Cut Your Spending by $500 Per Month

courtesy from Yahoo1

Thursday, July 24, 2008

ConsumerReports

The Consumer Reports Money Lab shakes loose a bushel of savings hiding in everyday spending.

Find Cheaper Auto Insurance

Average Savings: $65

Annual surveys of Consumer Reports readers have shown that many have stayed with the same auto insurer for 15 years. Depending on your profile and where you live, you might be able to save hundreds a month by shopping around. (In all the categories listed, the monthly savings shown are Money Lab estimates based on what average consumers spend. Your actual savings will depend on your circumstances.)

More from Consumerreports.org:

• Spend Less on Everything

• Dangerous Debt Consolidation

• More Money-Saving Tips

For example, a married couple without violations or accidents but with a driving-age son in Los Angeles can save $380 per month on standard coverage by switching to a lower-cost auto insurer, according to data compiled by the California Department of Insurance. But a retired couple with no violations in Fargo, N.D., can expect to save only about $30 per month by switching insurers.

How to Do It

Start at the Web site of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and click on NAIC States & Jurisdictions to find your state's insurance department. Most provide comparative premium quotes based on standard customer profiles. If your state doesn't, you can get quotes from insurers by phone or over the Internet. You can also compare premiums from multiple carriers by using independent Web sites, such as Insweb, Insurance.com, and Insure.com.

Optimize Your Life Insurance

Average Savings: $110

Life-insurance premiums have dropped so dramatically since the 1990s, it will probably pay for you to replace a policy bought years ago with a comparable one. A $500,000, 20-year guaranteed level term policy from Prudential, for example, would have cost a healthy, nonsmoking, 50-year-old man about $2,125 a year in 1998, according to Accuquote.com. Today the same guy, now 60, could pay Prudential $1,385 a year for the same coverage over the next 10 years. Savings: $60 per month.

Another option at any age: Adopt a healthier lifestyle and get re-rated for a lower premium. For example, a 40-year-old man with a $1 million, 20-year term policy could save $50 a month by cutting his cholesterol by 30 points; $65 a month if he dropped 50 pounds to reach normal weight; and $165 a month three years after he quit smoking.

How to Do It

Get a physical checkup and follow your doctor's advice for shaping up before applying for a new policy. You can get premium quotes at LifeInsure.com. Don't cancel your existing policy until you have a new one already in place.

Shop Smart for Food

Average savings: $200

Making different choices in the supermarket and when eating out can net monthly savings ranging from $130 to $255. The average family of four can chop its grocery bill by $190 a month by shifting to a lower-cost mix of foods, according to data from the Department of Agriculture. The agency monitors prices of four nutritionally balanced grocery baskets at different cost levels: liberal, moderate-cost, low-cost, and thrifty. The liberal basket contains more food per month than the moderate-cost one, a greater proportion of pricier food like beef and fish, and more wasted leftovers.

In 2006 American families spent 44 percent of their food budget eating out. By cutting restaurant spending in half, you can save another $30 to $60 per month.

How to Do It

Plan menus around sales on fresh poultry, fish, meat, dairy, and produce, and make use of leftovers. Avoid costly prepared meals. Eat more low-priced, high-nutrition foods such as beans and potatoes, says Andrea Carlson, a USDA economist. Shop in lower-cost stores such as Aldi Foods, PriceRite, Costco, Trader Joe's, Wal-Mart, and Sam's Club, but be sure to compare prices. Try less-expensive store brands. Sign up for store discount cards. Stock up on sale-priced staples.

When eating out, take advantage of prix-fixe meals and off-hour discounts. Eat half of the big portions in vogue today at the restaurant and take the rest home for a next-day encore.

Stop Paying Bank Fees

Average savings: $25

The American Bankers Association says 52 percent of consumers spend nothing on bank fees each month. But somebody's paying fees, and lots of them, because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says banks collected $39 billion in account fees and penalties last year. That works out to an average of $28 per month per household. But with some planning, you can pay zero.

How to Do It

Bank at a large institution with lots of ATMs in convenient locations to avoid the cost of using other banks' machines—as much as $4 per withdrawal. And use the no-fee cash-back option at supermarkets.

More from Yahoo! Finance:

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Visit the Banking & Budgeting Center

Shop for free checking and strictly adhere to provisions for a minimum balance, direct deposit, or other conditions to avoid monthly fees. Keep track of checks, withdrawals, and debits to avoid overdraft fees averaging $27.

Call Up Phone Savings

Average savings: $35

The average family spends $90 a month for a home phone, cell phones, pagers, and phone cards, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When we examined real phone bills, we uncovered savings from $15 per month for budget callers to $55 per month for heavy users.

How to Do It

Peruse your last few months' phone bills to assess how many minutes you typically use on landline and wireless calls. Comparison shop among cellular service providers, the local phone company, independent long-distance carriers, and your cable TV company. Don't buy more than you need, such as an unlimited cellular plan if you rarely go over 900 minutes per month.

Consider all possible money savers, such as measured local service, prepaid phone cards and cell phones, cut-rate long-distance carriers, VoIP service, and landline/Internet/TV packages.

Pay Off Your Credit Card

Average Savings: $65

On average, consumers who carry a balance owe $2,200, on which they pay 15.2 percent in annual interest charges. Eliminate that and save $28 per month. Some 15 percent of consumers carry balances of $10,000 or more, according to Fair Isaac, the credit-scoring company; they can save at least $125 per month by paying off their debt.

How to Do It

Paying off your balance is easier said than done. The trick is to stop charging. Then pay more than the minimum required each month until it's paid off. Dig up cash for this from your U.S. Treasury stimulus check, garage sales, or extra work part-time.

