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What to Throw When

Shannon M. Medisky — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:26:51 PST

A big—no, strike that—a HUGE part of saving money is protecting what you’ve invested in. It pays to know about how long you can expect something to last and exactly when to throw it out. So here’s a quick run-down on many items that you may be wondering about.

Pantry Staples

White rice will keep upto 30 years when stored properly (in a dry, air-tight container). Its brown counterpart, however, will only keep up to 5 months.

Flour, or any other product made from grain or cracked seed, will last on a typical pantry shelf for about a year. The biggest concern is—big “eeww” factor here—bugs! If you’re going to store flour for a substantial amount of time (aka close to a year or longer), wrap it tightly and store it in the freezer, not the fridge.

Commercially canned products are generally good for 2 to 5 years past the date it was actually canned. But the acidity of the food inside the can also matters. The higher the acidity, the shorter the shelf life is. For example, canned beans will last much longer sitting on your shelf than say tomato sauce will. However, the latter will still be edible or safe to eat. The downside will be a metallic-like taste as some of the metal from the can itself will have likely leeched into the food product.

Fridge and Freezer Stuff

Ever wonder how long a hardboiled egg lasts inside the fridge? How about its raw counterpart? The prior will last about a week if left in the shell. The latter, on the other hand, will stay fresh for anywhere between 3 to 5 weeks (depending on how fresh they were when purchased).

Most cheeses will keep for about a month inside your fridge. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is the harder the cheese, the longer it will keep. That’s why, for example, Parmesan cheese—whether grated, shredded or left as a wedge—will keep longer than a semi-hard cheese such as Swiss will.

Expect to keep milk in the fridge no longer than a week. Not only will it turn sour, but it will have lost much of its nutrients as well.

Most items kept in the freezer will quite literally keep indefinitely. The biggest culprit to your food is pesky freezer burn. This, however, can be warded off by proper packaging prior to deep-freeze. Eliminate as much space between the food item and the wrapping as possible. (Wherever cold air actually comes in contact with the food itself, freezer burn is sure to strike.) Additionally, the fresher an item is when it takes the plunge into the cold, the better it will likely taste when it thaws out to be used as well. Do be careful, though, to allow enough room for safe expansion of liquid items before throwing them in the freezer.

A great site to help find more specific information when you need it is ShelfLifeAdvice.com. There you’ll be able to search by item, easily find specific shelf life guidelines as well as locate tips and tricks to safely store items for as long as possible.

Photo credit: Luiza

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What to Throw When

Chase Slate Credit Card No Balance Transfer Fee 0% APR for 15 Months

Sun — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:59:27 PST

These days, you don’t get a lot of credit card balance transfer offers that don’t come with a balance transfer fee. A few years ago, I played the credit card arbitrage game a lot and made some nice money by taking advantage of no-fee, 0% APR balance transfers from new and existing credit cards with little damage to my credit score. Credit card arbitrage was quite popular at that time because it cost almost nothing to play and the return was pretty good when savings account interest rates were much higher then than now. But the good time is probably gone forever, not only because of the current interest rates from bank savings accounts are low, but also that credit card issuers now usually charge 3% fee charged for balance transfers. The combination of the two makes such activities profitless, unless the balance transfer offer comes with no fee, which is very rare now.

But here’s another good news if you are looking for a credit card that allows you to make 0% APR balance transfer without charging balance transfer fee. Early last month, Discover offered 12-month 0% APR no fee balance transfer for its More Card. Starting this morning, Chase is giving new customer a even better deal through its Slate card. The Slate Card from Chase is currently running a promotion for 0% APR 15-month balance transfer with no balance transfer fee. Usually, such a balance transfer will cost you 3% of the total amount transferred, but for a limited time, the balance transfer fee will be waived so you can take the full advantage of the offer. If you don’t want to make balance transfer, you can still enjoy this promotion by making a large purchase with the new card because the introductory 0% APR also covers purchases. It allows you to make year-long purchases without paying any interest charges.

