In life, everything is negotiable, including your rent. Many renters might tremble at confronting the dark landlord ogre, but with a little research, some tips on negotiating, and a little moxie, you can stand a fighting chance at trimming your monthly rent check: [More]
how-to
Hunt Down Your Credit Card Contract Online
By 6.22.10
Hey, you can now look up your credit card contract online. There’s a searchable database over at the Federal Reserve that lets you check them out in both text and PDF form. [More]
How To Opt Out Of Apple's iAds Service, Eventually
By 6.22.10
If you don’t want Apple collecting data on you and using it to target you with ads starting July 1st, you can opt out from “any device running iOS 4,” says AppleInsider. The opt-out is automatic when you hit up http://oo.apple.com from an iOS 4 device, and as far as I can tell you can’t undo it, so don’t click the link unless you really want to opt out. Also, it’s not working at the moment. [More]
Kill The Cable Bill, Keep The Shows
By 6.21.10
Bryan over at Consumerism Commentary says he “felt a little dirty paying a monthly bill and watching advertisements at the same time.” So he canceled his cable TV and put together a Mac Mini-based system to watch “99%” of all the shows he and his wife liked, online, for free. This is video describing how he did. Like with all good nerdy projects, it begins with a spreadsheet. [More]
Top 10 Tips For Making Air Travel Less Of A Pain In The Butt
By 6.13.10
Let’s face it: While flying in a plane is pretty cool, for most people the reality of air travel is a mammoth pain in the butt. Regardless, we can’t all be John Madden, tooling around in a tricked-out bus so as to avoid getting on a plane. That’s why Lifehacker compiled their top 10 tips for surviving your flight. [More]
15 Ways To Kick Ass When Testifying
By 6.10.10
If you are victimized by corporate behavior and asked to testify before a legislative body in order to tell your story and help get a pro-consumer bill passed, it can be really scary. You only have a few minutes to make your case. Are you gonna choke it, or clinch it? Just follow these 15 tips I just learned in a Consumers Union Activist Summit workshop: [More]
Get Off Junk Mail Lists With Blitz Calling
By 6.10.10
This is an awesome new tactic for getting off junk mail lists. I just learned it from Phillip, a Consumerist reader I met at the Consumers Union Activist Summit, who is eating a sandwich next to me. He calls it “Blitz Calling” and he’s used it to successfully get off seven different junk mail lists that initially tried to ignore him. [More]
CredAbility.org: 911 For Personal Finance Emergencies
By 6.7.10
If your house catches on fire, you call 911. But who do you call when your personal balance sheet catches on fire? [More]
Save Money On Head Lice Removal
By 6.2.10
You’re a good Consumerist. You make your own kids at home. You grow your own lice in a coffee can you found on the street. You dump the lice on the kids’ heads before you send them off to school. After all that, the last thing you want to do is spend a fortune on lice removal treatments, right? You’re in luck: the New York Times says you don’t have to spend a lot of money de-lousing your itchy little child. [More]
Save On Drugs By Making Your Pharmacy Price-Match
By 6.2.10
What made Jules sicker than her strep throat was the price Kroger wanted to charge her for a 6-pack of generic Azithromycin. $38.72! “That’s highway robbery!” she told the them. Then Jules stumbled onto something most people don’t know that could save them serious money on prescription medication: you can price-match your pills. [More]
Prepare For The Unexpected With A "Stupid Mistakes" Savings Account
By 6.1.10
One thing that can derail people digging themselves out of debt are the random unexpected setbacks life likes to throw at us to keep us on our toes. The accidental parking ticket, the bike that breaks down, the illness that requires pricey pills. Any of these can be enough to upset even the most carefully orchestrated budgeting and debt payment schedule, unless, you are smart like Ramit Sethi, and set up a “stupid mistakes” sub-savings account. Here’s how it works. [More]
Stop Luggage Thieves
By 5.28.10
Frugal for Life has some suggestions for avoiding your baggage getting stolen, the most surefire one being to not check a bag in the first place. You can also use a cheap, neon bag, as thieves prefer more nondescript bags and tend to target those fancy “LV” emblazoned bags. Also, you can insure your bag, usually as part of trip insurance, which usually costs 5-8% of the total trip price. Do you use any special tactics to thwart luggage thieves? Leave your thoughts in the comments. [More]
Track Down A Water Leak In Your Home
By 5.27.10
A water leak on your line can run up your utility bills, plus it wastes water. But before you spend money on a plumber, there’s a few things you can do yourself to try to locate and stop the leak. Wikihow has a good DIY guide, from listening to toilets to checking hose bibs. Even if all you can do is find the leak, you can save money if you’re able to tell the plumber where it is and he doesn’t have to go looking for it.
How to Find a Water Leak in Your House [WikiHow]
BillShrink Shows You How To Save On Cable Bills
By 5.26.10
This morning, BillShrink delivered a karate chop to the cable cabal with a new service, currently in beta, that shows you how to get the best cable/tv/satellite/dish package for the best price. [More]
Keep PayPal From Using The Default ATM Debit Setting
By 5.25.10
PayPal exists to make money, not to help you. That’s why the unregulated money broker likes to ensure that when you pay with a linked account, you pay via the ATM debit card setting, because it’s cheaper for PayPal. Of course, that “savings” is sometimes deducted from you in the form of a transaction fee by your bank, but PayPal doesn’t care. If you want to change that payment method the next time you use PayPal, be prepared to jump through a lot of hoops. [More]
Get Your Complaints Solved With One Simple Question
By 5.24.10
It’s like “The Secret” for CSRs: by asking reps reps this one question, you can get many of your customer issues resolved faster and go on to live a life with less stress and more laughter. [More]
Cut Debt Faster By Sending In Your Payments Sooner
By 5.24.10
One little trick you can do to get out of debt faster is to send in your credit card payments as soon as you can, says No Credit Needed. [More]
Fix Mortgage Errors By Promising The CSR "Phone Fun," At Least At Wells Fargo
By 5.24.10
According to a lawsuit filed in New Jersey, a CSR at Wells Fargo’s Home Mortgage Division refused to correct a payment error for Jamie Nelson unless she had some “phone fun” with him first. Phone fun, in this case, seemed to mean naked pics of the woman. She’s suing for emotional distress, since you can’t take someone to court simply for being a skeevy jackass. Wells Fargo says they’re taking the allegations seriously. [More]
