I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment and I’m making use of some of it by gathering all the stuff that we never use or need and listing them on Trade Me and . Besides de-cluttering and making a bit more space, I will end up with a few extras dollars in my pocket. This whole process got me thinking about people who sell items on and offline for a living and where they source their items.

Some have regular suppliers that they turn to, others may make items themselves, some use drop ship services such as Doba and others may buy items from auctions to resell via whatever methods they use. The source that I am going to talk about a bit more is government auctions.

On a recent trip to Zimbabwe I had the opportunity of attending a government auction. Up for grabs was a whole range of goods that included cars, clothing, electronics, alcohol, books, tire shipments and the list goes on and on. These types of auctions aren’t ones that are advertised too much and those who know about them like it that way. The fewer the people attending, the better their chances of walking away with BARGAINS!

What surprised me the most was the price at which the items were being auction off for. It was to say the least ridiculous! Without going into details, an example I can give is of a person that a bought part shipment of products for about US$1500 knowing that they could be sold for US$9000 at a minimum. For those attending the auction with the intention to resell, their potential profit ranges were a little below that but still very good. If that is not a good profit then I don’t know what is.

Government Auctions take place all over the world and more often than not, they just want to get rid of whatever it is they have. Because of that, you will walk away with a bargain. I can’t tell you where they take place in your part of the world. I don’t even know where and if they take place in New Zealand (but I am very keen to find out). If you are a bargain hunter or reseller and haven’t discovered the world of government auctions, attend one and see for yourself if its worth it of not. They are not that elusive if you really want to find one.

The last couple of years or so has seen an increase in the number of companies in New Zealand that process tax refunds. They advertise by telling the public something like ”you could be owed a tax refund for the last five years. If any refunds owed are unclaimed after 5 years you lose it. We can check that for you, no refund no fee.”

Yes, it is true that you can claim refunds owed from the last 5 years and that if it is left unclaimed for more than five years you lose it. What they don’t tell you for obvious reasons is that you can do it yourself. Since it is just about that time of the year when you can claim a refund for the 2010 tax year, I thought I would write a post on how you can do it yourself and save you a bit of money.

These tax refund companies charge fees that range from 12.5% to about 30% (the highest I came across) of the refund amount owed to you. Depending on how much is owed to you, this figure could creep up into hundreds. In a couple of cases I have known it to go into the thousands but some of the companies do have a cap (one company had a cap of $500) on how much they will charge you. All that they are doing to get their hands on this information is getting a bit of personal information from you, a few figures from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and doing a few calculations to see if you are owed a refund or not.

The process of doing it yourself and getting to keep all of your hard earned cash is pretty simple. Here is a basic (I say basic because if applicable you may need have a bit more information at hand suck as Working for Families figures if you are receiving it) step by step guide on how to do it yourself:

1. Call IRD and ask them to send out a Summary of Earnings which they will mail out to you (if you are registered for their online services you can log into you account and get all the information you need there) or you can simple call them and ask them for your income details. You will also need to have the foll0wing information at had (if applicable):

- any interest, dividend or taxable Māori authority distribution details

- whether you’re entitled to one of the low income rebates

- details of any expenses you can claim

2. Enter the required information into their online calculator Personal tax summary calculation for 2010 which will tell you if you may be owed a refund or not
3. If you may be owed a refund, get in touch with IRD and request a personal tax and they will then process an application for a refund

Note: if after doing your calculations it turns out that you owe them money you can chose to keep quiet and do nothing until they start bugging you for it.

Doing all of that yourself really isn’t that hard and it wont take a lot of your time. If you are due a refund in the end it is you who will gain. A simple lack of that little bit of information that you can process your own refund leads us to literally give away some of our money for nothing. Now that you have that bit of information are you still going to get someone else to check whether or not you are due for a refund?

Recession or no recession, one thing that is good to know is the art of haggling. Last weekend we made some big purchases for some very much needed household items. We were lucky enough to find the items at what was literally a steal and my wife had the audacity to ask for even more of a discount and without much negotiation, she got one. Thinking that was just a fluke, we stopped by a big retailer for one more item and she did the exact same thing and got yet another discount on a sale item.

A lot of the time, haggling is not a long drawn out process, it is simply a matter of asking for the price you want and sticking to your guns. If the salesperson is willing to lower the price you may or may not get whatever it is at the price you want but at least you will have been able to save yourself some money if you do get a discount. That being said, what have you go to loose by asking for a better deal?

