spendings
Back To School Deals, Promos and Coupon Codes
Aug 1st
In the upcoming weeks, students will be scrambling from store to store looking for the newest and latest technology, clothing, backpacks and even pencils because in just a few weeks, they’ll be back at their desks, learning a variety of subjects.
Officially, back to school shopping season is eight weeks long. It begins the first week of July and ends the first week of September and the age groups include everyone from preschoolers to graduate students. In the spirit of back to school shopping season, we’ve compiled a wide variety of deals and coupons that should be able to save you money, although we can’t help you out with the cost of your tuition.
ELECTRONICS
- AT&T – Back to School Quick Messaging Center – Features unlimited text and data for 1$ a day message and Free Trial of AT&T Music on select devices. Expires 9/30/2010 and restrictions apply.
- HP – Save up to $354 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv7t Select Edition series Customizable Laptop PC! Plus Save up to 30% Instantly on Accessory Bundles! *Savings Include: $150 instant rebate, FREE 6GB memory upgrade ($100 savings), FREE 4 year Lojack upgrade from 1 year ($70 savings) and $39 off 15-month Norton Internet Security subscription. Expires 8/7/2010.
- HP – Save up to $354 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv6t Select Edition series Customizable Laptop PC! Plus Save up to 30% Instantly on Accessory Bundles! *Savings Include: $150 instant rebate, FREE 6GB memory upgrade ($100 savings), FREE 4 year Lojack upgrade from 1 year ($70 savings) and $39 off 15-month Norton Internet Security subscription. Expires 8/7/2010.
- HP – Save up to $705 instantly on the HP Pavilion Elite HPE-390t series Customizable Desktop PC! Plus Save up to 30% Instantly on Accessory Bundles! *Savings Include: $500 instant rebate, FREE 1TB hard drive upgrade ($50 savings), FREE 15-month Norton Internet Security subscription ($69 savings), and 35% off a 21.5-inch diagonal wide-screen monitor ($90 savings). Expires 8/10/2010.
- HP – Save $40 instantly on the HP Officejet J3680 All-in-One Printer, Fax, Scanner, Copier! Expires 8/7/2010.
SCHOOL SUPPLIES
- Office Depot – Take $20 off $100 or more at OfficeDepot.com! (Excludes tech products) .Expires 8/31/2010.
CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES
- Florsheim – $10.00 off any $100.00 purchase.
- Glasses Shop - 10% off on orders over $100. Expires 12/31/2010.
TEXTBOOKS
- BookByte – Save Up To 90% on New and Used Textbooks.
- TextbookX – Textbooks and general books up to 90% off retail prices. Free shipping on retail orders over $49.
FINANCIAL OFFERS
- Citibank – For a limited time, Citibank is offering a $50 statement credit on three of their college student credit cards. The only requirement is that $50 be spent on the card within the first three months!
Cornbread Southern Style
Jul 31st
Ingredients:
2 cups cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or melted shortening
Instructions:
Mix dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. Stir in buttermilk and egg. Grease muffin tin or loaf mold with shoretning or oil. Pour batter. (fill muffin tins about half full each) Bake 15 minutes at 450 degrees F.
Originating post: Cornbread Southern Style
Cornbread Southern Style is a post from: The Family Wallet.
SUBSCRIBER BONUS:
Download your free copy of my Chicken Crockpot Recipes Ebook for a limited time. Make sure to save a copy!
Pizza – Sloppy Joe Style
Jul 30th
Ingredients:
1 can refrigerated biscuits
1 pound lean ground beef or ground turkey
1 can sloppy joe type sauce
1 can whole kernel sweet corn, drained
8 slices American cheese
1 small green bell pepper chopped *optional
Instructions:
Separate dough into biscuits. Press or roll each one to be between 4 and 5 inches around. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees F for about 12 minutes. This will become your pizza shells. Brown ground meat in skillet, drain as usual and return to pan. Add sloppy joe sauce and corn and pepper, stirring until well mixed. Simmer until heated through. Spoon meat mixture into your biscuit pizza shells. Top with slices of amercian cheese. Return to hot oven for a few minutes to melt cheese if needed before serving. If you’d like a large pizza or need to save time try buying premade pizza shells (like Boboli) at you local grocery store and spread the ingredients on one of those and bake according to package directions.
