I’ve been getting a slew of credit card offers in the mail lately. What is funny about this is that I think the reason is I’m starting to carry balances on both my personal and business credit cards, so I think they’re looking at me now as someone they can make interest off of.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have my business and personal cards paid off every month like I normally do and NOT get these prestigious credit card offers in the mail, but due to some circumstances as of late and a large tax bill that had to be paid, we had to let our balances roll over a few times, which is definitely not normal practice for my husband and I.

We usually adhere strictly to maintaining a zero balance, trust me!  But one of the credit card offers I got was for a Visa Black Credit Card. You may have heard of it. It’s supposedly this really prestigious credit card that only people in select groups can receive. I can’t figure out why I got an application/pre approval for one though because our income isn’t what it used to be, and certainly shouldn’t qualify us for such a high income card.

The packaging was very nice – it must have been an expensive piece of marketing, because not only was the envelope thick, but the marketing materials were very high quality looking, and the paper they used looked “expensive”. I see what they’re going for – “look we even send you beautiful marketing materials, that’s because you’re so special”.

Now here’s the kicker for these high-prestige cards. There is a pretty big annual fee – to the tune of five hundred bucks or so.  I would never in my right mind think of paying a fee that high, no matter what the service level or rewards, unless I was truly rich and could afford such luxuries.

The card features a 24 hour “concierge” service, VIP airport lounge visits, supposedly a good rewards system (I don’t know much about it though, I would hope it would be excellent), “luxury gifts” and a special material is used for the card itself – carbon, adding to the exclusive “rich” feel of the card.

I gotta hand it to them, the marketing materials are pretty darn sleek for the card, and if I were in a different demographic I might go for it. I will always be thrifty though, even when I some day have lots of money to spend. And I’ve never been one big on status, so to me that part is not a big deal, but I can see how this card is popular with the elite crew.

My hubby and I are going through one of those difficult financial periods where it seems like the odds are stacked against us and our financial karma.  We had a whopper tax bill (actually two since our last years last bill and this year’s first bill were due the same day), had a major car repair due, and both of our side businesses had a big dip at the same time.

But what do you do?  You fight back and you work your little tail off to make sure you can pull yourself out of it and not get into high interest credit card debt for more than three months, is what you do! I’ve been there and done that, and I’ve made it abundantly clear to my husband that we are not taking that path ever again if I can help it.

So, we are on the path to clear out our credit cards, which we had to put quite a few things on lately in favor of paying higher priority bills with the cash on hand.  What have we turned to in order to do this? We’ve been listing quite a few things that are of collectible value on Ebay for one.

This is a great way to clear out your basement and closets and to make some extra money IF you know what you’re doing. There’s also a lot of room for wasting a lot of money in listing fees if you list things that won’t sell, so here are some very important pointers on listing your extraneous stuff on Ebay and actually making money as opposed to throwing more of it away on items that don’t sell.

Let me give you some useful tips and pointers that I’ve found incredibly helpful to list things on Ebay.  First thing you want to check is the “Completed Listings” for the item you are desiring to sell on Ebay.  Type the item into the search bar, then go to the left hand side of your screen and click “Completed Listings” so that it shows you only these types of listings. This means it will show you not just what things were listed for by the seller, but what they actually sold for.

This gives you a good indication on whether you should even list your item or not. If you see a hundred other people listed the same item and never sold it, then it’s safe to say you’d be wasting your time and money as well.

You will have to log in and have an account to check Completed Listings, so make sure you have an account first or you cannot see this view.  Take advantage of any free listing offers as well. This means you won’t have to pay the fee to list – Ebay charges a listing fee even if your item does not sell.

You also have to consider Paypal fees, which is how you get paid through Ebay. So try to figure this into your overall cost of listing and also consider how much you will have to pay to ship the item.

You will want to weigh it on a scaled and go to the USPS.com website and get a shipping quote so you can accurately tell the buyer how much they will have to pay for shipping.

Of course the term “living in sin” is quite the outdated idea these days.  But when the majority of the American public was Christian or Catholic, the idea of living with your partner before marriage was considered a sin against God.  The idea that you might be sleeping with a person before you marry them was quite shocking and scandalous back in the day of old fashioned values.

But these days are different. We live in an era where economic functionality and practicality simply have to overshadow a lot of these old time beliefs from an outdated and antiquated idea that people should live a certain way because a book or God says so.

It’s a commonly known fact that lots of young people are waiting to get married these days. It’s simply not as high of a priority to people nowadays and there are so many other ways to meet people and fall in love than there were before.

The thing is that people now need to cut down on their cost of living and so they make the choice of reducing their expenses by cutting their living expenses in half.  My husband and I actually lived together in a rental for a long time before we got married. We also bought a home together (the first house we both ever bought) before we were married.

