My Two Dollars

How To Save Money on Cheap Batteries – Rechargeable Batteries & Charger Worth It?

Imagine a world without batteries for a minute. No remote controls, no cell phones, no laptop computers, no flashlights, no wireless mice. It would be quite a different world if batteries were not so commonplace! The problem with having batteries in everything, however, is that we have an almost constant need for new batteries, which can get costly over time. When it comes time to purchase and/or replace the batteries in your home, it can really pay off to be smart about what kind you buy, along with how and where you buy them.

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saving

By David

Where to Sell Your Used College Textbooks Online For Cash – 10 Best Places & Sites

I hate to really age myself, but when I was in college we only had one place to try to sell our textbooks – the same exact store we bought it from in the first place. And that store, of course, was the school bookstore. Yes, I was in college before the internet was as widespread as it is now, and I didn’t even send my first email until the second half of my senior year. And it was only to the guy sitting across from me in the computer lab! But let’s get back to the textbooks. Back then, the bookstore bought and sold all the books we would need for the year, and you were lucky if you got back any of your money at the end of class. The internet has changed that game, though, and now there are tons of options for both saving money on purchasing your books as well as selling them to other students looking for a deal on a used textbook.

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education • making money

By David

What To Do With Old Cell Phones – Donate, Recycle, or Sell for Cash

I can think of 9 different cell phones that I have owned over the years. Granted, that may not seem like a lot to many of you who may get a new phone every 6 months or every year, but that’s how many phones I have bought/sold/traded in since 1996. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s, there really wasn’t much of a market for used cell phones because the internet wasn’t as huge as it is today, so anyone who got rid of their phone usually just tossed it in the trash or recycled it if their community offered it. But today is a different story; there are cell phone recycling bins in almost every electronics store for phones which cannot be resold, and there are plenty of online avenues for making back some of your money on your purchase. This is especially true for smart phones like the iPhone, Blackberries and Android phones. These phones can have some incredibly high resale values, as was my experience selling my 1st generation iPhone. I sold it on eBay for more than I bought it for in the first place. Someone wanted an unlocked/out of contract iPhone to use either on ATT or T-Mobile, so they paid a pretty hefty amount for it – over $200. Considering I paid $199 for it in the first place, I would say I definitely got my money’s worth with that phone. I then rolled that money into my (then new) 3GS iPhone, saving me over $200 on that purchase. That was quite a score!

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saving • shopping

By David

Buying a Car with a Credit Card – Can You Do It?

I bought a car with a credit card. There, I said it, and now everyone can gasp for air as I explain how I bought my latest car with a credit card. I drive a Mini Cooper S, a used car that I bought for just under $19,000 earlier this year, after selling my Subaru Forester for a more city-ish car. After all, I didn’t really need a 4WD station wagon in Los Angeles, did I? But back to the topic at hand – buying an automobile with a credit card. It’s generally frowned upon to buy a car in this matter, because you are at the mercy of the credit card company in terms of your interest rates, monthly payments, fees and charges, and just a general sense of dread when one gets a credit card bill every month saying one owes $18,000 or so. Sure, you can get 0% cash advances or promotional APR’s to buy a car with, but what if you don’t pay off that balance when the interest rate reverts back to 23.9%? What if you miss a payment and the interest rate goes back up only one month into making payments? That wouldn’t be too fun, nor would it be too smart a move. That’s why we all generally take out auto loans direct from lenders, where we know up front just what the interest rate is, how much the monthly payment is, and when we will be done paying off the loan. But with a credit card, a lot of those variables can change at any moment. Unless…

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automotive • credit

By David

24 Thrifty Tips for Frugal Spending – From the Readers

Recently, I ran a giveaway of the book “Be Thrifty: How To Live Better With Less” and asked those who wanted to enter to win to send their best frugal/thrifty tip in with their entry. Well, you guys certainly responded! And because the tips were so great, I wanted to assemble them in a post and make them available to all the regular readers and new visitors to the site. So without further ado, here is a collection of thrifty tips sent in by readers of My Two Dollars:

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Frugal