Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for November, 2010

Hello Black Friday, Looking For A Great Hosting Deal

November 25th, 2010

Black Friday

I hated Black Friday!

Oh, of course I appreciate the prices, but I hate dealing with the mad rush everywhere to get that something special… I’m more of a Cyber-Monday kind of guy!

But this coming Black Friday, I may have to change my plans of ignoring the event!

As long time reader may know, the www.Moneyreasons.com site was an experiment that started out its existence as a virtual server guest on my Vista workstation at home. However the reliability and unique characteristics of my ISP caused me to go to a shared host solution instead, and comparatively, it has been much better, but not great.

So now it’s time to consider a bigger, better solution, because of the great deals coming this Black Friday at HostGator.com! The rumors is that HostGator is going to offer 50% to 80% off on everything that they currently offer!

The 80% deal off of everything is huge! I’m honestly debating whether to go to a more expensive shared hosting option at HostGator, or go with a virtual server solution that HostGator offers instead!

After all, with an 80% discount, the Virtual Server solutions will run about the same as a shared host solution!

So yes Virginia, I will be going out on Thanksgiving to purchase goods… at least, online I will!!!

I can honestly say that I’m excited about the HostGator deal!!!

I hope my fellow black friday shoppers get all that they want too, and Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers!!!

-MR

14 comments »

Posted in Bargains

Tags: Black Friday HostGator hosting deal

My Best Credit Card: Citi Diamond Preferred

November 24th, 2010

Citi Diamond Preferred

My best credit card is the Citi Diamond Preferred credit card offer by Citi.

As you can tell by the picture above of the card, it’s not all black. But here is something you don’t know… Some of the non-black colors wear off the card shortly after you get it! It wasn’t intentional on my part, it literally was just rubbed off from use.

So while it wasn’t planned, the card looks like a Black Card. I always get a chuckle when a retailer or restaurant thinks that it might be something more than it is. While this is a good card and on the higher end, it does have spending limits, unlike the American Express and Visa Black Cards. More than once, I had to explain that it’s not like one of those very high-end cards! I do get plenty of compliments on how cool it looks.

So, other than the fact that the card becomes mostly black shortly after using it a few times (including the text that identifies the type of card), why else do I value this card?

Let me say this upfront, I didn’t really give a rat’s arse about the color of the card! I’m got in it for the excellent rewards program that they offered (one of the best).

List of cool benefits of the Citi Diamond Preferred Card:

5 ThankYou^® Points for every $1 spent on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations for 12 months; 1 point thereafter

1 point for every dollar spent on all other purchases.² No matter what you are spending on, you’re earning ThankYou^® Points

Rewards start at just 1,000 points². You’ll be rewarding yourself in no time

Annual Fee: No Annual Fee^{(for the most part)}

Purchase APR: 0% Intro APR on purchases for 12 months; after that the variable APR will be 12.99%-20.99%, based on your creditworthiness

Diamond Perks: Access to Private Pass, which gives you the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of exciting events and unique experiences

So has the card benefited me? Yes, I’ve already earned and spent over $1000 dollars via the rewards program! It’s still one of the best cards out there in my opinion! I’ve never used the Diamond Perks, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value!

What is your best Credit Card?

Update: They have renamed the card to just plain old “Citi Preferred”, and now the new card is a dark blue color! The rest is pretty much the same though.

-MR

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Posted in credit card

Tags: citi diamond preferred card Citi Preferred citi preferred card citi preferred credit card credit card diamond preferred

Best Time To Start a HSA

November 23rd, 2010

Participating in a HSA (Health Savings Account) is at best, described as a very delicate dance!

You may be wondering what the heck I mean by that?!?

Well, we’ve been participating in a HSA for the past 3 years now, but we were sweating bullets the first year and a half, when we didn’t have enough saved up for the cap where the regular insurance would kick in (our threshold limit was $5,000) if a major accident happened!

Here are some of the negative aspects of starting a HSAs:

When you don’t have enough in a HSA, a major health accident can really hit you hard if you don’t have enough in your HSA to cover the threshold cap! So there is a risky period at the beginning.
If you suffer a small injury (like I have), you will not want to go because you feel that you need a cushion in case one of your kids or wife has a serious injury.
After a serious injury, and if we go above the $5,000 limit of our HSA, we will have to pay 15% of the total cost above the $5,000 from that serious accident!
You will tend to suffer through colds and the flu if you catch them instead of going to the doctor’s office…
There are nagging little fees that while don’t add up to much, are still frustrating!