Some people thought we were nuts – me in particular because “I’m the woman” and I guess that means I shouldn’t feel like I can take care of myself.  They thought we should have that piece of paper before we took one of the biggest plunges of our life which was buying a home.

The simple truth of couples “living in sin” together these days is that it just makes more sense financially for both parties.  You can save hundreds of dollars by living with someone else and splitting the cost of the rent.

Not only that, it makes more sense with all the bills that come in for a rental or house.  You’ve got utilities such as electric and gas, cable bills, phone bills, garbage disposal bills and simply keeping up with the maintenance and cleanliness of a place. It’s expensive just to LIVE these days!

Then you have groceries, furnishings, and all the other things that go with simply living.  If you could split this cost with someone, it would save you a boatload of money. And your partner too.

I’ve been listening a lot to this CD I bought for a really good price about two years ago that is basically a conversation with the founder of Whole Foods John Mackey. As you know, Whole Foods is a huge franchise now.

It started off as mainly a hippie-type of store with natural, wholesome foods, but flourished over the years into a large supermarket of sorts with organic produce, healthy eats and prepared foods to boot that are to die for and also happen to be made with organic, healthy ingredients.

Not only is the CD enjoyable to listen to from a personal standpoint, it’s also got some good insights from a guy who runs a socially responsible business and has made it very profitable to do so.  He’s into a lot of spiritual guidance principles and has a lot of life experience under his belt as well, which makes him not just a corporate stuffed shirt, but someone you really want to listen to and hear about not only their business philosophies but their personal philosophies as well.

He goes into some of the metaphysical but does seem hesitant to do so because he doesn’t want Whole Foods to be characterized as a cult, as he says the media has done in the past.  It’s fascinating to listen to him because he seems real, he seems flawed and he’s very honest, which may get some high paid CEO’s and founders in trouble.

One of this more interesting talking points was about a study he said was done in Germany. The study was to identify who makes the best military leaders out of a class of four personality types. Those types were based on four combinations of the following categories of people: High Energy and High Intelligence and Low Energy and Low Intelligence.

What they found was very interesting, because it is counterintuitive.  You would think that high energy, high intelligence people would make the best leaders. But really it is people who have high intelligence and low energy that make the best leaders, and perhaps even the best coworkers as well.

Think about it in your work situation. Certainly you’ve worked with one of those people who is more than capable in their job and also happens to have an abundance of energy. They seem to have their hands in every pot around the office, and tend to overshadow and diminish others in the group.

They also tend to voice themselves a bit too much and intimidate others, making it hard for a well rounded environment and therefore not making it inclusive enough to include multiple viewpoints.

They are like tornadoes basically, and while these high intelligence high energy people certainly can prove useful, it is not usually in a leadership role or one where they work with a team, but rather where they work independently and can shine on their own. I’ve seen this principle at work in my various jobs over the years, and it is 100% unequivocally true.

My hubby and I are off to take a very short “long weekend” type vacation to a city that is within two hours of where we live in Ohio – Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. While this can hardly be considered the premier vacation spot, to us it is nonetheless something we are immensely looking forward to.

I dare say I’m looking forward to this as much as I would be some tropical vacation right now, because we are both so burned out on our jobs and on life in general that just getting away from it all is going to do us a world of good.

Sometimes you get to that point, where just getting a cheap hotel somewhere and getting out of your house and away from all the diversions and busy stuff you have going on when you’re at home and working too is like nirvana.  We’re there right now.

This trip will not cost us a lot of money either.  We’re going to a convention as well, which will be something that’s good for my business and is a side interest of his as well, so it’s a business and pleasure trip. We will spend little money on food as we are not going to fine dine the entire time, but rather go for value than fancy.  It’s even better because we can use the business credit card and garner rewards as well for some purchases.

We’ve also gotten a convention rate on our hotel, and since we are taking this trip to enhance our business and gain new contacts, we can also offset our taxes because it is a business trip. Now, everyone knows that doesn’t make it free, but it certainly makes you feel less guilty about “getting away”.

With the way the economy is today and the high jobless and underemployed rate here in the US, there are actually some pretty good travel deals right now. So it’s the perfect time not only for elaborate paradise-like vacations, but also for the small getaways like we’re doing this weekend since local hotels and restaurants are also hurting for business and will extend their greatest deals to travelers to entice them.

Another money saving tip on these short, cheap jaunts away from home is to eat a larger breakfast and skip lunch, waiting until dinner to eat again. This can save you anywhere from $20 to $40, depending on where you eat for lunch – especially if it’s a sit-down restaurant you’re going to.

Often times when you’re travelling, you have a later breakfast anyway, so this strategy can work out very well for people who don’t need to eat their three squares a day. Now for people who are early risers on vacations, staycations, or close-to-home vacations, this may not be a great strategy.

