Ask about billing models. Before signing a contract, ask for a summary of all charges for the first month and beyond. Make sure that the figures include taxes and fees and charges at one time as you charge to maintain their current phone number. Try to get information in writing. Then check the numbers again matched against the actual invoices.

Adjust the extras. The typical download speeds of 5 megabits per second (Mbps) and loads of 1 Mbps with the Internet service is sufficient for most people, and often, and fiber optic cable beyond those speeds anyway. As a general rule, do not pay more for faster service unless you download or share videos often extended or other very large files.

Most of the plans based on fiber optics or VoIP include caller ID, answering machine and unlimited local calls or long distance in U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and sometimes to other countries. Make sure these features do not disappear or increase the charges on your bill when the promotional period lead. If you make frequent calls to countries not included in this plan, evaluate the possibility to add an international calling plan.

Check the tariffs, then check again. Check the web site providers to find the best prices. Ask also for a customer service representative if the price you have offered is really the best offer for the company. Then, consider a check again, as we have found that rates may change, according to the representative who received the call.

Negotiate. It may be useful, particularly in areas where there is competition between cable providers and traditional phone company, as well as its promotional fare is about to expire. Ask for a reduced price or free extras, installation, or as a premium channel at no additional cost. If you accept these “gifts”, make sure not to start to charge automatically to continue to receive when the introductory offer.

Saving money is one form to make money. There are plenty of simple ways to make significant savings on your regular spending that could clear the debt many times over in less than a year.

There are my favorite 11 ways to save money:

1) Quit smoking. Well I never smoked, but my friends do. They smoked a pack a day, plus a soda or tea or coffee to go with the cigarettes, at a cost of about $5 per day. Annual savings: $1,825

2) Don’t use the gym. I used to be a member of a gym. Didn’t use it much, and still got charged for a full year. Now I get a lot of exercise, but I do it at home and on the road. I do strength exercises in my living room and jog (and will soon start cycling and swimming). Annual savings: $420

3) Stay healthy. As mentioned above, I’m a runner, I don’t drink much and never smoke. I don’t need to go to the doctor or buy medicines, and if I keep up this lifestyle, my likelyhood of getting the most common diseases are greatly lowered. Annual savings: probably $400

4) Bring my own lunch. My co-workers eat out every day, at a cost of $8-20 per lunch. I bring leftovers or a sandwich and fruits and pretzels and stuff. At a cost of probably less than $5. Annual savings: $1,800.

5) Make a shopping list. Food shopping forms a significant part of our monthly outgoings and the supermarket is where the bulk of the money is spent. Tesco takes $1 in every $8 spent by shoppers. But be warned, stores spend a small fortune studying ways of making us part with more of our money than we would otherwise intend to. Have you ever wondered why your favourite song is playing in the background as you navigate the aisles? Have you even noticed the background music? Possibly not, but you will have noticed at the checkout that the bill is often more than expected. To circumvent this, simply make a shopping list. Dig out the cookery books, plan a few meals and only buy what you need.
Annual Saving: $20 a week = $1040 a year.

6) Do you need all those TV channels?. I get 55 channels on my cable TV and only watch 10 of them and bit a bit I change watch tv to do some outdoor exercises.
Annual Saving: $240

7) No magazine or newspaper subscriptions. I used to have the paper delivered. Now I read it online or at work. I used to subscribe to 1-2 magazines. Now I read the Internet. Annual savings: $360.

8) Don’t buy designer labels. Celebrities are given expensive clothes to wear. You’re not. At the end of the day, and let’s face it, you may only wear the outfit once, can you justify paying hundreds of dollars over the odds because a top designer has had his or her name sewn on the label? And can you honestly say you can tell the difference at a distance between a $600 designer bag and a $9.99 one from the market? Think about it.

