Credit cards look stupid, but you can trick yours out with a DIY design using this guide and these materials:
lifehacker
5 Other Ways To Easily Insert Timestamps When Documenting Complaints
By 7.19.07
Besides the F5 and .LOG trick for Notepad, commenters shared some of their personal favorite ways to input date and time in a system you’re using to keep a log of your customer service issue.
Cut Spending With Flickr And A Cameraphone
By 7.18.07
Here’s an idea for people trying to get a lock on their spending but find writing down everything too fascist. What about taking a picture of everything you buy with your cameraphone and uploading it to Flickr?
Back-To-School State Sales Tax Holidays
By 7.15.07
Just in time for back to school, Raising4Boys has posted a list of which states have state sales tax holidays. He lists when they occur, what goods are applicable, and if there’ s a maximum dollar amount. We’ve always found that state-sales-tax-free white glue is better for peeling off your hands…
How To Shop At A Farmer's Market
By 6.30.07
Finding the freshest, healthiest, and tastiest produce at a farmer’s market requires asking farmers the right questions:
5. When was this picked? You ideally want fruit and vegetables that were picked one or two days before arriving at the market.
4. Can you recommend a recipe? Farmers usually have creative ideas for turning their produce into delicious meals. Don’t pretend you would know how to prepare Kohlrabi without asking.
6 Ways To Cancel Any Cellphone So You Can Get An iPhone
By 6.26.07
If you want to get an iPhone but you’re stuck in a contract, here’s six ways to escape your service plan without paying a $175 early termination fee:
Dumpster Diving To Prosperity
By 6.23.07
Dumpster diving is the epitome of equal opportunity consumerism, best showcased by colleges during the bountiful, if not lucrative, weekend after graduation. The Times examined the seedy underbelly of capitalism through the lens of the freegans, who provide an unappetizing but compelling example to price-conscious consumers.
Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.
Finding furniture on the street is one thing, but we draw the line at consumables. What are your experiences and thoughts on dumpster diving? Tell us in the comments. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
How To Repel Mosquitos Without Bleeding Your Wallet
By 6.18.07
If you, like me, are a mosquito magnet, summer weather brings with it a particular kind of dread. Though my Brooklyn neighborhood would hardly be confused with “nature,” our wee outdoor space can feel like the Everglades. Since I tend to obsess about spending summer as bugless as possible, I thought I’d share a few tips for fellow urbanites.
Give The Gift Of Tech Support With A Free Day Pass From Fog Creek Copilot
By 6.17.07
Fog Creek Copilot is celebrating Father’s Day by giving away free Day Passes, allowing you to finally prove to your father that you are better than an Indian customer service representative. Copilot is a zero-configuration utility that lets you seize another person’s computer like a Mongol horde. Except instead of pillaging and burning, you install Firefox and remove spyware.
While connected as a helper, you see the desktop of the person you’re helping in its own window. As you move your mouse within this window, the other’s mouse pointer moves, and as you type, the text appears on both of your screens.
Don’t think tech support is a real gift? Were it not for our ability to resurrect our father’s beloved Albertus Medium font, he may have strangled himself out of frustration with the very ties we gifted in years past. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
8 Tips From A Moving Company
By 6.12.07
Here’s 8 tips to help make your next move smoother, and help nip customer/company disputes in the bud, provided by Tiffany of ASAP Van Lines:
How To Unshrink Wool
By 6.11.07
It’s actually very easy to unshrink a wool garment you shrank in the wash.
How To: Tailor Your Shirt With The "Pinch And Pin"
By 6.10.07
PREVIOUSLY: How To: Sew A Button On The Right Way
8 Tips For Keeping Your Cash
By 6.4.07
Here’s 8 personal finance tips Damon Darlin distilled from two years worth of his Your Money columns in the NYT:
Harness The Power Of Terra Cotta To Keep Brown Sugar Soft And Granulated
By 6.2.07
We hate getting halfway through a recipe only to find our brown sugar solid as a rock. Thankfully, Curbly has discovered a way to keep us rolling in lusciously soft brown sugar.
So, some genius Canadians came up with this adorable option: a bear-shaped chunk of terra cotta that keeps your brown sugar pliable and granulated. And at the best price of three dollars (plus shipping), it’s a pretty good deal. But three dollars is three dollars, and when you can DIY one for 29 cents, you could better spend the remaining $2.70 on postage to send me the delicious goods you’ve baked with your eternally soft brown sugar.
We never knew terra cotta soaked in water for 30 minutes could suppress brown sugar’s petrifying urges. Check out Curbly for the full instructions. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
Do A Background Check On Yourself
By 6.1.07
Companies can order all sorts of reports on you and make judgments about you, from banks, to landlords to employers. Here’s how you can see the data they’re seeing and make sure the record is right.
How To Pick A Financial Planner
By 5.30.07
Let’s say you’re the kind that can make money but don’t know what to do with it once it’s yours. Or perhaps you know a bit about personal finance but need some help on the more complicated matters associated with managing your money. Or maybe you don’t want a thing to do with handling your finances — you simply want to turn them over to someone else. In all of these cases (and several others you can likely imagine), you may be in the market for a financial adviser. But the world of financial planners is full of sharks, say CNNMoney and USAToday:
In most states, anyone can call themselves a financial adviser, even if they don’t have any training.
So how do you pick a financial planner who knows what she’s doing and who won’t rip you off by only working to turn your money into her money? A couple thoughts…
Use Typos To Get eBay Deals All To Yourself
By 5.29.07
Not every eBay seller throughly spellchecks their listings, a little fact you can exploit to buy stuff for cheaper, says Kiplinger’s:
Liberate Your Security Deposit By Acing Your Move-Out Inspection
By 5.27.07
Restoring an apartment can be easy, if done methodically. Thankfully, wikiHow has a useful room-by-room guide to help get your apartment spick-and-span.
