Now, when customers meet their savings goal they can realize up to 12% in cash boosts paid to them by SmartyPig on retail gift cards whose products and services directly relate to their savings goals. So, an individual who wants to make a minimum initial deposit of $25 and put away $300 a month over twelve months for a new living room set will deposit $3,625 and earn approximately $25 in interest over the course of that year, bringing the goal balance to $3,650. But, for example, if she opts to take her savings out on a Macy’s gift card, SmartyPig will give her a cash boost of 12% (nearly $440) on a Macy’s retail gift card, bringing her goal plus interest plus boost to $4,090− some $465 more than the $3,625 she had put away.

SmartyPig is not something that I use personally, but I think that it offers great potential, as well as a fun way to encouraging saving and financial goal setting. This program comes just in time for the holidays, providing the chance for consumers to save up for holiday purchases and increase their savings through a potential cash boost.

Post from: EveryJoe

Smarty Pig Unveils 12% Cash Boost

After checking a variety of websites I ended up at DuracellDirect.com and purchased a replacement battery for my laptop. After receiving my battery, on the paper that was included with the packaging it gave me some tips on prolonging the life of my new battery. Among those tips were to not charge it unnecessarily. It recommended that when computing on direct power by being plugged into the wall, to remove the battery from the laptop.

I began to think that would be a great idea. That was quickly followed by asking why there wasn’t a software switch within my operating system to disconnect my battery from being charged when the computer was plugged-in. After typing that sentence I thought to myself why this couldn’t be automatic when the computer knows it’s plugged-in.

Does anybody know if this is an option at some point on some system in the future? If it really helps batteries, why wouldn’t that be a standard feature these days?

Image Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/83534

Post from: EveryJoe

Battery Management Functions on Laptops

Now on the surface this still looks like you are getting a great deal but if you rent videos like I rent videos (and if you are here then you probably do) this isn’t such a good deal.  At least not when compared to the other deals out there.  I mean I could rent a movie on On-Demand cheaper.  Granted I wouldn’t get the extras that are so much fun, but I wouldn’t have to pay $4.00 a gallon to drive to Blockbuster either.

It’s just funny to me that they would change the program at a time when everyone is getting into renting movies.  Even Itunes now rents movies and their cheaper too.  You also have Netflix and Blockbuster on-line and if you rent a lot of movies then all of these are a better deal; even Blockbuster’s on-line program.  Think about it, you can rent 2 DVD’s at a time with unlimited rentals thru the month for only $16.99 in Blockbuster’s on-line program and $13.99 with Netflix.  If you rent 4 movies at $4.29 that is a little over $17.00 and most of us rent more than that in a month (I times I do that in a week).  Plus with Netflix if you have the right program you can also want unlimited movies on-line.  So in actuality you could watch as many movies as you wanted for that $14.00.  What was Blockbuster thinking?

Look I happen to love my Blockbuster.  I could hang out there for hours just figuring out what I might want to rent and they always have those like 4 for $20 deals that I happen to eat up, but $4.29 a movie plus gas to drive there seems a little steep when I could rent unlimited and find my movies in the mail.  Talk about Christmas every day; I think that’s for me.

Post from: EveryJoe

Make It A Blockbuster Night…..I Don’t Think So