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In his post Plan for tomorrow, live for today, Derek Semmler tagged me with this interesting game, and here are the rules:

• Write your own six word memoir.
• Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want.
• Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
• Tag at least five more blogs.
• Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

So I thought for a bit, what is my six word memoir? What is the mantra that I live my life by? The answer is I can’t choose just one! Derek, I don’t know if this is allowed but I want several six word memoirs! As when I am faced with several good choices when shopping, I want it all. And so it is with my six word memoir, I can’t just choose one and so here goes:

I don’t take myself too seriously: No one else seems to J! Seriously, though I think there is a lot of merit in not taking yourself too seriously, that way you retain a sense of humor in most situations and don’t allow problems to get to you so much. It’s rather like my fave track by the Eagles, Take it Easy, Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy”

Life is Short, Don’t hate anyone: There are so many wonderful things to do in the world, so many wonderful people, so many beautiful places to go to in the limited time that we have on this earth. Why waste any of that time hating anyone? Hate is a corrosive and destructive emotion, indifference is less so, but it is more insulting to the opposite person J.

The best is yet to come: I am the eternal optimist; I genuinely believe that life is only going to get better. People are going to wisen up and stop living wasteful and polluting lifestyles; global warming and climate changes will reverse. There will be peace and prosperity all over the world; war will cease. I will be rich and famous! Hmmm if you think that sounds a bit like la la land, well that’s just me! I like to view the world thru rose colored spectacles! There is enough despair and hopelessness in the world without me adding to it.

And this is my picture, one of spring because Spring is all about new beginnings, rejuvenation!

And this is the final part, where I tag five more people to play this game. They are:

• Andy Bailey
• Megapixels
• Eva White
• Raymond Chua
• Greenville NC Events

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Tags: General, Quotations by Nicole Price
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Can the need for regular backup of important data ever be overemphasized? People tend to take backups lightly. I used to do the same thing, until the day my hard drive crashed around last October and I lost a lot of important data. That day I swore to backup all my data every 15 days. I did that religiously for a few months. Now I think it’s been about 25 days since my last backup and my cabinet is overflowing with dated CDs and DVDs.

I thought the idea of online backup would make much better sense. Moreover, since the data would be available to me wherever I may be. I would not be hampered by having to carry DVDs and external hard drives. I looked around for a low cost solution and I found something even better. I found a free one. IDrive offers free Online Backup facilities for upto 2 GB of space for personal use. For requirements beyond that, there is a very affordable fee of USD 4.95 per month (or USD 49.50 per year) for unlimited storage space (read conditions on site) for personal use. There is a different package for Business Users with Storage space options of 50, 100 and 500 GB. The costs here are very competitive as well.

I have just finished backing up all my files, including the files of this blog. The entire process was pretty simple. Have a long way to go before I exhaust my 2 GB of free space. So I’m good with the free account for the time being. You can give it a shot too and save yourself a lot of potential trouble.

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Tags: Best Deals, General, Money Saving, freebies by Nicole Price
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Regular readers here probably know that I been toying with the idea of getting myself a new laptop. Yesterday I finally zeroed in on this Dell XPS Series model for $999. As usual, I then began my hunt for discount coupons for the same. And boy was I successful! I landed up on BestOnlineCoupons.com which provides innumerable discount coupons and codes for shoppers like me. Here I found Dell coupons that can help me avail huge discounts on my Dell laptop purchase. Not only this, the site is a treasure trove for bargain hunters.

They add new coupon codes and discount information on a daily basis. The Hot Coupons page lists the selected few unbelievable coupons that are far more lucrative than others. Their coupons are divided into many easy to browse categories. All the information is very well organized. The coupons for Apparel and Clothing are too good to ignore. Also worth checking out are the Health and Beauty coupons. They have great coupons on office supplies too. Some worth checking out are the Vistaprint coupons for low cost promotions on custom color printing. The discounts range form 25% to 75% with some stuff actually being given away free. That’s one find my better half will be happy about. Not so sure about the Clothes and Beauty coupons though. LOL.

And I must add, the site is completely free to use, no free registration required either. Do check it out and let me know if you use a code that helps you save bucks.

