by mapgirl on February 8, 2010
Thanks everyone for entering the TurboTax Giveaway.
All entries are closed now and comments on the contest post are turned off.
All winners were selected via random number generator at Random.org. All winners have been notified.
They are:
Emily
Flora
Andrew
Kathleen
AllThatISeek
Thanks everyone for entering and I hope everyone gets lucky and wins a copy from other giveaways.
Mrs. Micah at Finance for a Freelance Life has just started hers.
I’m so happy today giving things away. I got a reply back from a winner and it’s the first time they’ve ever won a blog contest. It feels pretty good to make someone happy today.
Full disclosure: The kind people at TurboTax have given me personally a SIGG bottle that I left in NY, and lots of free food. All the good stuff I give to you in the form of a contest giveaway. While I am not personally a huge fan of TurboTax, I have used it before to prepare my taxes and it’s ok. I am a huge fan of Quicken though, even if I’ve bumped up against its limitations and am in denial about buying an upgraded version. And finally a guy who went to high school with me apparently works for them. (I found out through the Physics Team rumor mill.)
If anything, Intuit is doing the social media thing right. They really get corporate blogging and using Twitter to build relationships. (How do you think we DC bloggers got them to come host a happy hour?)
by mapgirl on February 8, 2010
I made some trades last week in my IRA account and found out that trade commissions have been slashed. They’re now $7.95 instead of $19.95. YAY!
I thought my fees were lowered because I was buying a foreign stock, but I thought that was weird because I’ve bought this stock before and paid a higher fee. I was worried I’d hit some upper trading tier that gets me a discount (a sign of too much active trading), but nope, it’s just their new fee structure kicking in.
I’m very glad about this since you can write off your investment costs, like trading fees and research materials you buy for investing (newsletters, subscriptions to Morningstar, etc.). But it also makes my thresholds for selling much lower than before.
Yippee!
PS – Winners of the TurboTax Giveaway will be notified and announced later today. No more entries please. Thanks.
by mapgirl on February 5, 2010
Here’s a list of online resources for new car owners. And when I say ‘new’ I mean, ‘new to you’. It’s been on my mind a lot as I move from a Nissan to a Volkswagen. There’s a lot to know going from 87 to 91 octane gas. As I familiarize myself with my new car, these are sites I’ve been visiting recently with some input from Twitter pals.
1. Consumer Reports – If you haven’t already used them to research your car, then read up on which tires to buy when you have to replace them.
2. Gasbuddy.com for finding cheap gas near you!
3. Fuelly.com for tracking your fuel efficiency and how your vehicle rates against others of the same make or in general. If you decide to join Fuelly, go ahead and friend me! (or Flexo!) (Any other PF bloggers on Fuelly?)
4. Haynes for an auto manual. They tear apart cars, photograph them and explain how to fix stuff yourself. It’s a must if you are doing your own oil changes or need to know what the heck the dealer’s service shop is talking about. Oddly, it was cheaper for me to buy it at Advance Auto Parts for about 19 bucks than directly from Haynes. But get one wherever you can find it cheapest. Another friend (via Twitter @corprew) recommends Chilton. I’ve never used them, but I trust this guy’s endorsement. He keeps a really old truck running for interstate road trips.
5. Internet forums about your car. It can be helpful to read up in the forums on topics like accessories, repair costs, dealer reviews. Via Twitter @bashen recommends two brand neutral sites, Repair Pal and DriverSide. I’m already on a GTI forum asking newbie questions.
6. And finally, even though your mom rolls your eyes when she hears their names, Click and Clack, the Tappert Brothers at CarTalk. I like Ray and Tom and they certainly do offer decent advice with a hearty belly laugh.
by mapgirl on February 4, 2010
I had a rough day at work the other day. Because of a snowstorm, I decided to bail out on my regular knitting night. Unfortunately, I didn’t have many groceries at home for dinner and I wasn’t in the mood to shop for any either. I was counting on going out to dinner that night, but I decide I will figure something out. When I get home, I find a baguette and some cold leftover white bean & garlic spread I made 2 days before.
I cut up the baguette into rounds. I look at the bean dip and it’s almost all gone. Oh dear. Boyfriend’s been snacking on it, which is ok. I had no idea he liked it that much. That actually makes me happy, but left with nothing to eat. I stare at the empty fridge and remember that there is half a Mayan Sweet onion in a tupperware container. YIPPEE! I have an idea!
I slice the onion very thinly and melt some butter in a small pot with a lid. I get the butter nice and hot and bubbly. After the butter stops foaming, I throw in the onions, give a stir and stick the lid. I set the timer on and the doorbell rings. It’s my neighbor returning boyfriend’s tools. We chit chat a little bit about my new car and the timer rings. I turn the heat off and finish talking with the neighbor. OOPS. The onion has started to burn just slightly. I stir things up and let it cook just a wee bit longer. I pull it off the stove, toss in some salt and pepper. They are perfectly caramelized.
