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Review

DollarDig Review

by Evan February 5, 2016

Dollar Dig is a retail receipt website that allows customers to purchase items directly from manufacturers while getting money back. Dollar Dig works by passing along funds to the user that are given to websites by companies for attracting customers. While there are many coupon websites, none quite serve their customers in the same way as Dollar Dig.

The first thing I noticed about Dollar Dig is the interface. It’s intuitive to use and features large, easy to read and understand font. You can browse by category such as electronics or apparel or you can search for a specific store on their handy dandy search button conveniently located in the upper right hand corner of the page. There’s also an option to browse through all of Dollar Dig’s stores if you are so inclined. One thing I really like when searching through stores is the ability to have a specific number of search results appear on screen, including the “show all” button. This saves me from having to stop and change pages partway through my search, something I personally find very annoying.

Of course, all of this easy searching means nothing if there are no stores that interest you. With Dollar Dig, this isn’t a concern; they have nearly 3600 stores for you to browse. And it’s not just small retailers you’ve never heard of, either; Dollar Dig recognizable stores such as:

Verizon Wireless
Abt Electronics
Ace Hardware
Advance Auto Parts
American Eagle Outfitters

Of course, there are smaller retailers for specialty goods as well. Or you could just shop Amazon (also a partner of Dollar Dig). They also feature Facebook and Twitter pages to “friend” or “follow” that alert you to great deals right on your feed.

All that is great, and it’s nice to have options, but if using Dollar Dig doesn’t earn you money then what’s the point? Dollar Dig offers one of the most generous point systems of all retail receipt websites. To ensure you don’t return your item, there is a small waiting period of about 90 days before the money appears in your account. Of course, you can see your pending total after about 10 days so that you know exactly how much you are getting.

Dollar Dig also makes it easy to get your cash. Once you reach $25 in rebates, you are free to withdraw your money. To make it easier to reach your goal, Dollar Dig also starts you off with $5 when you sign up! The best part is, getting paid through Dollar Dig is always secure; you can be paid through Paypal or Dwolla, meaning that Dollar Dig never has access to any of your personal information. Dollar Dig is also in the process of offering other payment options to accommodate all their users.

Overall, Dollar Dig is one of the best retail receipt websites out there. It’s easy to use and to understand. There are a ton of retail sites to choose from and the points system is easy to understand. If you are interested in getting in on the free money offered by retail receipt websites, make your first (and last) stop Dollar Dig!

February 5, 2016 0 comment

Investments

Review of Free Dividend Investing E-Book

by Evan June 9, 2011

Dividend-Investing-ebook

I generally dislike e-books, I often find that they are terrible reproductions of blogs adding no real value, however, when my buddy Mike from TheFinancialBlogger told me he was creating an e-book on Dividend Investing I was actually excited to check it out.

As usual, Mike offers something above and beyond the norm in his e-book for beginner to intermediate Dividend Investing. If you were thinking about building a dividend portfolio like my perpetual income machine you should absolutely check out this free e-book.

The e-book is broken down into 4 easy to digest chapters:

Chapter #1 – Goes through the basics of investing (i.e. What is a Dividend? What is Risk tolerance? etc). This first chapter should be read by anyone that is thinking about investing in individual stocks.
Chapter #2 – Provides metrics you should look into when finding appropriate dividend stocks. Mike even checks out my favorite lists including Dividend Aristocrats, Achievers and Champions.
Chapter #3 – 6 Question and Answers. I actually didn’t really like this chapter that much. With the amount of amazing material in the first two chapters this seemed a bit superfluous.
Chapter # 4 – Provides 4 pages of amazing resources including blogs that I love and tools for technical analysis.

Throughout the entire e-book Mike provides a chance for the reader to stop just reading about dividend investing and get to work:

Mike numbers 8 actionable steps but I think there are more than that, if you read closely. When asked when you should start? Mike has a great answer,

Simply put, if you don’t do it now, you will never do it. From my job I know that procrastination is the biggest reason why people are not taking care of their finances. Unfortunately, making a budget and paying down your debts often take priority over investing. I am a firm believer that investing should come first. If you don’t start investing now, in the long run you will lose some serious money.

In fact, investing returns work based on a principle named “compounding interest.” We will cover this topic later on in this book. But to make sure you understand, I’ll just use the snowball analogy.
When you start rolling snow, you’ll eventually form a snowball. If you continue to roll the ball into more snow, the ball will slowly grow. The bigger the ball is, the more snow will stick to it, and the faster your ball will grow. So, the sooner you start your ball rolling, the bigger your snowball will be at retirement. Just imagine how big your snowball would be if you start rolling it at the age of 25 and stop at 65? You would create a freakin’ snow mountain out of your originally small snowball.

Compounding interest works the same way; the sooner you start investing, the bigger your investment egg-nest will become over time. A 5 year difference in the starting date of your investment plan creates a phenomenal difference at the age of retirement.

I was not paid for this post, just one blogger’s opinion about a topic I love, Dividend Investing.

June 9, 2011 4 comments

Personal Situation

Building an Empire Using Mind Mapping

by Evan September 28, 2010

When going through a plan or idea I have always needed to prepare a corresponding visual organizational chart. In doing so it provides me with the ability to categorize priorities and flush out action steps. I had no idea this type of behavior had a name, Mind Mapping.

Until recently I would do plan out my ideas using power point like when I created my family’s cash flow. but I have discovered Mind Mapping!

What is Mind Mapping?

According to Wikipedia,

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.

The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.

Basically it is the old school flow chart turned up a notch! Below is a great 3 min video introducing Mind Mapping:

Free Mind Mapping Software

I am all about open source software, but couldn’t find one that I felt comfortable with right of the box. So after installing and uninstalling a few programs I found a great, free program called XMind. Since Mind Mapping build off a central idea, I decided to name mine…EMPIRE.

