Maybe you’re looking for some Secret Santa gift ideas. Gift cards are a pretty hot item as well. You can spend a lot of time on these “deals for today” type sites (woot.com and the like), but you run the risk of not finding the right present for family members on your list.

In this economy, too, people are looking for Christmas gift deals all over the place. I had forgotten about this one spot I use often and felt like I should share it with you. In fact, I just bought some books for Christmas and got 8% cash back on it.

Online sales have gone up this year, and were even almost 30% higher than Black Friday. People are looking for deals online, and I’ve got just the place for you.

(If you’re already sold on it and don’t want to read more, just head on over with this link and sign up!)

Get paid for the shopping you were going to do anyway

It’s called Ebates, and quite simply you get cash back for making purchases you’d make anyway.

It almost sounds like a scam, but it’s not. If you use the website I’ll tell you about as your starting point, you can find great deals at over 1000 stores you already shop at. Then you click the link with a savings code and you’re sent to the site you would have gone to anyway.

For example, let’s take the books I picked up. I go to ebates.com and look for my Barnes and Noble store. When I click on the name, I get redirected to www.bn.com. That’s where I would have gone anyway to buy these books, only know they know I came from ebates (because of a cookie on your computer, nothing troublesome – every site in the world uses them). Whatever I buy from Barnes and Noble, I get 8% cash back.

It’s really a simple explanation

Here’s how I think this works. A lot of online retailers give people affiliate commissions for sales. Amazon, for example, gives me a small commission when you buy something via a link from my site. It’s the same exact thing.

The guys who started ebates had a great idea. They decided to partner up with online retailers to get affiliate commissions when people go to their sites via ebates. The folks at ebates give some of that affiliate commission to you, the consumer, as a way to keep you using the site. You get money, ebates gets money, and the retailers get the sales. It’s just mutually beneficial marketing.

You can save a lot of money by getting it back AND get some free stuff in the process

To save extra money, I also had a coupon for Barnes and Noble. So I bought my stuff and got the 8% cash back, but I also was still able to use the 20%-off coupon I had gotten in the mail. Sure, using the coupon makes me get less money, but all of the discounts together work really well together.

Plus when you sign up for ebates, you get free stuff right away. If you sign up for ebates, you’ll get a free $10 gift card as a bonus. You can get one for Barnes & Noble, Target, Home Depot, and more. Just for signing up for your free account.

I don’t want to sound more spammy than I already do, but I need to mention again that ebates is FREE.

Why I’m encouraging you to sign up

I try not to support stuff on my blog that I don’t think is worthwhile, and I’m definitely not in it for the money.

There are two reasons I’m encouraging you:

1. There’s no real reason not to use ebates. It’s exactly what it says it is: you get money for buying stuff you’d buy anyway. It works, and you save money (in the sense that they give it back). I’m all about saving money. If you’re using a cash back credit card, you’d get even more back (but most of the stores on ebates give you way more cash back than your credit card would if you just went to the actual store)
2. I do actually get credit if you sign up using my link and end up buying $25 worth of stuff eventually. I don’t get money every time you buy, so it’s not one of those pyramid schemes. I’d just get a small ($5 I think) commission if you sign up to use ebates and make a purchase.

I want to be clear, though, that I like it so much I wouldn’t even be offended if you didn’t use my link to sign up. Obviously I’d love it if you used my referrer link, but if you don’t want me to get credit, just go to www.ebates.com and sign up.

So there you have it! You can finish your shopping from the comforts of your own couch and get some money back for your trouble!

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!

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I don’t know why it’s one of the hardest things for me. Probably because I’ve never really maintained one, and getting momentum is often hard. You know what old Newton said.

I know God doesn’t give us extra credit for reading our Bibles regularly, and I know it’s more for me than it is for Him, but I really want to wind down 2011 in His word every day.

On FindingMyFitness, I’ve talked about making health and fitness easier by automating it. Finding ways to have to think less about doing a task so it becomes easier to actually complete it.

Not to cheapen Bible reading, but I think that’s what I need to do here.

Enter YouVersion.com

A while back I downloaded YouVersion Bible to my phone. It’s really helpful for finding verses while on the go, and it even has a way to “read” while driving because of the audio Bibles that come with it.

The other day they sent me an email with five different reading plans for Christmas, and I just really like that idea. I can sign up for one and either read it on my phone (it’s part of their app) or read it online.

Check out their Bible reading plans here.

Once Christmas is over

The plan I chose ends on December 26th, but I don’t want to stop there. I have a plan (a mental one, not a phone one) to read the Bible next year specifically for information regarding fitness and nutrition, but I also want to pick a year-long plan I can read each day as a small 5-10 minute devotional. This app has a lot of those as well.

