Hey guys! Back in seven as promised! In today’s tight economy, who doesn’t want to free up some cash? Trim the fat but not the fun from your budget.

Here’s how to slash your grocery bill.

Only shop once a week. The more trips you make to the store, the more likely you are to buy on impulse when you see tempting items. About two-thirds of purchases are unplanned; cut that in half to save around $143 a month (if you spend $100 a week on groceries).

Give up the bottle. Stop drinking bottled water and instead buy a filter for your faucet (about $34, plus $25 for replacements). If your family consumes 12 gallons a month, you’ll save about $15. Not too shabby right?

Eat what’s ripe. Out-of-season produce costs 20% to 50% more than it does when it’s in season. Estimated savings: $7 a month.

Ditch your second (or third) car (Eeks! That’s my department…)

Sure, she turns heads, but that 2009 Aston Martin DBS is an expensive mistress. An oil change can put you in the hospital. If something goes wrong, it can downright kill you! Can’t do without two cars? Trade one in for a new (shudder)Camry and save close to $221 a month.

Visit your local cobbler

Last year’s Cole Haans are so … in this year. Rather than shell out $150 or more each season to buy a new pair of good shoes, clean up last year’s kicks. Your local shoe-repair shop will charge about $10 to fix worn-out heel tips for women. Men can get another year or more out of their dress shoes by replacing the rubber heel and the sole. Cost: about $50. If the lady of the house buys four pairs of shoes a year, and the man buys one (at $150 each), you’d save more than $50 a month.

Twitter to Save
Get timely if terse tips about bargains by following these twitterers. Not up on the technology? Get a tutorial at twitter.com.

Music: @amazonmp3
Travel: @JetBlueCheeps
Fashion/beauty: @DealDivine
General retail: @DealsPlus
Giveaways: @fstimes

Time your buys

Don’t get gouged, buy that air conditioner in January, not July, and get it for nearly half the price. You can save 25% to 40% or more if you know when to buy these goods.

Stretch it out

Look like a million bucks without spending a million by slowing down your personal care regimen. Sounds gross? Please, in this economy, read ahead. Trust me.

Go easy on the dry cleaning. Cut the number of trips you make in half: 65% of clothes that are dry cleaned can be washed by hand or machine. For example, you can put linens in the washer and do most sweaters in cold water by hand (including cashmere and camel hair). Most silks are hand washable too. Exception: bold colors like brick red, deep brown, and navy should still be dry-cleaned.

Do home touch-ups. Add at least two weeks to the time between hair coloring appointments ($100 or so a pop) by using over-the-counter products (about $10) from the drugstore to cover up your roots. Or, damn it, quit coloring your hair! What’s wrong with a little salt and pepper? It’s distinguished.

Get to work cheaper

A suburban driver commuting to the city might shell out $575 a month for gas, parking, and car upkeep, assuming a 30-mile round-trip. These downshifts can help:

Grab a tax break. Sign up for your company’s transportation reimbursement account, which lets you pay up to $230 in monthly parking fees with pretax dollars. (You can set aside the same amount for mass-transit costs.) Savings: about $80 a month.

Drive with a buddy. Carpool to work with a colleague. Soak in some office gossip. Or not.

Go from four wheels to two. Buy a good commuter bicycle ($500) and cycle to work as the weather permits. Try Craigslist for great second hand bikes for even more savings! Do that six months a year and you’ll save $250 a month.

Stepping off the gas

You don’t have to buy a Prius (thank god), trade in your clunker or ride the bus to cut down on the money you spend for gas each month. Just make a few adjustments to your driving habits:

Drive sensibly. Aggressive driving on the highway, speeding, rapid acceleration and braking, can lower your mileage by 33%. Hear that, Speedracer?

Observe the speed limit. Gas mileage decreases rapidly above 60 miles per hour. Reining in your speed will save you up to 23%.

Keep tires inflated properly. Check your owner’s manual to list your vehicle’s proper tire pressure, buy a good dial-type pressure gauge ($8), and check your tires once a week. Keeping them properly inflated can improve your mileage by about 3%.

Empty the trunk. Don’t carry around unnecessary items, especially in small cars. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your miles-per-gallon by up to 2%.

Buy ink not cartridges

Instead of buying new black and color ink cartridges when your computer printer runs low, just get them refilled at your local drug store or shopping mall. After all, you don’t buy a new car every time you get low on gas, do you? I wish!

Be loyal to your brands selectively

Save your brand loyalty for where it counts, a Chanel bag or a Brooks Brothers jacket. After all, when you’re battling Rafael Nadal in Grand Slam Tennis on your Wii, who cares what batteries are powering your remote? If there’s no innovation happening with the product, the private label can be just as good, or better.

We estimate you can save up to $15 a month by going with the store-brand or little-known brand for batteries and these other products: pain relievers, canned fruits & vegetables, pantry staples and basic beauty products.

