Home Archives for Cheap Ba**ard
May 14, 2012 Leave a Comment

Hot Pot – Spectacular

Chinese (or Mongolian) Hot Pot is one of the better food treasures found on earth. I enjoy Japanese Shabu Shabu, but I very much like the spicier Chinese broths and am a fan of Chinese vegetables.

Though hot pot can be expensive for someone like me who eats mostly vegetarian – many places charge $15-20 for the meal or a la carte can ring up $20/pp bills, which is a lot for soup and veggies no? Therefore, buying a hot pot for home and stocking up on Little Sheep’s spicy broth mix (found at many Asian markets) is the more economical way plus the Little Sheep broth gives me the exact flavor I enjoy:

Hot Pot and some ingredients

 

Delicious - Clears any cold right up!

Filed Under: Cheap Ba**ard, Chris' life
January 24, 2012 Leave a Comment

So Many Deal Sites – So Many Options

Daily Deal Sites – you’ve heard of them: Groupon, LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, Deal Find, Eversave, Bloomspot, Angie’s List has one, Travelzoo, Zozi (travel related) - all of these offer deals in various approaches for a limited time to help build awareness for the advertised product. So Are they good? Should you check ‘em out? I’m not sure but I’ve had some good experiences – here’s my say on the matter…

I recently used a teeth whitening special from a Brookline dental office (wow that hurt on the third pass) which I purchased for $99 (sessions typically go for $400-600). I’ve also used numerous restaurant deals originally from Restaurant.com but recently I look more and more to Scoutmob, which doesn’t require me to buy anything first and often offers free lunches! Yelp offers daily deals on restaurants too. And I’ve used a couple of travel/hotel deals which were great.

For a sample of what might be offered, here’s what appeared in my inbox this morning:

Isn't It Better to Eat For Less?

$25 for locksmith service

$40 for five fitness classes

$10 for $20 worth of fare at a restuarant

$75 for teeth whitening procedure

$249 for energy saving packet including door and window sealing

How do I get such a large sample mailed to me? Do I  subscribe to all of these sites? No I use a deal aggregator called DealGator, which customizes the deals for each city. It makes it easy for me to scan the deals and see if anything good pops up all in one email. I’m sure there are other deal aggregators and I’d recommend using one if you want to know what’s being offered without 12-15 extra emails each day. And it also saves your email from being listed with 15 more companies (though I’m sure it gets shared somewhere anyway).

A word of caution – some of the above are newer and a few have complaints listed on the web. I don’t know how legitimate the complaints are but be cautious about using these sites. Again, Scoutmob is great because they don’t ask me to pay for anything upfront. I’ve also personally used Groupon, LivingSocial and BuyWithMe without issues.

Filed Under: Cheap Ba**ard, Interesting, Opinion Tagged: daily deals, groupon, living social, restaurants, scoutmob
November 30, 2011 Leave a Comment

Always “Count” Your Change

“Wow they sound fake”

~ my friend Joe commenting when I dropped these quarters on the desk

 

I had lunch today and the bill came to just over $10. I plunked down $15 and the server brought me back my change. When she put down the tray, I noticed the quarters make an odd sounding clang. So I looked closer:

I noticed the dates – a bit old right? And what were quarters and silver (hint) dollars made from before 1965? You curious what these are worth? This site is helpful: Coinflation

Bottom line for me – lunch cost me NEGATIVE 6 bucks:) as each quarter is worth just under $6 with today’s silver price.

The side lesson here is now you know how much prices have risen since 1965. At the time, the quarter had the purchasing power of $6 in today’s money. Inflation destroys purchasing power and makes us all poorer. Right now, in their efforts to prop up banks, the European region, and bond & stock markets, central banks worldwide are printing money, easing interest rates and buying bonds – basically cheapening the currency. Learn to protect yourself.

Interestingly, regarding the headline quote from my friend Joe – isn’t it funny when REAL money sounds “fake” to people and the quarters made from cheap metal sound “real?” Take that into considering when thinking whether or not you are being hoodwinked by government leaders bent on printing confetti money to “solve” our problems.

Bottom line question to ask – if you plan on living another 20-40 years, will your income keep up with cost increases like this (25c to $6 in 45 years)? Take appropriate actions.

Note: for some ideas on financially protecting yourself, go to my company website here: Walnut Hill Advisors, LLC

Filed Under: Cheap Ba**ard, Economics, Interesting, Your Money Tagged: bernanke, central banks, coins, gold, inflation, quarters, silver, uncle ben
October 24, 2010 Leave a Comment

Bund – New Documentary and A Cool Restaurant

A new documentary debuted on the history of the Bund, or Waitan – a section of Shanghai in China that was the money center for European influence before WW2. Here’s a preview:

It’s also the name of a cool, inexpensive, little Shanghai-style Chinese restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. See my Yelp review here:

Chris G Yelp – BUND

Filed Under: Cheap Ba**ard, Chris' life
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