Another thing I like is they have ways to remind you. You can sign up for email reminders or post about it on Twitter and Facebook and have your friends remind you. I’d love it if my phone would remind me, but I don’t see that option at the moment.

I didn’t expect this post to turn out to be a commercial for YouVersion, but I guess I really can’t recommend it enough if you have a smartphone (they have iPhone, Android, and Blackberry apps). It’s useful on the web too, but it’s much more convenient on your phone.

So there you have it. Automate your Bible reading by finding a plan. All you need beyond that is the discipline to actually do it (and that’s the hard part)!

God bless you guys,
-j

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There are blogs and how-tos and forums out there for everything. Everything except, it seems, making candles.

Kathy and I really want to start making some candles already. We just don’t know how. And I’m having one time trying to find that info.

I realized that I had just found a niche that needs some filling.

I’m going to create that website that I’m trying to find. Kathy is on board with it. It’s not going to be updated as often as FindingMyFitness, but I’m sure it’ll get frequent updates.

This could also become a pretty good income-booster for us. Even before we have any kind of product to sell, we’ll be able to get some small money via a very few ads and some affiliate sales. I’m sure I’ll also eventually be able to put out some inexpensive material.

There’s not much at all there yet, but let’s give me my first backlinks, eh?. Eventually, you’ll be able to go to the blog to learn how to make candles and see first-hand how we make ours.

Check it out at ourcandlemaking.com.

-j

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I now feel like I hit a milestone in my blogging career. One of a few that I’ll have to hit before I can get paid to write full time.

I wrote an article on using Twitter to copy edit, and I submitted it to one of the – if not the single – largest professional blogging blogs in the world. They liked it, and they published it.

That probably means nothing to any of you, other than you know me and are happy for me because I’m happy about it. I’m OK with that. To what I’m trying to accomplish with my various blogs, this is like coming home from 5th grade after taking your first really big math test with an A+ on top. And having that A+ count for about 80% of your grade.

-j

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When some coworkers of mine introduced me to Grooveshark, I couldn’t believe it was real. All that music at my fingertips, and for free!

I literally boasted to my friends and family. “Come on, give me any song. ANY song, and I’ll play it for you right now.” And I did. I was proud.

Now there’s all this chitter about Spotify. To be honest, I didn’t really know what it was the first time I heard about it. But, because I love music and I enjoy internet, I wanted to give it a try.

My first question was how Spotify differs from Grooveshark. They essentially seemed like the same thing when I heard about it.

First impressions

Out of the box, the main difference is that while Grooveshark is a website, Spotify is an app you download.

My first search was the word “guarani” because I wanted to see if they’d have the really random Paraguayan music I want to listen to and can’t buy here. They DO!

To be fair, I searched “guarani” in Grooveshark as well. A lot of the same songs came up, but Spotify has about twice the music Grooveshark does.

Another fantastic feature is that Spotify also picked up all my iTunes music as well. So now I have one place where I can listen to the music I have on my computer and any song I could possibly want to listen to – without having to buy it.

Music management is different

The first real stand-out feature for me is that Spotify can become my music management tool. It picks up the music you have on your hard drive and shows it to you much like iTunes does. However, where it really stands out, is that you can even use it to synch your iPod.

Additionally – and this astounds me – Spotify can synch your iPhone or Android phone as long as your computer and phone are running the app and you’re connected to the same network. I haven’t tried this yet, but I will when I get home. This alone might be the deal-maker for me.

Different levels for different needs

Spotify is free if you want it to be, or you can pay and get some other things. I’m just fine and dandy ignoring ads and the 15 seconds (not TOO frequent) ads and not paying per month. I can see them becoming annoying after a while, so it will be a matter of Spotify as a whole being worth the monthly fee.

For example, in order to use it on your phone, you’ll have to get the premium subscription, which will run you $10 a month. Also with premium, you can use what they call “offline mode” and have your favorite playlists – made up of music you don’t own, remember – available when you’re offline. It’s almost like borrowing the music indefinitely without buying the mp3s.

Update: It’s not all free forever, though. According to this post outlining some changes to Spotify from their blog, after 6 months of use we’ll be limited to 10 hours a month. If I understand correctly, we will also only be allowed to play the same song 5 times. Buying the $5/month subscription will eliminate those limitations, however.

Making it social

In this age, people love sharing stuff. When I find sweet music, I love sharing it.

In my first hour of playing with Spotify, I’ll tell you it’s easier to find users in Grooveshark. There’s allegedly a “social” button in my profile, but I can’t find it.

If you have Spotify and would like to add me (or anyone), put this in your Spotify search bar: spotify:user:hisc1ay

Overall, I’m really impressed

I will probably use Spotify as my “get any song from anywhere for free” from here on out (at least for the next 6 months). I used to use Grooveshark, but they charge for their mobile app now too. Yes, Spotify’s app is more expensive, but the differences are more valuable, potentially.

