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Coping with a Layoff or Firing

You’ve been handed your pink slip, encouraged to retire early, or offered a severance package to resign. Either way, you are now out of a job. This is a scary proposition for many people, especially in an economy where finding another job can be quite a challenge. Most terminations at this point are not about employee performance, but simply about money.

Get organized. First, apply for unemployment. This should be your first stop, as it may take several weeks to process your application. In many states, you can apply online at any time around the clock.

Look at any other sources of household income. Make a budget and assess the shortfalls. Make cutbacks now, even if you have substantial savings. This is the time to reduce entertainment expenses, dining out and other costs. If possible, reduce your cell phone bills, cable costs and other bills. Consider whether you may need to put your home on the market and downsize to a small apartment or sell a vehicle. Tighten your belt and cut costs brutally at this stage to make your savings last a bit longer.

While your employer will probably offer COBRA for your health insurance coverage, you may want to opt for a lower cost high deductible plan while you are unemployed. In many states, you may be able to seek state health insurance for your children. Contact your local Department of Family Services for application assistance. You may find that you qualify for child care assistance, food stamps or additional aid.

Brush up your resume. Find out if your former employer will offer a good reference and be sure that you have contact information for previous managers or co-workers. Contact those you know in the field and be sure that they know you are looking and interested should a position open up. Today, social networking online is also a valuable job search tool. Be sure that all of your social networking accounts present you in a favorable and professional light. Put your resume up at online job search sites as well.

Explore the possibilities. Do you have skills you can use in a freelance or contract capacity? Financial aid may allow you to return to school or you may find that there are job re-training options available in your community.

Twitter Cash Kits Can Make You Nothing

The latest and greatest scam has hit my email box today and they actually are charging for this kit.  A kit that teaches you how to make money on twitter which is a web site that does not even make money on its own much less others making money from it.  I highly doubt there is any way to make money from twitter or Facebook unless you are using the social networking sites to gain or keep current customers and build report.  People are not on twitter or Facebook to buy things they are on there to socialize and tweet about things.

The email advertisement states that Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, and your neighbor down the street are all making money from twitter.  I would like to know how?  Oprah is not making anything on Twitter and neither is your neighbor.  You could make $1,000’s a week by tapping into the gold rush of our lifetime according to this company.

This is just one of the get rich quick schemes coming to my inbox since the recession started and many are out of work.  This is only a way to get you in more debt and give people high hopes when they should be job searching or starting a real business.  If this twitter school really has 4 DVD’s of their program as pictured in the ad then that looks like the biggest waste of time known to mankind.  Twitter itself is a waste of time in my opinion.  Mow lawns, make specialty pizza’s, write a novel, but a tweet will not be making any money from something such as this.

Two Ways to Save Money at Six Flags Amusement Parks

If you ever pay full gate price to get into an Amusement park then you are “goofy” or “dumbo.” Not to call anyone names but come on this is a no-brainer when almost every soda can in the city has amusement park offers labeled on it to save $5 or $10 on general admission or maybe get a child in for free.

This year is no different when it comes to the Coca-Cola cans and Pepsi cans with savings to places like Six Flags and Hurricane Harbor.  You just have to know which soft drink to buy but that comes obvious when you get to the store.

If you wish to save more on the retail gate prices at the Amusement parks then you should get a AAA membership.  AAA is offering a Member Exclusive where the Print-N-Go fee is waived and then they give you 10% savings on in-park merchandise with any purchase of $15 or more at selected Six Flags operated stores.  The best part is the 30% off you get which will pay for your $50 or so AAA annual membership.  I guarantee that thirty percent is much more than you will get with a Coke can or Pepsi can.

Discover Card allows you to also save money when you buy your Six Flags tickets online.  They give you 5% cash back when you make a purchase with the family friendly park.  You just have to sign into your Discover card account and use the Shop Discover tab.

One other good reason to check out Six Flags over Texas this year is that they got their liquor license.  When you get anxious to ride that roller coaster you can down a beer and ease up a bit.  Just do not drink too much since you will be moving around at high speeds.

Discover Card Pulls the Plug On $20 Cash Rewards

Discover Card has made what some may call a fatal mistake in the credit card industry.  Discover was known for its small bank-like friendliness until now.  They gave you a real cash back onto your statement which was the most non-hassle of them all.  The credit crisis has made all the banks greedy including the friendly credit card issuer Discover Card.

