Queercents

How much do you spend on lattes? Perhaps your poison is it’s cheaper cousin; plain old coffee. Or maybe you think nothing of your frappuccino fix. You deserve it, right? I mean, after all - you’re going to work. You woke up early (like you always do), it’s Friday (just like it is every week), you have a meeting this morning (that’s so unusual). You get the idea. You always have an excuse. I’m not here to tell you to pinch every last dime, live like a Spartan and deny yourself those occasional sixteen ounces of joy - but let’s be realistic.

I understand when you’re walking around with a friend and you don’t want to tote around your reusable mug all day (though that’s not really so hard, is it?). But when you’re on your way to work to park yourself for the next few hours in front of a computer bringing an extra cup isn’t so much of a hassle. I realize we’re not all cubicle desk jockeys and corporate corner-office suits, and that some of you may have jobs that keep you running around. But if you can run around with a disposable cup, surely you can substitute the container in your hand for one from home. Just like I said about riding a bike, bringing your own coffee will save money, help you stay healthy, and be green all at once - the health, green, money trifecta. You think you can’t make your own beverage at home? You can’t concoct an iced latte yourself? I’m calling your bluff - here’s how to do it.

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About a year ago, a friend of mine told me that she was freelance writing for work. I was as well, but my friend was working full-time at it; I was not. We started discussing project sources and ran through many of the Internet options available for the hunt: craigslist.com, various message boards, gumtree.com for the UK, and several like this essay writing one. She said, however, that the majority of her projects came from guru.com.

Since then, I’ve come to agree that it might be the best place to get freelance jobs, and that’s not just for writers. Guru has job forums for most forms of legalized freelance work available. From marketing to web design, accounting to photography, and computer programming to architecture, if you’ve got a marketable skill set, chances are guru has a job for you. The first time I punched in my writing credentials, almost 800 jobs popped up for perusal. Read the rest of this entry »

June is here, which means barbecues, summer festivals, concerts, baseball games, picnics and pride. Yes, some pride parades have started to feel like a gay trot through your local yellow pages, but it’s a tradition so you go anyway. And you have fun. And you drink a lot. So many of the best things about about summer involve drinking. Friends meet for drinks, backyard parties are thrown, you lounge at the beach, and even brunch feels shabby without a bloody mary or mimosa. So it goes without saying that many people drink a lot of their summer cash away. So what’s the solution?

Many people associate watching their money with restricting themselves. They think watching money involves saying ‘No’ a lot, but it doesn’t have to. Here are my strategies.

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When I used to work in customer service it always used to amaze me when people on the phone would walk out to their cars to get their credit cards. These same people were invariably the ones who were calling in to change their number because their last ones were stolen. While it’s easy to chuckle at sometimes obvious mistakes, I recently left my American Express at a McDonalds drive through.

D’oh!

Someone was kind enough to notify me that my card had been stolen by charging $45 worth of gas. This is the second time I’ve had this happen and Bank of America has been (mostly) good about handling it. It’s a big pain in the butt to deal with but I’ve put together some tips and thoughts on how to minimize the impact of credit card theft or even human error.

Read the fine print.

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My first time buying a car was absolute hell. I came on the used car lot to pick up a Toyota and left with a 2000 Dodge Neon, which later became known as the Dodge Death Trap. It was the first car I ever bought with my own credit (such as it was). It was a mostly reliable car, until I finally paid it off by transferring the last of my 14% interest loan to a 0% credit card.

It overheated. Not too badly at first, then just on hot days… or when it rained … or in traffic. The solution was always to pour more coolant into its insatiably hungry engine and keep an eye on the temp. Taking it in to Jiffy Lube for a coolant flush seemed to work for a little while. I put the car in neutral at stop lights and when it got hot vented the heat through floorboards of my car. In the summer.

