Frugal Living

I can be tough customer. My sister I am a very demanding costumer and I am not denying that. I do not like it when sales ladies follows and breathes down on my neck as I am looking around any stores. Sometimes before entering the store, I like telling the sales lady to quit following me around of I am off their store.

I have read enough stories from Consumerist that made me raving envious about how posting their rants at their site help dissatisfied customers. Consider this story about Sam who got a new MacBook Pro after the Apple Customer Care erased his hard drive without his permission when this guy brought his Mac in and Apple found some ladybugs inside his laptop. Sam seeked the help of Consumerist and got a replacement in order for him to “restore faith in the company.” Or about J. Money who blogs at Budgets are Sexy thought he did everything to get the photographer who skipped town without handing out his wedding photos. He threatened to sue, without avail and when he finally thought to create a blog about the wedding fiasco. He named names and even included dates, and viola! Two days and 300 hits after, the photos were all emailed to him and two weeks after that, the photos were in his hands. According to J., “so for a measly $9.99 (for the domain name) and a few hours of hard work, Operation Wedding Pictures was a success!“

At any rate, it does pay to blog about bad customer services– in the US, I am afraid. I have read enough bitching in the local blogs here but there really isn’t any clue if Customer Service in our country is topnotch or at least has improved.

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Since I have decided to skip gift giving this Christmas except for a more practical gifts to the children, I am shocked that even at the economic hoo-haas, SOME people are still giving away extravagant and obsence gifts according to the recent article by the Money Comparison Experts at Money.Co.UK,

Here goes the list: (if you are even interested anyway…)

1. The $1.6m Christmas tree: This 24 karat gold tree, encrusted with 240 jewels and weighing more than 21kg is on display in a jewellery shop in Japan.

2. Movida’s Christmas cocktail: The Movida Club, a favourite hangout for celebrities, footballers and the ‘born rich’, holds the record for the most expensively pointless Christmas Cocktail. The drink, which blends Cristal Rose champagne, Louis XII Cognac and edible gold leaf, costs $71,011 a shot and is ironically named Flawless.

3. The Krebs Glas Lauscha bauble: Not one for houses with children, this bauble is covered with intricately crafted gold and diamond detail, and it’s made of glass. At $31,000 each, they had better come wrapped in a bit more than tissue paper.

4. Ferrari go-cart: A must have for spoilt kids the world over, this faithful replica of the real thing will set doting parents back a mere $50,000

5. The his and hers chocolate portrait: No doubt designed with chocoholic art lovers with too much time on their hands, this photographic portrait rendered in chocolate goes for $110,000. At least the money goes to charity.

6. Diamond Barbie: ‘The world’s most expensive Barbie’ comes in a gown encrusted with 160 De Beers diamonds and costs $85,000. Presumably it’s not for kids, but who knows?

7. The M&S Christmas Hamper: Stuffed with the exclusive food and drink for all over the world, the Marks & Spencer hamper retailed for $1,500. It doesn’t seem to have hit the stores just yet this year…

8. Vertu mobile phone: If ‘gadget crime’ isn’t an issue, then the diamond encrusted Vertu mobile phone is just the job – that is if you have about $75,000 to spare.

9. Amour Amour Dog Collar: Not to leave out the least grasping member of the millionaire family, this diamond dog collar costs a cool $1.8m.

10. 3D Motion Simulator: The ultimate in big boys toys, this $300,000 simulator puts Nintendo and Sony in their place, allegedly.

Ofcourse all these gifts are nothing BUT frugal so, let’s heave a sigh of relief or envy perhaps and yes, move on…

After using Microsoft Money for perhaps 3 years, I have switched to Quicken after getting a Macbook years ago. Quicken is a nifty software from Intuit. It help me create my budget and at the same time, monitor my spending, and my various bank accounts including my debit cards.

From Quicken I can generate my monthly spending reports. I can also consolidate all my accounts in one report for ease in viewing. Not only that I can also make my own budget and generate reports accounting my budgets against actual spending.

One of the advantages of Quicken is that you can download your accounts directly to Quicken. I have tried this years ago, but found that there are technical difficulties with the process. I surmised there are system incompatibilities with our banking system with Quicken’s system. Due to this difficulty, I have to manually input bank transactions into my Quicken. This is the reason why I maintain a folder for my receipts, especially ATM receipts for easy reconciliation with my bank statements.

I bought my Quicken through Intuit years ago and it cost me little over $50, fortunately, you can now access Quicken Online for free. You can now manage your accounts online. Even more, you can link your credit card accounts in your Quicken account. To try out Quicken online, visit their site and sign up!