If you are not familiar with the Chase Slate Card, here’s some basic info to give you an idea of what it is and what it offers. The Slate Card from Chase is basically a Visa Card with some unique features that make the card attractive. For example, the Slate Card offers four ways, Full Pay, Split, Finish It and Track It, to pay your monthly bill. With Full Pay, you pay your card balance in full every month to avoid interests on everyday items such as groceries and gas. The items will be automatically separated on your statement every month. Split enables you to pay off larger purchases on your own terms. You set a goal date or monthly payment, and Chase automatically separates the items on your statement. Finish It allows you to pay down your balance faster by choosing a goal date or monthly payment amount. Once you choose the Finish It plan, Chase will set up a repayment plan, and monitor your progress on monthly statements and online. Finally, with Track It, you can see your spending trends at a glance and track your progress against your goals in real time.

Other benefits of Slate from Chase include patented fraud protection, a zero liability on unauthorized purchases, and email and text alerts. The card also has the built-in Blueprint feature that allows you pay off your credit card balance faster. Best of all, the Slate Card has no annual fee.

If you are interested, you may want to act fast because we know there aren’t many no-fee balance transfer offers these days and deals like this won’t last very long.

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The Real Cost of Extreme Couponing

Shannon M. Medisky — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:18:24 PST

If you’re concerned with saving money and intrigued by thrifty living, then you’ve likely watched or at least caught glimpses of the extreme couponing shows currently being featured across the airwaves or read a few articles on the topic. It’s true. People really can save thousands of dollars and build stockpiles enviously able to care for an army people, but what about the costs of such money saving tactics? After all, you rarely get something for nothing.

Be ready to hand over much of your time in order to save money. Viewers watching such a show and who are paying attention will note that many of these extreme coupon shoppers spend the greater part of the day inside the grocery store, and that doesn’t even factor in the amount time it took to find, collect, clip and organize all the coupons in preparation for the shopping excursion. For some consumers, this may well be worth the time investment. For many others—myself included—there’s better, more financially favorable ways to spend our time. Lest we forget, time is money.

Fork over much of your livable space. Unless you’ve got an entire room to devote to storing 57 tubes of toothpaste and 102 containers of laundry soap, you might as well forget about extreme couponing as a feasible financial lifestyle option. Yes, admittedly, there are a variety of ways to stash a stockpile discreetly around the house. I’ve written a few articles on the topic, in fact. But in order to reach some of the staggering savings versus cost percentages touted in these shows and articles, you’ve literally got to be ready to pick up—and store—anything you can get when it’s available for pennies on the dollar. Frankly, a tidy, livable home is worth something too, at least for me and my family. And I’m guessing I’m not alone in saying I like to set my coffee cup on an end table, not a stack of toilet paper packages.

Say “Goodbye” to lenient coupon policies. Retailers are catching on to this fad, and they’re changing many of their couponing policies as a result. From limiting the amount of coupons allowed per item to capping the number of item purchases per customer, extreme couponers are costing the rest of us the opportunity to stock up at a savings when we really need to. For example, I may not want to purchase 37 sticks of deodorant for 25 cents each, but I do in fact want to stock up on my son’s eczema lotion at a steep savings when I can get it. But people who opt for the prior have now jeopardized my ability to do the latter.

Be ready to watch your money go bad, literally. Can one household really go through all those products before the expiration or pull date? Unless such a shopper is actually going to donate a vast amount of their acquired loot to charity, I highly question the practicality of the practice. How much stuff—even if it is entirely free—takes up valuable storage real estate only to be thrown away later because it’s no longer edible, effective or safe to use?

Like most other things in life, I think couponing is best used in moderation. Acquire coupons and use them for items your family uses regularly. You’ll still save money, but you’ll save your household space, your time and your sanity, too!

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PenFed Platinum Cash Rewards Card Reduces Rewards, Again

Sun — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:08:37 PST

Exactly one year ago this time, shortly before I got the card myself, I wrote about how PenFed was about to reduce the rewards that it offers through its Visa Platinum Cash Rewards Card. On March 1, 2011, rewards for PenFed Visa Platinum Cash Rewards Card cardholders on grocery shopping was cut in half, from 2% to 1%, but rewards for gas purchases reminded at the 5% level. The change didn’t affect my decision to get the card because I was only interested in using the card at gas stations, even though it didn’t make me feel any better to see a card that so many people like joined other big banks in reducing card benefits.

Well, looks like the change is not done just yet.

Early this week, I got an email from PenFed regarding a number of up coming changes to the Visa Platinum Cash Rewards Card. Among them, the reduction in rewards caught my eyes. According to PenFed, starting February 1, 2012, rewards for non-gas purchases will be further reduced from the current level of 1% to 0.25%. This is pretty bad compared with what other rewards credit cards have to offer. But if you are a current cardholder and only use the card to buy gasoline as I do, then the good news after February 1st is that you can still keep the 5% cash back on gas as that part will be kept intact.

