Military to millions

End of positive thinking experiment

2008-09-02T12:11:00.002-05:00

Well, unexpectedly I was call to duty on an assignment. I can't talk about the location, but I will say that I kept using the positive thinking method and came out at 412 dollars ahead. So I will add that to the total and call this experiment somewhat of a success. I will probably do this again in the future as well.

Grand total: $439.10~~1 Free fridge~~Great motivational book.

Postive attitude and affirmation experiment ~ Day 7

2008-08-07T18:01:00.004-05:00

So today I had my largest to date windfall of money in this experiment. I discovered $26.85 in my bank account that I had mistakenly taken out on my checkbook register! Wow, so I saved some of it, and INVESTED the rest in a wonderful book so far called the "The Power of Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale. I believe this book will be life changing in deed. I do recommend this read. So here's the new total for the experiment:

$27.10~~1 Free fridge~~possible super deal on WS6 dream car~~Great motivational book.

Postive attitude and affirmation experiment ~ Day 3

2008-08-03T22:14:00.004-05:00

Ok, so I am still doing the positive thinking and affirmations daily. All seems to be going good too. I never expected to become rich overnight or anything like that, I fully expected this to take some time to kick in. Today, money was found on the ground, but that's not the best part of the day. I have also been using visuals in the form of pictures on my laptop, looking at my goals visually, almost burning them into my subconscious.

The day I started this experiment I also placed a picture of my dream car, a 2002 Pontiac Firebird WS6, on my desktop. This way I would see it throughout the day whilst using my computer, and keep reminding myself of this goal to one day own that car. Well, today while viewing a twitter post by none other than my Internet idol Joel Comm, I follow a link to a car he bought his wife on Auto Trader.com. I decided to plug in to the site search bar the WS6 for my area, and low and behold, a 2002 Pontiac Firebird WS6 with low miles for $4,000. The car usually runs $15,000 to $25,000 used. If this deal pans out, then I will have no choice but to credit the visual affirmations I have been using for the past 3 days.

So here is the 3 day tally so far: $0.25~~1 Free fridge~~possible super deal on WS6 dream car.

Postive attitude and affirmation experiment ~ Day 1

2008-07-31T21:33:00.003-05:00

Ok, so for day one. I did not seem to run into any extra income today, but I did receive a FREE refrigerator, so I guess that's worth something right?

I said my affirmation this morning as soon as I woke "Unexpected money abundantly falls into my open arms today." I will again repeat this before bed in a bit. I also kept a positive attitude throughout the day at work and with family. Today seemed much more upbeat and enjoyable for myself and those around me!

So here's the day 1 update: $0.00 ~~~1 FREE fridge. :)

Anyone else trying this? Post comments.

Postive attitude and affirmation experiment

2008-07-30T17:55:00.003-05:00

I am starting a new experiment to see if using clear affirmations and positive thinking, I can bring extra wealth into my life. I will keep track of extra money coming in unexpectedly on this blog every couple of days. I will try this for 30 days.

In my experiment, I will use the power of affirmation to clearly visualise extra cash flow. I will do this every morning and evening at the least. I will also keep a positive attitude about everything I encounter throughout the day. This should at the very least make my life more enjoyable, and bring joy to others around me as well.

I have read in several different sources that these techniques work wonders, lets see. I invite all of my readers to join in the experiment, and keep me updated on their success by using the comment form. Good luck and happy living. The experiment will start tomorrow.

I'll set the bank at $0.00 for today, 30 July, 2008. :)

Saving tons of money on daily commute

2008-06-12T19:16:00.005-05:00

Saving tons on my daily commute on the 22 mile journey each way. I have always been a motorcycle enthusiast, riding when the weather is good, going for Sunday rides, and occasionally riding to work.

I have now made it my priority to ride to and from work every day, no matter what! With fuel costs rising above 4 dollars a gallon now, I just cannot afford, like most Americans, to drive my car or truck. Even on rainy days, I get ready 5 minutes earlier to give time to suit up in rain gear. Each day I see more and more bikes on my daily commute, it is kind of eye opening really. I now imagine a day when there are more motorcycles on the road than there are cars, wouldn't that be a twist.

My truck gets around 16 mpg, whilst the bike gets 45 mpg, huge difference! If a majority of folks rode motorcycles, imagine the improvement on the environment?

On top of doing my part for the environment, I am saving a ton of money by riding the bike, to the tune of 8 dollars a day! That's a monthly savings of 160 dollars, or $1920 dollars a year! Money in the bank, dig it!

Save money by eating in

2008-05-23T18:36:00.003-05:00

Here is a quick money saving tip that I have adopted recently. Instead of eating out, be it fast food or sit down restaurants, try only eating at home.

First of all you will save money by not using gas except the once or twice a month to get groceries.

Next you will save money by not having someone else prepare the meal for you. Think about it, if you get a good steak at a restaurant it will most likely cost around 20 dollars, at home on your grill it will cost only around 8 or 9 dollars for the same premium meat.

