It seems like the price gouging for a passport photo keeps getting worse and worse. The Post Office now charges $15 for a quick shot, and most other places charge between $10 and $20 for it. Occasionally you can get a coupon at Right Aid for a couple bucks but that is increasingly rare.

So what are us frugal folks with a digital camera to do? Make your own passport photo of course! I just renewed my passport with a photo I created and have received the passport so I can vouch this works. So if you are willing to put in a few minutes of your time you can save some bucks and a trip to the passport photo store. Its also nice because you can take as many pictures as you like until you are happy with how it comes out.

Requirements for Do It Yourselfers

You can’t just pick out a 4×6 of you from your cousins bbq and send it in. The US State Department has a list of regulations on their website for your passport photo. These include:

• 2×2 inches in size
• Taken within the past 6 months, showing current appearance
• Full face, front view with a plain white or off-white background
• Between 1 inch and 1 3/8 inches from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head

For The PhotoShop Savvy

Since I have Adobe Photoshop I followed the tutorial over at DP Challenge - Making Your Own Passport Photos. I thought it was very thorough and easy to follow. Took me about 5 minutes to get the final product and it turned out great.

For Those Less Savvy

There is some nifty free software called DIY Passport Photo which is nice in that it is a photo editing package only designed to make passport photos so its really easy to use. Their website has the software as well as instructions on how to use it.

There is a free website EPassportPhoto that will take your digital photo and generate it for you. I didn’t read all the instructions but just tried to upload my photo there and it didn’t seem to create the correct proportions for my photo. Probably have to do some tweaking so I can’t give this one the thumbs up.

Getting It For Free

Okay, so now you have your passport picture… but where do you print it for free? I printed mine at CVS who has a bunch of free promotions through their website. Check out this Slickdeals CVS Photo thread for the full details.

Otherwise, you can always print them to Wal-mart for 12 cents. Much better than $15.

Kashi is currently promoting their new line of snack foods by giving out your choice of 3 different snacks for free! Follow the link below and click ‘get your free snack’. You can click ’skip all this, gimme my snack’ to by-pass all the questions they ask.

You have your choice of the following:

• Oatmeal Dark Chocolate TLC Cookie
• Original 7 Grain TLC Crackers
• Trail Mix TLC Chewy Granola Bar

Kashi OutReach: Free Snack

My wife and I have been going to Gold’s Gym for about 8 months now. Its important for us to exercise and stay active so the gym membership has been helping a lot. However every time I look at our monthly expenses that expense pops out as something that could be reduced.

Gold’s Gym has a lot of options over most of the other gyms in the area. There are free classes (yoga, exercise, spinning, etc), plenty of equipment so even at its busiest you don’t have to wait for a machine, a private tv in all the cardio equipment, and an immaculately clean facility that somehow does not reek of sweat. However it comes at a price, its about 20% more expensive than the YMCA which also has a basketball court which I would take advantage of, but has a waiting list for the cardio equipment and an older facility. And its about 3x as expensive as Planet Fitness which is smaller and has less bells and whistles.

You can’t really put a price on your health. I have a feeling if we had a membership to a gym that wasn’t as nice as Gold’s my wife wouldn’t be as inclined to go. For me, the price alone is a motivating factor - I’m paying that much a month so I better use it! We’ve been going pretty consistently since we got the membership so to me its money well spent.

After checking the mail today I was delighted to find my Chase United Mileage Plus Business Card. During my latest 0% app-o-rama that was dicussed a few times here I also applied for this card in order to take advantage of the 25,000 free miles they were giving away with it which is enough for a free round trip domestic flight.

However my experience with Chase was less than stellar. I was called by their fraud prevention department and asked to fax my business license to them which I did. A few days later a rather crass representative called me again stating my business license was not good enough, they would need some other documentation so I offered up my 2006 tax returns. Well then a few days later I received another call, but this time the woman on the other end was very helpful and did not understand why the previous information I had faxed was not sufficient. She eventually put my application through.

I guess they need to be thorough but I have never had this kind of difficulty opening a credit card before. Thank goodness I know how to use free faxing services or else this would have cost quite a bit to get all the documentation I needed in.

Now I just need to spend $250 on my card to receive my 25,000 miles. Hopefully there will be no problems there.

