Consumerist

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gas

Desperate Atlantans Use Twitter To Find Gas

There's a gas shortage in Atlanta, GA, so consumers are using Twitter to help each other find gas. They're tagging their posts #atlgas whenever they spot some and letting others know the price and location, as well as tossing out requests for information. The tag was created by Tessa Horehled who writes the DriveAFasterCar blog.

#atlgas [search.twitter] (Thanks to Elizabeth!)

12:27 PM on Mon Sep 29 2008
By Ben Popken
5,724 views, 40 comments

Latest by xphilter: so I love how in the time of a 'gas shortage' someone is looking for premium gas...unless it is some exotic car, any car would be able to use regular--the ECU just de-tunes the engine to prevent knock....ey ey ey. more »

Wall Street Fighter has a list of 18 money management websites, to handle everything from making zero-commission stock trades to dunning your family for past-due IOUs. [Wall Street Fighter]

Comment

sales

5-50% Off At Home Depot

Looking to spruce up the ol' nest? Home Depot announced a big sale today, with temporary pricecuts of 5-50%, with 400 items being announced each Thursday for the next three weeks.

Home Depot slashes prices, seeking to gain share [MarketPlace] (Thanks to Anne!) (Photo: Maulleigh)

3:41 PM on Thu Sep 18 2008
By Ben Popken
7,214 views, 23 comments

Latest by Hands: @Antediluvian: Unbelievable. The CSR was right. I don't think that's ever happened before. more »

billshrink

BillShrink Launches Free Credit Card Comparison Service

BillShrink's free credit card comparison service launches today, and you should check it out to see whether your current credit card is the best available option for you. The great thing about BillShrink is it doesn't try to get you to sign up for a particular card—it simply aggregates the information on each one, then helps you quickly navigate your options to find the best choice for your specific needs. (The site makes money when you sign up for a new service.)

It just launched an hour ago, though, so you might want to bookmark it and check it out after the initial spike of traffic has died down.

10:20 AM on Thu Sep 18 2008
By Chris Walters
3,852 views, 21 comments

Latest by billshrink: Just wanted to let everyone know, the site is working fine now, we increased capacity. Would love the feedback. Thanks! more »

personal finance

'Rudder' Provides Your Daily Financial Status Via Email

Rudder is a new personal finance service that differs from the dozens of other ones now available in two key ways: it presents a simplified overview of your available funds, which it calls "What's Left," and it delivers it (along with bill reminders and balance notifications) to your email inbox instead of requiring you to visit a website. Think of it as a highly customized "Very Short List" or "Daily Candy," only the topic is always your current financial health. More »

5:29 PM on Fri Sep 12 2008
By Chris Walters
5,868 views, 10 comments

Latest by Tankueray: Second to mint. It tracks all my accounts and sends me text messages. more »

wishlists

Readers' Favorite 3rd Party Online Wishlists

A number of readers chimed in on the Best Buy-branded wishlist browser add-on post with the alternatives they prefer instead. They were: 1) Amazon's Universal Wishlist, 2) Del.icio.us, 3) Wishlist.com, 4) Wishlistr.com. Got any others? As far as what most Consumerist's thought of the Best Buy add-on, commenter dragonfire81 probably captured it best...

(Photo: heyu1021)

9:40 PM on Wed Sep 10 2008
By Ben Popken
2,058 views, 16 comments

Latest by CyberSkull: I don't use any universal wish list. more »

Reviews

Save For Specific Goals With SmartyPig.com

"Saving up." It's nearly an alien concept in this "buy with debt" world, but into that breach steps SmartyPig. The site lets you set and save for specific goals in their online savings accounts at a competitive 3.9% APY savings rate. There's all sorts of built-in graphs and widgets to track your progress, but then you can make it social, if you like, by making a page where your goals public and having friends and family or other random people on the net (export to Facebook, etc) track and root for your progress, or even contribute to your goal. More »

6:23 PM on Wed Sep 10 2008
By Ben Popken
4,798 views, 17 comments

Latest by verified101: Great it's not good for Canadians and here I was all sold on the idea. more »

FSA Ombudsman Solves Your Federal Student Aid Crises

Got a problem with your federal student loan? The Federal Student Aid Ombudsman specialists are here to help. First they've got a bunch of tips for you to fix your problem on your own. If all those don't work, contact them by phone, fax, or mail and they will help you out. For reals. This is reader Trey's great experience with them: More »

4:24 PM on Wed Sep 10 2008
By Ben Popken
2,871 views, 16 comments

Latest by MomInTraining: @Fist-o: When you do a consolidation loan, they just take the average of all of your loan interest rates and make that a fixed rate. So if you have a higher interest loan and a lower interest loan, it sometimes makes sense to consolidate. You are right about it causing more »

phone numbers

Quickly Get A Live Rep With Dial-A-Human

Dial-A-Human.com is just like Gethuman.com, offering a cheat sheet of secret codes to bypass annoying phone-trees and get right to a live operator. More »

11:56 AM on Tue Aug 26 2008
By Ben Popken
4,761 views, 8 comments

Latest by Nick_Bentley: This rules, places try to save money by shifting the cost of a person routing it to having you spend 20 minutes on hold going through a not-so-smart system. more »

cars

Find Out What People Paid For Their Cars

OpenCarPrice.com is a site dedicated to bringing you previously secret information, the actual price people are paying for their cars. Just select the make and model and the site spits out the info. The database gets filled by reader-submitted reports. There's no guarantee that everything is 100% accurate, but it can at least give you a better picture of what you you can reasonably expect to pay...and negotiate for. Another site that does this RealCarTips.

OpenCarPrice [Official Site]
RealCarTips [Official Site]

3:45 PM on Mon Aug 25 2008
By Ben Popken
6,902 views, 19 comments

Latest by fafi: it's pretty awful that you can't select/search by year. & there's only cars from 2006+. the searching on that site is not so good. especially the first one. more »