On top of the money you will save by eating in, you will also be eating a lot healthier as well. We tend to get quick, unhealthy meals on the road, where as at home we tend to make our food choices healthy.

In the end you can save literally 100's of dollars by eating in, and maybe add a few years to your life at the same time!

Be safe, live cheap, and check back often for more money saving articles.

Time to pull together America and drive down gas prices!!

2008-04-21T18:55:00.004-05:00

For those of you who have not read this, it will work!

Time to bring gas prices down!!
THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $2.00 PER GALLON.
I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by this summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at us when we tried to unite to not buy gas for a day because they knew we wouldn't continue to 'hurt' ourselves by continuing it any longer.Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea, and this idea make much more sense than the 'don't buy gas on a certain day' campaign that was going around last April or May!It's worth your consideration.
The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, WE CAN DO IT WITHOUT HURTING OURSELVES.How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas.But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers.
It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.
I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Toe driving experiment complete, kinda.

2008-02-01T16:58:00.000-06:00

Ok, so for the toe driving experiment.......it went ok. I found it hard in my daily life to remember to do this every time I turn the key. I did however, toe drive for the majority of the time.

As for the results, I ended up getting about 2.5 miles per gallon more than usual. I think if you you can remember to do this, and wear flip flops most of the time, then this might be a worth wile technique.

I myself will probably mix my driving habits between regular driving, toe driving, and using the cruise control. I think this will lend the most practical results for me.

If anyone has tried this experiment or has done toe driving before, please leave a comment explaining your results, as I am curious to see how this ended up for others. Until next time, thanks for reading and support your troops.

Made my own guitar hero guitar.

2008-01-29T05:18:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to share that I found another way to save a few bucks if your a guitar hero fan. I made a guitar hero guitar using a real acoustic guitar. The guitar is unharmed too.

The video is a little too big in size to post here, so check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yeqx7TCH6W4 to see it.

Money saved= $35.00

Drive with your toes to save gas: DAY 6

2008-01-29T05:11:00.000-06:00

The toe driving experiment is going quite well. I am still averaging much better gas mileage than with traditional driving techniques. The only hard point to this experiment is remembering to do this in my every day grind.:)

I am nearing a half tank of gas, so it should be only another week, and I will have used the tank of gas, and I can report on this in full detail. For now keep saving, and support your troops.

Drive with your toes to save gas: DAY 1

2008-01-24T21:22:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I know I was going to wait a week before the first follow-up, but after toe driving today I found that I was getting way more milage than usual. Like 15 mpg more!! I don't want to jump to conclusions yet because this experiment should be tested for at least a tanks worth of gas, but I can see some exciting results. I will keep you posted periodically.

Drive with your toes to save gas.

2008-01-23T16:50:00.000-06:00

With increasing gas prices now days, everyone is trying to save on gas. You can do the traditional, obvious methods, like:

getting a better air filter

keeping tire pressure correct or over inflate a little

sign up for the gas stations credit card (sometimes this saves up to 10c a gallon)

carpool, take a bus, ride a bike, and walk whenever possible

There are plenty more ways to save gas, but I want to try something different as an experiment for a week. And if everything goes well, then a month, and so on.

I am going to drive only with my toes when pressing down the gas pedal. I have a theory that having a "lead foot" might cost you more than speeding tickets. By keeping a slow, steady pressure with my toes, there should be no excessive consumption by aggressively accelerating.

After a week I will report back with my findings, and again at two weeks, then a month. Right now my truck gets 17 MPG. I would like to increase that by a few numbers. Everyone is encouraged to join in, it could be fun and saves some coinage at the same time! Post your results in the comments. Thanks for reading and support your troops.

Cell phone discounts

2008-01-21T13:35:00.000-06:00

This is a short tip for military and Govt. officials only. All cell phone companies have a military or government employee discount. Call your service carrier and ask for the discount. Mine is through ATT, and it took 5 minutes to fill out the form online and submit it, that's it. Now I save an average 15-20 dollars a month on my bill.

Blogging for a living

2008-01-21T13:07:00.000-06:00

One of my goals is to be able to quit the day job all together, and just do online ventures, and eventually just do nothing. To be able to do this, I need a passive income, one that will pay out day and night, at the computer, or at the movies.

To get a start on this, I added a couple of ads to my blog and to my other website http://www.ohmcheck.com/. I plan on starting some more income streams in the near future, because if you have enough streams of income, then it would take a whole bunch of unfortunate events to completely lose them. This to me seems more stable then a regular 9 to 5 job, where you could be layed off at any time.

I know that being in the military, you can't just quit, but there are points throughout your career where you have the option of getting out. I will probably not get out until I have done my 20, which at this point is 12 years away. But the day my 20th anniversary in the military comes, I plan to retire, and never have to work again! Not bad at 41 years old.

So far I have made somewhere around 250 dollars through Adsense. I will be periodically blogging with my totals towards my million by retirement. I will add it to the savings on the upper right area on this page.

