Sunday, July 25, 2010

Jillian Michaels' tips for losing weight

This is from the current USA Weekend issue.  It is a small feature from Jillian Michaels who is a trainer on "The Biggest Loser" television reality series.  To lose weight, it basically comes down to calories out/burned needs to be greater than calories consumed.

How to decrease colories in:

  • Don't skip meals
  • Don't drink calories
  • Try baked or popped snacks
  • Order grilled or baked meals
  • Go meatless
  • Avoid carbs at dinner
  • Get a calorie phone app
How to increase calories out:
  • Push yourself
  • Never rest
  • Mix it up
  • Get on your feet
  • Experiment


To read more about this, click here to read on USAWeekend.com

Secrets of Extreme Savers

In this recent feature by CNNMoney.com it features eight people or families and what they have done in their lives to be able to save a

Their key strategies are at the very core of nearly every "get rich" or "get out of debt" books in print and include the following:

  • Avoid debt
  • Delay gratification
  • Create multiple streams of income
  • Live below your means
  • Cut down on everyday expenses
  • Track your spending
  • Live on one salary while bringing in two
  • Automate saving

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Trade a cell phone (eventually) into a Porsche?

I recently read an article on Yahoo! Finance about a person who over the course of two years made multiple trades off of Craigslist and turned an old cell phone into a used Porsche Boxster.

I applaud his efforts, but here is my point.  It states that he spends five to six hours a day looking for possible trades for two years.  The value of the car was $9,000 and it reports that he later decided to get rid of it because maintenance was too high.

I am just wondering what would have happened if he had just worked for two years and bought the $9,000 car outright?  I know someone reading this will throw in that it is a poor job market and that it would be difficult to get a job, and on and on...   At the Federal Minimum wage of $7.25 per hour at five hours per day and 250 days per year for two years, he would have earned (before taxes of course) $18,125. Of course if someone would be able to get a job paying more than the minimum wage or worked more than 25 hours per week, this amount would be higher.

Was it worth it?

For more details, click here to read the article

Thursday, July 15, 2010

If you received $10,000, what would you do with it?

That is one of the questions you are supposed to ask a prospective partner in life to help determine if they tend to be a "saver" or a "spender."

There were a couple of questions listed at the end of an article by Laura Rowley titled "Keeping Finances Separate Can Be Costly" that discussed whether you should keep finances separate as a couple, merge them together, or have a hybrid system.

To read the entire article, click here to be taken to Yahoo! Finance

Friday, July 2, 2010

Spotlight on Dropbox by Forbes magazine

Forbes magazine had a nice overview of Dropbox and what people may use it for. Yeah, I am still getting it for free.  It looks like I will continue receiving it at least until October of this year.

Dropbox is a website that provides free on-line storage of any files for the first 2 GB. You will need to pay a monthly fee for space above that threshold.  The benefit of Dropbox over Google docs is that you can store picture and music files without any problems.  It also has software that will automatically sync/update files that are also on your computer.  So update the computer file and the Dropbox gets updated as well.

Interestingly, someone installed a keylogger (a program usually used by hackers to find out your passwords) on their computer which uploads the keystrokes up to Dropbox.  So if someone steals their computer, the keylogger will upload what the thief is typing.

Some people are also storing their MP3 files in their Dropbox and streaming the files live to their phone.

I am trying to rationalize the need to setup yet another account at another website with another ID/Password combination.

Click here to read the article on Forbes.com

To subscribe to Forbes magazine, click here for 1 year.

Click here to go to Dropbox.