Time Savers

Secrets of Buying Cheap Gasoline!

July 7th, 2008 • Jennifer • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under •

Feed Count If you're new here you may want to join the 5000+ smart shoppers that that subscribe to my RSS feed or Free Newsletter. Thanks for visiting! - Dean aka Mr. Cheap Stuff

i just ran out of gas and my pump is brokenToday’s gas prices are hurting lots of folks in the wallet, and for a lot of Americans, public transit is not available as an alternative.  So we’re stuck with forking it over at the pump.  Here’s a couple of quick tips to strategize and save when you fill your tank.
 
    1.    Pick the right day:  Buy your gas midweek, Tuesday or Wednesday.  According to smartmoney.com, gas prices usually swing upward on Thursdays around 10 a.m. to prepare for weekend demand.
    2.    Pick the right place: As mentioned before on this site, there is gasbuddy.com and I found another excellent site on MSN.com.  Both allow you to search for the lowest prices in your neighborhood.

Gas Buddy does have one advantage with its wireless feature. This is a great idea if, like me, you don’t always remember to check the cheapest prices online at home.  I figure a few cents for a text message on my phone is worth it to save money on gas.
For gas prices, text message or email with the City/State or Zip/Postal Code as the body of the message. (Message subject is not necessary.) Examples: Los Angeles,CA or 55428. 

For diesel prices, text message or email
A text message / email will be sent back to you shortly with the 5 lowest gas or diesel prices from the area that you requested.
GasBuddy text messaging service is free; however cellular phone service provider fees may apply. Check with your service provider for further information.

Expiration Date:unknown

Hate Calling Customer Support? Bookmark This Site!

July 3rd, 2008 • Sunnie • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under •
Here @ Mr. Cheap Stuff we are dedicated to providing you quality deals, tips, freebies and discounts that are worth your precious time…our motto is "Just The Good Stuff"  Having searched the web finding great deals to share on Mr. Cheap Stuff I’ve run across of a lot of great websites offering free services, tips, ideas that should be voiced here, on Mr. Cheap Stuff!  This idea started with www.freerice.com posted on March 20, 2008. 
 
Website Recommendation Worth Your Precious Time
Are you an advocate for good customer service?  Have you been a victim of being put on hold? Do you just want to just talk to a HUMAN BEING?
 
www.gethuman.com has heard our cries and are here to help.  We’ve all had customer service issues that have resulted in a call to a companies corporate or main offices.  It’s a crap shoot whether your situation will progress for the better or if you’ll end up in the land of voice mail prompts and fictitious departments. 
 
www.gethuman.com was born out of frustration and a need from consumers, like you and I, get the dignity and respect we deserve if put in the position to having to make the dreaded call to customer service.  This is a 100% free service with nearly 1000 major companies posted with directions on how to get through to a living, breathing person, on the clock and ready to take your call.  With their tireless efforts and research they have listed major companies with their secret phone numbers and codes to slip in under the radar and get straight through to a Customer Service Representative.
 
This site offers a blog to tell your customer service accounts, also you can request a company be added to their list.  I’ve been lucky and have not had to make too many calls to companies I pay bills to or have questions for, but when I do, I check with www.gethuman.com. It saves me precious time, lessens CSA, Customer Service Aggravation and I can make my call and get on with my day!
 
If you have a website that you would like to submit and share.  Please send me an email.

Free Virtual Assistant? Yahoo Answers Baby!

February 11th, 2008 • Dean • 8 comments • Related • Filed Under •

I have had virtual assistants for a while now and it really is one of those things that one you get one there is no turning back.  Virtual assistants can do just about anything from booking travel arrangements, web research, online orders, booking appointments to giving you a wake up call or reminder. 

Here are some of the things I recently had my virtual assistant do.

  • Order return address labels
  • Order postage stamps
  • Organize my business email addresses
  • Order Valentine’s Day flowers
  • Cancel a haircut appointment

Virtual assistants range from about $5/hour to $20+ depending on the skill level you need.  Not everybody needs a virtual assistant but I bet a lot of people would benefit in having one.  I also have virtual assistants who to technical work and web research but for simple tasks or questions I like to use Yahoo Answers.

If getting a virtual assistant sounds interesting to you check out these sites.

Again, once you get a good virtual assistant there is no turning back.

Yahoo Ansers the Free Virtual Assistant

I’m a big fan of Yahoo Answers because it provides excellent answers to all my simple, complicated and even silly questions.  The other reason why I love Yahoo Answers is that it is a huge time saver and I’ll tell you why later.  I wrote about Yahoo Answers in a previous post.

Here are some ideas on questions you could ask at Yahoo Answers

  • If you are planning a vacation or trip you could ask what are the "must do" things
  • You could ask what is a good Italian restaurant in New York City or San Francisco
  • What hotel has the best location in a certain city?
  • Which is a better dog for children a pug or golden retriever?
  • Is coffee bad for your skin?
  • How do I get a passport?
  • What age do you have to be to drink on international flights?
  • What are some cheap things to do in Las Vegas?

I like to use Yahoo Answers for a lot of opinionated answers.  It allows me to find out the inside scoop which I might not have found if I did a search on Google.

Save Time, Use Yahoo Answers

Who wouldn’t love more free time.  The problem with when doing web research is it’s like going down a rabbit hole.  For example, I recently wanted to know how chocolate affects mental clarity and productivity, so I jumped on Google and began my research. 

30 minutes later I had about 10+ browser tabs open with websites about the benefits of chocolate, yikes!  Even worse I had sidetracked and began reading other relevant blogs and websites.  I was even clicking on advertisements on those websites.  Talk about information overload.  I am trying to train myself to use Yahoo Answers more to prevent this from happening.

Instead of continuing my research I posted the question "Can Chocolate improve productivity or mental clarity?" on Yahoo answers.  It took less than a minute to post the question.  In less than 30 minutes I got 3 answers, one of them was what I was looking for.  You can view the responses here.  By the way, I just bought a bunch of dark chocolate based on this article which I got from Yahoo answers.

Even if you don’t have a question Yahoo Answers is a great site to check out as you can browse popular questions.  Of course if you feel like helping other people out you can provide answers to questions too.    I recommend you try it out and you will be amazed by speed and results of Yahoo Answers.