When it comes to what you can and cant negotiate the price of, I say anything goes. A lot people will for example say or think that there is no way that it can be done with a big retailer but it can. Having that mindset is just limiting yourself and taking yourself out of a position where you could save big!

One more thing to point out is that the whole process can work out a whole lot easier if you are cashing rather than financing whatever it is you want. I guess that there is going back to the notion that cash is King!

Last weekend my wife managed to save us a thousand or so dollars by simply asking. The next time you are out and about shopping for something give it a go and see where it gets you. You too could end up saving big. Remember, EVERYTHING is negotiable!

I am going home to Zimbabwe next month for a nice and long 7 week vacation which I am excited about but at the same time a bit apprehensive. I left home more than 10 years ago and just about every single visit since then has been a short 2 to 3 week stay and I don’t know if I can handle 7 weeks with all the changes in the country.

Anyway, on our way home, my wife, daughter and I are stopping over in Hong Kong for a few days with a quick side trip into China. The last time we were in China, language was definitely a barrier and in a couple of situations like when the cab driver dropped us off at God knows where, my cell phone came in very handy. A quick call to the hotel concierge who spoke to the store keepers and got us back on track made that experience a little less daunting. Having my cell phone and activating roaming was our saving grace but roaming is not cheap. It can cost a fair penny to not only make calls but to receive calls as well but that also depends on where you are travelling to.

If you are not too bothered about not receiving calls on your own number when travelling abroad, the most logical way of saving money on calls is to buy a local SIM card. I have put together a little comparison chart to show just how much I could save by buying a PCCW Mobile SIM card in Hong Kong instead of roaming on my Vodafone card.

I came up with a hypothetical situation of where I make 30 minutes worth of local calls and receive 30 minutes of calls, send 50 international SMS messages and use 5MB of data, this is how much it would cost:

As you can see, I will save myself a considerable amount of money by buying a local SIM card instead of roaming and that may very well be the same case for you too; when you travel abroad.

You can buy a prepaid SIM card when you arrive at your destination (in this case, a PCCW card costs HK$48 or $78) or if you want to have everything set before you depart, can buy one off eBay – eg. Hong Kong Sim Card. There are some sites that sell SIM cards from around the world but from what I have seen it looks like it would be cheaper to get them on eBay (if available) or when you reach your destination.

To be able to roam you do need to make sure that you have a cell phone that will work wherever you are going. If don’t have one, there are a number of places online where you can get unlocked cell phones for really good prices that will work with a number of international carriers – Cellular-Blowout.com is a good start. The only downside I can think off about getting a local SIM card is that you won’t receive calls on your own at home number. Considering that I could save myself a good amount of money, I would be more than willing to let go of my number for a little while. Would you?

Our printer ran out of ink quite a while ago and I must admit that during that time if I really needed to print out anything I would use the printer at work. At the moment I am still home bound with due to my ruptured Achilles tendon. And what do you know, a time comes around when I really need to print some stuff out.

This brought on the need for ink so I called a couple of places for prices and that left me scratching my head. I haven’t been in the cartridge market for a while and was a bit surprised at how expensive new ink cartridges have become. So, with me being one to always try and look for a bargain or cheaper way of getting what I need, I came across Cartridge World where I didn’t buy new ink cartridges but got the old ones refilled and that worked out a lot cheaper than getting new ones.

For the particular type of cartridges I needed I would have had to pay a total of $109.98 (that’s New Zealand Dollars by the way) compared to the $54 it cost to get them refilled at Cartridge World. That is an almost 50% saving of $55.98 and in my books that is pretty significant.

Whilst I was searching around for deals on cartridges I did come across a couple of people selling refill kits on TradeMe (also available on the likes of eBay – Ink Refill Kits on eBay) and it looks like DIY refills would be an even cheaper option. There are a lot of videos on YouTube that show how to do the refills yourself and it doesn’t look hard at all. That being the case, that is what I will probably do next time around.

So, next time you run out of ink you should look around to see if there is anyone close to you who can refill your cartridges for a fraction of the cost of new ones of just get a kit and do it yourself.

3-PACK #902 JUMBO Black Ink Refill Kit for HP Cartridge US $46.97 Auction Ends: Friday Jul-30-2010 13:43:06 PDT   | Watch this Item

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2×Black INK CARTRIDGE REFILL KIT for All CANON Model US $0.99 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Friday Jul-30-2010 13:49:37 PDT   | Watch this Item

HP 56 BLACK INK CARTRIDGE REFILL KIT 8oz US $8.99 Auction Ends: Friday Jul-30-2010 13:58:06 PDT   | Watch this Item

A few years ago I used to travel to North America or Europe and on the odd occasion home (Zimbabwe) at least once or twice a year. Living in New Zealand, that meant spending a lot of time on planes and covering huge distances. It only made sense for me to sign up to a frequent flyer program and with the destinations that I travelled to the most, the Qantas Frequent Flyer programme was the best programme for me to join.

