. Prosper handles all on-going loan administration tasks including loan repayment and collections on behalf of the matched borrower and lenders.

I can imagine that traditional banks are probably not too keen on this idea of person to person lending. They have held the monopoly on that corner of business for a long time. But, I can also see why this modern form of lending has come about. Since this is a strictly USA endeavor, it kind of brings to mind the Kennedy quote, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country". Change that to "countrymen" and you have person to person lending.

For a complete explanation for the Prosper.com site, or to join click here. As I was writing this post, I decided to go ahead and join Prosper. so that link is a referral. I have not joined Lending Club. Since I am not a blog mogul yet, one person to person lending site enrollment is enough for now.

In Each Other We Trust

In a world of mistrust, how are you being trustworthy?

Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything. - Johann K. Lavater

From the moment of birth, we begin to trust. It doesn't come overnight, and perhaps not easily, but think about all the ways in which we trust each day. For instance, my employers trust me enough to do a good job writing for them that they have come to automatically approve my advertisements.

My husband trusts that I am not going to find a new love interest. People from all over the world now connect to my blog because they trust what I write. That doesn't mean they will always agree with it, but they come back again because I put a little bit of myself in my blog, and I trust that most people will appreciate that.

What are your feelings about trust? Who do you trust? Who do you mistrust? Why?

The Secret of My Success in Internet Marketing

My strategy
In the beginning, I was pretty strong on strategy in how to make my blog successful. Before I ever created a blog, I studied a lot of other blogs to see what I liked and what was easy to read. Shock and Awe were real turn-offs. I wanted something fun, and visually interesting, but not too difficult to achieve since I was also learning all the ins and outs of the terminology associated with blogs. Some trackbacks were not valuable, and over time they were replaced by ones that were.

How long did it take me?
I have a lot of graphic and text link ads on my blog that would appeal to a large variety of interests and needs. I have learned to diversify what I offer, and I have included links to my Cafe Press Shop, a stand alone site for shopping at online stores like Amazon. Creating blogs is easier than getting them to create an income. I am averaging less money now than I had hoped, but I have only been blogging a few months. Sites like Gather Success have enabled me to increase my blog traffic by a good margin. It is a great site that teaches you the strategies of marketing to the internet.

The Results
So far, the blogs are paying for themselves. Networking, and spending a little money on advertising has been the key to success. I still have a lot to learn, and I really need to focus the blog a little more. I enjoy it though, and I have met some great people along the way.

ReviewMe | Write reviews for cash!

Link: ReviewMe | Write reviews for cash!. I was really hoping this was going to be something I could sign up for an do, but alas, I am a small duck in a big blog pond. Maybe some of my subscribers who have more traffic can check it out and make some bug bucks. So, here is my first review of Reveiw Me: It's a great idea, just not for little ducks. If this article gets me more traffic they told me to check back in a couple months.