Here is another update on my latest credit card app-o-rama. I’ve just about wrapped the application phase up and am ready to get on with the tedious payment phase.

I applied for all these cards on July 20th and have had mixed results between the card providers.

Here is the current status on the 0% card applications:

Finished With The 0% Applications

I’ve now heard back from all the 0% credit cards I’ve applied for as you can see in the table above. Some were more generous than other with their credit lines. In total I received $67,400 in 0% credit for the next year. If I stick it in my HSBC account at 5.05% APY that would be about $3,400 in interest, I probably could squeak a little more out if I went rate chasing.

Chase Again

Having already called me twice to verify information, Chase United Business Card called me yet again. This time however the lady was very helpful on the phone and didn’t understand why the previous documents I had sent were not acceptable. She looked everything over and told me she was putting my application through to the next phase, which still doesn’t mean its approved but at least its going somewhere. I should hear back via mail shortly.

Taxable Accounts:

$8,799.41 - Liquid Savings - 5.05% APY HSBC Savings Account
$15,380.75 - Stocks - Misc. Direct Investments
$5,659.35 - Stocks - Ameritrade Izone
$2,883.03 - Stocks - Zecco
$2,605.46 - Bonds - TreasuryDirect

$35,328.00 TOTAL

Retirement Savings:

$16,496.58 - ROTH IRA - Vanguard
$1,492.28 - ROTH IRA - Scottrade
$47,853.92 - 401K - T. Rowe Price

$65,842.78 TOTAL

Debts

$3,220.43 - Student Loan - AES (3.625%)
$6,658.00 - Credit Card BT - Discover (0%)
$7,110.00 - Credit Card BT - Citi (0%)

$16,988.43 TOTAL

Housing / Automobiles

$267,779.86 - Mortgage - Countrywide
$339,900.00 - Approximate Home Value
$10,774.00 - Approximate Car Value - Edmunds.com

$82,894.14 - TOTAL (Approximate Equity)

Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I would update you all on my progress for my latest credit card app-o-rama. I’m sure some of you are aghast at this, but I plan to simply take advantage of the “free money” from the credit card offers and not to rack up debt against them.

I applied for all these cards on July 20th and have had mixed results between the card providers. Some were very speedy where I still have not received anything back from others.

Here is the current status on the 0% card applications:

Problems With Specific Cards

I was denied the Discover More Card and received a letter in the mail stating it was due to “Credit history established on your account”. Thanks for the detailed explanation Discover. My guess is that it was because I already have another Discover card with a 0% offer out on it that they do not want to give me another card. I don’t really have any desire to call to find out if that is really the case.

I also applied for the Chase United Business Card as part of this process in order to get the 25,000 free miles they were offering upon approval. Unfortunately they have been a real pain. Chase called me to say they couldn’t find my business in any records, so I faxed them a copy of my business license. Apparently that was not good enough, as they called again and asked if I had any other documentation so I faxed them a copy of the 2006 business tax returns. The first call was ok, but the lady on the second was very rude about it. This was on Friday and I have not heard back from them yet.

Good Experiences With Others

The service at the Bank of America NEA WorldPoints was great. I talked with a very friendly CSR who waived the $30 balance transfer fee for me. One of the better credit card companies I have spoken to, and it was also the first card I received in the mail.

The others have just had automated phone systems for activation which is easy enough.

Final Thoughts

I was a little disappointed with the credit limits I received from Chase and Advanta. For Chase I’m not sure $4,000 is worth the $75 balance transfer fee and hassle of keeping up with it especially after the business card experience.

So far I have been given $55,900 in 0% credit from this process. Hopefully I will hear from Citi this week about the two outstanding card applications with them as well.

So you want to sell an old computer? Well there are a few things you need to know first to keep your personal information private. We keep a lot of things on the computer that could be used for identity theft… tax returns, quicken records, internet passwords, etc so its important to make sure whoever inherits your PC doesn’t hijack this information.

Deleting Files Doesn’t Work

The solution isn’t to simply go into Windows and delete the files. When you delete a file all it does is remove the reference from your system, the information is still available on your hard drive until the data is actually written over by other file. So if you’ve ever found you deleted a really important file by accident you probably can still recover it with software such as GetDataBack.

And even once its been partially written over, you still may be able to recover it with more in depth techniques that are beyond my skill level but are certainly doable by a determined thief.

