I went over to my aunts house for coffee yesterday.  I quite enjoy going to her house - she makes the best coffee and always has some advice to give me.

There was no disappointment going over there.  A piping cup of coffee and a warm smiling face greeted me.  I sat down, and we talked about our families for a few minutes.  I was waiting to see what advice she would impart me with today.

Seems she had money on the brain.  I was asked where we banked.  After hearing my answer I was told that I should compare bank accounts with her bank - they had no fees.  But I was told to be ever vigilant - sometimes the competition would come out with something better and it was okay to switch.

The talk continued - and so did the money advice.  We talked about some of the best credit cards on the market - and how I didn’t have any of them.  We also touched on me getting come cheap car insurance - I haven’t changed it since I was a teenager.  I am older now so I should be able to get a better rate.

Our coffee ended about two hours later - will a full belly and a full mind I left content - do I ever love my aunt.

I try to be a good friend.  Whether that is going to a friends house at 4 am , taking a friend to a hospital, or watching their kids in an emergency, I try to go above and beyond for my friends.  I recently had the opportunity to do just that with my friend Melissa who was recently diagnosed as dyslexic.

You see after Melissa took the test for dyslexia and tested positive, she was very emotional.  She felt that her life was "over" and that she would never be able to hold down a regular job.  I told her I would find out what we could do about that and that there was no reason that she couldn’t be "normal" - whatever that is supposed to be.

I went down to the library and looked dyslexic symptoms and solutions.  I found a few books with exercises in them to help conquer the challenges associated with the disability.  It took a few nights to read them all, but I did come up with a plan for her.

It is now about a month later and Melissa and I have been working on these exercises about three times a week, every week.  She feels a lot more confident and a lost less normal - she now considers herself to be exceptional.

The following are three things you should be using the Internet for.  For some of you they may seem a little different, but should you use them, you will save yourself some money.

1. Growing Your Money

   A good example of what you can do on the Internet is find places to put your money.  It is in these places that you will put your money to grow.  Examples can include bank accounts, stocks, mutual funds, etc.  For example you might be looking for a savings account - using the Internet to find it would get your the best savings account - letting your money grow faster.

2. Cutting Your Expenses

   We would all like to have lower bills right?  Well the Internet can give you that option allowing you to find cheaper products or services that meet your needs.  For example, you could do a car insurance comparison and perhaps save yourself a hundred dollars a year.  Does that sound good to you?

3. Minimizing Your Interest

   Quite a few of us have credit cards, mortgages and other loans.  Most people would benefit in a reduction in the interest rate on these types of products - either they could pay it off quicker or they would have some free money to do other things.  A good example would be to compare credit cards from many institutions and find one that fits your shopping and repayment habits.

By no means is this a complete list.  In fact there are many other things that you should be using the Internet for, but the list above has the most potential to affect your pocket book - and sometimes that can be the most important.

Well, I have an interesting situation and I don’t know what to do. 

You see, the interest rates here have dropped down to the point where it may be worth doing a home refinance.  Even with the interest penalty I would pay for getting out of my mortgage early, it would be worth the $150 or so per month that I would save in mortgage payments.

But I don’t know if that is the right choice.  We have been talking about renovating our house a little bit.  We would like to replace the flooring throughout the house and the bathroom looks a little nasty.  If we took advantage of the increase in value of our home we could get a home equity loan to pay for the renovations.

Unfortunately, we can either do one or the other - not both.  So we really need to think about what we are going to do.

You might suggest to me that it would be a little smarter for me to pick two things that were a little more similar.  You could argue that the there is really nothing similar between a truck and a tub at all - though you can get both of them wet

OK, well, you got me.  What I wanted to talk about is the difference between a loan that you would get to buy a truck, and the loan you would get to renovate a bathroom (buy a tub).  Alright?

The loan you would get to buy the truck would be an unsecured loan.  Translate that into English for you, it is a loan that they offer you depending on two things: your credit rating and your financial situation.  Most people with a good credit rating and good income rarely have problems getting this type of loan.  You can usually have up to seven years to pay off the loan, though the average is five. 

On the other hand, to renovate my bathroom (or anywhere in my home) I would want a secured homeowner loan.  The major difference here is that it would be like I was taking out a second mortgage on my home.  This way, I can tap into the equity I have in my home.  Also, it is a little easier on your budget with financing over twenty five years if you choose.

So there you go.  Who knew there was a difference between a tub and a truck??

I am very familiar with the Canadian real estate market, and more specifically the Saskatoon market.  I also have some knowledge of the American real estate market as well.

I also believe that you should learn something new everyday.  So, today I decided to learn about another real estate market somewhere in the world.  I took the scientific approach (assume some sarcasm here) and took out my atlas, closed my eyes, and picked a place at random.  That place was South Africa.