Discover now is making you wait until you get $50 in reward to get cash back instead of the $20 previous.  This is more than double the increased time to have to wait and to have to make more and more purchases which some people may have to wait years to add up the small under 1% payouts from Discover.  This is a sad change to Discover policy that recently changed.

I have been with Discover Card for over ten years now and never have they pulled a fast one on me like this.  The fact that I could go online and redeem my $20 to my account was the ONLY reason I had a Discover Card instead of a Citi ThankYou or a Chase Points card where there is much more hassle involved.

The customer service rep acted as if we could earn more in their shopping mall called ShopDiscover.  ShopDiscover is nothing more than a site where they get paid the more you buy online from the links they send you.  EVERYONE has one of these now including Chase and Bank of America Add It Up.  This service is similar to Ebates and online shopping malls with the airlines.  This is certainly not the answer to the steep increase of redemption at Discover Card.

My friends, family, and co-workers will all be in shock when they sign into their account online and find that they will no longer be able to redeem cash at $20.  Of course, there will be the $20 redemption of gift cards that no one wants for these companies that are all going out of business like Red Lobster (I mean really?).

Call Discover at 1-800-347-2683 and complain.  Get this changed now!!

MTV Visa for the Entertainment minded

If you like catching sports games in person, watching movies at the theater, and eating some taco bell on your date then you may be in luck.  The new Capital One card ad I saw today from a MTV community website is definitely targeted to young males who spend lots of money at these places.

There are two card offers for the MTV Visa Card from Capital One.  One is for Limited Credit and the other is for Good Credit.  I do not really see any mentions of Student card but I supposed that is saved for the Citi version MTVU card which mainly targets College students.

Give me the rewards!

  • 5 points per $1 spent on entertainment like music, movies, video game rentals, and sporting events
  • 2 points per $1 spent at restaurants, fast food places, and coffee shops
  • 1 point per $1 on everything else
  • 25 bonus points each billing period you keep your account in good standing by paying on time – These are special rewards for those who “do good” similar to Citi’s Myspace Forward Card.

The only difference in the MTV good and limited credit card is that the good credit profile’s get 0% until April 2010; after that, 16.9% variable.  The bad dudes who have limited credit get the high interest of 24.9% variable stoned into their billing statement.

The MTV credit cards have no annual fee and neither offer balance transfer fees.  There are 4 hip hoppin MTV rockin cards to choose from.

How do you get your no hassle rewards?

You may Redeem for MTV stuff, events and shows, or create your own MTV experience.  You can get gift cards from retailers,  give points to a charity,Trade points for cash and save up for your next purchase, or Fly for free on your next vacation for as few as 15,000 points.  The latest MTV rewards are always posted on the No Hassle PointsSM website, which you can access once you get your MTV Visa card.

Capital One seems to hate me they deny me every time I apply for a credit card even though I make over the required amount and have a great credit score.  They claim I apply too often.  Maybe they will let me attempt to be cool with this MTV generation Visa Card.  This card has 4 designs with one of the moon man, one all access and some other fun colored cards.

KFC Oprah Coupon Ripoff Alert

KFC, formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken where you can have a heart attack just by walking inside the place recently launched grilled chicken.  With Oprah’s help they gave away a coupon on her show that was supposed to be downloaded from her website.  Not only was the coupon not downloadable from her site but they directed you to the unthinKFC.com site where you actually had to download software to use the coupon.  Yes, you had to download an .exe file from this coupon website probably the worst of spyware for your computer.  I downloaded the .exe file knowing that I might could trust what was on Oprah’s show.  Keep in mind this is the first time I have willingly fell for a spyware download in years.

Now the software is running and the printer gave me my coupon.  I look it over and notice that it says managers choice on the 2 pieces of chicken you get in this two-piece mean coupon.  That comes as something I had assumed since they could run out of one part but of course you will not be getting a breast like they picture in the ad.  I quickly erased anything having to do with that couponprinter.exe file after I printed the coupon.  It has to be printed before tonite at midnight but can be used up until May 19th excluding Mother’s Day.  Mother’s Day is one of the biggest days for the KFC restaurant chain.

As my mouth was watering in the drive-thru up at KFC for those two pieces of grilled chicken, two sides, and a biscuit everything quickly came to an end.  The drive-thru lady told me that they were out of Grilled Chicken and it would be 20 minutes before they could cook it.  I asked if you can possibly get Chicken breasts with this deal and she said no.  So they were out of the goods they bragged about on the coupons and I am sure white meat is not included in the managers choice.