9) Take care of your car. You can save hundreds of dollars a year by comparing prices at different stations, pumping gas yourself, and using the lowest-octane called for in your owner’s manual. And you can save up to $100 a year on gas by keeping your engine tuned and your tires inflated to their proper pressure.

10) Compare all insurance. You can save hundreds of dollars comparing the insurances for your house, car, life or any insurance.

11) Save 20% more the next year. Knowing and doing all these tip for save money you can improve and add new tips to your savings for next year.

This is a list of all basic software that everybody need in his Windows computer with the plus that all this a free!!
With this programs you can replace the expensive comercial software

Word processor, calc, presentations,… (replacement for m.office)

-OpenOffice : software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. Is like Microsoft Office and is compatible with it.

-Google Docs : online solution.

Antivirus (replacements for norton or Mcafee)

-AVG antivirus : AVG Free provides you with basic and poweful antivirus and antispyware protection

-ClamWin : Another fantastic free antivirus. Is free and open source.

Music players and online radios:

-WinAmp: maybe the most renowned music player. Online radios, playlists, skins,…

-Last.fm: is a web social music comunity where you can listen to your favourite music online. It learns what music you like paying atention to the music you listen to. You can download the plug-in for any music player you use, it sends the song title and author to your last.fm profile.

Video players

-BSPlayer: software movie player that supports all popular video and audio media file types like DivX, mpg, real media, mp3, mp4, wav…

-VLC Media Player :

Internet navigation

-Mozilla Firefox: a faster web browser, more customizable, secure and easy to use than internet explorer

-Opera

Email readers

-Mozilla ThunderBird: powerful email client, easy to configure and organize.

Tools

-7zip: Open source utility for manipulating archives. Compatible with winzip, winrar and other formats

Graphic design and edition: (replacements for photoshop)

-Paint.NET

-The GIMP

Photo organizer

-Picasa: Find, organise and share your photos. Picasa is a free software from Google.

P2P (file sharing)

-emule

-Bit Torrent

PDF readers and creators

-Adobe PDF reader : (is free)

-PDFCreator : is free and open-source. Creates PDFs from any Windows program.

New iPhone 2.0, that would hit the markets next 11th of july in 22 countries, es smaller and lighter than his predecessor. It will be out in two versions, of 8 and 16GB, that will be sold at 199 and 299 dollars (400 dollars the old unit).

During the Keynote, Jobs affirmed that connecting with this new iPhone is 36% faster than using other 3G dispositives, which will made easier both surfing and downloading. Besides, Apple has worked in a new battery which will allow 5 hours of conversation, 6 hours of Internet, 7 hours of video, 24 of audio and 300 waiting hours.

Another new feature of the iPhone is a GPS, which allow to locate and follow the movements of the phone in a map.

The iPhone 3G offers the direct reception service of e-mails Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, the as BlackBerry.

All these features packeged in a big sized screen of 3′5″ and the new MobileMe, the applications suite that allows, with the simple movement of the finger, transfering any content between the computer and the phone.

We are waiting to the launch day to get the first real impressions and see the fever that it will produced.

Finding an economic hotel to spend the nights is another headache for the traveller. The first is where and how to find a cheap flight (as seen in our previous guide of economic flights).

In this guide to find cheap hotels we will explain a few tips that can be applied to any search:

Look at different places before booking anything and compare the prices.

It’s a good idea to read commentaries at forums about the hotels or hostels we are interested in. If a hotel is cheap but the facilities, staff or hygiene is not good at all maybe it is time to search for another place a bit more expensive but with better quality.

Review the conditions of the booking and check the terms that apply if you finally cancel a booking for not showing up.

Depending on the time of the year and the temperature at the city you are going, it may be interesting to check if there is air conditioner or central heating.

If it’s a shared room with other people, ask if there is a secure locker and bring your own padlock with you.

As when searching for cheap flights, there are plenty of pages to search and compare prices and disponibility of rooms in different hotels simultaneously, saving time and money.

