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Back in 2002, after carefully running the numbers and determining we could afford it, my wife and I bought a beautiful new 5 bed/3 bath 2700 sq. ft. house. But in the time since then, we’ve had two children, my wife changed to a lower paying career as a teacher, I have had no pay increases, and prices of everything have gone up. Now, and for about the last year, we have been living beyond our means and stealing from our nest egg just to make ends meet every month.

So we got the idea to move to a smaller and less costly house. You’d think this would be no problem except that the challenge for us is that where we live now, the schools are not so great and we need to get into a better school district. This means that even if we manage to get what we paid for our current house, we’d barely be able to afford little more than a cracker box in the better areas.

So after a few months of looking, we could no longer ignore the sad world of short sales, REO’s and foreclosures. We were pretty much ignoring them because we felt that even considering them would be preying on other people’s misfortune. But I guess it’s like thinking that if you don’t eat a steak you’ll save a cow. Foreclosures are not something that most Realtors talk much about, nor even seem very happy or proud to show. And rightly so.

The sad reality is that if we can save money, or get a house in a better area, then it might be worth considering. There are many drawbacks, such as banks sell them as is with no guarantees or disclosures. Anyway, I have found several web sites that specialize in foreclosure listings and information, so I have a lot to learn. I’ll add to this post or write a new one detailing the best sites and/or any pearls of wisdom I come up with.

       If you are using the internet, but you are still dialing it up with a modem, you are truly living in the past. There are still many areas of the country not served by broadband access, but that is changing rapidly.

When the internet became more widely used by the masses, dial-up access was all that was available for most home users like me, so although it was slow, I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Then in early 1998, my cable company announced they were going to have a demo at a local high school of a new internet access service they were going to offer.

Well, to say the least, I was blown away. Web sites just flew onto the screen. I signed up on the spot and I haven’t looked back since. Once or twice since then I have used somebody else’s computer to access the internet with a modem and found it to be excruciatingly painful.

My cable company at the time was AT&T, which later became Comcast. It’s great to have TV and internet coming into my house on the same cable. Comcast is also now offering voice/phone service.

Over the years, Comcast has constantly been increasing the speed of the service. It started out at about 1.5 mbps (about 5 times dial-up speed), now they have it up to 6 mbps. That’s not bad when you consider they have never increased the cost of the internet service. With typical DSL broadband service, if you want higher speed, you have to pay more. The other drawback of DSL is that some carriers require you to also pay for a voice line, even if you do not want voice service. Many people who opt to use cell phones as their main phone service may find this requirement quite unwelcome.

One of the only criticisms of cable broadband access I have heard is that if there are a lot of people in your area using the service, it will be slower. So far I have not found that to be true. I moved into my new house in a large development in 2002 and the area has been expanding rapidly. If anything, the service has gotten faster.

One of the cool things about broadband internet is that it’s always on. No connecting, no scratchy phone noises. You just open your browser or email and go. Another great thing that Comcast or any other provider won’t tell you is that if you hook up the right router(about $40), you can connect up to 255 computers and they can all be on the internet at the same time.

Typical dial-up is around $20, and cable is a little over double that, but the speed is way more than double. How much is your time worth? With all that Comcast is offering, signing up is a no brainer. When I signed up, all they offered me was the ability to split the installation fee over two months. Now installation is free because you do it and the first six months of service is less than half price. Also when I signed up, you had to buy your own modem, or rent it from them for an extra monthly fee. Now they give you a free modem and a wireless router. I think the router is a nice touch, and something they didn’t need to provide, but they do anyway. Every account includes online storage and the ability to host your own web site. At the moment they are also offering various cash back deals for high speed internet as well as for their digital cable and digital voice service.

I have been extremely pleased with Comcast High Speed Internet, and couldn’t imagine ever going back to using a modem. If I had to make any criticism of Comcast, it would be that they don’t seem to have any interest in rewarding customer loyalty. But then, how many companies really do that these days?

Go check out Comcast High Speed Internet.

If you have ever thought about getting a security system for your home, then getting a free security system with ADT monitoring is a great way to go.

When my wife and I bought our new house six years ago, we knew we wanted to get a home security system installed, but we never got around to looking into it. So when moving day came, a guy came up to me in front of my house asking if I was interested in a free home security system.

Free? Yes, well pretty much. What you get for free is the basic wireless security system hardware with control panel, three perimeter contacts, one motion detector, key chain remote. To me, the motion detector is useless, so I got them to let me trade it for an extra window contact. It’s useless because if you set the alarm and it gets tripped, what movement do we need detected? We know we have an intruder, so what’s the point of detecting his motion? Anyway, this setup is only good for the smallest of houses. They will be happy to sell you any additional door/window contacts at the time the order is made, and I needed several more. I found out later that I could buy them on eBay for less and program them myself.

For all this free stuff, you agree to pay the monthly monitoring for two(or three) years. And unless there is a special promotion waiving it, there is most likely a $99 installation fee. I recommend you only sign up if you know you will live in your house for the two(or three) years, otherwise they will charge you a percentage of the time remaining if you terminate early.

It’s all worth it. ADT is very easy to deal with and they are on the ball, as you would expect a security company to be. A few weeks ago, my panel started beeping and when I pushed the status button, it said “zone 3, front window, low battery.” Then within about two minutes, ADT called and said there is a trouble signal in zone 3, possibly a low battery. I really find their service to be exemplary. When they wanted to raise my rates about a year ago, I called to complain. The lady said since I was a customer for a while, how about if they lowered my rates instead. I thought, WOW! Now that’s unusual, but very welcome.

