Don't spend money on PDF creation tools...get them for free!

PDF creation tools can cost on average anywhere from $30 and up. How about doing it for the fabulous price of no dollars.

Enter PDF creator a FREE open-source utility that can create PDF files from ANY application that has the PRINT function. That goes for Word Processors, Spreadsheets, graphics programs, and even pages you are surfing on the web…way cool!

99% percent of the average PDF user just wants to open the darn things without having to wait years for Adobe Acrobat to load in the background. Give PDF the ‘ol one-two punch with another PDF program called FOXIT READER. It’s a free stand-alone program that is only 1MB and unlike Adober Acrobat Reader, will run instantly without intallation.

So tuck your bucks back in your wallet and not only do PDF for free but also better.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

Saving almost half off of common grocery items

Many supermarkets make “entice” or “leader” advertisements which draw you into the store. Now that you’re in the store, they know they’ve got you. You came to buy cheap pot roast but since you’re already there why not buy the staples of milk, cheese, cereal, or bread? These items are often marked way up leaving your wallet a little lighter than it has to be.

What’s a shopper to do you say? Buy some of those groceries at TARGET. Yup, I said Target. Supermarket staples of milk, cheese, etc. are noticeably cheaper there. How much you ask. Well take Quaker Otameal squares cereal at Ralphs/Kroger for $5 a box is only $2.60 at Target for the same darn box. That’s almost half off!

This is not Target’s sale price…it’s their everyday price and they do it over and over again on most cereals, coffee, milk, cheese, bread etc. The SAME name brand stuff only way cheaper.

So if you’re like me and end up at Target almost weekly anyways, why not add some groceries to the list and keep that hard earned cash in your wallet!

Shopping for a new car? Well here's a way to save some serious money!

If you are in the new car market you do what most people do. You do what I used to do which was goto a dealership and wait for the salesmen circling like sharks around you smelling fresh meat. Well no more!

Why should you have to even pay these sales guys when you can pocket their commission in savings to yourself? Well you can and you should. How? Buy like a business. Businesses can buy in bulk i.e. more than 1 car at a time and in return don’t have to pay the same markup as Bob and Jane Smith walking off the street. Even better, they get a dedicated guy to deal with them–the fleet manager. Say those wonderful words with me together…the fleet manager.

What’s the difference from a regular sales guy you ask? The fleet manager works on salary and in addition gets a commission on the total number of cars he sells each month. Say his goal is 40 cars by the end of the month and he’s a little slow to get there. The fleet manager can give drastic deals to move one unit to bolster his own numbers leaving a win-win for you and him.

Okay, you say, I’m ready to start saving some money. How do I do this process then? First, don’t just walk in there without doing a little bit of homework. Before you start groaning, this homework is pretty brainless. First you gotta know exactly what model of car you want and all the options you are considering. How? Goto www.kbb.com. That’s the kelly blue book site. So for example, you are looking for a Toyota Camry LE with optional sunroof and 6 disc changer. Simply goto www.kbb.com and look up the car and fill out its free request form and voila!…they print you out two costs. The first is how much the dealer paid (the invoice price) for this car and the second is the estimated street price that salesmen charge you. PRINT THIS SUCKER OUT! Total up the car and all the options you want under their INVOICE PRICE. This is your target price.

How much should I be paying? No more than $500 over invoice. PERIOD.

Second, now that you know how much the dealer paid (the invoice price), start shopping by phone. Goto www.local.yahoo.com and type in the type of car you want to find your local dealers. For example, type in GM, Toyota, Nissan, etc. or you can simply goto the the manufacturers website and most have “find a dealer near you” button. Call each and every one of the dealers you are willing to drive to and ask to be connected to the fleet manager. When connected tell the fleet manager that you are shopping by phone (do NOT tell them you know the invoice price). Tell him the make, model, and all the options/color you want and how much is his best price.

Most fleet managers know that you probably have done your homework and that you already know the invoice price, but just in case, they try to call your bluff and ask how much the other dealers are offering or worse, they ask how much you are willing to pay. You tell them in a straight face, “I’m just looking for the best price YOU are willing to offer me. I’m not willing to drive down there unless the price is right. Would you please tell me what your dealership’s best price is?” 90 percent will be willing to give you a price, write it down. The others who attempt to haggle you over the phone or won’t give you an outright price are telling you that they are going to play hard ball. These people are not worth the time or aggravation so tell them thank you for their time but without a firm price you are not interested thank you very much.

Call EVERY single dealership on your list. If they know you are shopping by phone, many will become competetive. If you have a particular dealership you want to buy from but their price isn’t the lowest then call that dealership back and talk to the fleet manager and say that, “Uncle Bob’s Dealership from down the street has offered to sell me that car for xyz but I really want to buy this car from you. Would you be willing to match their price?” More often than not the fleet manager will agree. If not, then go buy from Unlce Bob.