So in my experience, the best time to start a HSA is when you are younger, but not too young, and perhaps a year or two before you want to start having kids.

If you are too young or active in sports, you might be at risk of being injured in which case a HSA wouldn’t be best for you.

If you have older kids, and are active or participate in sports it’s risky to start a HSA, unless you have enough money that it doesn’t matter!

Two years before you start to have kids is (in my opinion) the perfect time because it will give you time to build up the necessary protective net!

If your family (or your wife’s) has a history of cancer, heart disease, or any other health related problems that can be potentially inherited, a HSA may not be for you! I know if I had such issues, I would stick to the regular health insurance.

Now, in HSA’s defense, it is really nice to save about $100 a month in health care expenses once the $5,000 threshold limit (in my company’s plan) for the entire family!

If you have a HSA or you are thinking about starting one, please weigh the list I identified above.

Do you have any additional points that I many have missed?

-MR

Update: I also have an article at the “CashFlow Sherpa’s” today called: Maximizing your Finanances and Experiences

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Posted in HSA

Tags: HSA HSA Concerns

Early Thanksgiving Dinner, A New Family Tradition

November 22nd, 2010

A New Thanksgiving Tradition

Every since I’ve been married, our Thanksgiving Dinner would consist of driving to both of our parent’s houses and stuffing ourselves twice. While Thanksgiving dinner was always good when I was single, as a married couple, we always felt bad about leaving so soon to go to the my wife’s parents (that was usually the 2nd stop).

Another thing that really made the experience less enjoyable was the fact that we ate twice as much as we wanted to eat. But to make both sets of our parents happy, we did so anyway.

My sister followed our footsteps, which I thought was crazy since she lived 2 hours away and her husband’s parents lived at least 4 hours away for my parent’s house! But my sister and my brother-in-law continued to do this for the past few years, until…

Along comes Baby:

My sister’s first baby was born in February, and that has made all the difference!

Now for the baby’s sake, my sister doesn’t want to drive 2 hours and then later 4 more hours in one day, so after some discussion, the decision has been made to have Thanksgiving Dinner a week earlier at my parent’s house!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house this past weekend, and it was great! We all enjoyed the great meal, and since we weren’t rushed trying to hit two houses, we didn’t leave my parent’s house until 9:00pm.

Games were played, discussions were enjoyed and the baby had plenty of attention! Nobody felt guilty since we spent the entire day there! And instead of having 2 big meal that would later give us indigestion, we enjoy just 1 meal and felt fine after we went home!

If you find yourself in a similar situation, have you considered splitting Thanksgiving dinner up?

We did, and it was great! This is another classic Lemons to Lemonade example.

Thanksgiving is once again an enjoyable holiday for us!!!

-MR

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Posted in Lemons to Lemonade

Tags: Thanksgiving

MR Cache 2010, Nov 21 – Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner

November 21st, 2010

Pre-Thanksgiving Day for Me

Weekly Thoughts:

My sister lives to far away to go to Thanksgiving at both my parents and her husband’s parents. So today, we are having Thanksgiving a week earlier at my parents house so they can still enjoy the holiday in both parent’s house.

So far it’s been pretty nice, although we have to worry about my parent’s killer dog! When I first got to the house, the dog charged me snapping as she ran towards me. I said “Hey”, and she retreated as quickly as she came barking the entire time as she escaped. Once she’s inside the house, she submissive (actually more evasive than submissive), I worry about my kids being around the dog.

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

Watson Inc.: The American Dream: Asset or Liability? – I decided to do something different with Shawn’s site today… I went back to the past to see what Shawn use to write about in 2006! And surprisingly, out of the gate, he was spot on even back then! This article impressed me and I think it will with you too (even if it was wrote 4 years ago), nice job Shawn!

Everyday Tips and Thoughts: Doing What You Love, Or Loving What You do?… – Sometimes you do what you have to do to keep food on the table, but Everyday Tips brings up some great points. Check

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: Have You Heard of Hypermiling? I’ve heard of Hypermiling, but I haven’t heard much discussion about it lately, but we should! Especially as gas prices in my neck of the woods are over $3.00 again! Check it out and save some money!

Buy Like Buffett: How to Start an Investment Club – A secret dream of mine has been to start an investment club! Ever since I was in my 20s, I’ve always wanted to establish such a club. Unfortunately, my day employer has rules that prevents me from doing so. But if you are thinking of doing such a club, check this article out!