Blog Archives

Eye-Opening Chart Breaks Down Reward Program Costs [Buying]

Posted on October 7, 2009
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Ever wonder how much you’re really getting back from credit card and retail reward programs? Personal finance site Mint.com breaks down the fees, catches, and mentality behind some major retailers’ cards and shopper programs in a big ol’ chart.

Mint and WallStats.com do a pretty great job of making their chart flow sensibly and read well, taking you through what major credit card issuers, grocery chains, and big box stores want you to think when signing up for a reward/points program, then breaking down each program on a cents-back-per-dollar basis. There’s also a guide to being a “Reward Points Ninja,” and the read through the whole thing should make you reconsider whether retail allegiance is really worth the hassle.

Take a look at the whole infographic below. Click for the full view, or right-click to download:






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Choose the Right Sized TV for Your Space with a Simple Formula [Television]

Posted on September 8, 2009
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So you’re in the market for a new HDTV, but don’t know what size screen to buy. You could go with the “bigger is better” adage, or you can precisely calculate a more suitable size by applying the following formula.

Gadgetwise blogger J.D. Biersdorfer and NYT personal tech editor Sam Grobart demonstrate how to determine the right television size using one simple formula.

According to the duo, the process involves taking the viewing distance from the screen (in inches) and dividing that by the number two. Why two? According to Jude, salespeople will tell you to divide the distance by 1.5 because they want you to buy a bigger set, whereas non-salespersons typically suggest 2.5 as a benchmark. The “pragmatic thing” to do, she says, is to split the difference between these numbers and divide by two instead, which should provide you with a proper screen size.

Check out the above video clip to see the simple calculation in action. If you don’t want to hassle yourself with all that inconvenient math (or you just want a more forgiving scale of sizes within maximum and minimum viewing distances (not everyone is sitting exactly the same distance from the TV, after all), this previously covered TV-to-space chart can do the trick, too.






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Use Remember the Milk to Plan Groceries and Meals [Groceries]

Posted on August 11, 2009
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Web-based task manager Remember the Milk stands out for its ubiquity, and a few of its users have suggested novel ways to use its tags, priorities, and separate lists as a multi-person household…

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Alice Takes Household Shopping Off Your To-Do List [Budget]

Posted on June 23, 2009
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Everyone’s looking for ways to squeeze more time into the day. Web site Alice aims to give you an hour or two back by automating household shopping.

The idea is pretty simple. Create a free account, which includes setting up your household (family members and items used), then start shopping. When you choose an item to add, you’re given the option to create a custom label, choose the quantity, select how often to be reminded that you’re running low, and determine whether to add it to a current order or a future purchase.

But Alice doesn't stop there. Aside from ordering items and having them shipped to you—free—Alice offers coupons, checks product prices, provides product reviews and even manages your household budget.

With charts similar to Mint, the most popular web-based personal finance app, Alice breaks down your spending by room, by family member, and by transactions—keeping tabs of the last 12 months of purchases.

Eventually Alice will offer the option to auto-ship supplies, potentially removing many of the “How did I run out of coffee?!?” moments from your life.





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Ensure Your Car Rental Goes as Planned [Travel]

Posted on June 2, 2009
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Chances are you’ve seen this classic Seinfeld moment in which Jerry vents his frustrations over the bastardization of “reservations” in the world of car rentals. If you’re planning to rent a car for your summer vacation, weblog Consumerist helps you avoid these pitfalls with useful rental tips from an employee.

It may come as no surprise that the car rental employee reaffirms the problem illustrated in the Seinfeld episode as totally accurate:

If you make your reservation online, be proactive and call the station where you’ll be picking up your vehicle to verify that the reservation went through and that your desired car will be on the lot. Should you have to do this? No, you shouldn’t. But what’s the harm in giving a heads up so that potential difficulties can be headed off at the pass?

The Consumerist post covers 13 tips from the rental employee. None of them are particularly groundbreaking, but it’s a worthwhile read for adding a few items to your pre-vacation checklist to make sure everything goes off without a hitch. If you’re already an expert in car rental maneuvering, drop off your two cents in the comments.





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RetailMeNot Adds Printable Coupons for Offline Savings [Saving Money]

Posted on April 14, 2009
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Popular online coupon search web site RetailMeNot has added a new printable coupon feature that indexes over 90,000 printable coupons for saving cash when you’re not shopping online.

The new printable coupons are searchable by location, and results display on a Google Map so you can quickly check out deals nearby. It’s got a little ways to go before it’s the first place we’d go to find a deal locally, but I’m already impressed with the decent results I’m finding around Lifehacker HQ in Los Angeles. For a similar alternative, check out previously mentioned RedPlum.





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Be Suspicious of Supermarket “End Caps” [Saving Money]

Posted on April 7, 2009
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Consumer Reports compiles 13 strategies for avoiding the most successful grocery tricks in its May 2009. Among them is a warning to examine the aisle-ending “caps” that attract eyes, but often aren’t anything approaching a deal.

Those end caps can boost item sales by nearly a third, the non-profit group writes, but are often used to push items that are high-margin or are actually about to expire.

At an A&P near our Yonkers, N.Y., headquarters, we spotted an end cap loaded with Pepperidge Farm cookies, all at full price. The end-cap tie-in is another trick: Related items are featured, not all of them on sale. Take the Tostitos display we saw at Stop & Shop. The chips were on sale; salsa and dips weren't.

While you’re looking around to tighten up your grocery tactics, check out CR’s list of value-friendly everyday products.





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FatWallet Adds Coupon Search to Save You Money with Ease [Saving Money]

Posted on March 25, 2009
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Deal-finding web site FatWallet has always had an excellent forum for saving cash, and while that made it very popular among Lifehacker readers, the site’s new coupon search helps you avoid digging through forum posts.

Using it is simple: Just head over to the FatWallet homepage or the coupons search page, enter the name of a store you’d like to save some cash at, and see what results you can find. Sites like previously mentioned RetailMeNot have covered this territory before, but it’s great to see a site with as rich of a database of coupons as FatWallet offer this kind of simplified coupon search.





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