Let’s see the 5 most used webpages for searching cheap accommodation.

all-hotels.com : offers more than 60.000 hotels, bed and brekfast and resorts around the world. They offer a directory of hotels to search manually.

hostelworld.com : Hostelworld specialices in hostels, mainly for young people. Offers more than 17.000 hotels, guesthouses, hostels and campsites in 168 countries. They offer pocket travel guides which information about our destiny, but it’s a bit short so maybe we will need to get a proper guide like Lonely Planet. The web is in different languages, a good thing for those not native speakers.

hotels.com : is probably the most famous and the one which offers a more exhaustive database with 80.000 hotels to search and compare. They have free cancellation of the bookings and offer a phone number to use in case of doubt or need of help. In different languages.

booking.com : they have 45.000 hotels in something like 10.000 cities in the world. Their prices are quite economic. The hotels have commentaries of clients and users. Web and custommer support in 17 languagues.

And the last is not a web, it’s a tip. When booking a flight, look if you can book a hotel directly from the same web or they offer some link to do it (Ryanair and Easyjet do this). With this, maybe you can save a few bucks. Besides, it’s usual that the travel guides offer different recommended hotels to stay.

In the next guide we will talk about travel insurances, for those of you who will be travelling during a long time, visiting different countries or a place where the language can be a problem.

After the guide to find best prices on laptops, there is the easy guide of how and where to search to find your cheap desktop.

Let’s suppose that we need a computer to:

• Surf the Internet.
• Writing.
• Listening to music.
• Watch videos.
• Play video games

If you’re a professional and need the computer to work with big graphics, editing video… you can follow this guide too but I recommend getting at least 2 gigabyte of RAM memory and a powerful microprocessor (not the last)

Now start…

There are some options that you can follow to find the cheap desktop:

• Obviously, search and compare prices for parts or complete PC systems.
• Buying a complete desktop that is not top of the range.
• Buying the parts and building your own (if you have the knowledge, this can be the best option to get the best quality/price range).

All the big companies and shops want you to buy the latest and most expensive computer, graphic card, processor… but you don’t need that, with half you have more than enough!!

Search and compare prices for parts or complete PC systems

Always, the first of all that we must to do is searching in different shops and compare price and other important thing… after-sales service and duration of the warranty.

On the net is easy to find the best prices, but you need to sum the shipping cost to get the end price. A good option is to search on the net and going to your favorite computer shop (you can ask your friends) to compare prices, if they have a similar price you may prefer to buy at this store.

Buying a complete desktop that is not top of the range

If you don’t have time to search for the best parts or you don’t have the knowledge to build your own computer this is your best option. All big companies like DELL or HP have complete desktops with different options and prices to choose from or we can choose the components that best suit our needs.

Medium and small computer shops also have complete desktops prepared and assembled. We can choose the parts and the best and most recommendable is that we can say what is the purpose of the computer and they help us to choose the best and most economical option (if not, better do not return to this store)

Buying the parts and building your own computer

If you have the knowledge to build your own computer or if you already have one computer and want to upgrade it you can buy the parts where they were cheapest (normally have to buy from different stores). This requires more effort and time.

If you already have one computer you don’t need to buy a new computer. You can buy the part that you need and upgrade the old computer.

Standard configuration for our computer

• AMD Sempron(TM) dual-core 2100 - 1.8GHz
• 1GB SDRAM (2×1024)
• Integrated graphic card (NVIDIA GeForce)
• Wireless LAN card
• 250GB hard drive
• DVD +/-R/RW
• Integrated Sound card
• 17-inch widescreen flat panel
• Keywoard & Mouse
• Speakers

Price: Less than $500 USD | £260 GBP |€350 EUR

This computer is able to handle the latest games and the latest programs. But if you’re an addict to videogames and want to play the last game with the best performance you can spend a little more and buy a better graphics card, a better microprocessor and get 2GB SDRAM (in that order, according to our economy)

A quick search on google for “Cheap Laptop” will return a lot of results, ranging all the way from low-end offerings from large vendors like Dell to online shops with a different products of different companies (Dell, HP, Acer…).

