To boost business in recession-era times, major restaurant chains like Denny’s, T.G.I. Fridays, Applebee’s, and Chili’s have been rolling out discounts and promos over the past few months—$5 specialty sandwiches, two-for-one entrees, free appetizers, and such. If you’re interested in such things, take advantage of these specials while …
Finland’s 15-minute billionaire is still prospering
When I saw the headline on my RSS reader it brought back all sorts of tech-bubble memories: F-Secure Pays €27.5 Million For French Storage Startup Steek, it read. Continued the TechCrunch Europe post:
Finnish computer security provider F-Secure has acquired venture-backed French startup Steek for €27.5M in cash with the possibility
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Eating Healthy and Fresh Foods—Without Breaking the Bank
There’s quite a food fight going on due to a post about blog experiment Fifty Bucks a Week, in which three writers discuss their struggles and adventures while limiting their weekly food expenditures to (obviously) $50. Apparently, the topic hits a nerve. Everyone would love to eat well without spending a fortune. So how do you do it?
Goldman Sachs, vampire squid
Thanks to the persistence and assistance of commenter audiospaceship, I finally read the samizdat version of Matt Taibbi’s Goldman Sachs screed. (Rolling Stone only posted excerpts, and while I may still go out and buy a print copy, I wouldn’t be able to link to it.) I generally liked it, and I actually learned a bunch from the section …
Cheapskate Wisdom from … An Entrepreneurial Expert
“Your customers might be better at designing your product than your elite team of product designers.”
Credit ratings agencies: the problem that hasn’t gone away, as much as we’ve tried to ignore it
Okay, so maybe that’s not entirely fair. The SEC has signed off on some new rules and proposed some additional ones to try to temper conflict of interest at the companies that told us all those new-fangled mortgage-related securities were unlikely to ever go bad. Oops! And now SEC head Mary Schapiro is talking about yet another batch of …
Sarah Palin takes on the water-cannon threat
Ezra Klein writes, regarding Sarah Palin’s cap-and-trade op-ed in today’s Washington Post, that its failure to mention “global warming” or “climate change” makes it “a bit like an op-ed that attacks firefighters for pointing pressurized water cannon(s) at everything but never mentions fires.” I’m not absolutely sure the analogy is fair, …
In Baseball, Every Win Comes at a Price—But Some Teams Pay Way More Than Others
How much does victory cost? That depends on who is paying the bill (and in terms of war, what one calls “victory”). In Major League Baseball, where team payrolls can vary enormously, the payroll-dollars-to-team-wins ratio can be dramatically, appallingly different. Since The Cheapskate Blog is all about getting the best value, I thought …
Goldman Sachs has had an excellent financial crisis
Goldman Sachs reported earnings this morning, and it reported lots of them—$3.44 billion in the quarter ending June 26. That’s well more than the $2.33 billion Goldman’s made in the comparable quarter in 2007, back before the world started falling apart. In other words, Goldman may be emerging from this crisis in a better position than …
It’s a Deal: Free Baja Fish Taco at Long John Silver’s
Seafood chain Long John Silver’s is giving away one baja fish taco per customer today, Tuesday, July 14, from the time each restaurant opens until 2:30 p.m. More details here.
How to Eat Well on $50 a Week: They’re Doing It. Could You?
Fifty bucks. It could get you a single steak at a fine dining establishment. Or it could feed you—and feed you pretty darn well—for an entire week. A trio of writers from around the country is proving just that with the recent launch of their experiment and blog Fifty Bucks a Week.
What’s Out: French Spendthrifts, Velvet Rope Clubs, Actually Shopping at Shopping Malls
What’s in now that the recession is in full stride: spending less in France, “anti-clubs” in New York City that are more akin to hanging out in someone’s basement as opposed to an over-the-top $400 bottle-service hip-hop video scene, and going to the mall to socialize and get some exercise—but not actually buy anything.