Over the years I accumulated a lot of frequent flyer points which I eventually redeemed and got a few reward flights for my wife and I. I still had quite a few points left over after that my wife and I used them to get a few things for our baby girl. By converting our frequent flyer points to gift cards from various stores, we were able to get a few things for our daughter without having to shell out the hundreds of dollars that we would have otherwise had to pay.

What I am getting at with all of this is that it may be a good idea to consider using your frequent flyer points to save yourself a bit of money. You may have frequent flyer points sitting in an account somewhere and some which may even have an expiry date. If you are not going to redeem them for award flights you may be able to use them to get gift cards or make purchases with the points directly from the particular frequent flyer store (if they have one). If the particular program you are part of does not have such programmes available for you to take advantage of, Points.com may just be your answer.

About Points.com

It is a site that brings a certain flexibility to points from various programs and gives it users a range of options for what to do with their points.

They allows users to:
- Trade points and miles with other people on GPX (Global Points Exchange)
- Exchange points and miles between your programs
- Buy points or miles so that you reach the required level to get the flight or reward you want
- Share points between the same programs with family or friends
- Redeem your points for gift cards from more than 200 retailers and restaurants

It’s free to join and really doesn’t hurt to give them a go. You would be surprised just how much you may get out of becoming a member.

Our children are the future and it only makes sense to impart as much useful knowledge as we can onto them. Earlier in the week my wife and I were working on a budget and I looked over at my daughter and just thought how good it would be if she a good sense for money from an early age. A couple of days later I can across Amanda van der Gulik on Twitter – @Amanda_vdGulik who knows just how to teach children about money. This is what she has to say:

Do your kids have any concept of what money is and how much it represents?

Our kids didn’t.

They knew that money existed and that you can exchange these shiny coins for things you really want. Our kids used to get really exited when they received any amount of coins. They had no idea that each coin could represent a different value. A coin was money to them and the more coins, the more money they had, so they thought.

Until kids can count or know their numbers, it doesn’t really matter. But as soon as they can count, you can actually make them aware of what each coin represents and teach them to appreciate the value of money.

This is how our daughter at age 6 came to understand what the value of money really means.

She would fold plastic shopping bags for her grandmother to save space and she would get 1 penny (1ct) for each folded bag. When she folded more than 5 bags, she would get a nickel (5ct) and however many cents she earned.

At first she was not too happy with it because she only got a few coins instead of the number of bags she folded. Then we showed her that the one coin had a 5 on it and that it was as much as five of the other coins.
The first little while she would exchange the nickels for pennys because this made more sense to her.

With a little persistence, we finally got through and now she actually looks at the coins differently. She now knows that 5 cents makes a nickel and 10 cents make a dime etc.

Then, when she got money from the tooth fairy, she knew exactly how many bags she would have had to fold to get that much (the tooth fairy gave her a quarter) and appreciated it so much more.

Over the summer she started her face painting business and for each face she did (or tattoo for adults) she would receive a dollar and a half.
After one day she earned about twenty three dollars. She could not believe the amount of bags she would have to fold for that.

She told us that she likes the face painting much better than folding bags for grandmommy, it was much easier and much more fun. She also realises that this would take her to her goal, a waterbed, much faster.

Make it fun and make it mean something for them!

An easy way to get started is by taking a look at the FREE mini-course: 50+ Fun Ways For Kids To Earn Money.

If you shun OEM packed or refurbished products when you are hunting around for electronics or appliances don’t! Why? Because you could save yourself a lot of money. My 2 year old daughter just completely destroyed my cell phone and I am looking around for a replacement. To that effect I have been doing a bit of research to see where I can get a good deal on a good cell phone and I was a bit surprised to see the difference in price between phones selling for the RRP, those in OEM packaging and refurbished ones.

What is OEM Packed and Refurbished?

OEM Packaging

Some products are sold without all the shiny and fancy retail packaging and come in packaging that is not visually appealing. This packaging is more economical for the manufacturere since it uses less paper, plastic, ink and cardboard. That for you as the consumer means that the manufacturer is able to offer the products at a discounted rate. Another upside to OEM packaging is that it is better for the environment due to less waste. One thing though about some OEM packed products is that some things such as accessories, software and documentation may vary so you need to pay attention to what you are getting.