Choosing a laptop or the vendor where to buy from is not easy, there are some things that you need to know before you start your search for a Cheap Laptop.

The First!

What is the purpose of your laptop? Frst, you need a computer that you get with you to any place? Second, Is for someone without experience in computers or a teenager? You need editing graphics or video? Play videogames?

If you respond ‘yes’ to the first question, then you need a laptop.

If you respond ‘yes’ to the second question, then are you sure you need a laptop? You know that a desktop computer is cheaper than a laptop?

For the other questions.. if you respond ‘yes’, then you need to expend a lot of money in a good laptop. A desktop computer can cost half than a laptop with the same characteristics. If you respond ‘maybe someday’ then better if you be realistic and don’t buy nothing that you do not use every day or every week.

Everybody has his reasons for buy a laptop, but if you are realistic you can save a lot money.

The second!

Now, we explain where you can find the best prices on laptops

Low end offerings from vendors: Many of big name laptop makers do offer special deals and discount coupons. Many good quality laptops can now be bought at a reasonable price. Recently you can find offers under $399. You can search for these offers directly on the webpage of vendor, try search on dell, Hewlett Packard, Packard bell, Acer …
In general a new laptop come with one year warranty, and the post-sale service is good.

Online shops & compare prices: in many cases buying in online stores opposite to physical shops can save $100-$500. Other good thing to do is search and compares prices in some pages like pricerunner.com or bizrate.com that search in different online shops and compare the prices (there are other good resources for searching and comparing cheap laptops)

Used & eBay: If you don’t have problem with used products the largest marketplace on the Internet is great place to look for a cheap laptop. At any point of time, eBay has more than 20,000 laptops on sale.

Standard cautions apply while buying over eBay. eBay has listings for all kinds of laptops, you only can see photos of the laptop and a description of it, make by the owner. While buying used laptops on eBay, pay special attention to quality of battery and cracks on screen. Read the listing very very carefully! And ask the vendor for anything about the laptop that can be confusing or incomplete on his description.

If the vendor has sold other items on eBay you can see in his details the opinions of the other buyers and see if he is trusted or not.

The Last!

Take care of your new and cheap laptop!

Go abroad, travel, is something we all want to do. How many times do you have thought were you would travel if you found a low cost trip?

One thing is get the idea around your mind and another very different is do it. This maybe the hardest step. But looking for everything you need to travel with a low budget isn’t easy neither. You have to find the flights, hotels, places to visit and the way to move around, everything with low cost but still of quality.

The most important thing, and maybe what determines the possibility of traveling, is finding a low cost flight. In a travel agency they will charge us around 200% of the real price of the ticket. Maybe they will eliminate the problems with finding a good company but it will be more expensive than looking for a low cost ticket yourself.

The best dates to find low cost flights are, obviously, not at holidays. During workdays, better in wednesdays and thursdays and not during july or august. The difference with a low cost company for traveling on wednesday and saturday can double the original price.

A good place to find cheap flights is Skyscanner. With Skyscanner you can search for city, look for the cheapest places to travel from there and, if we know which airport we have to fly, look for the cheapest day to travel. Trabber is another webpage to find cheap flights, with more companies but without the tools that Skyscanner offers (travel calendar, or cheapest place to travel).

These are the cheapest companies to fly with and the sites to search and compare low cost tickets.

Fly cheap in Europe

If you live in Europe or are planning to travel around Europe we give you a list of the cheapest flight company that work in Europe and the sites to search and compare cheap flights.

Flight companies:

Ryanair
Easyjet
Air Berlin
Sky Europe
Vueling
Clickair

Sites to compare prices:

Skyscanner
Trabber
TerminalA
Last Minute
Minube
Ulises
Liligo
SideStep