The baguette rounds get toasty in the oven and away we go! I eat the last of the bean dip and tasty caramelized onions on crostini. Delicious.
ps- Another winter storm is coming so it’s Braised Chicken again this weekend!
by mapgirl on February 3, 2010
I bought a 5-qt cast iron Dutch oven sometime last summer, but never got around to using it. However, with the crazy cold winter snow this weekend, I got around to making something really tasty.
I braised some chicken thighs with carrots and potatoes, very similar to coq au vin without an old rooster and long cooking time. I forgot a bunch of ingredients because I was distracted, but it was still really good.
Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs
1/4c cider vinegar
1/4c olive oil
1tsp all purpose seasoning
1tsp thyme
salt
pepper
1c red wine
3 medium carrots
4 medium red potatoes
3 cloves garlic
olive oil for cooking
1. Prepare marinade by adding the vinegar, oil, all-purpose seasoning, thyme. Whisk lightly and put in a non-reactive bowl. (Glass or stoneware is fine.)
2. Skin the chicken thighs. This is easier if the meat is slightly frozen. No need to trim off all the visible fat since it’s good to have a little left for flavor.
3. Salt and pepper the chicken and put into the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
4. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
5. Peel the carrots, and gouge out the eyes on the potatoes. Cut up carrots and potatoes in to appealing chunks. (The potatoes should be about 3/4 thick slices, rather chunky. I made my carrots smaller, as long as they were wide.)
6. Peel and mince the garlic.
7. Take your Dutch oven (or any covered pot you can put in the oven) and put a very small amount of oil in the bottom. Sear your chicken till it has a nice brown on it.
8. Add in your wine and deglaze the bottom of the pot. Add your potatoes, carrots, and garlic to the pot. Do not turn the heat off. Do not stir anymore.
9. Bring it to a simmer on the stove and cover and toss in to the oven for 45 minutes.
10. Check the pot and stir. If you have used red wine, the chicken will have turned dark. Now stir the vegetables a bit so they can soak up the rest of the cooking liquid. Bake for another 10-15 minutes. In that time, you can make a salad course or another vegetable.
Optional ingredients:
Onions (chop and add with garlic)
Mushrooms (add with the potatoes)
Parsnips (treat like carrots)
Bacon lardons
by mapgirl on February 2, 2010
Dear Miss Opal Blue,
It’s been a fun 9 years and 147,000 miles. You lived with me in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Arlington and DC. I’ve gone through a clutch, two sets of tires, and new struts to keep you running in great shape. (I won’t mention the mishap in the parking garage with the broken side mirror, nor the cracked rear bumper I had lovingly re-done to satisfy DC DMV, or that awful hit-and-run driver incident that bumped the body panel.)
Thank you for being a totally awesome car for the last 9 years. I have will miss your reliability. I hope you’ll be good to the grandma getting you. She’s gonna love you too. Have fun in Africa!
Love always,
mapgirl
Note: Boyfriend got her up on Craigslist for a private sale worth $900 more than Volkswagen was offering for trade-in. That means I get to put $2K towards my credit card debt. The buyer is shipping her to Africa for his mother.
Opal Blue was the name of the color in the Nissan brochure.
by mapgirl on February 1, 2010
If you happen to dine at Bryan Voltaggio’s restaurant in Frederick, MD, please take a moment beforehand to stop across the street at Vineferous. It’s a new lovely little wine shop. The interior display has lightboxes highlighting unusual wines from all over the world. The couple who owns it opened it just a few weeks ago and I hope they do well in that location. (In fact, we were there just days after it opened.)
Having visited Napa a lot in the ’90’s, I was impressed by some of the obscure wineries they had available. We did not have a chance to do any tasting because of the way MD licenses beverage consumption, but my boyfriend picked up some unusual Austrian weissbier that we took home for later. It was very delicious. They only carry a few beers, but if that’s any indication, it’s worth trying out their other choices.
Volt was quite nice and checked our bag of beer (2 large bottles) with our coats. So taking some into the restaurant shouldn’t be a problem. (Yes, I’ll try to write something about what I ate that night too.)
Tastings are planned for the future so keep your eye out if you want to visit them!
by mapgirl on February 1, 2010
Thanks to Chelsea and the TurboTax crew at Intuit for these freebies!
I’ve got TurboTax gift cards to give out. This for filing 2009 Federal and State returns. Each card has one of each. I’d use one myself, but I’ve got to file for DC and Virginia partial-year returns so I need more than 1 state return this year.
There are two Deluxe cards ($66.90 value) and three Premier cards ($86.90 value). Premier is geared towards investors and landlords.
First way to win: Leave a comment here. Only one entry per person. Please let me know if you need a Deluxe or Premier card.