Get your Free Home Security System with ADT Security monitoring.

One of my least favorite things to do is buy a new car. We have two cars, a 1993 Nissan Sentra and a 1999 Toyota Rav4. They are both still great cars but they are beginning to show their age. The Sentra just failed it’s smog test and cost over $300 to fix. And the Rav4 has over 107,000 miles on it. So I decided we should look into geting new cars. Being the good shopper that I am, I started my research online. The more information you have, the easier time of it you’ll have when you walk onto the lot.

In my search for this information, I came across a site called New Car Insider. This site has a lot of great information like why a dealer can sell below “invoice” and still make a decent profit. To find out the supposed “invoice” on a particular car, you enter the car you want into the site with your email address and phone, and you immediately get the invoice price. A while later you will get one or more quotes on that car from a local dealer via phone, email or both. This is how I learned that car dealers now have “internet sales” departments. I chatted with the internet sales manager from a local dealer and he said that the price he quotes is much lower than what you get out in the front showroom, so there’s no dealing here. The reason is that you know what you want and you’ve stated the features online. No time wasting with adding this or that. He said that he sells three or four cars before the front showroom guys have had their first cup of coffee.

I know there are lots of sites like this but New Car Insider just happens to be the one I found. If you are shopping for a car, check out New Car Insider first.

Priority Pass is that island of peaceful tranquility in the middle of the turbulent ocean known as the world’s airports. With tightened security, increased passenger volume, and the inevitable delays, especially during peak holiday periods, the time people have to spend in airports is longer than ever. With Priority Pass, you are now a VIP with access to the best airport lounges the world over. Just flash your Priority Pass card and you’re in. With over 500 airport VIP lounges in 90 countries and over 275 cities, many airports have multiple lounges, some as many as four or more.

Priority Pass membership means that you don’t have to book airport VIP business class lounges in advance or even pay at the time of arrival. Simply show up at any Priority Pass airport lounge and present your Priority Pass membership card to gain immediate entry no matter what class of ticket or which airline you are flying.

Whether you travel frequently or only occasionally, Priority Pass has a plan for you. There are three plans, from the top one with unlimited access to airport lounges for a single annual membership fee, down to the low-cost annual membership option which then charges a small fee for each lounge visit to your credit card automatically.

• Access to full business facilities – most lounges offer phone, fax, email and internet, some even have showers and conference rooms.
• Complimentary refreshments and snacks – no need to worry about local currency or waiting for expensive airport food.

Priority Pass airport VIP Business Class lounge is the ideal way to escape chaotic and crowded departure areas. Get the peace and quiet you need, whether on a lengthy layover or you just need a few minutes to collect your thoughts. Go check out Priority Pass now.

Apple has announced a 32GB iPod touch model for $499. I think it’s about time since anybody who might want to watch video would want a decent amoumt of space to store everything. The iPod touch features Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface that enables users to find and enjoy all of their music, videos and more on its widescreen display with just the touch of a finger. It really is a magical thing. And the iPod touch now comes with five new applications: Mail, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Stocks. The 8GB and 16GB versions will continue to be available and will include the new features.

Here is the feature roundup:

• Revolutionary Multi-Touch interface
• 3.5-inch widescreen color display
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
• 8 mm thin
• Safari, YouTube, Mail, Stocks, Weather, Notes, iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, Maps

Go check out the Apple iPod touch. Free Shipping.

Here is a Christmas coloring book for children in PDF format that I am allowed to give away here. My wife loves downloadable coloring books like this so she can just print out the pages she likes for our daughters to color.

This one has the words to jingle bells in the beginning and over 70 pages of christmas pictures to print out and color.

If you would like a free copy of this Christmas coloring book for children, just fill in your name and email over in the right column. Or you can go to this page to sign up.

Well it’s December 1 and I decided to put a holiday theme on the site. It’s a little hokey, but I like it.

I’m in the process of shopping for my family, and I’m also looking for great deals to post here. I’ll be posting holiday coupon codes from such diverse shopping sites as StrawberryNet.com and Kodak Gallery. I’ll start soon by posting a nice little ebook with home made holiday recipes and goodies.

Let the shopping and saving begin!

Scott

Amazon MP3 offers Earth’s biggest selection of a la carte, DRM-free MP3 music downloads. With over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels, Amazon MP3 complements Amazon.com’s existing selection of over 1 million CDs to offer customers more selection of physical and digital music than any other retailer.

Every song and album on Amazon MP3 is available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. This means that Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device, organize their music using any music management application, and burn songs to CDs. By comparison, Apple iTunes charges 30 cents extra per song for DRM-free downloads. Also Apple’s native download format is AAC(MP4), which is not compatible with many music players.

Most songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the 2 million songs priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. The top 100 best-selling albums are $8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.

Every song on Amazon MP3 is encoded at 256 kilobits per second, which gives customers high audio quality at a manageable file size.

With most songs and albums priced lower than Apple, and no restrictions, I’m all over this thing. Go check out Amazon MP3.

Frank Warren has just released his fourth PostSecret book, A Lifetime of Secrets. Until today, I didn’t know this book or his previous three even existed. I was looking at the blogger entry page and his blog was featured as a staff favorite. What an amazing project. People send him anonymous postcards with personal stories and, well, secrets on them and he publishes them in these books. This has been going on for about three years. Here are a couple videos that can give you an idea of what it’s all about:

This next one is more about the current book.

Go check out the PostSecret site.

There are interesting, funny, sad and some absolutely heartbreaking things there. Also, check out the book, A Lifetime of Secrets.