Originating post: Pizza – Sloppy Joe Style
Pizza – Sloppy Joe Style is a post from: The Family Wallet.
SUBSCRIBER BONUS:
Download your free copy of my Chicken Crockpot Recipes Ebook for a limited time. Make sure to save a copy!
Plastic Jungle $25 Gift Card Giveaway x 2!
Jul 30th
Then there’s the other side of the equation. What happens if you receive a gift card from someone that you have no intention of using? Well, you can either pass it along to someone else OR visit PlasticJungle.com and sell it for up to 92% of the face value. If you haven’t heard of Plastic Jungle, they’d kindly like to introduce themselves by offering a $25 Gift Card to two lucky DoughRoller.net readers!
The variety of gift cards that Plastic Jungle offers ranges from restaurants to movies then back to department stores. The business model for a site like this is simple. Buy gift cards for a discount and sell them for a discount, remembering to make a very small profit during the process. Whether it’s buying the gift cards directly from the merchant and earning a commission on the sale or buying them from the public, Plastic Jungle can only thrive with a market, built by consumers just like you.
In order to enter the Plastic Jungle $25 Gift Card Giveaway, all you need to do is visit PlasticJungle.com, then come back here and leave a comment, letting us know the gift card that you want to win! Perfection is the mastering of simplicity right? Please don’t try to spam the comment box with different email addresses, anyone leaving more than one comment from the same IP address will have their comments disqualified. Two weeks from today (August 13th), we’ll announce two lucky winners, who must be located in the United States. Plastic Jungle will then ship your gift card and you’ll have 30 days to use it. So just to clarify the process…
- Visit PlasticJungle.com
- Remember the gift card that you want to win
- Leave a comment on this post, with a valid email address and the name of the gift card you have selected
- Check back to DoughRoller.net on August 13th at 8am ET to see if you’ve been selected as a winner
As an added bonus, when you shop or sell with Plastic Jungle, shipping is always free. Yes, we’re probably only talking about the cost of a postage stamp but when you trying to make a profit on a $25 gift card, losing 2% simply to a stamp and envelope can sting just a bit.
Truth be told, it’s been a while since I’ve visited Plastic Jungle but with the amount of time I spend at the movies, I think I’ll be making a fairly large purchase on AMC gift cards. If I can save 14% on something I know I’m going to use, why wouldn’t I?
Refinance when your house is under water?
Jul 30th
Free Money Finance regularly posts questions that are e-mailed to him by his readers, with the intent of having other readers offer advice. Recently a reader asked about refinancing a mortgage that is currently under water (meaning that more is owed than the house is currently worth). Here’s the skinny:
- $225,000 is owed against a house that is currently worth $200,000 to $208,000.
- The current mortgage is at 6.75%, a couple of percent higher than current rates for equivalent mortgages.
- The savings per month would be about $350, which they plan to use to maintain and improve the house.
- The refinance process would wipe out their savings cushion almost entirely.
- They characterize their jobs as “very stable” and do not know how long they’ll be in the house.
Not easy, is it?
Two percent is a big enough difference that it is usually a good idea to look into mortgage refinancing, but is it worth wiping out $25,000+ from their high-interest savings account? There were a number of different takes, as you might imagine. Financial Samurai recommended going full steam ahead with the refinance:
$350 divided by $30,000 = a 11% yearly return on your investment. Pay down your mortgage and refi, it’s a NO BRAINER. Where else can you get a 11% yearly return guaranteed?
His calculations, admittedly, assume pretty liberal definitions of principal and return, but that’s not the main issue. He sees no emergency fund as being no problem. Saving that much per month is cushion in itself, perhaps. The readers’ jobs could be really, really stable, in which case they could go on without an emergency fund without any issue at all, or build it up slowly.
Money Crush takes the other side of the fence:
Based on what you’re said here, I wouldn’t refinance. Mainly because you’re going to be wiping out your savings and emergency fund, with no plans to replace it. If it were just wiping out savings (and not the emergency fund too, I might consider it.) Lots of people lose their “stable jobs”.