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Tags: Best Deals, General, Money Saving, freebies by Nicole Price
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There is a lot of buzz around news circuits about the devaluation of the dollar worldwide, and a lot of trade pundits are predicting more doom and gloom. So does this mean that the position of the US dollar as the most important currency in the world is threatened? Is a recession really impending and will it drive the US dollar from its coveted top spot? I don’t think there is any immediate fear of that happening but that set me thinking, how did currency come into being? How old is the tradition of paper money and when was the barter system replaced by currency?

While the system of barter (trading or swapping an item with someone who requires it, in return for acquiring something that you need), which was used over centuries had its own obvious limitations. For instance, a vegetable farmer may be willing to offer his produce in return for some tools that another individual is making, but the tool-maker may not, at the time have any need for the farmers produce, and by the time he does, the produce of the vegetable farmer would have been spoiled, so the barter becomes untenable to that extent. So what was then required was to have an intermediate commodity that doesn’t perish and is reliably in demand throughout the year. In earlier times, items of intrinsic value such as copper, gold or wine were used as currency. Early settlers in Australia traded with rum as a currency! Grain and cattle were other items used as and by way of currency.

Even in ancient times, coins were minted by the ruler of the land were stamped with an emblem that guaranteed the weight and value of the metal and used as currency. These were usually made from precious and semi precious metal so that they carried intrinsic value and were stamped with the ruler’s seal thereby imbuing it with an intangible value stemming from authority as well.

The reason for the emergence for paper money was twofold; one, the shortage of precious and semiprecious metal and secondly, ease of portability (soon coins became too heavy to carry around). In Europe the first paper money consisted of paper ‘coins’ issued in Protestant Leyden (today, Leiden) in the Netherlands during the Spanish siege of 1574. Later, governments directed citizens to replace precious metals with paper money to hasten the general acceptance of paper as currency.

Usually currency notes are made by adding cotton paper, linen or other textile fibers so as to make them more resistant to wear and tear. There is also a thin layer of varnish to protect them from soiling. In order to make it impossible or at least very difficult to make counterfeit notes, currency is usually enhanced by a water mark, the thread component and several other factors. Over the years, bank notes have also been printed on materials such as polymer, silk, leather etc.!

So fascinating is the subject of currency, that numismatics is the term coined for the scientific study of currency and its history in all its varied forms and I found this very interesting site devoted to numismatics which gives you access to bank notes from around the world and you can also order any that you want!

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Tags: General, Government by Nicole Price
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Spring is a lovely time of year, but it is also about this time that you have to file your taxes. Doesn’t sound all that lovely now, huh? I have been trawling the inter-web trying to find the best ways to pay the taxman as little as possible. Because, remember it is OK to manage your income in a way that you avoid paying taxes as far as possible, so you should try and get every tax advantage you can. So I thought I’d share with you any pearls of wisdom I came across on the net.

This CNN money article, is a real useful ready reckoner. It gives you information about the new tax breaks, like those for mortgage insurance and mortgage debt forgiveness. Unless you are in a really high income tax bracket, you are probably entitled to a one time stimulus tax break this year. This article has a very useful list of exemptions so check it out.

This article by William Perez talks about how one couple were able to eliminate paying taxes altogether. This article talks about how you can substantially reduce or eliminate your income tax by saving for retirement, owning a home, sending your kids to college. William Perez has compiled a comprehensive list of ways to lower your taxes with links to more details on each point, so that you can get more information of any of the basic topics he has covered.

On the official IRS site there is a tax topics index where you can seek out detailed information about whichever deduction you need for instance Topic 451 deals with IRAs. Here you will find articles about general information, IRS procedures, collections, alternative filing methods, Filing Requirements, Filing Status and Exemptions, Adjustments to Income, Itemized deductions, methods of computation and pretty much everything you want to look up.

Did you know (I suppose you did) that The Energy Policy Act of 2005 of encourages you to be green? This is how: there are tax benefits for energy-efficient homes, vehicles and equipment. Earlier you could get tax credits for buying and owning a hybrid vehicle, but that provision is now no longer in force. Apparently the government does not want to encourage you to lower emissions and gas consumption or want you to reduce your gas bill. Ah well, in a year’s time we will see a new US president, perhaps a woman or a black man (or not, who can predict?), and then there will be a bunch of new stuff to contend with!

And just to put a smile back on your lips, here are a couple of links to some tax related humor:

http://www.offthemark.com/tax/tax.htm

http://www.martybucella.com/taxtoons.html

Enjoy!

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