For purposes of this post I wanted to focus on a new site I am building called Pregnancy Pool.

As you can see, Pregnancy Pool is a branch off the mighty (well not really mighty just yet) empire. I then break it up to various priorities:

Create the Site
Have the Art Work Created
Start Worrying about Traffic
MONEY

Below each subtopic are either actions or keywords to get me thinking or acting when I look at it.

Have you ever used Mind Mapping for a project? Do you use a different program?

September 28, 2010 8 comments

Random

What Does Patent Pending Mean?

by Evan August 9, 2010

The Wife received a cool wine aerator from a company named, Vinturi. I noticed that the box mentioned that the technology was patent pending, and I thought to myself what does ‘patent pending’ even mean?

Vinturi Wine Aerator

Review of Vinturi Wine Aerator

First the results of the product. The product is a modern looking glass piece that is about 4 or 5 inches and sits in a black rubber stand. It would look sharp on any bar.

The Wife took 4 people (Mother in law, Sister in law, Sister in law’s fiancé and me) and poured two glasses of wine. The Wife was the only one who knew which glass was the glass that went through the Vinturi aerator and the normal straight up wine.

The women, who drink wine often, knew right away. The Sister in law’s fiancé didn’t know and I had an inkling, but I wasn’t positive. The women loved the wine using the Vinturi Aerator.

As the night wore on, I might or might not have put my margarita through the aerator…it tasted better lol.

What is Patent Pending? What Protections are Associated with Patent Pending?

I know very little about the patent and trademark process. I did some clerical work for an attorney once, but I never took a class in law school and considering the following flow chart provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office it seems like a pretty complicated area of law.

So what is the definition and laws surrounding patent pending? According to the USPTO

[it is] used by a manufacturer or seller of an article to inform the public that an application for patent on that article is on file in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The law imposes a fine on those who use these terms falsely to deceive the public.

Surprisingly that doesn’t really answer the questions, so I went researching a little further. About.com provides a little bit more information, and explains why someone would use the term,

Manufacturers use patent pending as a warning that a patent may be issued that would cover the item and that copiers should be careful because they might infringe if the patent issues. Once the patent issues, the patent owner will stop using the phrase patent pending and start using a phrase such as “covered by U.S. Patent Number XXXXXXX.”

It seems that patent pending provides a type of protection from would be imitators. If they succeed in imitating it may be only a couple of months before copying becomes a cause of action for a lawsuit.

Ever have any experience with the USPTO? How about filing a Patent or Patent Pending?

August 9, 2010 6 comments

product review

Review of MagicJack Internet Phone System

by Evan April 18, 2010

I was contacted by a public relations rep to check out the magicJack internet phone system, since I love free stuff I said I would absolutely try it (hint hint PR People…contact me)!

Setting up and Registering my MagicJack Account

I couldn’t believe how easy it was to set up the magicJack, I literally plugged the unit into my computer’s USB and it started updating and installing the software using my broadband internet. Once the updating and installing completed it went right into registration:

The account registration was pretty simple and straightforward…name, address etc. It did not ask for a credit card, but that may because the unit was sent to me via a public relations firm. After I registered my account, the amount of upsell attempted was incredible. Among other questions, it asked me if I wanted:

To choose my number – cool option! If I stick with this product I may register 516-XXX-Evan!
If I wanted to insure the product
Prepay International minutes
Prepay for a lower amount for 5 years of service

Regardless of the upsell attempts I finally got to plug in my phone and use the actual software.

MagicJack Screen Shot

Interestingly, you can dial from the phone you don’t need to use the software makes it very natural. Considering the only phone I had the desire to move around so I could test the system was a mid 90’s Saved by the Bell-esq light up phone, I was curious if I wanted to, could I plug in a normal portable-wireless phone and a review of the magicJack website indicates that you can also plug in a portable telephone.

Pros of the magicJack System

The biggest positive I can come up with is the price; I pay more per month with Verizon than the what magicJack costs for the entire year! The second pro is that the ease. I am not sure why, but when I think about turning my computer into a phone I assumed it was going to be complicated with lots of settings. The people at magicJack really figured if they were going to go this route – ease was a must.

The option to create a vanity number could be a huge benefit in certain situations. I know I’d love if my number was 555-Evan, but then again I am weird like that. Additionally, the ability to change your phone number almost at will could be a great option if you needed to avoid phone calls, for whatever shady reason. MagicJack also allows you to use your computer’s microphone/speaker system or use a connected headset so an actual phone may not be necessary.

Depending on the website you read, people either love the actual service or hate it. I will tell you that my short experience with the product was pleasant. The phone clarity was adequate and there were no problems with incoming or out going phone calls.

Negatives of magicJack

There are a couple big drawbacks associated with magicJack, however I don’t think any one of the drawbacks is enough to completely ignore the product. First, you can’t port your number. This is huge negative if you are thinking about using this product for your business. Second, your computer/internet needs to be on and working. I really don’t think this is a huge deal anymore, because without power I would be forced to search (likely in the dark) for the previously mentioned 90’s light up phone, since every phone in my house is a portable wireless phone that requires power anyway!

Another drawback of magicjack is that it has to be connected via USB all the time with the phone connected. In my house, like most houses today, we have laptops so it would be just weird carrying around the phone with me all the time. The problem may be minimized by using a headset or the speaker system option.

Am I switching to magicJack?

Simply put, no I am not switching to magicJack, but it has nothing to do with the product but rather my home situation. The Wife runs a business out of our home, and I/we are just not ready to make the leap. However, if that business ever stopped I would 100% get this product since I feel like a hardwired phone is way overpriced.

Do you have any experiences with magicJack?

This is not a paid post.

April 18, 2010 8 comments