Work out for less

Sweat on your high-end health club’s StairMaster, and unwind at the martini bar.

Better: $50-$90. Work out at the YMCA. There are nearly 3,000 locations throughout the nation.

Best: $0. Free online boot camp whips you into shape at www.marinecorpsfitness.com.

College expenses

Tuition is the largest single bill you’ll pay for Junior to get a degree from Bleed You Dry U. But other costs add up fast. Slash these three:

Books: Nix Brief Principles of Macroeconomics from the college bookstore ($146); rent it from Chegg.com or CampusBookRentals.com, which carries the intro econ text for $68 a semester.

Meals: Go for a seven- or 14- meal plan, not a full one. Your kid will be up late partying, er, studying, and skipping breakfast a few days a week. And no one eats in the cafeteria on Saturday night.

Travel: For trips home, buy a Student Advantage discount card ($20) to save 15% on train and bus fares, 10% off selected flights.

Hope this helped! See you in seven!

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Hey guys, sorry it’s been a while since I updated. It seems that the sagging global economy has even affected the best of us. If we’re not scrambling to make ends meet these days, we are pissed at some random person for some random act, that we would never have given a second thought in a better economy. The downward spiral is getting out of control, and it has even affected our physical health. We need to take back control people. And the first step is identifying the problems. So, what every day activities may be threatening your financial health? Here are seven:

1. Using a debit card without writing down the transactions in your account register.

Debit cards are expected to account for 60 percent of transactions this year, but debit-card users tend to lose track of their money: Swiping plastic triggers 44 percent of overdraft fees, while paper checks account for just 27 percent.

Why write down debit spending? Because swiping a card doesn’t feel the same as laying out cash. The discipline of recording the transaction may reduce mindless spending and makes money easier to track. Simplify your money trail by using online bill pay for all your regular monthly bills, rather than having money withdrawn from your account by outside companies. Then take 30 seconds a day to log on to your account, add the pending transactions in bill pay to the outstanding checks and debits listed in your register that haven’t cleared yet. Subtract from the current balance. If the result is nearing zero, add money to the account. Voila! No overdrafts, no fees.

Sounds simple, but it’s more difficult than you think. Start small. Baby steps. Once you see what a dramatic difference it makes, you’ll want to apply this sort of order to every aspect of your life.

2. Tossing out the “junk mail” from your credit card company.

The Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights Act goes into full effect in February. Ahead of that deadline, companies are changing the terms of customer agreements. For example, the new law prohibits raising the interest rate on existing balances unless a customer pays more than 60 days late. To skirt that provision, firms are notifying customers that their cards are now “variable rate.” (Translation: We can jack up your rate whenever we please.)

So watch those benign notices, and be ready to call and demand a fixed-rate card or take your business elsewhere. Amid these tactics, a new bill calls for moving up the deadline on the credit card law to December 1st.

I just got one from Bank of America. The basic “rock and a hard place” ultimatum they gave me was, cancel my card and stay with the 9.9% APR until pay off, or keep my $10,000.00 limit and get raped (excuse my French) for 29.99% every month. My solution? After I gave them the finger, I transferred the amount to another card. Always keep a few open folks.

3. Ignoring new bank charges.

You may have noticed banks are a bit desperate these days to make a buck. One of the more recent innovations is dinging customers who make electronic transfers to an external account.

For example, last year, Wachovia started charging customers $3 per transfer to an outside bank. Let’s say you automatically stash $100 a week into a savings account at an online bank offering 1.8 percent interest (the current top rate). Smart move. Except Wachovia will now ding you for 3 percent of that weekly deposit. Annual cost? $156.

Meanwhile, Wachovia doesn’t offer any savings accounts that compete with a 1.8 percent rate. The solution? Find a local bank or credit union with no transfer fees, so you’re free to access higher returns.

4. Investing time in the wrong things.

Maybe you’re someone who will drive 20 minutes to a store on your lunch hour to get $5 off a $20 sweater. Or you’ll spend 45 minutes on the phone protesting a $3 error on the cable bill. It’s just not worth it sometimes. But, it’s still money you argue.

Well, let me tell you what is worth your time. Joining the 401(k) plan at your company. Don’t just leave your contribution languishing in a money-market account.

Make a weekly to-do list of your financial decisions (savings and spending) and then prioritize them in terms of bang-for-the-buck over time. When you do the math, you’ll see why paying off credit cards in full and contributing to a retirement plan that offers a match should be at the top of the list.

5. Spending with no goals to guide you.

One definition of insanity, attributed to Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet that’s how some people approach their finances. They earn and spend and earn and spend, and wonder why they aren’t making any progress.