Amazing amusement park deals

2008-01-20T06:05:00.000-06:00

I remember when theme park admission would only run you about 15 to 20 dollars, and either free parking or 4 bucks or so. Now days you can expect to pay almost 60 dollars to get in, and 10 to 15 to park your car. So for a family of 4, that's around 250 before you even enter the park!

Here's a hint, NEVER pay full price. There are several ways to avoid paying full fare, and I will list a few with a brief suggestion of how to get these deals.

1. "Online only" tickets- Go to the theme parks website, many of them will offer "online only" tickets for a reduced price.

2. Online auctions- Check sites like Ebay, Craigslist, and Yahoo Auctions for people selling tickets. Be careful with this one though, check seller feedback to avoid scam.

3. Time share- Some resorts near theme parks will give you FREE tickets just for listening to a 1 to 2 hour sales pitch. If you have the time, this is a great deal! Check out http://www.vacationpackages411.com/timeshare.php for more info.

4. MWR or ITT- This one is for military only. Every base should have a MWR or Information & Ticket Travel office. Check with these for extremely discounted tickets, sometimes up to 60% off. As of now, Anheuser-Busch offers 1 park, 1 time a year, free admission for all military and their direct families to one of their theme parks. Check out http://www.herosalute.com/ for more info.

5. Fast food coupons and cans- Especially during the summer months, a lot of fast food chains will pass out 10 to 15% coupons good for up to 6 persons. Also some soda cans will have theme park discounts on them as well.

As for me I just went to 6 Flags in LA for half price (through ITT), saving 30 dollars. I will also be going to Busch Gardens for free with my family, saving about 250 dollars. We also plan on going to Disney World this summer for 75% off through time share sales pitches, saving us around 180 dollars. That's a grand total of $460 dollars in theme park savings.

Update: I want to add that community centers can also have discounts on theme park tickets (thanks Mike).

Flip em off.

2008-01-19T18:12:00.000-06:00

You leave the bathroom, leave the light on for two hours. You leave the living room for 45 minutes, TV is blaring in the background. These things are all costing you money every month. Remind yourself and your family to shut off the light or TV when exiting a room.

Another way to save money/energy is to check all your door seals for leakage. If they look dry rotted, torn, or can see light through it, it's time to replace it.

As far as your air conditioner goes, it will actually save money to leave it on a reasonable temperature during the summer months when it will be operated a lot anyway. This is because it takes quite a bit of energy to repeatedly get the house to your set temp, instead of just keeping it at or near that temp. It's kind of like how semi trucks keep there engines running at truck stops.

You can check out some itemized monthly energy costs here:
http://www.energycheckup.com/content/EnergyDollars.asp

All of this stuff can save you money every month, as well as help the environment. I am not going to monetize this one because I already do these things, instead I just wanted to share it with new home owners.

Cut it out!

2008-01-19T09:38:00.000-06:00

Ok, so this tip is pretty obvious and well known, but clipping coupons is one of the easiest ways to save money. Not on circulars that come in the mail, but search online for great deals too. One well known site is http://www.dealofday.com/. There are literally hundreds on the net to choose from, so be sure to check for a online coupon code before buying anything.

Here are a few sites:
http://www.coupons.com/
http://www.couponcabin.com/
http://www.currentcodes.com/
http://www.couponchief.com/
http://www.retailmenot.com/

Also our local Publix, as well as many others does a buy one get one sale a couple days a week, where a lot of good items are displayed. Check out a "Everything's a Dollar" type store as well to see if you can't get a lot of your shopping done there, as they do have a lot of grocery's and misc. items.

We usually save about 50 dollars a week with coupons and deals, for a yearly total of 600 dollars!

Stop paying for someone elso to do your dirty laundry

2008-01-19T09:24:00.000-06:00

This tip will mainly apply to men and women in the military, but could apply if you are in a job where uniforms are issued to you, but not laundered for you for free. About 3 years ago, as a present to myself for making E4, I stopped washing my uniform myself and started taking it to the cleaners. This didn't at first seem expensive at only 7.50, but multiply that by 4 times a month, and I was spending 3o dollars for dry cleaning!

So my new goal now is to spend the 30-40 minutes on Sunday night to wash and iron my uniform with my regular laundry. I can even do this while watching my favorite TV program, it will multitask, and get me off this couch for a bit too.

This should be pretty easy to stick with and will save 360 dollars a year.

First Post

2008-01-19T08:23:00.000-06:00

Hi, my name is SSgt Jay Pivens, and am in the US Air Force. Most know that being a serviceman doesn't make you rich. Every day is about getting by to the next. I think if we can find ways to save, then we can reach financial freedom in the long run. This blog is about finding ways to save money in every day life. I consider myself pretty frugal, and I want to share my experiences saving money in hopes of generating new ideas from myself and from readers. When ever I get new ideas, or ideas are suggested through comments or emails, then I will post a new blog about it. Enjoy and support your troops.