Saving Money will Hurt the Economy?

This is a blasphemous article. I understand that America is built from consumer spending; however, we should change that and have a nation built off of saving. Anyways, here is an article that says saving too much could hurt the economy.

Rick Newman
U.S. News
June 5, 2009

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Why-Youre-Going-to-Save-More-usnews-15452714.html

Double Your Credit Card Rewards

I recently got the Services Chase Credit Card. I was using my ATM/Debit card from USAA and was receiving 1% on all purchases using the credit function. The new Services credit card gives me... Read full post at www.moneyformilitary.org

This Site Will be Moving!

I've spent two years using the free blogger service. I've enjoyed the simplicity and how easy it was to get started blogging right away. To be blunt, the main goal of this blog is for me to make money and to teach people the rules of finance. I've always said that finances are like a game that most people don't know all the rules to. Once you learn the rules, the game of finances becomes a lot easier.

I bought the www.moneyformilitary.net and the www.moneyformilitary.org domain names with the .org domain being the home page. Someone has already bought the www.moneyformilitary.com website; however, I will be trying to buy that one too. I think I can really increase my traffic and income by moving away from the blogspot domain. The main reason I moved was because military members can't see the site while at work because the blogspot is blocked on government computers.

I will be duplicating posts on both sites until I can increase the pagerank of my other blog and convince my advertisers that it is safe to move over. I'm trying to figure out a CSS style blog instead of an HTML site so it will be a bumpy road.

Please visit www.moneyformilitary.org to see my progress.

Black Friday/Day After Christmas AAFES Deals

Some military members can take advantage of the scaled down rush by shopping at AAFES for post-holiday deals. I usually never say anything good about AAFEs because I feel that AAFES doesn't offer a great deal to military members anymore; however, they still have exclusive rights on military bases instead of opening up Wal-marts that would actually save military members money.

• Price Matching - AAFES does give price-matching at the counters now. A military member can simply take the local ad, that one can print up at Wal-mart.com or Best-buy.com, and the product and get price matching with no taxes. This price matching only works if their are exact product matches which may be unusual with AAFES' lack of selection.
• Less People - As we all know AAFES is only available to military members, their dependents and people with rights. Conversely, Wal-mart or Best Buy has thousands of people that are willing to spend a night just to get good deals.
• No shootings - I don't really have to expand on this one.

So if you are like me and usually avoid AAFES at all costs, do your research and give them a try tomorrow (post-Christmas).

Get Your Free Credit Report to Start 2009

Before going into 2009, you should get your credit report. You can get your legal free credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com . There are plenty of other sites that pretend to be free; however, this one is the certified one offered by the government. You are allowed to get a free credit report from each agency once a year. These reports will not give you your credit score as given by www.myfico.com. With each credit report you should do the following:

1. Ensure all personal information is correct. Each credit report will tell you how to correct problems.
2. Fix any discrepancies you might find. The optimal goal (but for some reason impossible) is to get all three agencies to match with all information. For some reason all companies use different reporting agencies and you don't want to have incorrect information on any of them.
3. Make sure your good balances are correct and it says "pays as agreed" or "pays on time".
4. If you have any problems, like collections, or overdue balances, you should call the companies (often found on the report) and try to settle the debt. The collection companies can be like snakes.

Here is an example of how a collection company operates. Let's say your $2100 AT&T phone bill gets "sold" to a collection agency. They will "buy" this $2100 debt for $1000. AT&T then gets to write off the loss on their tax. The collection agency will then start the process of trying to collect the full $2100 making an $1100 profit. Most people don't pay, go bankrupt, or stop answering their phones and have trouble sleeping at night. But if one person pays, they make well over their original investment. You can take advantage of this by "settling" the debt. Call the agency and tell them you don't have the money to pay. If you do have the money then you should pay in full. It is better on your credit report to state "paid in full" then to say "paid in settlement". "Paid in full" falls off faster and it increases your score. But if you don't have the money simply state that you don't have the money and try to get to a balance that you can pay off and also ask if you can make payments.

Start your 2009 off right. Check your credit report and fix it.

Job Opportunities for Veterans

We have an honorary commander that supports our activity councils. He is a civilian that served for three years in the military and medically retired from the Vietnam War. He has been supporting the military ever since. He owns three Carls Jrs in the local area and gives free products to our activity councils. He makes decent money when the economy is doing great and makes even more when the economy is down.Fast food franchises are a great source of income; however, it can be hard to secure the capital enough to star a successful franchise.

I share that little story because Little Ceasars has a franchise program for veterans. So if you have ever dreamed of owning your own Little Caesar’s please read some of the e-mail that I was sent. (Reposted from original e-mail.)

Hi,

I was wondering if you could help me out a little. I am helping my friend gain awareness for the Little Caesar’s Veterans Program that helps military men and women successfully transition to civilian life, as well as create opportunities for those who seek new careers.

With Veteran’s Day coming up we really wanted to get as much coverage about this story as possible. (The program hit its one-year anniversary recently.) Currently the story is being picked up by a lot of mainstream media outlets but I personally think that blogs can help get the story out there to the people we really want to reach, people serving in the Armed Forces, Veterans, and their families. I feel that your blog reaches those types of people so I am coming to you asking for help.

Our goal is to spread awareness of this program as well as to hopefully get other corporations setting up programs of their own. I wanted to know if you could blog about the story? And share information about the program with your readers?

In return for helping spread the word we will push your post and your blog on social news sites like digg, reddit, stumbleupon, and others with the goal of maximizing eyeballs on the story and hopefully getting you some new readers in the process! Also we will link to some select posts on the program page of our website.

If you would like to interview people that are currently part of the program I could set up an e-mail interview for you, anything to get the story out there.

Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can help you with anything. Below is a link to the program page that has pictures, video, and other multimedia and press you can use. Also I included a story about the first store owner and some information about the program that was being used in messages to traditional media.

Thanks for your time.

For more information about the program: http://franchise.littlecaesars.com/VeteransProgram/tabid/76/Default.aspx

GI Bill Kicker Advice

A disgruntled reader left a pretty bad comment that I didn't approve because the reader didn't offer any real good suggestions. That's the beauty of blogs, that anonymous people that do "drive-bys" will try to flame your blog. In April of 2007, I made a post about the GI Bill kicker where individuals can put $600 in and get $5400 back in benefits. At the time, I posted that this was a great idea.

This reader found an article in the "ask" function of Air Force Personnel Center that stated that individuals that contributed the initial $1200 and/or the additional $600 will most likely not get their money back. The reader did not post the link to the source; however, I heard similar discussions because the post 9/11 education bill does not replace the Montgomery GI Bill. They will run in parallel because of some benefits are specific to each bill.

This reader said I was giving bad information and that I potentially might have lost other reader's $600. I apologize if my blog led you to possibly lose $600; however, at the time I was writing it, the post 9/11 education barely passed the house in discussions. No one could have possibly known the details, so turning $600 into $5400 seemed like a great investment.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.