I won’t go buying a premium subscription yet, but I won’t say I will never buy one. Offline mode and mobile availability are what would eventually swing me that way.

Bottom line: For the price of one CD a month, you can have access to all CDs in their library, which includes labels like Universal, EMI, and Sony.

What’s your favorite thing about Spotify?

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If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.
- Dave Ramsey

When you listen to Dave Ramsey’s radio show, you will often hear that quote. When you read the book, it’s printed repetitively at the bottom of each page. I think Dave’s trying to tell us something.

Extreme Finance Makeover: Ramsey Edition

Once you start reading this book, you’ll realize two things very quickly:

1. Dave Ramsey ain’t messing around
2. This plan could really work!

Americans are broke, generally speaking. Oh, we have nice things and all, but that is precisely why we’re broke. The nice things are all on loan from a bank, and we’re all “slaves to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)

For a practical example, when I went to Paraguay I only had student loan debt left. Especially once I found Kathy, really the only thing that forced me to head back to the US that year was the debt I had to pay off. When I went back to get her this past January, I was really upset that our future is determined by my debt.
The Total Money Makeover is a handbook to your financial freedom. It’s not easy, and it’s not quick. Dave will tell you straight out: it’s gonna hurt. He says on his show all the time that the key is living off of beans and rice and rice and beans. He means it.

If you’re not ready to radically change your way of life, this book is not for you. It’s not a collection of hard-to-maintain tips on getting debt free. No, this book takes an extremely common sense approach to debt: don’t buy what you don’t have cash for, don’t buy stuff you don’t need, and use all the rest of your money to pay off your debt as quickly as possible.

Do it in baby steps

His whole philosophy is baby steps. At the start, you’re financially obese. You can’t do much, but you do what you can. First you get yourself an emergency cushion. Then you attack debt. Then you “fully fund” your emergency stash. Then you save for retirement. Then you pay off your house. Then you live like no one else.

But it starts with living like no one else.

You might have to say “no” to some things and some people. You may have to sell a car or boat. But he guarantees that if you follow the plan, you will become wealthy.

Don’t let it end with cash hoarding

Dave Ramsey gives a ton of money away. He says the most fun he has with his money is giving it to people who need it more than he does. He even had a contest around Christmas to see who could give away $5000 – of *his* money – the best.

I didn’t read this book to find out how to get rich. I read this book to see what this Total Money Makeover is all about. I have to say, I wasn’t even done with the debt-paying-off chapter before I wanted to jump to the computer and adjust the budget as tightly as I could.

We’ve already begun implementing some techniques in our budget. For example, food purchases have been more expensive than necessary in the past. So now food is a cash-only system. When the cash is done, we eat what we have left in the house. That’s the only way my debt will be gone soon.

Definitely recommended

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has any kind of debt. You don’t need the debt. You can get rid of it. You just have to be systematic about it, and this book will help. Break the old habits and start new ones. If you live like no one else now, you can live like no one else later!

Buy
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
by Dave Ramsey
on Amazon!

Other personal finance tools by Dave Ramsey

Cash Flow Planning
(DVD)

Total Money Makeover
Workbook

Financial Peace
University

Financial Peace

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Jason's the white kid. They're in the middle of a road after a rain.

I got a call tonight as I was leaving work from a number I didn’t recognize. It was my friend Jason! He taught in Paraguay before I got there, and we lived together for a few weeks before he moved back to the US, but I stayed in the apartment he turned into a home.

There’s something about an experience in a foreign country that seems to bond you with a person you share it with in a way you wouldn’t be bound if you just hung out in your own.

Whenever I think of Jason, I think of Paraguay. And often when I think of Paraguay, I think of Jason.

So when he called me tonight and said, “Jason, I’m about an hour and a half away from Richmond on my way to North Carolina, and I was hoping to visit,” I was thrilled. I quickly called Kathy and told her we had a visitor coming.

We sat outside in about 90 degree weather drinking tereré and talking about old times and what’s happened since we last chatted. It was nice for Kathy to talk about her home country and be able to converse in Spanish fluently with someone other than me. And tereré always tastes better when shared.

Jason and I have spent a total of about 3 hours together in the two and a half years since he left Paraguay, but I feel as close to him as if we have been friends our whole life.

That’s what Jesus does between friends. That’s what life-changing experiences do between people. I can’t think of Jason without thinking of Paraguay. It was probably the most influential trip of both of our lives, even though we did it at different times. We are who we are as individuals and possibly even as Christians largely due to our experiences in Pargauay.

I’m sure you’ve had visits like this as well in your own life. A friend drops by out of the blue and you converse like not a day has passed. I love how the Lord keeps us together this way. It’s a bond I wouldn’t trade for the world.

See you when you get back from Spain, Jason!