So How Do I Really Erase My Drive?

To fully delete the files you need a secure erase utility. These programs write over every block of the hard drive (sometimes several times) to ensure that your data is unreadable. These utilities meet NSA standards for data integrity as well as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley so if we can sell the drive that had national secrets on it then it probably is safe for you as well.

There are countless programs out there that do this, ranging from hundreds of dollars to my price point - free. Here are some of the freeware and open source programs out there.

• Darik’s Boot and Nuke - This is a premade boot CD which I like (who has a floppy drive in their PC anymore?) which is very easy to use and open source. This is the program I use when I am looking to sell a drive
• Eraser - This freeware app works in Windows or you can create a boot disk with it. Has the best interface I’ve seen in Windows for a free program. Though its tough to delete all your Windows files if you are still in it, so if you want to completely erase the drive you’ll need to use the boot disk option.
• Secure Erase - Another freeware utility that is best used if you create a boot disk for it. There is a good writeup over at ZDnet on it.

Final Thoughts

With all the private and personal information we keep on our computers nowadays its important to make sure when you upgrade and get rid of that old hard drive you take some time to make sure your information is private. This is a pretty easy step to take if you use the right tools.

To introduce their new Halmark Saturdays greeting card line Walmart is offereing a free greeting card by mail. You get your choice of one of the following cards:

• Paper Doll
• Cat Head
• What Up Dog
• Monty

Just click on the link below, click the ‘free sample’ button, and put in your information.

FREE SAMPLE GREETING CARD

Cards That Make Our Boss Nervous

Our new Saturdays cards by Connections from Hallmark are quirky. Topical. Irreverent. The kind of funny that steps up to the line. Ripped from the gossip rags or the political talk shows. They’re even — sometimes — weird.

Now you have so many more ways to make someone laugh — on birthdays, special days, whenever. And not just a little chuckle. We’re talking milk-out-the-nose funny. (Don’t say you haven’t been warned.)

It’s your kind of comedy, and you’ll find it in the greeting card aisle at participating Wal-Mart stores.

I had previously talked about my desire to apply for a few 0% credit cards this month. Well, after reviewing some of our finances and balances I decided to expand my applications. So today I applied for 8 new credit cards.

Doing these on the same day minimizes the other companies seeing all the hits on your credit report. It also makes the application process easy since you have all the information in front of you at one time.

Staying Organized

I keep a spreadsheet of what card I applied for, what the offer is, and make pdf screen prints of all the terms and conditions in case there is a problem later. Once I am approved (or denied) I put down the credit limit and balance transfers I have done. If possible, I put the credit card into Yodlee for easy tracking.

So below are the cards which I applied for.

Rewards

CardSelection also offers cash bonuses for applying for certain credit cards through them. i was able to get $95 back from them for the Citi Upromise Card, Advanta Platinum Rewards BusinessCard, and Discover More Card which makes some of the balance transfer fees a little easier to swallow.

So Far…

Unfortunately I was denied for the Discover Card. Not sure why, they are going to follow up with a letter. I was approved instantly online for the BankAltantic Rewards Card, BOA NEA WorldPoints, and Advanta Rewards BusinessCard. The others are under review and I will receive a response in the mail.

I will post more once I get some more answers back.

I took some time off yesterday to go with my wife to a Six Flags amusement park. I was able to find a coupon at Fatwallet that knocked $20 off the price of each ticket which was pretty nice and certainly made the day a little more affordable

However one of the newer policies there is that you are not allowed to bring any food or beverage into the park. Your only option is to get your hand stamped, walk 20-30 min (each way) back to your car and grab something. For lunch with a family this is almost a necessity - a slice of pizza and a soda is $9 there, nachos are $6, and a fried dough is $4. But what if its a hot day (like yesterday) and you need a drink 3-4 times over the course of your visit. Are you going to walk to your car to get a gulp of something? And of course nobody can have tap water anymore, you have to get bottled water for $3.

There is also an outdoor amphitheater here which has a lawn area you can sit on to watch the concerts. It used to be great to go hang out there, bring a cooler in and have a few beers or whatever while listening to whatever band is playing. However they recently banned coolers and now charge $7 for a domestic beer. I’m sure they will argue that the event is safer this way, but I still think its pretty much ruined the lawn experience there.

