Personal Finance blog Funny About Money tweaks the concept of a “freedom account”—a single stash for irregular-but-common expenses like car repair and clothing—and comes up with targeted accounts. That means opening up a money market or similar small account for each kind of expense, based on how often it occurs, rather than track a bunch of expenses from a big fund. For example, I look to the irregular little surprises that can happen at any time (plumbing or car repairs, vet bills, etc.), annual expenses (car and home owner’s insurance, property tax, income tax), and long-term expenses (purchase of a new car, about once every ten years; major repairs or renovations on the house, which I hope don’t happen more often than about once every eight or ten years).
That way, the author states, big walloping expenses like car repair don’t throw off your budget and give you a clearer view at what you’re spending. Targeting your emergency savings [Funny About Money]
Trent at The Simple Dollar blog would rarely recommend getting into debt, but since financing a car is sometimes a necessary evil, he recommends taking a good look at your finances, and the market, before signing those dealership papers. He walks through familiarising yourself with your credit report, shopping around for loans, and, of course, saving early, but his key advice on how much to put down is summed up in one sentence: Have at least a 20% down payment (unless you’re buying an old car, then 10% is the bare minimum), but if the interest rate is over 7%, save for a bigger down payment and wait until you absolutely need the car.
Anyone’s mileage will vary, depending on their finances, but Trent’s advice seems pretty solid. How have you determined what you should and shouldn’t put down on a new or used car? Share your own advice, and other car-buying tips, in the comments. How Big Should My Car Down Payment Be? [The Simple Dollar]
Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): You can always customise where you want files you grab in Firefox to end up, but a catch-all “Downloads” folder, or just a desktop, often ends up seriously cluttered. Free Firefox extension FavLoc lets you set pre-defined locations where you’ll likely place files and send them there directly from your right-click menu. For dual-booters like myself, it’s really handy, as you can see above, but it’s also useful for sorting the images, pictures, programs, and all the other downloads any avid browser ends up grabbing. FavLoc is a free download, and works wherever Firefox does.
As the last few days of 2007 slip away, make a New Year’s resolution to get your finances in order with Wesabe. A few months ago Adam kicked Mint’s tires. After giving Mint a whirl, I knew it wasn’t for me. With Wesabe’s plethora of features, open source mindset, and strong community backing, it’s the perfect money management app for my needs.
Yahoo rolls out some big upgrades to its web search tool today like the new Search Assistant, a pretty list of dynamic suggestions based on your search terms. (Check out the assistant in action on a search for “lifehacker” above.) You can also watch web video right inside Yahoo’s search results (search site:youtube skateboarding to try it out) and any search with the word photos in it will return Flickr pics. (Here, have some sunset photos.)
From “To Do” to “Done” in One Search [Yahoo! Search Blog]The Coding Horror blog has written up “Computer Display Calibration 101″.
“If you’ve invested in a quality monitor for your computer, you owe it to yourself– and your eyes– to spend 15 minutes setting it up properly for your viewing environment.”
It also points out that Microsoft Media Center has a decent display calibration wizard built in. That I did not know.
Unfortunately since the DVI input on my monitor went south for no reason that I can discern, I’m back in VGA hell, but reading this post has given me a boot up the bum to actually get that fixed.
Computer Display Calibration 101 [Coding Horror]
Sometimes, cancelling a service that you don’t want or need anymore can be a giant pain in the behind. However, calling outside of regular business hours might turn the tide your way: The biggest tip is to call well outside of normal business hours — in my company, customer service was open 24/7, but the retention department closed in the evening. If you call, say, before bed, or during the middle of the night, you’ll just be talking to a regular CS rep who has no incentive whatsoever to keep you as a customer. It can turn a twenty minute phone call into a two minute phone call.
If you’ve ever had to deal with pushy reps this could be a lifesaver. What’s your best tip for getting out of services you don’t want? Thoughts in the comments.
How to cancel a service [Boing Boing]You might be worried about your boss reading your email (it happens). You can’t necessarily stop this practice, but you can at least prevent Big Brother from accessing the links that you include in your email by using HideLinks. HideLinks is a free service that operates much like TinyURL in that it shortens long internet addresses; however, it goes one step farther and lets you password-protect links as well. Of course, you’ll have to figure out a way to get the password to your email friend—obviously, including it in the body of your encrypted super email sort of defeats the whole purpose. HideLinks [via Digital Inspiration]
Because it’s so sturdy, dental floss has its uses beyond mouth hygiene. You can repair shoes with it, cut cakes with it, and keep your gadgets’ plastic caps intact with it. But did you know you could also sew with it, use it as a clothesline, tie a strong knot with it to keep your suitcase closed, and silence a dripping faucet? Traveler’s weblog Gadling suggests these tips and others without requiring extra baggage. What other hacks do you have for dental floss? Share your tips in the comments.
Clever Uses for Dental Floss [Gadling]Personal growth blogger Peter says that before we get overly ambitious, we should apply some basic rules to our daily living. We can improve our outlook on life by defining our successes, having a positive attitude, and by getting a grasp on our health, wealth, and relationships. Here are a few of my favourite tidbits: An open mind: some of our beliefs and actions are so ingrained that we automatically disregard any evidence that we should think or act otherwise. Keep an open mind, and you may just come across a better way of seeing or doing things.