I for one, cannot wait to get away. Sometimes just the prospect of being in a hotel, not having to do home chores like dishes, laundry and cleanup after yourself all day is like heaven in and of itself.  I’m awaiting my little 2 hour vacation eagerly!  Especially since I’m pretty burnt out at work lately.  Just need something new and refreshing to get my head back in the game.

I used to listen to the controversial radio show of “shock jocks” Opie and Anthony all the time.   Even though they might be known to the general public as shock jocks, they were actually some of the most intelligent DJ’s to ever host a radio show in my opinion that involved not only banter and jokes but a lot of talk about current issues and movies and other things.

One thing that Anthony Cumia, who of course probably had some pretty good financial success from the show (which is now on satellite radio after they permanently lost their terrestrial radio show), made one comment that not only made me laugh, but resonated as 100% true for me too.

He said “Why is it that every GD time I buy a stock, it tanks the next day?”.  If he could have taken a page out of my investing history, that would be it.  I invest my own 401k retirement money in an account I have set up to self-direct mine and my husband’s retirement money.

I love having total control over my investments and being able to pick individual stocks and ETF’s. If you read up on this kind of stuff, you can actually do pretty well for yourself if you have good hunches or feel confident about certain stocks or investments. Of course, the stock market is risky, so one wrong call or a company going belly up and you could lose your shirt, so it’s important to diversify your portfolio as much as you can.

That’s the rule I try to follow in our account.  However, if I find a stock that I really love, or an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), I’ll buy quite a bit of it. The last time I did that, my stock I picked literally went down by $7 in a month’s time period. That’s a lot because the price of the stock wasn’t above fifty bucks to begin with, so percentage wise, my retirement account took quite a hit.

However, I still believe in the stock, and I’m sticking to my guns. My research tells me that this is a temporary glitch based on factors that are both outside of my control and the company’s, and I still feel confident in future indicators that this stock will see much better days in the following months or years.

Plus, it pays quite a handsome dividend, which will only add to my earnings and benefit us the longer we keep it in our accounts. In the meantime, you kind of have to bite the bullet and wait for the agonizing period of seeing your 401k look like it’s been decimated.

I still believe in buy and hold to a degree even though so many experts are playing that mentality down in this “new day and age”.  And this stock is a buy and hold in my opinion!  Sometimes in investing, you have nothing to go on but your research and your gut instincts, and this is one of those times where I have to swallow my fear and just hang on for the ride.

I have to say, it’s sickening to see all the home foreclosure signs around, knowing darn well that empty, inhabitable space is just sitting around, doing nothing – essentially just taking up space, demanding lawn mowing and grounds keeping, and basically putting a drain on power supplies without any humans in it.

If it’s not people worrying about the values of their homes going up or down in 2012, but many people are still in very real struggles to keep their homes right now and there is a lot of vacant inventory on the market, just sitting there.

It’s darn wasteful, even if you’re no tree hugger, if you think about it.  It’s empty space that could be used to house human beings.  Whether it is people who don’t have homes (used as a sort of homeless shelter) or whether it’s for people renting who have lost their homes to foreclosure and now need to rent – why not put the real estate to good use?

I’m really a frugal person by nature. Even if I didn’t have to be, which incidentally I actually do have to be now, I would still be extremely cognizant of what I am spending and whether it’s something that is truly needed or not.

To me, if I were the banks with these foreclosures, I would rent more of them out until I figured out what I was going to do with them. Or why not rent them out until the housing market really starts a sustainable recovery, then put them on the market for sale?

Or why not just offer the current homeowner, who apparently cannot afford them house payment, a reduce “rent” payment, effectively sacrificing their equity in the home for the privelege of staying in the home at a much reduced price?  I know there would be a lot of red tape on this type of workaround, but hey, when you’ve got as much inventory on the market as most banks do when it comes to foreclosed homes, you have to really start thinking outside of the box.

And speaking of the banks, how the heck are they all bouncing back so nicely with all the foreclosures on their books? It’s awfully suspect if you ask me.  I’m not sure if it’s the government bailouts or what happened as far as how they got back in the black again, but it seems like there should have been a more sustained pain for the banks, and they seem to be doing just fine again.

If you have other good ideas of what banks can do with these foreclosed homes, post them here. I’m sure there’s some sort of huge business opportunity in this – somewhere – for the right person to pick up on.

Read related stories on this : Underwater financing on homes

I just came back from my weekly trip to the grocery store, and I’m noticing more and more how much more shrewd most shoppers are when it comes to shopping for their groceries. I know that increased shrewdness in prices can be said for many kinds of shopping, but I think it can be said doubly so for groceries since they are a staple of our lives and everyone needs to buy them.

The comments between couples and co-shoppers I’ve been noticing are “this one’s on sale, let’s get this brand” and things like “no that’s too expensive, we’ll get it next time”. I also see people picking things up and putting them back, as if the item is just too expensive to fit into their overall food and grocery budget.