ADDITIONAL TIP: The pressure is on the very last week of every month. If a fleet manager is a little short on his bonus number for the month then he will be ready to deal. I have personally bought a car from Longo Toyota in Southern California (the largest Toyota dealership in the world) for $500 BELOW invoice on a top of the line Camry XLE. The best month to buy a car is October as they will be trying to aggressively move this year’s inventory for the next model year. Forget about finding cars in November or even worse December, this year’s model will all typically be sold by then.

If you are in Southern California and are in the market for a Toyota, then there really is only 1 place to deal and that’s Longo Toyota in El Monte. The fleet manager is a really cool guy named Frank Soh. I have bought 4 cars from him and referred over 21 others to him all with great prices. There are other fleet managers there because the dealership is so big but Frank is by far the easiest to work with.

Now with all the money you saved you can finally afford one of those cool new Sirius or XM Satellite radios! Rock On!

Money’s tight…save your dough…say YES I SAVED!

Links:
www.kbb.com

Back to school savings...How a parent or student can save $399 INSTANTLY

Sorry Microsoft but I gotta let this little known secret out to everyone who will hear me.

I was strolling through Best Buy, WalMart, and Target last week and I was appalled to see that they are already putting up Back to School sections or sales…it’s bad enough they advertise for Christmas in August but do they have to be the absolute killjoy to kids who are just barely breaking in their tans?

Being a parent myself, I can only imagine supplying my kids with the right/best tools to get the job done in school. But as I will show in later posts, the biggest and the so-called “best” is seldom of value to your kids or your wallet.

Take Microsoft OFFICE Standard Edition 2003 for example. It is without a doubt the gold standard Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Slide Presentation, Email suite. It also puts the hurt on you for $399 retail plus the insult of tax…OUCH! The so called “upgrade” price is no bargain for $239.99 either. So what’s a loving parent to do? Send Billy off to college with a rock and chisel to write his college term papers? Heck no! Resist the urge to buy the pre-installed 60 day trial that comes with almost every new computer / laptop or worse, shell out the 4 benjamins for the retail package. Instead get the SAME functionality and more for FREE. You read right. FREE, Nada, zip, nothing.

Enter Open Office 2.0.1…the FREE MS office alternative
Ok, I said it and if Bill Gates hears you say it he’s going to have chest pain. You get ALL the same stuff (with the exception of email but I’ll tell you about the the FREE Outlook alternative later) and do ALL the same things with OpenOffice. Man I was just like you and ponied up big for MS Office just to stumble across this FREE alternative to Office. I thought that no one could provide the same functionality, stability, and ease of use at a lower price, let alone for free. Boy was I wrong.

Now I’m not going to write a full review of OpenOffice, you can Google a gazillion reviews but I am going to tell you to just take 15 real minutes of your time playing with it before you say no to it. Why would I say this. Because looks can be deceiving. OpenOffice on the surface looks very sparse in its interface and I initially mistook this for lack of functionality or sophistication, hell I just come out and say it was ugly. But play with it for just one single minute and you’ll be hard pressed to find any faults with it.

Here’s the skinny on OpenOffice…It is by no means a compromise because you can still open Microsoft Word docs in it and save your own documents in Microsoft Word format, you can also save in PDF format. It has 99.99999% all the bells and whistles of MS Word. Ditto for its version of Excel called CALC and its Excel counterpart called IMPRESS. Again, you can open Excel or Powerpoint presentations in OpenOffice and you can save in their format too. DRAW’s animation and visual effects are simply kick ass and dare I say even better than PowerPoint. Here’s another kicker. OpenOffice also comes with a database program and a free alternative to Microsoft Visio Standard (an additional $199 retail completely separate from any MS office version) called DRAW. It’s simply an AWESOME tool if you’ve gotta draw complex diagrams, illustrations, or flowcharts.

Now for email, you need a Microsoft Outlook alternative. By far, I say choose Thunderbird from the guys at Mozilla. Again, it costs nothing and does nearly every single thing Outlook does and dare I say again, more.

So parents, tell Billy to stop worrying about having to write with rock and chisel and download these freebies (links at bottom). Take a sigh of relief because I just saved you $399. Now I just found you a way to buy that Apple IPod he swears he has to have Better yet, take those 4 Benjamins and spend it on yourself or even better yet…invest it in shares of Apple or Starbucks and laugh all the way to the bank four years from now from all the money you made.

http://www.openoffice.org
http://www.mozilla.org

P.S. These suckers are truly FREE. They are NOT trial or “limited” versions. They are NOT Advertisement driven. They are NOT filled with spyware. They are FULL free versions right out of the box. Why would they give their stuff away for free? The hell if I know, probably some hippie tree hugging opensource do-gooders decided to program them, but I do know they are truly free so take advantage of them now!

Money’s tight…save your dough…say YES I SAVED!