I’m sure its a huge moneymaker for these parks, and it didn’t seem to phase attendance there so its probably here to stay.

There is a recent study posted by CNN about college grads seeing higher starting salaries upon graduation. Some of the more in demand majors went up over 5% from this time last year which seems like quite a significant increase. Engineering continues to be a hot field representing most of the top paying jobs.

The top 10 paying majors with their average starting salaries are:

1). Chemical Engineering $59,361
2). Computer Engineering $56,201
3). Electrical Engineering $55,292
4). Mechanical Engineering $54,128
5). Computer Science $53,396
6). Civil Engineering $48,509
7). Economics $48,483
8). Management of Information Systems $47,648
9). Finance $47,239
10). Accounting $46,718

Full CNN Article

Here is an offer for a free 1 year subscription to the popular computer periodical PC Magazine.

This offer doesn’t require a credit card to sign up and they do not automatically renew your subscription at regular price once the free term is up. I’ve done quite a few of these offers and have had the magazine actually come around 85% of the time.

PC Magazine FREE Link

Since we got married this year my wife and I have struggled merging our finances together. As you may notice from my net worth statements its really just my finances and not my wife’s as well. One of my goals this month is to hopefully start changing this.

We’ve talked about finances and our financial goals, however we do have some different financial ideologies that has until this point made it easier to keep our money separate. She is not as aggressive a saver as I am, likes to spend more freely, and has more debt. She also is not as far along in her career as I am - though she actually makes more money she went back to school for 3 years to get her masters just graduating this past year racking up some decent loan debt along the way while I have been working continuously since 2002.

Right now we’ve just been each pitching in 1/2 of the shared monthly household bills, then each responsible for our own bills from whatever is left over. We realize this is not the best way to continue long term so have to sit down and make a change.

Read the rest of this entry »

My car is long overdue for new tires. I have been neglecting them for no good reason other than a desire not to spend the money on them. With my inspection due this month I figure its finally time to replace them since I doubt it would pass otherwise.

Since I’m not sure how much longer we are going to keep the vehicle I’m pretty much just looking for the cheapest tires out there.

TireRack

The king of internet tires. TireRack offers very low prices, a great web interface, and from what I’ve heard good service. I’m a huge internet shopping fan, and I love being able to price things out on a website rather than calling someplace.

Continental CT95 205/65TR16 - $65.00 per tire

Kumho Solus KR21 - $61.00 per tire

Shipping was estimated at $38.72 for 4 tires, leaving the price at $298.72 for the Continentals and $282.72 for the Kumhos. The one downside to TireRack is I’m responsible to find a place to have them mounted & balanced as well as tire stems. This would be $22 per tire with the disposal of the old tires, so another $88 plus tax bringing the grand total to around $390 for the Continetals or $375 for the Komhos .

Local Auto / Tire Store

This is where I usually bring my car in for service. I trust the people working there and they are very close to my house if there are any problems.

Enterprise 205/65TR16 - $95 per tire

Unlike TireRack this price includes mounting, balancing, and valve stems but I would have to pay tax on the whole amount. So grand total would be $406. The downer is I’ve never heard of this tire brand before and I can’t really find much about it on the internet.

Tire Warehouse

This is a large chain with a local presence. They are located close to my house and offer a larger selection of tires than my regular local shop does.

Continental CT95 205/65TR16 - $99.95 per tire

Kumho 205/65TR16 - $89.95 per tire

Once again this includes everything, but I would have to pay tax on the full amount. The Continentals are $37 more expensive than TireRack at $427 but I would have the convenience of a local store. The Kuhmos would be $385, only $10 difference from TireRack.

Wholesale Club

We are a member of BJs Wholesale Club. I’ve heard that Costco has great prices on tires but unfortunately there are none in the area. I decided to give BJ’s a call to see what they offered but they did not have any tires in stock in the correct size.

Final Conclusion

In the end I decided on the Kumho’s since it was the cheapest option. I had heard good things previously about the CT95s, but I’m not really a big car guy and would rather spend the $50 elsewhere. In my opinion it was worth the extra $10 to go to the Tire Warehouse for the tires rather than going through TireRack plus I could get a same day appointment there.

So in the end I went with the cheapest tires from a local store