Here’s a round-up of everything from how to cook with dried beans to how to ask for a raise, from how to negotiate for a cheaper cell-phone bill to how to figure out how much house you can really afford.
How to … get out of a car lease. A Mint.com post offers a four-point plan for getting someone else to take your vehicle—and take over your payments—with the assistance of a middleman site like LeaseTrader or SwapaLease.com; read more about LeaseTrader in this Q&A.
How to … cook with dried beans. In terms of protein, nutrition, and cost, a bag of dried beans is arguably the top overall value in the supermarket, according to Trent at The Simple Dollar, who explains some easy ways to prepare, store, and cook with them.
How to … justify illegal activities. In a discussion at Consumerist, readers have chimed in with something like 400 comments regarding which illegal activities are OK in their book. The responses include burning DVDs, marijuana, speeding, music piracy, stealing office supplies, and underage drinking.
How to … keep silly consumerism alive through your kids. Specifically, through babies: You can purchase designer diapers and/or $35 skinny jeans for infants and toddlers. Need I mention that the diapers we’re talking about are disposable, and that it’s hard enough to get regular pants onto squirming toddlers, let alone skinny jeans? This one could also be categorized as: How to … buy into trends that’ll look ridiculous in a few years; and How to … demonstrate that the “new era of frugality and value” we’ve heard so much about might not last as long as experts claim, and that it sure as hell doesn’t apply to all consumers.
How to … stop shopping momentum. One purchase can quickly lead to four more. A GetRichSlowly post suggests ways to stop the snowball from rolling—and turning into an avalanche.
How to … ask for a raise. The best strategy is to prove you’re worth the extra money to your boss, with real numbers to back up your claims. PopEconomics (via SmartSpending) explains, and also gives advice on when’s the best time to ask for a bump up in pay (right after someone leaves your department and the company is looking to hire a replacement).
How to … prepare for losing your job. These days, it seems like losing a job is more likely than getting a raise. To prepare for the worst, Bargaineering says you must mind the basics, which aren’t that difficult or time-consuming: Build up a solid network of contacts, keep your resume updated, and have an emergency waiting to hold you over until you land another gig.
How to … leave your job like a pro. Grabbing a beer, cursing everyone in sight, and zipping down an inflatable emergency slide is inadvisable, according to the Boston Globe. Instead, it is better to take more professional—yet certainly less memorable—steps like writing a proper letter of resignation, giving ample notice, getting all the details about your compensation package, and keeping up with your work until your very last day.
How to … quit a job before you’ve started. Oh boo-hoo, you’re supposed to start a job in a few months, but a better opportunity has come your way and you don’t know how to tell the original company that you’re no longer on board. The advice in a WSJ Q&A consists mainly of: Man up, call the original person who hired you, and tell him or her what’s up. This isn’t a situation when e-mail is OK; a phone call is the professional thing to do.
How to … skip college and make money fast. Sounds like an infomercial come-on, and sure enough WalletPop’s list of 10 careers that don’t require college degrees either don’t pay particularly well (bus driver) or don’t come particularly fast (director of security). But hey, no college degree required—so that’s potentially a lot of tuition money you won’t be spending.
How to … negotiate your way to cheaper cable TV and wireless bills. Study up on all the options from competitors (promotional offers included), and be truly ready to drop your current plan. In other words, call up customer service and make it known that you know there are better options available, and that if you don’t get a better offer, you’ll switch, simple as that, per a USA Today story filled with negotiating tactics. If you do nothing and continue paying bills without asking for a better offer from time to time, you’re all but guaranteed to see those bills rise and rise, according to consumer expert Bob Sullivan.
How to … complain online and maybe even get results. A Baltimore Sun story explores e-complaining, listing sites like My3Cents.com where consumers can gripe, bitch, and vent about companies that have done them wrong via fraud, shoddy merchandise, awful customer service, and anything else. Twitter is known to be useful for e-complaining as well.
How to … save big time by shopping for groceries every three months. A guest poster at GetRichSlowly explains how she buys on the cheap, how she stores up thanks to her pantry and her freezer, and how she cut her grocery bill down from over $500 a month to an average of $164 per month.
How to … find coupons online. It’s not difficult, and there are a million ways to go about this, but here’s how Silicon Valley Blogger rounds up her coupons.
How to … figure out how much house you can afford. The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle, a self-described “fiscally conservative” individual who is in the market for a home, is aiming for at least 10% down (hoping for more like 20%), with a mortgage of no more than 2.5 times their annual income, and only with a fixed-rate mortgage, among other careful considerations.
How to … walk away from billions of dollars in home equity loans. The NY Times reports how in 2009, lenders wrote off billions in home equity loans and home equity lines of credit because countless numbers of borrowers were unable to pay their debts and their collateral—typically, their homes—are now worth a fraction of what they were when the loans were agreed upon.