I sat down at my computer and proceeded to find some companies that sold property in the region.  I did manage to find to major competitors in that market: Seeff Properties and Pam Golding International.

Between the information presented on each of these companies websites, I found that the real estate market there was doing pretty good.  Year over year you could have earned anywhere from about 25% to 45% return on your property depending on where it was located.

The only bad mark I could see is that the interest rates there for mortgages was around 13.5% which is a lot higher than the 6% mortgage I could get here.

From what I learned today, the market has a lot of potential and I will consider investing in property in South Africa.

Have you ever taken a look in your wallet?  Now this may seem like a stupid question, but humor me.  Take out your wallet and count the number of credit cards you have in there.  Done?  How many are in there?  You may find that you have more than one or two.  If you do, are you ready for a challenge?

If you are still with me, I would like to suggest to you that you might not need all those credit cards.  I would even dare to suggest to you that you could get along with as little as two of them.  Want to know how?

Take a seat at your computer (you should be there already if you are reading this) and fire up your Internet browser.  Go to your favorite search engine and search for "compare credit cards".  Pick one of the sites that apply to your country (for example a Canadian site is what you should look for if you live in Canada).  Now, what you are looking for is a site that allows you to compare your cards side by side.

Now, make a list of the places that you shop that only accept specific brands of credit cards.  A good example would be Costco - they only accept American Express in the store.  By creating this list, you will see what cards you actually "need".

Take your list and be sure that you have the cards that are listed on there.  In most cases, you may only absolutely need one or two cards.  So keep those ones.  With the rest of your cards, pick one out that either has reward points, low interest rate (if you keep a balance on your cards), or one that is a cashback credit card.  This way you are getting a feature that benefits you.

When you are down to your few cards - get rid of the rest.  You really don’t need them.  The two or three cards you keep will give you the most benefit.

My computer here is getting kind of old.  I have had it for about four years now and it makes a terrible noise.  It reminds me of the sound of airplanes at the airport.  The other problem is that it seems terribly slow.  I feel that it is time to get a new computer but I am a little short on funds.  So I decided to take a look at my options for getting a cheap loan to pay for a new computer.

For this type of purchase, the type of loan you would get is an unsecured loan.  What that means is that they lend the money to me based on my credit score and my ability to pay.  Unlike a car loan where they could use the car as collateral, they base their decision on my ability to repay.

For those of you with a good credit rating, these types of loans are usually not a problem.  If you have had credit problems such as a bankruptcy in the past, you will probably be faced with a high interest rate if you even qualify for a loan at all.

That being said, whatever your credit rating, making payments on your computer loan will help your credit rating.  I am going to look at my options at a few places on Monday - I hope it goes well.

It seems that website promotion is a full time job.  There is an endless amount of work that you can do: submitting your sites to directories, writing articles, talking on forums, and even word of mouth are some of the tasks that you do promoting your sites. 

What makes it even harder is that you cannot stop - your competition is doing the exact same things as you.  Sometimes I wish I had a little robot or employee that could do all this work for me.  It could free my time up to blog (like I am doing right now) or I could work on other web projects.

I did find something that would fit my bill for automatic website promotion.  Seems there is a new text link ads marketplace called TNX.net.  What sets them out from the rest of the other sites is that all you have to do is create your ad, pick the number and ranking of sites you want your ad on and they do the rest.  What really floors me is that I can create a website today, and get the marketing started today - with very little time commitment on my part.

If you are into the whole website thing to make money too, they offer a lucrative affiliate program: you get a commission when one of your affiliates buys or sells links.  This can either put money back into your pocket or pay for your website marketing (keeping the money in your pocket).

If you think that this may be something for you, they are offering a good deal:  they will let you try the program for free.  Go to this forum to try TNX.

It seems that most of the blogs I read are pretty normal:  they either comment on the current news or talk about their lives (like I do here).  There are even some joke blogs out there and I have come across a few that have funny videos on them.  That should only mean that there are blogs out there that are about weird news right?  Well, I didn’t think so until today.

You see, it was a normal day like any other and I went to do a web search on a search engine.  Now, my son was talking to me at the same time so I was a little distracted and instead of typing “news blog”, I typed “strange news blog” (as my son was talking about how strange his friend Andrew was).

So, I decided to check some of these sites out.  Just like with food, it never hurts to try something new (and if you don’t like it , you don’t have to do it again).  I have got to admit, some of the weird news headlines were pretty neat - they took the regular news title and twisted it a little bit.  I find myself getting stuck in the section for stupid news - I have something about reading about people doing stupid funny things.

I would suggest you checking out some different sites everyday - not only might you learn something, you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find.