Break the mindless cycle by figuring out what you value most, whether it’s world travel, returning to school to change careers, home ownership, a peaceful retirement or a debt-free college education for the kids. Then set specific goals, with real time frames, and track your advancement on a monthly basis. Make this a daily discipline by putting a list of those goals in your face: the fridge, your desk at work, your wallet.

Remember what I said about those monthly meetings with your significant other? This is what I was talking about. Or, just set up a day each month and sit with yourself to go over these things. It will pay off. I promise.

6. Failing to track spending.

You can’t succeed at No. 5 if you don’t know precisely where your money is going. When I first started working, I carried a pencil and paper around and wrote everything down. Today, there are numerous desktop software applications and Web sites that will aggregate your finances and track your spending and savings. If you own a smart phone try Mint.com.

You can pay upfront for software. Choose an online program that’s free, but supported by sponsored ads and offers you’ll see when you log in (and the service may sell your data). Or you can pay a monthly fee for a site with no outside ads or offers.

7. Failing to exercise.

How can this hurt your finances? Daily physical activity lowers the risk of a multitude of ailments, from heart disease to diabetes to certain kinds of cancer, which are obviously expensive to treat, even for people who have health insurance.

A study has found medical bills are behind 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies, and more than 75 percent of bankrupt families had health insurance at the onset of the illness.

Meanwhile, a regular work-out might even get you a raise. Studies have found exercise can improve your performance at work by boosting cognitive skills and productivity, and reducing stress and absenteeism. And, the most important factor, you’ll just feel better!

Thanks for staying with me guys. See you in seven (promise!).

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What’s going on guys? As the summer gets hotter, we start to use much more water, whether to cool down, or drink. In order to save some money on water bills, in my primary residence as well as investment properties, I took a trip to the Department of Public Works and got some free aerators.

After installation, they claim to save you 4% on your water bill. I was only able to receive one set per household unit, but I’m sure you can keep going back for more. Check it out!

It is best to install these first on your rental properties as tenants are much less likely to help you save water, especially if their utility costs are included in their monthly rent.

See you in seven!

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Hello again folks! Now, I know what most of you are thinking right now, after reading the title to this post: Are you kidding me?!? And with good reason too, I might add.

For those of you not familiar with Oakland, California, please check out their Wikipedia profile here. For the rest, let me first clarify. When I said hot, I never meant it in a positive way.

Anyways, it immediately caught my eye, when Oakland 94606 was named one of the top 10 “hottest” real-estate markets in the country, in Zip Realty’s second-quarter Home Hunter Report.

Zip Realty is an online real-estate company that went public in 2004. It turns out, that the reason they bestowed the “hottest” honor on this particular Oakland area, was based on the number of offers on homes that were higher than their lists prices. The reality is that these days, this is principally happening when bargain-basement foreclosures prompt bidding wars between buyers.

So, is this something to get excited about? Nah, not so much. It just goes to show that the media can put a positive spin on just about anything to raise public moral. The truth? The economy is just as crappy as it was six months ago, and the rich are just getting richer. Oakland residents are unable to pay for their houses, so they are losing them to foreclosure at high rates. Then, the rich scoop them up at bargain prices, and rent them back to the residents!

Nice scam, eh? That’s business! Keep it here folks. Be back in seven.

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Welcome back to another segment of how to get rich and stay rich, clothing and accessories style! Today, I will be talking about another one of men’s essentials, the man’s umbrella, and the symbolic swagger that comes with it.

It is difficult to say when we considered umbrellas disposable. Perhaps it was long after some schmuck created the collapsible version. And in reducing it to a mere functional tool as opposed to an accessory, the true symbolic meaning of the man’s umbrella – the sword, the vestigial battle-axe, the swagger stick – became lost.

So, today I am going to show you how I added my first man’s umbrella to my collection. And on a budget to boot!

Now, if money were not an issue, I’d run out and purchase a silver handle, bespoke Brigg Umbrella for $3,000.00 plus, in a heart beat. But, I’m on a budget. But, I’m not sacrificing my taste in quality.

So, instead I scoured eBay for an old Fox Paragon umbrella, manufactured by British steelmaker Samuel Fox. I managed to find two (a men’s and women’s) for around $40.00 a pop. I then contacted and sent the two units to the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn and the only known expert umbrella man left in the United States, Gilbert Center. Check it out!

Center recanopied both the paragons in pristine black nylon, striped rust from the frames, polished the brass tips, and gave one of the faux ivory handles a bit of TLC. The result? two rapier-thin 1950s umbrellas that total less than $120.00 each.

So, go out there guys and gals. Find your own umbrellas before the rainy seasons begins. Or, use it to dispatch evildoers and hail cabs. When properly cared for, your umbrella can last a lifetime. Just remember, your umbrella shouldn’t fold up in your briefcase, and should not be sold in bargain bins. It should be able to fend off thugs!

See you in seven!

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