To make the changes as seen less unfriendly to current card members, PenFed will also reduce the purchase ARP for new purchases starting February 1st, from a variable rate of 13.99% to a variable rate of 9.99%. If you are not carrying any balance on your credit card, which I hope you aren’t, then this lowered rate won’t benefit you anything. To me, I am more concerned about the reduction in rewards than in purchase rates.

Along with the above mentioned changes, PenFed also proposes to allow existing Visa Platinum Cash Rewards Card members convert their cards into PenFed Platinum Rewards Card, which, as the name suggests, no longer offers cash back. Instead, the PenFed Platinum Rewards Card gives cardholders rewards points, pretty much like what all other rewards credit cards are doing nowadays, even though the rewards look better than what the Platinum Cash Rewards Card offers. Particularly, with the new PenFed Platinum Rewards Card, you will be able to earn

5 points per dollar spent on gas purchases
3 points per dollar spent on supermarket purchases
1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases

And to make the card more appealing to existing Cash Rewards Card members, PenFed is providing incentives for the conversion. For a limited time, if you switch your card, you can get 5,000 points the very first time you use your card and another 20,000 points when you spend $1,000 within the first 3 months after you begin earning points. The total bonus points are equivalent to $250 that you can use toward merchandise, gift cards, and other rewards.

Even though I am not really a fan of rewards points because I think the merchants always overcharge when accepting points for redemption. But $250 free money looks very attractive. So I guess I will make the switch

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(Cheap) Must-Haves for Parents

Shannon M. Medisky — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:59:00 PST

I’ve been around the block a few times, and I’ve made said trip with kiddos in tow. As a result, I’ve come to learn there are few key “must-haves” every parent should have in his or her arsenal of tricks at all times. Fortunately, too, all of these items are cheap. But they’re absolutely worth their weight (and then some) in gold. So drum roll, please…

Small bubbles are convenient, cheap and fun. They can easily be stored in the car, in a purse or stashed anywhere throughout the house or even elsewhere. Whether you get ‘em at a local retailer or at a nearby party store (often for only 25 cents), they can come in handy for breathing a bit of novelty into the ho-hum of everyday or for lightening the mood whenever necessary. I keep a small bottle in both my purse as well as my coat pocket for passing the time with my kids while waiting for the school bus as well as for distraction during shots or uncomfortable or scary “stuff” at the doctor’s office. I even used them while my youngest was getting ready for surgery in the hospital. Bubbles are severely underused and underestimated!

Bubble gum has gotten a bad rep. It needn’t be a no-no laden with sugar that only serves to rot kids’ teeth. Quite the contrary, select the sugar-free variety with xylitol and you’ll actually be helping your child to fight cavities. Use it as a treat, reward or distraction and gum can be your and your child’s best friend. Need your child to keep quiet for a short period of time whether it’s for your own sanity or out of necessity? Offer him or her a piece of xylitol gum as both a reward and a way to do so. Just be sure to teach proper gum etiquette as well for the benefit of everyone (i.e. chewing with mouth shut, no spitting out gum, no playing with it, etc.).

Hand sanitizer is any families’ best friend. After all, kids and germs go together just as well as PB and J. You and your family don’t have to fail victim to illness as a result, though. No matter the variety or brand, keeping hand sanitizer handy at all times helps increase the chance it’ll be used and decrease the chance of subsequent illness. Don’t risk it. Keep a small bottle in the car, your coat pocket and/or purse and teach your children how to use it properly (including instructing them that it’s not a replacement for proper hand washing!).

A small notebook and pen is vitally important in a number of ways. First, they provide you, the parent, with an immediately available way to unload at least some of what you have to remember. (It seems with each child I tote around I lose more of my valuable mental space with which to remember things!). Secondly, they function as impromptu art supplies. Need to busy your kiddo while you’re out and about and can’t be bothered for a moment? No problem, whip out the paper and pen and set them to work creating a small masterpiece. You’ll appreciate the ability to attend to the task at hand and they’ll appreciate the opportunity to immediately express their creativity. Ah, a win-win all around!

Photo credit: Longye33

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(Cheap) Must-Haves for Parents