Increase Your 401(k) Contribution

Average tax savings: $125

If you're not already contributing the maximum, put more into your 401(k), IRA, or other tax-deferred retirement account. You'll also cut the amount of income tax you'll pay each month. (Note that this does not apply to Roth accounts.)

Paying $500 a month into your 401(k) plan, for example, will reduce your federal income tax bite by $50 to $175 per month, depending on your tax bracket. Of course, you'll pay that tax down the road, when you withdraw from your plan in retirement. But in the meantime, invest your tax savings or use them to offset rising prices elsewhere.

Innovation first!

Updated on 29th July, 6pm

Majority of the company in the spend 65 percent of their IT budget just for operation including maintenance and management rather than look at new innovation to drive company forward.

Vice President, Standard Servers for HP Asia Pacific, Tony Parkinson, who urged company to change their mindset to be more competitive, acknowledges this matter.

He said that at the press conference regarding HP's Business Technology @ Work, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre today.

Finishing the Finance in Futsal

How could I imagine my first Championship Trophy this year after winning Malay Mail Inter Boleh Bla Cup, which saw my team (Harian Metro) beaten Finance Dept 3-0 last nite.

Six teams representing each department including the Harian Metro were expected to compete in this tournament that divided into 2 leagues.

Harian Metro beaten ???? 2-1 before lost to Finance 0-3 at the last game and we’ve played against Marketing on semi that saw only goal strike by us before meeting Finance again in Final.

It thriving to deliver an exciting finale and take revenge to beat them 3-0 in a high-speed tempo game.

Well, it was much training for me as preparation for tomorrow’s Harian Metro’s Inter Dept Championship

Centrino that Centrelize Your Entertainment

New Intel® Centrino® 2 processor technology-based notebooks will definitely entertain your home entertainment system – from HD movies and music to photos and games – into one notebook PC.

The new Intel Centrino 2 processor technology-based notebooks allow you to:

1. Immerse yourself in the Latest High Definition Movie: Watch the latest Blu-ray* titles with native support for Blu-ray decoding. And now you can watch a full movie on a single battery charge.

2. Maximize your Multimedia and Minimize your Waiting: Intel Centrino 2 processor technology doubles the rate at which streaming media instructions can be executed, providing up to 2x faster throughput over previous generations. That gives you more performance for intense HD multimedia applications like video editing compression, which runs up to 90% faster and with stunning visual quality—so you can accomplish more and spend less time waiting.5

3. Play More Intense Games: Intel Centrino 2 processor technology delivers increased realism and stunning visual detail with its great new features designed specifically to enhance your gaming experience. The optional Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD gives you at least 50% more graphics performance for more realistic gaming and improved visual detail with new 3D graphics features like Vertex Shader Model* 3.0 and Hardware Transform and Lighting*

4. Enjoy Longer Battery Life: Free yourself from the power cord. New power management and power saving features help extend battery life, so you can enjoy and more entertainment, gaming and music while on-the-go.

5. Think Thin: With the newest 25W Intel® Core™2 Duo processors, you can enjoy even thinner, cooler, and more energy-efficient mainstream performance with amazing battery life.

6. Choose Horsepower or Power Savings: Need graphics horsepower for gaming, but still want energy-efficiency when you’re on the go and running on battery power? Now you can have the best of both graphics worlds with Switchable Graphics Technology, a combination of both discrete and integrated graphics. You decide which you need and when.

7. Stay Connected Faster and in More Places: Integrated wireless capabilities provide flexible and fast connectivity options that let you use thousands of public Wi-Fi networks.+ Get up to 5x better wireless performance today and be ready for faster wireless N coming soon.7

8. Get the Lead Out: The Intel Core 2 Duo processor not only offers energy-efficient performance to give you the power you need to run demanding applications, while at the same time conserving energy when idle; but these groundbreaking processors are also eco-friendly through our use of lead-free technology today and halogen-free packaging technology coming throughout 2008.

FTTx is Good for Internet

Updated on 24th July 2008, 1.30pm

Its interesting topic to hear that FTTx will be booming soon and one reason why we need it is because of stability of our bandwidth. I would say that this is new challenge for communication industry where we need consistent bandwidth for Internet connection.

Hopefully with the FTTH Council which still happen in Shangri La Hotel, it could fastening this process.

Touch Your PC Screen

Updated on 23rd July 2008, 3pm

The new TouchSmart PC from HP has earned accolades for its tranformative effect on the way people engage with computer and their photos, music, movies and other digital content.

Consumers simply touch, tap or sweep a finger across the screen to access information, entertainment and social networks in a natural and intuitive way.

I would give 5 ***** to this PC for my first impression.

It has Intel Core2 Duo T5850, 22 inches screen, 4096MB (DDR) memory, TV Tuner and NVIDIA GeForce 9300GS which gonna excite its user.

Starting price at RM5,688.

Fibet to the Home to Accelerate Soon

Updated: 23rd July 2008, 10am

The power of the web today is here to stay and newer and faster broadband access technologies are being used to make the web even easier to use.

Even though copper can deliver high bandwidths, its reach only extends to a few hundred yards after which the signal begins to degrade and bandwidth narrows.

Fiber to the home (FTTH), however, is the ultimate technology to deliver very high bandwidth over longer distances, transporting communication signals over optical fiber using light instead of electricity (unlike traditional broadband enablers such as copper telephone wires and coxial cable).

Senior Director of MCMC, Zamani Zakariah said,

in the way people play, this technology will fulfill the demand which is so complicated now and its a solution for communication

He said that at the 3rd Annual FTTH Council Asia Pacific Conference and Exhibition at Shangri La Hotel this Morning.