Archive for October 2005

More Cell Phone Price Checking

Written by Nickel - One Comment

As a followup to my previous post about checking prices on Amazon.com using your cell phone… A reader named ‘GP’ pointed out that Google offers a similar service via SMS (i.e., text messaging). Simply hammer out a message containing the name of a product and put ‘price’ or ‘prices’ at the beginning or end of [...]

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Published on October 7th, 2005
Modified on October 5th, 2005 - One Comment
Filed under: Online
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Buying Gas With a Debit Card

Written by Nickel - 9 Comments

Just a quick word of warning to those of you that like to buy gas with your debit card… Most gas stations place a sizable hold on your funds whenever you swipe your card at the pump. The amount of frozen funds varies from station to station, but can be as great as $75-$100 no [...]

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Published on October 6th, 2005 - 9 Comments
Filed under: Banking
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Buying a New Car: True Cost to Own

Written by Nickel - 2 Comments

Since I’ve been in a car buying mood recently, I thought I’d share a useful calculator that I recently ran across. It’s the Edmunds.com True Cost to Own (TCO) calculator, which figures the ‘real’ cost of owning a vehicle over the first five years.

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Published on October 5th, 2005
Modified on October 6th, 2005 - 2 Comments
Filed under: Automotive, Online
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Strategic Gasoline Reserve?

Written by Nickel - One Comment

According to a story from CNN/Money, Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin are pushing for the creation of a gas reserve to protect the country against spikes in price spikes in the event of future natural or manmade disasters. Unlike the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which contains over 700 million barrels of crude oil, the [...]

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Published on October 4th, 2005
Modified on August 6th, 2006 - One Comment
Filed under: Energy
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Flexible Spending Account Improvements

Written by Nickel - 3 Comments

It’s open enrollment time, and I just received my benefits re-enrollment packet in the mail. Along with details regarding our various health and dental insurance options, there was also information on changes to our flexible spending account (FSA). In case you’re wondering, an FSA is simply an account into which you deposit pre-tax dollars that [...]

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Published on October 3rd, 2005 - 3 Comments
Filed under: Taxes
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