Refurbished Products

When it comes to electronics this does not necessarily mean that the item had to pulled apart and be completely rebuilt. Refurbished products can fall under any of the following; customer returns, damaged to the packaging during shipping, cosmetic damage, demo units, open box or overstock items. In essence, there really is nothing wrong with the product itself. It may have been used very lightly or not at all. The fact that it was returned to the manufacturer for inspection, repair (if need be) and repackaged classifies it as refurbished since it can no longer be sold as brand new.

Given that OEM packed or refurbished goods come with warranties and have been checked over by the manufacturer and in almost all cases have nothing wrong with them, I would be more than willing to spend my money on then than on those in shiny new retail packaging. I am going to save about $150 on the cell phone I intend on getting by buying one in OEM packaging.

Would you buy OEM packed or refurbished?

Cashback offers are all over the place and they seem very appealing as you are in theory getting whatever it is you are purchasing at a discount that is if you bother to redeem it. More often than not however, people just can’t seem to be bothered to fill out the forms or they don’t fill them out correctly and don’t get the cashback. That is exactly what the companies want you to do as they get to keep  more of your money.

Sometimes it may be better to just hunt around for ‘that thing’ at an up-front discounted price without the need for a mail-in redemption. If the cashback offer is your best choice then make sure you take time out to:

• read the fine print to see what you need to include to get your rebate – as is the case with just about everything out there, the small print is where we usually get caught out
• fill out the form correctly
• fill it out in a timely manner and make sure to mail it off well before the closing date
• take copies of everything – if you experience any problems later down the line you will have proof to back-up your claim

Rebate offers can seem to be more of a pain to redeem than they are worth but the way I see it, if you do purchase an item that has a cashback offer it is worth your while to take a few minutes to follow the steps above. Stop telling yourself that you don’t have time to fill out the forms or that it’s just not worth it or not bother at all. It is after all a few more dollars back into YOUR pocket.

Forget about 5 degrees of separation. As far as 2degrees sees it, there are only two degrees of separation between people in New Zealand and they want to make it even easier and hopefully cheaper for them to communicate. They are set to launch New Zealand’s third mobile network in August which with the added competition will mean cheaper calls all across the board.

It is no secret that it costs a bit for Kiwi’s to make mobile calls and that the Commerece Commission is trying to change all of that and get Telecom and Vodafone’s rates lowered. As you can imagine, the two networks see their rates as being justified and don’t want that to happen. A third operator in the mobile network market may see an all around redution in call prices especially since 2degrees promises to have everyone talking more for a whole lot less.

With 2degrees set to launch next month, they are getting peole to join the ‘Great New Zealand Chinwag‘ where all you need to do is enter your details to get a free 2degrees sim card loaded with $5 of free calling.

It doesn’t hurt to join the Chinwag and get a free SIM card and If 2degrees does live up to their promises of cheaper calls, it could very well be the network of choice if you want to save money. We will just have to wait a few more weeks to see just what they have in store for us.

Here is their TV commercial if you haven’t already seen it:

One thing that I found as a bit of an expense when I was a student was textbooks. There were some that I could get away with not having to buy but there were others that I needed to have. The time would eventually come when I no longer needed some of the books which also brought about the question of what to do with them. Some I sold back to the university bookstore or other students for much less than I paid for them. Those that I couldn’t sell sat and gathered dust and it seemed like a waste of money paying so much for books that in the end had very little resale value.

This leads me on to a service I came across that rids you of the problem of what to do with textbooks after you no longer need them. I just discovered Chegg, a company that rents textbooks to college students and help save them money. According to their site, users save 65-85% on textbooks.

How it Works

Rent

Users can search for the book(s) they are looking to rent by entering the ISBN, title or author name. Once you have found and clicked on the book that you are looking for, you are presented with book details as well as the list price and rental price per semester (125 days)/per quarter (85 days)/per summer (60 days). This is were users also get to see just how much they will save from the rental.

Below is an example rental price for a book that I may need when I go back to do a second degree:

Buy

Chegg also gives users the opportunity to purchase books they have rented out or they can simply buy a book outright instead. In the screen where information on the book you want to rent out is displayed, there is a ‘Prefer to Buy?’ option where you can buy the book new or used at a price slightly cheaper than the list price. For this option, they have a cash back guarantee and list just how much you will get back should you choose to return the book you purchased. The money is given back as cash or Chegg Credit which can be used for future rentals and purchases with the credit option being the better one for more money in your pocket.