Finally in 2007, as it was warming up, I’d had enough. Repair was one option but I’d had the car for five years and truthfully hated driving it. Automobile repair is worse than the dentist for me and once a car really starts to break I don’t feel safe driving it. It was time to buy a car. Read the rest of this entry »

Beginning February 17, 2009, full-power television stations are required to switch from analog to digital broadcasting per the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005.

You may need to purchase a digital converter box to receive network channels if:

1) you do not subscribe to cable or satellite programming
2) you have a television made before 2004 (Most televisions made before 2004 do not have a built-in digital tuner.)

To learn more about the digital broadcasting conversion, click here for the FAQ page at the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration site. (Do yourself a favor and expand all FAQ for faster reading.) Read the rest of this entry »

I heard on NPR last week that some financial analysts are officially using the word recession to describe the state of the American economy. Finally, the suits are understanding what those of us in the trenches have been feeling for quite some time!

Recessions are stressful. Massage helps with stress. And for people with chronic pain, massage can feel less like pure indulgence and more like a medical necessity. I know for me, I’m happiest and most productive when I’m receiving regular bodywork.

But the going rate for massage where I live is around $65/hour, with at least one massage therapist I know charging $85/hour. (That’s the discounted rate, if you don’t have workman’s comp insurance to cover her normal cost.) I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford that every week or every other week. If you value massage therapy like I do, it’s still important even if you can’t scrape together the change because you’re too busy buying beans and rice.

Here are some ways you can get free, or extremely inexpensive massage. Read the rest of this entry »

In this series on tipping we’ve covered everything from the tip on outrageously expensive wine to the hair splitting minutia of tipping on tax. I learned that you’re supposed to tip in hotels. And perhaps most importantly we laid to rest the tired stereotype that lesbians are worse tippers (unless they’re in a bar). However there are still some loose ends that need addressing.

Exotic Dancers

Just like servers they are professionals who live off of tips. If you’re going to enjoy the show it’s only polite to bring some singles. Having a lot of money in hand ensures prompt “attention”.

When I was studying to be a sex researcher I taught to have respect for people who worked in “the industry” and not to exploit or objectify anyone. I found myself at a male strip bar when I had no cash and decided the only courteous thing to do was not look in the direction of the entertainers. Ironically this drew more attention than just sitting there and I got rubbed on by one of the dancers– as I protested that I was unable to compensate them. He didn’t seem to mind.

Hair Dressers

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Giveaway alert: read this entire post for the chance to win a SmartyPig $100 gift card.

SmartyPig reminds me of the days when my grandmother made weekly deposits to her Christmas Club. Remember those? The special savings program offered by local banks to ease the expense of holiday shopping. These were still quite popular when I was growing up as a kid in the 1970’s.

Well, SmartyPig is giving good old-fashioned savings a boost with some social networking.

Here’s how it works. SmartyPig is a savings account that allows you to save for a specific goal and invite others to contribute. There are other perks: including a good interest rate (4.30% APY) and incentives from top retailers like Amazon, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc.

SmartyPig is tilted toward consumer-oriented goals and best suited for people saving for a specific item like a new, expensive crib. Or at least that’s the example Trent at The Simple Dollar gave in his review: Read the rest of this entry »

I love comics and I don’t buy them anymore, but I used to have old X-men, Captain America, Batman, etc. And though I loved to read comic books, to actually own them was a different mentality.

Reading involved a moment of enjoyment and escape for me and I would picture myself in among the characters, but owning comic books was a whole different jungle. I EXPECTED all them to go up in value and I didn’t have the patience to wait 15-20 years to make back double my money or so. I eventually sold them for a loss due to my impatience and stuck to the enjoyment of reading them in the library in Graphic Novel form. (collected issues in a book)

I once owned a particular Captain America comic book. I bought it for about $40 dollars and sold it for about the same a few years later. At the time it was valued around $100 for the condition it was in. Based on the prices now, it would fetch about $250, IF I STILL HAD IT. I’m not sad about it, it was a learning experience. Read the rest of this entry »