All of this, including the subtle body language that I see on shoppers tells me that people are still feeling squeezed for money. The layoffs, the increasing feeling in America that something worse than the recession is coming (here I feel like a character from one of my favorite shows “Game of Thrones” saying the winter is coming) and a pervasive mentality that money is scant and needs to be held on to are definitely adding to the overall feeling of poorness in our country.

I watched one woman today that seemed to be seriously considering every single one of her purchases in the produce department. She was still there when I went back several minutes later after returning from several aisles over, still considering her purchases carefully.

Af father of two (only two that I saw with him at least) was shopping and scrutinizing the prices on every item he was considering for puchase, almost as if he were making a large investment on each precious piece of produce, dairy and meat.

I also noticed many senior citizens taking their time to sift through  the lower priced meats, and people picking up more of the marked down produce and meats with the yellow stickers. I myself did that as well. Hey, far be it from me, who is currently cash strapped myself, to pass up a good bargain.

Our world has turned into one where commodities are priced very highly. The price of gasoline has increased, and so the price of all commodities or groceries, has gone up with it. Combine that with a landscape of lots of people still without jobs or not gainfully enough employed, and you’ve got a generations of seroiusly frugal bargain hunters.

Read related stories Ridiculous Bargains in a bad economy

I don’t know why, but I’ve been a complete meiser with money lately. Well, I sort of know why – business hasn’t been as good as usual. But yet I find myself holding back money even on necessities.

I won’t even let myself think of going on a fun shopping trip or buying something that’s not needed like clothes or shoes unless I’m wearing threadbear duds.  See our related story Are Americans Getting Tired of Being Thrifty? and how this mentality may have worn people out already.

I get into these penny pinching modes every once in a while and I am a naturally thrifty person most of the time. It’s good for me. It actually helps me to not focus on material things and to instead focus on things like my physical health, relationships, and spirituality. It’s a very healthy “breather” for me in other words. Having material things and abundance can work both for you and against you.

Realizing that material items and having enough money to spend on things you want isn’t the only thing in life definitely brings a welcome sense of perspective. I find that I’m enjoying the little things in life a lot more. I’m not totally preccupied with making my business better all the time.

Instead, I’m getting outside more, taking jogs and long walks, enjoying our briefly blooming magnolia tree, and enjoying my physical health, reading, and well being more.

In some ways, it does bring a bit of peace. Now don’t get me wrong. If we were in dire straits and not able to make house payments on our mortgage or were losing the house, this would have quite the opposite effect.  But we’re not anywhere in that realm – we’re just in a pullback and are trying to really save money where we can so that we can afford to pay for things like food, shelter and basic health care.

My heart goes out to the thousands of couples that are in foreclosure or are having a really hard time making ends meet.  For them, this is not a wake up call, or an emotional awakening, but rather a nightmare in which their relationship is likely compromised, their dreams shattered and their hopes for the basic  American dream dashed.

I think looking at situations like that has made me ever more grateful that I still have my basics – I have my health, my relationship, my house and enough food to keep me sustained. And for that I will be forever grateful and never forget.

It’s interesting that this new healthcare law, or “Obamacare” as it is affectionately termed currently, has generated so much controversy yet almost no one I talk to actually knows what it proposes to do.  Now that I know a little more about it, I can see why there is so much controversy.

The healthcare law would essentially become effective in 2014, with the pentalties proposed by the law going into effect around that time.  Of course, the law is going through the Federal court system now on the basis that it may not be constitutional, but I think that if Obama gets back in, we’ll see this law go into effect, albeit with some possible minor tweaks.

Something I just said may have pricked your ears a bit, the word “penalty”. Yes, ladies and gents – the Federal government is going to enact penalties or a certain percentage of your income if you fail to get mandatory minimum health coverage.

It will also penalize already struggling small businesses who are not offering “affordable” health coverage to their employees.  Now, what they consider affordable isn’t clear yet, so even employers who offer health insurance aren’t certain to avoid penalties, depending on what the government deems affordable.

Do you see why this is controversial? It actually forces people to do something that they might not otherwise do. What if you are in great health and broke?  What if you take care of yourself so well just because you know you can’t afford healthcare if something goes wrong?

How can you force people like that to buy something they clearly cannot afford – and may not even need?  I’m beginning to see why this law is not very popular.  I agree that health coverage needs to be more affordable to the average joe here in America, and I do agree that no one should even be turned away with life threatening illness if they simply don’t have health insurance.

However, I think this is taking it too far.  This is almost like a nanny state.  For all those people that thought it would just make healthcare coverage more affordable, it may only do that to people who are in certain circumstances, like having a job that offers insurance to begin with.

What of the many that are still unemployed? How are they going to afford force-placed health insurance?  Better yet, how are they going to afford a ridiculous penalty if they don’t do it?