5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Ignore your Finances This Holiday Season

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Names on gift lists are being checked off, plans for holiday gatherings are coming together, and cash registers are signing their song. We’re right in the middle of the holiday season, and it’s easy to put blinders on, forget the budget and plow through the next few weeks. You just want it to be over, and figure you’ll just deal with the repercussions in January. It’s easy to do, but it’s a bad idea for many reasons. Here’s just a few of them: Can’t Pay Your Bills If you’re not paying attention to your budget, and spend freely on holiday […] Read more »

Fist Pump Friday: I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 12/1

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Welcome to December, EOD Nation!  Wait, what?  How did we get to December already?  Since it’s after Thanksgiving, it is now officially acceptable to put up Christmas lights.  We haven’t decorated our house for a number of years,  but I promised my daughter we would this year.  Scoping out lights at Walmart, I couldn’t believe how much it would cost for the number of strands of lights I’d need to decorate the front of my house.   Had I selected LED lights, it would be even more!  I felt a little bah-humbugish shelling out the cash at the register, but hopefully […] Read more »

There’s Always Another Sale

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For all my ranting about sleeping in again on Black Friday, this year I found myself almost being sucked into it’s mystique. I didn’t go out into the craziness of brick and mortar store shopping, but I was looking at the Black Friday laptop sales at a major electronics retailer. I almost spent hundreds of dollars on something I didn’t want. Almost. My daughter’s laptop, purchased 4 years ago, had been a Black Friday door buster that we were able to buy hours after all the insanity of the morning shopping had subsided. It’s performance doesn’t impress a now 15 […] Read more »

Fist Pump Friday – I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 11/24

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Happy Friday, EOD Nation!  Did you enjoy your Turkey Day?  I sure did.  My wife and I had family over to watch the Minnesota Viking’s football game, enjoy a great meal, and have a nice day catching up.  I seemed to have heard something about some sales  going on last night or this morning.  Did you hear that?  I didn’t pay much attention because I was sleeping in and not spending money on stuff I don’t need. Fist pump for not spending money and my favorite posts of the week! Posts That Make Me Fist Pump 7 Simple Ways to […] Read more »

Can You Tip With A Gift Card?

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Picture this scenario: You’ve just finished a great meal at a restaurant, and you’re planning to pay with a gift card that you either got as a gift, or you purchased for yourself. The gift card is worth more than your bill, so you instinctively write the remaining value on the tip line. But you second guess yourself wondering if you really can use the remaining gift card value as a tip. Can you use gift card value as a tip? The answer is, maybe. It really depends upon the policy of the restaurant. Here are some tips to making […] Read more »

Fist Pump Friday: I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup : 11/17

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Thanksgiving is less than a week away, which means I’ll need to buy my turkey soon.  I’ve been waiting for THE coupon to show up in the mail, and it finally arrived yesterday.  Every year the HyVee grocery store chain sends out a coupon for a free turkey with the purchase of a ham.  The ham is massive, and there’s no way we will eat it all on Thanksgiving, but what I can do is cut it into different size pieces and freeze them separately for later. Fist pump for huge hams, free turkeys, AND my favorite posts of the […] Read more »

Save Money With The PetSmart PetPerks Program

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This post is for every pet owner that has ever calculated how much they spend caring for their furry family member, and shook their head in disbelief. We love our pets, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for ways to bring down the cost of what we need to keep them in tip top shape. PetPerks, a rewards type membership by PetSmart might be able to help you do just that. I normally buy my cat food at Walmart since 95% of the items on my grocery and household goods grocery list are cheaper there. But on this particular […] Read more »

Fist Pump Friday: I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 11/10

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I scored an awesome deal recently.  I’m a huge grilling and food smoking guy.  I own an offset smoker,  but have always had my eye on ceramic cookers like The Big Green Egg.  A Green Egg is very expensive however, and I would never drop $1000 dollars on one.  However, my neighbor down the street had a Chargriller Akorn, which is a less expensive ceramic cooker.  He upgraded to a Green Egg, and his Akorn was just sitting in his backyard.  I caught him outside and had a conversation with him, resulting in me buying his Akorn and accessories that […] Read more »

Save Money Dining Out With This Simple Game

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If you like to save money, and you have a competitive soul, I’ve got the perfect game for you. Dining out usually raises red flags of potentially wasting money for me, but sometimes it is nice to just go out and have someone else do the cooking for me. There’s endless ways to keep down the cost of dining out, such as splitting a meal, eating appetizers, drinking only water, but here’s a new one for you: save money on dining out by making a game out of it. My wife and I trying to figure out which restaurant to […] Read more »

Fist Pump Friday: I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 11/3

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One of those unexpected, unplanned expenses just popped up on my radar.  My daughter was on her high school cheer team this fall, cheering during football games.  If you’ve had a child in high school sports/activities recently you know the cost is significant.  Our coach lobbied the school and got them to agree to have cheer as a winter activity as well.  The good news is my daughter gets to keep doing cheer this winter, but we’ll have to pay another activity fee to the school.  For once this is an unplanned expense that I’m happy to pay, since this […] Read more »

How Much Time Do You Spend Managing Your Finances?

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  People come up with all kinds of excuses not to work on their finances, one of the most popular being lack of time. Yes, it takes time to do the things necessary to be successful with one’s personal finances, but is it really such a resource consuming activity? I wanted to prove, or debunk the notion that personal finances takes a lot of time and energy. The first step is to list the activities needed to properly deal with your finances: List Expenses and Income For A Full Month You definitely have to do this before you can do […] Read more »

I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 10/27

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This morning snow fell from the sky in Minnesota.  Puffy white flakes so big they almost looked like snowballs.  After an abnormally warm fall, it appears winter is indeed on our doorstep.  I’m a huge fan of summer.  Huge.  But at this point, there’s something that sounds really good about sitting on my couch watching football with the fireplace on as I watch snow fall out the window.   How about you, EOD nation, you ready for winter? Now pump those fists for my favorite posts of the week! Posts That Make Me Fist Pump Five Affordable Alternatives to the iPhone […] Read more »

Did Hilton Honors Rewards Give Me A Two Room Suite Upgrade?

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I had an interesting hotel experience over the weekend that made no sense to me. I wanted to share it with you and see if you could possibly explain what happened while I attempt to get an explanation from the hotel itself. On a weekend where prices were jacked up to at least double the normal rate, I stayed in a suite with a living room, separate bedroom with a King bed and two bathrooms for $189.  More like a timeshare/condo than a typical hotel room. Did my Hilton Honors Rewards membership have anything to do with it? My wife […] Read more »

Fist Pump Friday: I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 10/20

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Marathon weekend is here!  We’re headed out of town tomorrow and staying overnight in a hotel for my marathon on Sunday morning.  I know they did this in larger cities for major marathons, but I was surprised to find out hotels jack up their rates even in smaller cities for races that attract a fraction of the amount of runners as the bigger races.  We’re paying at least twice the normal price for our room, but it’s either that, or get up 2 hours earlier on Marathon morning and drive there!  When was the last time you encountered higher hotel […] Read more »