The last sentence is key. Lots of people do lose their stable jobs. I tend to side with Money Crush on this one (if there are no other options for handling the situation available — there might be). There are times to pay down debt aggressively, and there are times to build up emergency funds aggressively. Now is a time to build up, and maintain, emergency funds and cash savings. Why? Because cash buys you time if something bad happens, and a lot of bad things can happen. No cash, no time. Time to carry balances on the credit cards!
An underwater mortgage isn’t a problem unless it’s made to be a problem. Refinancing an underwater mortgage makes it a problem. The bank won’t take the house back just because it’s underwater. The bank will take the house back (eventually) if you can’t make the payments. Voluntarily wiping out your emergency fund increases the risk that this bad outcome will happen.
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Shells with Grilled Chicken and Mozzarella
Jul 29th
Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds chicken cutlets
8 ounces medium pasta shells
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
4 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons butter
salt and ground pepper
Instructions:
Season chicken with salt and pepper to your liking and grill until juices run clear and chicken is done. Cut grilled chicken into chunks. Boil water and cook noodles according to package directions. Drain pasta and return to pot. Add in the chicken, tomatoes, cheeses, parsley and butter. Toss to coat and distribute ingredients evenly.
Originating post: Shells with Grilled Chicken and Mozzarella
Shells with Grilled Chicken and Mozzarella is a post from: The Family Wallet.
SUBSCRIBER BONUS:
Download your free copy of my Chicken Crockpot Recipes Ebook for a limited time. Make sure to save a copy!
Social Security Contribution Limits – 2010
Jul 29th
It seems every year the federal government makes new changes to various taxing entities which affect the amount you have to pay in to the IRS, Social Security, and Medicare. While this is certainly an unpleasant reality for nearly every working American, it helps to understand what changes have occurred and when they take effect. As for the IRS, it would take several pages to list the numerous tax code changes for 2010, but for Social Security it’s fairly easy. No new changes!
There are no changes to the 2010 FICA taxes. FICA stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act with its roots dating back to 1935 when the US Government created the Social Security Program. Today, FICA taxes are collected from both employee and employer from the gross earnings of the individual. The following list details FICA taxes and Social Security limits for the last six years: (Self employed individuals will have to pay a tax rate of FICA x 2 because they have no employer to pick up the other half)
2010 FICA Taxes and Social Security Limits
- FICA Tax Rate – 7.65%
- Social Security Income Limit – $106,800.00
- Maximum Social Security Contribution Amount – $6,621.60
2009 FICA Taxes and Social Security Limits
- FICA Tax Rate – 7.65%
- Social Security Income Limit – $106,800.00
- Maximum Social Security Contribution Amount – $6,621.60
2008 FICA Taxes and Social Security Limits
- FICA Tax Rate – 7.65%
- Social Security Income Limit – $102,000.00
- Maximum Social Security Contribution Amount – $6,324.00
2007 FICA Taxes and Social Security Limits
- FICA Tax Rate – 7.65%
- Social Security Income Limit – $97,000.00
- Maximum Social Security Contribution Amount – $6,045.00
2006 FICA Taxes and Social Security Limits
- FICA Tax Rate – 7.65%
- Social Security Income Limit – $94,200.00
- Maximum Social Security Contribution Amount – $5,840.40
2005 FICA Taxes and Social Security Limits
- FICA Tax Rate – 7.65%
- Social Security Income Limit – $90,000.00
- Maximum Social Security Contribution Amount – $5,580.00
While no change in the limits is great news for anyone employed and their employer, the trend shows an 18% increase in the income limit from 2005 to 2009 which is not good at all. With the decrease in tax collection due to the recession, the lack of change for 2010 may actually signal a significant spike in 2011 or 2012, which could further slow what little recovery there is. Employers and employees need to be on the lookout for this and adjust their cash flow accordingly.
The possibility exists for an income limit hike of 8% or more once the federal government decides the economy is back on track. This means that if you make more than $115,000.00 per year, there would be an extra $640.80 per year deducted from your income which is like losing a tank of gas or two per month. It may not seem all that horrifying but if you do not receive an increase in your personal income (which is highly unlikely given the current economy) you may start to feel a pinch. 2010 federal income taxes may also be raised next year so make sure to cut out your excess spending now to prepare for a bigger tax bite.