Second way to win: Subscribe to the RSS feed and email me the secret phrase at the bottom of each of the posts. Please let me know if you want a Deluxe or Premier card. The email address is mapgirlsfiscalchallenge at gmail dot com.
And if entering here isn’t enough, go enter over at Cleverdude.com and MyNextBuck! They’ve also got TurboTax giveaways. Later this week, J. Savings at BudgetsAreSexy.com will have one too!
UPDATE: Bible Money Matters also has a giveaway this week and J. Savings is live with his giveaway! I removed the secret code off the RSS feed because there was a aggregation site that was revealing it! LOL. All email entries will be accepted.
(It’s amazing what kind of coordinating you can do over the weekend.)
Rules (ripped off from Free Money Finance)
1. I will be the complete and final judge.
2. Legal disclaimer: I will send out codes via submitted emails, but I will not guarantee delivery of the item.
3. It will be the winner’s responsibility to send me a valid email address. I won’t track down the winners — it’s your responsibility to leave a valid email address in your comment-entry or submit via email and then check it to see if I have emailed you as the winner, or return to the contest pages to find out if you’ve won. Your spam blocker is not my problem. I will send out one email to notify you, but if you don’t see it, I will not be held responsible.
4. Local laws, rules, and regulations apply.
5. Winners are restricted to the US.
6. Comments will close on Friday, February 5th at midnight (with whatever timestamp the webhost puts on it. I think it’s PDT.). I will announce winners next week.
by mapgirl on January 31, 2010
I loved this one from Well-Heeled. It’s stuff she wouldn’t buy. Nor should you.
Story that breaks my heart and is totally an awesome reason for getting out of debt.
This one is older, but I didn’t see it till this week. Flexo is guest posting at Get Rich Slowly. Break out of your Comfort Zone and try something different in all aspects of your life. It’s advice I totally agree with.
I am not sure how I feel about this article that BostonGal posted. It’s a guy who got a loan modification but still wants to walk away. I am not morally opposed to a strategic default. But I think for most people, they can ride out the bad market and still have a home to live in. For myself, I can afford to ride out the market in my condo with a renter who covers all of the mortgage for me. (Just not the HOA fee.) I thought about a strategic default, but it’s not worth it for me. But if you’re holding onto a house worth $125K that you bought for $350K, then yeah, I could see why you’d still walk away.
Finally, a very interesting post about giving birth at home from a new blog called Sustainable Family Finances. I was born at home in the US and I know a few folks who’ve done that too. (Admittedly, they’re more hippie-types, but one of the births was also a 2nd child like me, after the mom decided there wasn’t much risk requiring a hospital.)
by mapgirl on January 29, 2010
We bought an exercise bicycle just before Christmas. (*He* bought it and canceled his gym membership.) So a couple times I week, I hop on for about 20-30 minutes of high intensity cycling. I’m so out of shape, I have to start off small like this. While I prefer running, an exercise bicycle takes up a lot less space than a treadmill and it weighs a heck of a lot less, as evidenced by my boyfriend pulling me into a nice spot near the TV while I was still astride.
The trick about the bike’s cheapness is that it is a health club model that has been fully refurbished. The LifeCycle 9500HR was about $2,000-3,000 new. (That’s the price you’d pay for the current equivalent model.) Factory refurbished ones on Amazon go for $1,800 or $850 on eBay for ones in unknown condition. We were able to get a nicely refurbished one locally in Maryland for about $700 and it was delivered to the house!
What I like about the bike is that it does not use up electricity the way the free treadmill did. Just by pedaling, you’re able to generate enough energy to power the light up display. This model also measures your heart rate if you hold the side handles or you can get a plug-in heart monitor. (For some reason I do not naturally grip the handles correctly to register my heart rate.)
My boyfriend and I are unlikely to ride the bike as much as it would see in its lifetime at a gym. It’s mostly to burn off calories while watching TV. (This leads to other discussions about intensity of workout, etc, but some is better than none for me.) I think this bike will last us quite some time.
The refurbishment included a new motherboard for the electronics, a tear down and rebuild of the moving parts, lubrication, and delivery from Columbia, Maryland to DC.
How does $700 compare to a gym membership for two people? With my company discount, I can get a Gold’s Gym membership for $400/yr per person. So just by having the bike, we’re already saving $100 in gym fees in the first year, and every year it’s $800 in gym fees we’ve saved. We also save ourselves waiting time for machines, parking fees at the gym, and the opportunity cost of time going to the gym and back.
Obviously, this solution isn’t for everyone. It does take up a good amount of space and it’s not in a hideaway spot at all. But so far it’s working for us. If I feel cold, I can jump on the bike a bit at night and warm up. (Secretly, that is why I’ve been motivated to ride it. We keep the thermostat really cold inside the house!)
With a little portion control over the next 6 months, I hope to slim back down so I don’t have to buy any new clothes!
