During this season of mass purchasing over half of Americans are purchasing their holiday gifts with credit cards.  There are a few things that you should be aware of this holiday season to make sure that you use that credit card wisely so it doesn’t use you.

You probably are bothered every time you check an item out with an offer for a credit card from a certain store.  They may sound like great deals giving you 10 – 15 % off your purchase, but what they don’t tell you is that overall you are loosing money with there insane interest rates and low limits.  If possible, avoid using or signing up with store branded credit cards.

A lot of Americans have transitioned from going to the local store to make their holiday purchases to simply buying online.  Make sure that when you buy online that you comparison shop and include shipping in your comparison price.  Stores will often not show how much shipping will cost and when you think you are getting the best deal you may end up paying more after shipping is added to your bill.  Another piece of advice is that you should be aware of online fraud stores that will offer insane deals for either no product or an off-brand product.  Never purchase from a store that you don’t know is reliable or doesn’t have an https:// in the URL on the page where  you enter your credit card information.

The last piece of advice for you is to make sure that you choose wisely from your current credit cards.  After unwrapping all of your gifts, some people may desire to return items that weren’t purchased in the correct size or color.  Some credit cards, such as American Express and some Visa cards, allow for up to a 90 day return policy.  So if you don’t procrastinate your shopping the store return policy may have already expired and you might be relying on your credit card’s 90 day return.   That is of course you didn’t buy something last year for them, because you are out of luck and it better be something they really wanted.

We hope you have a successful and stress-free holiday shopping experience this year.

There is a new website called freecycle.org where you can register and search to find nice items no longer needed by their owners. This is also a great place to put your old things that you do not want to throw away but do not want cluttering up your house.

You should be willing to check your options out before making a purchase so you can take advantage of these freebies.

The good news is I have learned a way to combat some of this. I will bring an empty water bottle through security with me and then when I get through I will fill it up at the drinking fountain. Some of you may be thinking that this is not a winning situation because I am compromising bottled water for tap but what you do not realize is that tap water has way more restrictions on it so it can actually be better for you than bottled water.

This way when I go through the airport I do not have to pay more money than is necessary and I get the water I want.

The cash for clunkers program is already proving to be a success. Within the past week, 8,000 eligible vehicles have been traded in for newer vehicles, all thanks to the cash for clunkers program.

So, go see the nearest dealerto you, and see if you can upgrade your car, while trading in your clunker. Who knows? You could end up with an amazing deal if you take part in the cash for clunkers program.

There are also many credit companies out there that want to charge you a fee for them to retrieve your credit report for you. That’s very kind of them but I have good news. By law you can get it for free once a year. So instead of paying them unnecessary fees go get it yourself.

On top of all of this there are coupons abounding that go unused. If we turn to coupons and sales we can save ourselves hundreds of dollars.

The inventor of the lightening rod among many other notable successes made this man praiseworthy.  He was one of the most influential men in history, possibly being the reason his headshot was put on the one hundred dollar bill.

A recent study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research says that when someone goes out, they are less likely to spend their money if they are just carrying a Benjamin on them.  The study showed that when people were carrying Franklin’s cash colleagues (Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, and even Grant), they were much more willing to spend without guilt.

This is an amazing discovery, but of course it won’t work for every single person.  However, you never know if it will work until you try it.  During this economy bust, people are tending to give $100 bills a high value and are perhaps treating it as a symbol to tell them they aren’t completely broke yet.  For more insight on this topic and to find out a little more as to why having a BF in your pocket will actually save you money, head over to:

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1887485,00.html

If you want to try this experiment out, please leave a comment and let me know how it went.  I am extremely interested in the results and will be testing it out myself.  I thought about replacing everything in my wife’s wallet with Benjamins, but maybe I’ll just try it out for myself first.

It is very well-known that the economy is not in very good shape and because of this many companies have gone into bankruptcy. For this reason, one may think that during these difficult times launching a new pricier product would be nonsense, wouldn’t you? Well, Apple doesn’t think the same way, they just announced the “iPhone 3G S” at a price of  $199 for 16GB  ($299 for 32GB) intending to keep up with other competitors like the Palm Pre, the Blackberry Storm, and the G-1 Phone. My guess is Apple doesn’t want to let go their customers so easily and they will even do the impossible in order to achieve this. So far, I think that the strategy is good and will give them the expected results. 

However, Apple’s strategy doesn’t end there, it was also announced that the new price for the iPhone 3G will be only $99. So, not only will they earn more money with the new iPhone (because they will), but they will hopefully get more people to buy the old iPhone. This means that sales will eventually go up and if everything goes well, Apple will get the attention of potential loyal customers (like me). Along with this, Apple cut the prices of the Macbook Pro Laptops from $2000 to $1200. I don’t remember something like this happening before with Apple or with any other brand. It is true that prices usually go down after a product has been on the market for a while, but not that much. 

To conclude, I only have some thoughts about this “good news”. It seems to me like Apple foresaw that if they didn’t do anything, the economic crisis would hit them hard. And because of this I immediately thought… Is Apple selling lesser than before? Are they desperate and found that this was the best and only way they could recover? What I would like to think is that they are just really smart and know how to make money.  

Eventually, time will let us know the results, until then, I’ll see if I can take advantage of the offer and buy one of the old iPhones. ]]> http://www.financialaccuracy.com/apple-vs-recession/feed/ 0 http://www.financialaccuracy.com/taking-advantage-of-a-companys-competition/ http://www.financialaccuracy.com/taking-advantage-of-a-companys-competition/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:57:29 +0000 MoneySmart http://financialaccuracy.com/?p=176 The business world is competitive.  Everyone is always looking out for themselves.

Especially during this economy crisis, businesses are working hard to keep their customers.  Lucky for you, you can take advantage of this situation.

Similar to comparative shopping, you can save money by watching the prices on the services you already use.  If you have Internet services, it is possible to get the price you pay each month to go down.  But there’s a trick you need to know first.

Your services’ competition will sometimes have offers for people to have great deals when they sign up for their service.  If you watch for these deals, you can then use them to play your service company against this other one.

Call up your service company and let them know what their competitor is offering and ask for a discount on your bill.  They want you to be loyal to their company, and so they should honor your wish.  Some people save a lot of money a month doing this.  That’s money that can be use elsewhere.

Go and try it now!  Let me know of all the successes.  If you don’t want to comment, email me at thepaydayloanblogger@gmail.com.

But now we have a great tool to help us to be able to comparison shop within minutes.  The Internet gives us the opportunity to save by the click.  We should use it to our advantage.

Sites like ebay.com and pricegrabber.com let us see the best deals around.  Ebay is especially nice since you can compare the price of a new item with the price of the same item but used.  Buying secondhand can really save money, but don’t do it with every product.  They can be worn out and end up costing you extra for a new one in the future.

Just be smart in your shopping.  When you do, you will be grateful you did because you will be saving money.