It is a shame that the Oprah show would send her viewers to a site that asked for a download of an executable file to someones computer for one thing.  The risk of that is far greater than the cost of a free KFC meal deal and KFC could not even hold up to their bargain at 9:30pm when it is not their peak time.  This is a scam worse than any I have actually fell for in quite some time!

$60,000 Debit Card Sweepstakes

If you are looking for some fast money it might be easier to win that money using a debit card these days than trading on the stock market.  The chances of the stock market going up very much are about as slim as a debit card sweepstakes in this economy.  Chase and ING Direct are two big banks participating in the MasterCard debit sweepstakes.

You could win $60,000 with your Electric Orange Debit MasterCard from ING Direct when you use your card to make a purchase or to pay a bill.  MasterCard will then enter you for a chance to win $60,000!  The entry period runs from April 1st to June 30, 2009, so you have to hurry to make this offer. You get one entry for each bill you pay and whenever you sign for a purchase.  You can sign up for ING Direct here.

One of the bills you can pay off is your telecom bill or even your taxes.  Your federal taxes can be paid off with your debit MasterCard by the IRS or Link2Gov and be automatically eligible for this promotion.

Notice though that PIN based and international transactions are not eligible so you must sign or use a blink type purchase.  To learn more about this MasterCard sweepstakes you can see their site at priceless.com then look for bill promo.

Are Canada Pharmacies really cheaper?

It may seem like too much of a hassle to use a Canada pharmacy to save a few dollars on prescriptions.  I tried to use CanadaPharmacy.com the other day and I saw that  you have to first register on their site, snail mail them your prescription you got from your doctor and wait for them to re-write the prescription from a Canadian doctor.  Physically sending in your prescription seems like more of a hassle since you have to mail it to their Canadian address.

Online pharmacies used to be simple where you would talk to a doctor online and they ask you your symptoms and then you could request a certain drug or have them recommend one.  Those days were the beginning of the online pharmacies and you may have noticed hundreds if not thousands of sites disappear from those two years of medicine online.  The government has cracked down hard on these sites and shut them down or made sure they are not liberally offering pain pills and  what the DEA considers drugs that should be safeguarded.

Drugstore.com was one of the leaders in the fight against online pharmacies and they helped clean up the space pretty fast.   It really was out of control with some places sending out fake Viagra.  I had an online pharmacy send me huge looking blue pills instead of the real smaller Pfizer branded Viagra.  I was scared to digest the pills because the appearance did not seem real but never had them examined to see what they contained.  Probably not something that would help with an erection or anything that would do my liver any good. Most likely a bunch of filler and bi-product.

Unfortunately, the dismiss of many online pharmacies led to the higher prices in leading pills and now we have fewer choices and more hassle.  There are now so many steps we have to go through to order our meds online that it can take days longer.  When it is so convenient to pull into the drive thru of my local Walgreens or CVS Pharmacy why would I want to mess with shipping and other obstacles.

Pricing is the leading reason people want to order their prescriptions online.  Canada pharmacies are known for their cheaper prices but this is limited to some drugs there are many that may be in fact more expensive.  You must compare to your local pharmacy and call around and see who is the cheapest.  The best thing to do is compare at the listings off of the Wal-Greens website.  They list the prices and the specific drug you are trying to order that way you can see who gets you the most savings.

What about US Pharmacies such as Drugstore.com.  These sites can save in some cases and provide a convenience of having it shipped to your door.  A problem with having to go through the drive up windows at CVS and Walgreens is having to wait.  You sometimes have to wait at 11pm or always guaranteed a long wait when it’s normal daytime hours.  The best thing to do is order them online or go up to the drive up at 2am when no one is up but other people picking up their Ambien CR.

Diesel vs. Electric vs. Hybrid Cars

If you are excited like I am about President Obama taking office you may begin to wonder what are different choices in gas-related technologies. You may not be concerned about your miles per gallon until prices start going back up but rest assured they will soon. We want to be free of foreign oils, breathe a cleaner air, save the environment, and save dollars at gas stations. There are several fuel options out there but not yet at even a tenth of our gas stations. Here are some options for better fuel economy :

What we have now is an Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICE).  This is the typical engine in most vehicles today, running on either gasoline or diesel. Our cars have a heat engine in which the burning of a fuel occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. The ignition of a fuel and air mixture creates gases of high temperature and pressure, which then turn an engine shaft which, coupled to a transmission, provides the motive power of the vehicle. This technology is very 1969, we should have had bio fuel or fuel-cell powered vehicles years ago.