Sell

To add to all of that, people can also sell books to Chegg. To see how much you could get for your book(s) all you need to do is enter the ISBN to see how much you will get. If you are okay with the price you are quoted you simply ship your book(s) off to them for free and get paid once they have been inspected.

All in all, this is a service that I wish was available to me when I was at university. It would have saved me a good amount of money. One other thing that I almost forgot to mention is that Chegg is a green company that plants a tree for every book rented, bought or sold through them. Thats a lot of trees and something that is good for the environment.

Note: This service is only available to the forty-eight contiguous United States

More than half of the people I work with have pets and just about every one of them is completely in love with their dog, cat or whatever animal they chose to look after. One thing that I have heard just about every single one of them talk about is how much their pets are costing them. Some even go as far as saying that they cost them more than human with the biggest complaint being food, veterinary bills and entertainment. That got me asking the question why you would spend more on your pet than on your child.

I did a bit of research and found that the total US pet expenditure for 2008 was $43.2 billion with food (after a breakdown) topping the list at $16.8 billion. That is a lot of money spent on food and that was in the US alone! One thing people can when it comes to cutting down on food bills is by considering generic pet food. Some generic pet foods are manufactured by premium pet food companies and sold as something else. It would pay to take a look at the ingredients and maybe even talk to your vet about the food.

Coming in second after food at $11.1 billion is veterinary care. One way to cut down on costs is by doing something hopefully all of you are already doing – going to the doctor for regular check-ups. Just like in the case of humans, prevention is better than cure and going for regular checkups may catch something that may not only cause problems down the road but also burn a deep hole in your pocket.

Coming in after food is pet supplies and over-the-counter medicine with a $10 billion spend total. The best way to cut costs in this area would be to sit down and down a bit of research online. There are a number of major pet supply stores such as Mutt Mart and Petco and healthcare stores such as PetCareRx, Pet Care Choice and Petscriptions.com that you can take a look at and do a bit of comparison shopping.

There you have it, just a couple of small things you could try and do to save a bit of money when it comes to your pets.

The festive season has come and gone and hopefully all of you had an a enjoyable Christmas and New Year. This time of the year means different things to different people and we all celebrate it in our own way. All the gift buying and celebrating comes at a cost and one thing that I noticed was when it all came to an end people were talking about having spent more than they could afford. I too was one of those people that spent more money than I expected.

Most of the people I spoke to about their festive spending (including myself) hadn’t really saved anything or enough to carry them through the period; we all ended up dipping into our credit cards. This got me thinking about this years Christmas and how to save for it. There is better time than the present so the sooner I start the more I’ll save.

We are all trying to make a bit of money to live on and we also need to put away some of what we earn for retirement and other purposes. I signed up for the superannuation scheme that my employer offers but when it came to my personal savings I was a bit slow in jumping on the bandwagon.

Below are a couple of calculators you can use to see just how much you can save:
RaboPlus Savings Calculator
Money 101(CNN) Savings Calculator

I just stopped by ebestagent and came across a fantastic tool that can be used when looking for eBay! bargains and/or items to resell.

A countless number of items are listed on eBay! with spelling mistakes in the descriptions. This leads to a high chance of buyers not being able to find these items. If you find these listings with spelling mistakes you stand to get whatever it is a really good price. If you are going to go on to resell it you stand to make a good profit.

There isn’t much more I can say about this tool. Go ahead and try it out for yourself. Type in the keyword, hit generate and then click on the link that appears below the box. Happy hunting!

Besides trying to make money, it pays to also find ways of cutting down costs. There is no point in making a killing doing whatever it is that you are doing and at the same time spending a lot of money doing it.

If you are someone who makes a lot of phones calls, an option that may work for you in cutting down costs could be a internet telephony service such as Skype. The great thing about Skype is that it is free from Skype-to-Skype. Calls can be made to landlines and mobiles at really good rates. I have been using Skype for a while now and have not yet been disappointed. The sound quality of the calls is good and it has cut down my phone bills by a substantial amount. They also offer a whole bunch of other services such as sms and video calls. If you haven’t already taken a look at Skype, it would pay to do so.


Another great thing about Skype is that it can be linked to your ebay account (if you have one). If you are a seller this makes it even easier for potential bidders to contact you with any queries about your listing(s).

If you are already on ebay buying and selling then chances are you will also have a Paypal account which provides you with a quick and easy way to pay for auctions you have won and for sellers, receiving payments. Paypal can also be used to buy Skype credit and products.

There are other services that you could use but I just love ther way Skype, Paypal and Ebay all tie in together. Try them out for yourselves.
Find hard to find items on eBay!