(No comment.) Have a great weekend.
In the past weeks, I’ve talked about tracking. Tracking your expenses every day to understand where you’re spending, down to the cent. And tracking individual items so over time you can understand the unit cost of the item, both the regular price as well as the best sale price you can discover.
One tool I’ve discovered to help me in this process is Evernote, an application that “allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.” What exactly does this mean? When I am at Costco, I snapped this shot with my Blackberry:
It immediately loads into Evernote, into my Costco Folder. With Evernote’s character recognition, a search for “chips” will pull this right up. I can also access this information from my Mac, PC, or from any web browser. The saved data is synced up on all systems running the application as well as on the Evernote server. If you wish to jot notes (or don’t have a picture-taking phone) you can do that, either right into the app or via email. Evernote offers an email access so you can send a note using a subject and text, and the note will go to your account. This can be a great system for a family to use to maintain shopping lists or “to do” lists that won’t get lost on bits of paper.
Another way to use Evernote is to clip web sites or blog postings you wish to save. This can be an ongoing way to comparison shop or just to save items of interest for later viewing. Instead of saving the whole web page, you are able to highlight the text of interest and save just that. It then can be read pretty easily at a later time on your computer or iPod/Blackberry. Lastly, web clips saves in Evernote maintain their embedded links, and those links remain embedded when the “print to PDF” is chosen. This to me is one of the coolest, yet underrated features of this application.
The application is free, as is up to 40MB of upload per month. A paid version allows 500MB of monthly transfer for $5 per month. You can burn through the 40MB with pictures (the one above started out as 560K) but notes and web clips tend to be pretty small so long as your web clips choose text only.
Take a look and let me know how Evernote helps you in your frugal efforts.
Joe
Today is the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.
Even though I was only 6 at the time, I remember thinking of Michael Collins “All that way and he had to stay in the capsule” as Neil Armstrong and (Edwin) Buzz Aldrin got to land on the moon.
I know there are those who feel that as a country there are more important things than space exploration to spend money on. No doubt. But as a child I recall the race to the moon as a time when we had a common goal, and celebrated this achievement with an excitement greater than that of a city celebrating their winning sport team, because this was an entire country reaching its goal.
Not a new post, I just can across Zen Habits’ The Cheapskate Guide: 50 Tips for Frugal Living. On any list this long of money saving ideas you are bound to come across at least a hendful that may not have occurred to you. If not, well, you may already be living the frugal life.
Kevin at No Debt Plan offers a way to not over pack for your next trip. Hint: It involves a bit of planning. Titled Create a Master Packing List for Travel, it’s one of those “hey, why didn’t I think of this?” ideas.
Flexo’s post at Consumerism Commentary, 10 Purchases That Can Harm Your Credit, raises new and troubling questions. It seems that credit card issuers can lower their opinion of you (read that, Raise your rate, and/or lower your credit) if you make certain purchases, such as purchases at the 99 cent store or Walmart when you are not already a regular there. The downshifting in spending destinations can make you look suddenly frugal. A sudden string of visits to the Spa/Salon can have the same effect, perhaps you’re going to relax from the stress of not being able to handle your debt in the first place. Further link chain leads to a Marketplace story Credit card use is ripe for data mining.
Next, Sheri from Serene Journey guest posted 40 Things To Teach My Kids Before They Leave Home at My Super-Charged Life. A mix of money related thoughts along with many good skills that everyone should know, this is a great candidate to add to my List of Lists.
Looking forward to another week of PF Blogging…..
Joe
Less than a month back, I thought it a good idea to try to describe what Cap and Trade means. Now for the illustration, sort of…