Battery-electric Vehicle – Battery-Electric Vehicles (BEV) are powered by electric motors that run exclusively on batteries that are charged by an external source such as the electric power grid. BEV’s are electric vehicles whose energy storage is in the chemical energy of batteries. BEVs are the most common form of what are defined as a zero emission vehicles, because they produce no emissions while being driven. BEV’s will improve miles per gallon by up to 79% over an ICE vehicle running on gasoline and, depending on the size of the battery, will have a range of 50 – 150 miles per charge. The downside to this option is that you most likely need a garage to really benefit from it or you will have cords running outside your home. The vehicle may only be used for commuting or runs to the store and you need to plug it in every time you go home.

Fuel Cell-powered Vehicle – A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device similar to a battery, but differing in that it is designed for continuous replenishment of the reactants consumed. It produces electricity from an external supply of fuel and air/oxygen. Typical reactants used in a Fuel Cell-Powered Vehicle are hydrogen and the oxygen contained in air. Fuel cell Vehicles also produce zero emissions while being driven. Fuel Cell-Powered Vehicles will improve miles per gallon by up to 71% over a automobile running on gasoline. This seems to produce the best results for fuel economy unless you go electric 100%. I hope automakers look more into this fuel option.

Turbo Gasoline Direct Injection Engine Vehicle – A Turbo Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) vehicle utilizes a new technology that usually couples a turbo charger with specially designed & located fuel injectors. The resulting boost in horsepower and efficiency means that a smaller traditional gasoline engine can achieve similar performance of a larger traditional gasoline engine but using much less fuel. These Turbo Gas Injection vehicles will IMPROVE miles per gallon by up to 15% over a car running on gasoline and will have a better range per tank of fuel.

Flex-fuel Vehicle – A Flex-Fuel Vehicle (FFV) has a single fuel tank, fuel system, and engine. The vehicle is designed to run on unleaded gasoline and an alcohol fuel (usually ethanol or E85 – 85% ethanol produced from corn or other soluble product and 15% gasoline) in any mixture. Also, a gallon of ethanol contains considerably less energy than a gallon of gasoline, meaning a vehicle running on E85 will experience approximately a 25% reduction in MPG & driving range compared to gasoline alone. This was one of the ethanol mistakes made by politicians a few years back to make the farmers think they were going to get all this free money thrown their way. Not only have people had complaints that their cars do not run as good but they have experienced engine problems and we found out there are better uses of corn than as a fuel.

Hybrid-electric Vehicle – Hybrid vehicles use multiple propulsion systems to provide motive power. The most common approach, the Hybrid-Electric Vehicle (HEV), uses gasoline to power an internal-combustion engine (ICE), and electric batteries to power electric motors. The electric battery is recharged by either capturing kinetic energy via regenerative braking or using the gasoline engine to generate electricity by spinning a generator to recharge the battery. Unlike Battery-electric only vehicles, these are designed not to require power from the electric power grid; that is, no plug in is required or even available. Hybrid-electric vehicles will improve miles per gallon by up to 43% over a vehicle running on gasoline.

Plug-in Hybrid / Electrical Grid-Connected Vehicle – Like the HEV described above, this vehicle uses both electricity from a battery pack and gasoline as the energy sources, but the plug in has a larger battery pack. This larger battery is charged using a standard household outlet (110V, 15-amp). Depending on the size of the battery, charging will take from 3-10 hours. Compared to an hybrid/electric, the larger battery in a plug-in hybrid allows you to drive more using only the electric motor – up to 15-20 miles, and at higher speeds (around 50mph). The vehicle will run as a normal hybrid if it has not been plugged in, but the benefit of driving for a certain distance on electricity only will not be received. Plug-In Hybrids will improve miles per gallon by up to 70% over an ICE vehicle running on gasoline. Looking over all these ways to save fuel, lessen our dependency on foreign barrels of oil, and live longer this is the absolute best way to do it for now.

Direct-injection Diesel Vehicle – Direct-Injection Diesel (DID) vehicles have the engine’s fuel injection nozzle placed inside the combustion chamber. Direct injection diesel engines are generally more efficient, quieter, and cleaner than common indirect injection diesel engines. DIDs typically run on low sulfur fuel, typically called Clean Diesel. These cleaner diesel autos will improve miles per gallon by up to 25% over a vehicle running on gasoline and will have a range of 515 miles per tank of fuel.

Should the government on the state and local and federal level help us out on these?  Why not raise the gas taxes a penny or two to help lessen the fuel demand and increase a fund for these technologies!  We need them now and Yes we can!