Pragmatic Finance

A while back I decided that I should look into finding cheaper car insurance. I wasn’t necessarily unhappy with the service I had been receiving from State Farm but had wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting ripped off. After looking into the different coverages, I decided to go with minimal liability coverage with a high deductible. My car is very old so comprehensive or collision would not be worth it.

I started out by using some online quote websites. They take your information and desired coverage and give you a quick check of several companies to compare, most of which are lesser known or ones I hadn’t heard of. I also took some quotes from Allstate, Progressive, Geico, AIG, and Liberty Mutual, among others.

Overall, I was a little disappointed. Most of the popular names gave me quotes that were much higher than I currently pay. I believe AIG wouldn’t let me select the limited coverage I wanted. Although Geico has very entertaining ads, I wasn’t as enamored by the quotes they gave me.

However, USAA totally blew everyone out of the park. Their coverage ended up being almost half of what I currently pay so I jumped at the opportunity. USAA membership, and consequently its auto insurance, is only available to military members or the spouse or children of a member. If you are eligible I definitely recommend obtaining membership even if you don’t immediately get any accounts with them. I once heard someone joke that she wanted to marry a military man so she could get USAA insurance. I don’t know if its that good but it is the best I’ve seen.

Probably more important than the company you choose for your auto insurance is the actual coverage. It’s probably a good idea to go over the major types of coverage before going forward.

Liability
This covers an accident where you are at fault. This is normally the bare minimum that you can get by with. If you run into someone or over a telephone pole this is what will pay the bill. Many times it is split into bodily and physical damages and sometimes with a maximum per person and per accident. Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote not too long ago about using fatwallet cashback when purchasing online to save money. There is also another site, ebates, that is very similar. They have discounts and different promotions if you click through their site to the site you are buying from. Sometimes it’s a percentage back while other times they have offers of a straight cash amount back.

When you sign up for ebates the also give you $5 free. It stays as pending until you make a purchase. If you sign up and put in the email address of the person who referred you they also get $5. But that isn’t necessary to get your bonus. If you would like to refer me you can use Jason at pragmaticfinance dot com.

I had checked the site out a long time ago but didn’t use it because fatwallet was giving much higher discounts on the stores I purchased from online. However, I am going to sign up for some Sharebuilder bonuses and remember reading about a $20 bonus if you apply through ebates. A simple search on their site for Sharebuilder brought it up.

Even if you don’t do that deal it’s still good for discounts and the signup bonus doesn’t hurt either.

I often feel as though I am being ripped off on auto insurance. Perhaps this is just due to my dislike of insurance. Unfortunately, it’s a necessity. My current plan is up for renewal very soon so this is a great opportunity to see if there is anything better out there.

Overall I have been pretty satisfied with State Farm. They have always been very helpful and had good service. I have had one accident that was my fault and it was taken care of with just a phone call. The only negative experience I have with them was several years ago. I called to see about canceling my life insurance policy I have with them. They told me that if I canceled it my auto insurance with them would go up. When I asked why they really didn’t explain it at all to me. It was quite annoying. Read the rest of this entry »

I seem to be behind the 8 ball on this one but I just recently found out that Amazon.com has a PI/2 or 1.57% discount offered. You must sign into your Amazon.com account and use the A9 search engine. The search box is located in the upper right corner.

After you search enough an icon should show up to the left of the Amazon.com one. It took me several days of searching a few times a day before it showed up. You don’t have to do searches of products from amazon either. Some of mine included thing such as “How much longer until you give me this stupid discount.”
I often buy books from them so this should help out in the future. 1.57% isn’t amazing but every little bit helps. I hear it goes away if you don’t use the search engine often so if ya have a big purchase to make might want to think about it a few days beforehand.

If your reading blogs then chances are you at least some purchases online. In addition to the cash back you can get when using certain credit cards, you can also use a program from Fatwallet to get even more cash back. Fatcash or Fatwallet cash back allows you to get a percentage back if you buy from certain sites after going through Fatwallet.

