As blogging became more mainsteam—first in 2000 with Blogger, then after 2001 with all the political blogs that arose from seemingly nowhere—new business models developed. On one front, bloggers have convinced the corporate world that blogs should be an integral part of a company’s marketing and public relations plan. It’s a great way to reach the customers, etc. This way, individuals who enjoy online journaling have found a way to to make themselves marketable to companies.

Warning, this is a long one. Read the rest of this article »

As I checked my bank account balance this morning, I noticed something I wasn’t expecting: a tax refund from the New Jersey 2004 FAIR Tenant Rebate Program is scheduled to be deposited on August 1.

Even though I don’t directly pay property taxes, I pay them indirectly through a portion of my rent. Here are the qualifications for receiving the 2004 rebate (for tenants), for which it is too late to apply for those who are required to submit a tax return. However, I assume there will be a similar program in 2005 and the requirements will be the same.

• You rented and occupied a dwelling in New Jersey that was your principal residence on October 1, 2004
• Your principal residence is subject to local property taxes, and property taxes are paid on that residence through rent
• Your principal residence is a full living unit with its own separate kitchen and bathroom

• Your gross income for 2004 was $100,000 or less.

  If any of the following are true, then you are not eligible:

• Tenants living in dwellings owned by the State, County, Municipal, or Federal Government.
• Students living in on-campus apartments at State colleges and universities.
• Tenants living in dwellings owned by a religious, charitable, or other nonprofit organization (including on-campus apartments at private, nonprofit colleges and universities), if the property is exempt from property taxes.

• Tenants living in dwellings on which P.I.L.O.T. (Payments-in-Lieu-of-Tax) payments are made to the municipality. These payments are not considered property taxes for purposes of the FAIR rebate.

  A similar rebate exists for homeowners and the qualification requirements are different.

  Although it’s “only” $75 for me this year, every little bit helps.

If you like free music, and who doesn’t, and Gap jeans, then you might be exicted about this deal. Gap is running a promotion where those who simply try on a pair of one of its new styles will receive a free song from iTunes. I’ve never used iTunes to purchase music, but a song is likely about $0.99, right? Hardly worth a trip to the mall, but I suppose if you’re there anyway, it won’t hurt.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been running a sort of experiment. My job is designed such that I end up working a fair amount of overtime. To go into the details, I work a 37.5 hour week, salaried. If I work an extra 2.5 hours in one week, I get paid my equivalent hourly rate for those hours. Any time over 40 hours I work brings me my salary times one and a half.

When I get paid every two weeks, I have been transferring out the amount over what my net income would be for a pay period without overtime. This “extra” money has been going into an Emigrant Direct account (where it earns a decent amount of interest for a savings account). The “experiment” is to see how much I rely on overtime for my regular expenses.

The experiment has shown me that I’m relying on my overtime pay too much. I’ve dipped into my savings at ING Direct (with a less favorable interest rate) in order to cover all expenses for the month, even though there hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary.

I’ve learned I have to be more diligent about cutting expenses and saving money. I’ll be keeping myself on a strict budget during the vacation next month. I haven’t been good about bringing in my lunch to the office. That should change.

My goal is for my overtime pay to be “extra” so I can put it aside for something special. I may not always have the opportunity to work overtime, so I don’t want to be required to rely on that income.

The Google personalized home page now allows you to add custom RSS feeds to your portal. Be sure to add Consumerism Commentary’s RSS feed to Google or any other feed reader or aggregator with this address:

www.consumerismcommentary.com/index.xml

As frugalists, we try to save money wherever possible by looking for bargains or cutting corners where plausible. Some hotels are apparently cutting some corners to save money, as well. Marriott International says it’s a growing industry trend to cut back on changing bed sheets every night.

[H]otels are explaining the move as an effort to be more environmentally friendly, using less hot water, detergents and bleach to clean sheets. But the hotels see savings from less laundry and reduced labor costs.

The good news, for those who are bothered by this, is the hotels will most likely change the bed sheets for you if you request it specifically. No word about an additional charge.

When I check into a hotel in Williamsburg while on vacation next month, at the very least I hope they would change the sheets in our room after the previous guest checked out.

Don’t forget to send your submissions for the next Carnival of Personal Finance to Steve at In Cash Flow We Trust. Peruse past Carnivals and future Carnival hosts if you have some time and would like to browse more Personal Finance blogs.

Side note: Consumerism Commentary now uses “friendlier URLs” for posts. Old links will certainly continue to work, but the new addresses are better. You’ll just have to trust me on that.

How do you know when it’s time to quit your job? I’ve left jobs before, whether it was because it was time for me to do something else or because it was due to a “mutual agreement to move in separate directions.” But how do you know if you’ve stayed too long in a less-than-ideal situation? Read the rest of this article »