If you’re in the market for home improvement supplies and you’ve got a Lowe’s nearby, then be sure to print out this coupon (expired and removed) before you head to the store. It’s good for 10% off any purchase, with a maximum discount of $1,000, and it doesn’t expire until 9/30/2005. Dang it! Where was [...]

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The ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ provision of tax-exempt flexible spending accounts really, really irks me. I just don’t get why it is that unspent money should be forfeited at the end of the year. Why should honest, hard-working people be penalized if they have an unexpectedly good year and spend less than anticipated on medical care? Likewise, why [...]

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Just a week to go until the August 15th deadline for filing you taxes if you’re one of the 8.5 million Americans who took the automatic four month extension back in April. If you’re still unable to make the filing deadline due to an “undue hardship,” you may be able to get an additional two [...]

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Well, we’ve now maxed out our Citi Dividend Platinum rewards for the year ($300) and have broken through the old limit ($500) for our Citi Driver’s Edge card (it’s since been raised to $1,000/year). This brings our total to a bit over $1,100 for the year (including $300 from our AT&T Universal card). As I’ve [...]

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After about two years of heavy use, I recently replaced my beloved cell phone. As part of the Sprint PCS handset upgrade program, I was able to get a $150 mail-in rebate to defer the cost but, in order to take advantage of the rebate, I had to sign up for a free trial of [...]

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If you have an attached garage, and especially if you have living space above your garage, make sure that your garage door is properly insulated. When we moved into our house we had a crappy, uninsulated metal garage door, and we ended up having a terrible time controlling the temperature in the bedroom above our [...]

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Sometimes I just don’t get it… The lightsaber used by Mark Hamill in the original Star Wars has reportedly sold at auction for just over $200k and the saber used by Darth Vader fetched $118k. Other items of note: Luke’s X-Wing flight suit ($70k), the original stormtrooper laser blaster ($56k), a Chewbacca face mask ($50k), [...]

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Call me a snob, but it bugs the crap out of me when people write by ear and end up butchering the English language. Case in point: it’s “SHOULD HAVE” (or SHOULD’VE), not “SHOULD OF.” As in: “I should HAVE (or should’ve) written about this sooner.” The same goes for “could have” and “would have.” [...]

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“Death makes you an even more irresistible target to identity thieves.” It’s sad but true… According to an article that I recently ran across, you’re never safe from identity theft, not even after death. Scam artists like to target the dead because it can take much longer for fraudulent activity to be detected than if [...]

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As a followup to the list of this year’s state sales tax holidays that I published the other day, I thought I’d point out an article written by David Brunori, a professor of public policy at George Washington University who has been an outspoken critic of the regressive nature of sales taxes. Brunori argues that, [...]

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