Most of the discounts I have gotten range from 2 to 4% but there are some that are in the double digits or are a straight cash value back. All you have to do is sign up for an account and then visit the stores page. You click on the store you plan on going to and then click on the cashback link on the right hand side.

Once you do a new window appears with a popup confirming the cashback you will receive.

Simply shop through the new window of the website you went to and make your purchase. Eventually fatwallet will post the transaction on your cashback account. After that it will take several months before you can retrieve the money to make sure you don’t return the item or do something else to reverse the sale.

If you already plan to make purchases at a store online this is a great way to save money. You can request a check be sent out. I did that earlier this year and I think it arrived within a week or two. There also appears to be an option now receive paypal payments and donate to some Red Cross Funds.

Often times I think I need to buy something but it is simply an impulse and not something that I really have to have. I have found one of the best ways to deal with these emotional purchases is simply to research over a long period of time and discuss the purchase with friends or family. In addition to getting feedback you also delay the purchase. If I put it off long enough I normally realize that I don’t need it or am able to convince myself to use the money for something more important. This is probably one of the best money saving tips. Or at least one that will help you to accumulate less useless crap.

One great example of this was last year. My car was having a lot of problems and I was considering buying a new one. The car had been having no problems for a long time and it definitely had some good years left of use before it would be prudent to buy another. But I really wanted a new one and had enough saved for a decent down payment from working during the summer. Luckily, I delayed and procrastinated in following through. First, I did lots of research into what cars I would be interested in. I also looked into prices and best ways of reducing the purchase price, etc. And sometime in between mentioned it to friends and family, all of whom didn’t think I needed a new one. By this time my car was back to working fine and I had realized it would be really foolish to spend that much money. I instead decided to save it and eventually used it to open a Roth IRA.

Another great example is earlier this year when I had a desire for a really nice plasma or LCD HDTV. I don’t watch that much TV and I don’t recall what got me interested in one but I had to have one. Well, again, I started doing research and looking online at different models and features to decide which one would be best. I also thought about how to buy one to future proof it as much as possible to avoid it being outdated or needing to upgrade too soon. When I mentioned the idea to friends most of them countered that I didn’t even watch much TV so why would I want to spend a lot of money on one.

Eventually I not only gave up on the idea, but did a 180 and sold my current TV and have gone without my own personal one for several months now. So not only did I save money but time as well.

So instead of a lot of debt for items I didn’t really need, I ended up with a retirement account with a very good starting amount in it.

Have some great ways of saving money? There is a great list of the very best money saving tips forming.

One of the major expenses for a college student each semester is the purchase of textbooks. It seems that they are getting more costly every year. Sometimes it costs over $100 for the latest edition of some book whose only update was a few fixed errors from the previous edition. And then if you try to sell them back at the end of the semester to the bookstore you are normally offered only a fraction of the cost.

A great alternative to using the bookstore at your campus is to buy and sell the books online. Not only can you get them much cheaper, you can sell your used books for higher prices than the bookstore will normally give you. Sometimes you can also get paperback or other versions of the book that are exactly the same but much cheaper.

I have been doing this at Amazon.com for the last few years and it has saved me a bundle. It’s very easy to search for the books you need and you can look through the different sellers of new and used copies. Having the ISBN number on the back of the book makes it really easy to make sure you have the right book. When the semester is over you can also sell books through the same marketplace. It’s a simple process, after listing you get an email when it sells and you mail the book off. Every two weeks they deposit the funds into your checking account. Half.com seems to be another popular choice. Between this and Amazon there should be a large enough selection to find the ones you need. These two are probably also the best to sell on that I know of as they both have a very large customer base.

When trying to find the best deal on buying textbooks, you can use websites that aggregate a listing of all the major online bookstores. Several I have found are BestBookBuys, CampusI, and FetchBook. You can search for a book on these sites and see the prices, availability, and condition so you can get the best possible deal out there.

If you do buy and sell to the bookstore at your campus, realize that you are paying a very large surcharge for a little convenience. In my opinion, for the time it takes to search for books you want to buy or ship the ones you are selling, it is definitely not worth it.