-j

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A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’

If you giggled, you need to read this book. Here are a few other characteristics of people who will enjoy the read:

• When you see a sign in a grocery store that says “We have apple’s and orange’s”, does it make you die just a little inside?
• Are you the only one of your friends who knows the difference between “it’s” and “its”?
• Do you have a semicolon and know how to use it?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’ll have fun with this book.

Ms. Mercer would be so proud

My 12th grade English teacher changed my life.

You’d think my math teacher or even my computer programming teacher would be the one I say had the most influence on my future. The reality is the one teacher I think about most often is Ms. Mercer. We were a small class of AP students, so we often sat in a circle to discuss the latest reading assignment or share our writing assignments. I had never done critical reading until her class, and I realized that I loved it. She started me on a path of great books and literary analysis. To this day I wonder why I didn’t become an English teacher.

As a result of loving the language, I enjoy using it well. I feel clever when I can string words and phrases together in a melody of prose (I’m not that great a poet), and being able to use a semicolon correctly is just icing on the cake.

This book was a recommendation to all of the web developers in our group by the one person in the area who had any type of English training. I picked it up, and I’ve had a hard time putting it down.

It’s very persnickety

Truss comes right out and says it at the beginning of the book. Referring to a sign she saw that said “Come inside for CD’s, VIDEO’S, DVD’s, and BOOK’s” she advises:

“If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of pulse, you should probably put down this book at once.”

The book is full of uses and misuses of almost every kind of punctuation we use in English, even down to emoticons at the end (she’s not a fan). It’s quite clever in presentation and delivery (the British, I think, pride themselves on being clever), and you can’t help but learn some things along the way.

She starts with a history of the apostrophe, comma, and “full stop” and moves through other pieces of punctuation such as colons, semicolons, dashes, and exclamation points. Did you know that punctuation was originally used to show the reader where to breath? In essence, it was used to annotate the rhythm of speech. I didn’t know that old-school Greek didn’t even use spaces! Look how far we’ve come!

But it’s also very fun to read

Truss teaches us about grammar with a whole ton of wit tossed in with a bunch of sass mixed together with some word-nerdy jokes. I laugh at least once per page, whether it’s at a poor example she’d found somewhere or just the example she uses to show how to use a certain form of punctuation.

“Dangling expectations caused by incorrect pluralisation:
Pansy’s ready (is she?)
Cyclist’s only (his only what?)
Please replace the trolley’s (replace the trolley’s what?)”

I told you: persnickety and Britishly humorous! If you sometimes feel snarky when you see poor grammar or punctuation, read this book. It won’t judge you as you recall moments you just knew you spotted poor English but didn’t want to be “that guy” and correct it.

Buy
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss
on Amazon!

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This is NOT the post you think you’re about to read.

Kathy and I have been thinking about projects for ourselves, something we can do together. I met a guy through Twitter who with his wife started a company called Duchess and Duke Soap Company. He started tweeting about the process of soap making, but what really got me excited were his comments about how much he loves the adventure. Their plans are big, but their goal is to be financially free and working together. Plus, they make one incredibly cute couple!

It started with soap

The more we talked about it, the more Kathy and I wanted to do something like this ourselves. We had been headed down the soap road, with lots of guidance from D&D, and have been brainstorming some ideas on how to make our soap different. We want to begin to introduce North Americans to the awesome tropical smells of Paraguay. Things like orange blossom, jasmine, and lemon (maybe we could even do a “yard smoke” smell as a novelty!) would be our features. Excitement was building.

She does love candles, though

Then this past weekend we went to an outdoor art show and saw candles. Lots and lots of candles. But then we saw gel candles, and I’ve never seen her so excited about something. They were quite expensive, but she was in love with them. So we figured out what product we wanted to focus on first.

I think when you see something you really want to have but don’t want to spend the money on it, you have a lot of motivation to make it yourself. It becomes a hobby you can monetize, and that’s where successful side business come from.

Introducing: A Company Yet To Be Named!

I went to Michael’s today to check out their candle-making supplies. They unfortunately didn’t have any (that I saw) for making gel-based candles, but I did pick up some regular wax and some scents. I saw some melt-and-pour soaps as well, so I added those to my cart. Thus begins our home-grown business! We’ll start this weekend, hopefully to have some gifts for my mom and sisters in time for Mother’s Day.

We don’t have a name for our company yet, but I think we want it to be in Guaraní. The difficulty is that it also has to be pronounceable by Americans! I have “Tupa Ra’y” on my license plate, and I have gotten weary of people asking me what “TUpa ray” means (the pronunciation is hard to write out, but it’s closer to “tuPA ra UU” – the “UU” is kind of like if you were to see something gross and go “eewughlll”, but not exactly), and I feel like a jerk if I respond with “Actually, it’s pronounced tuPA ra UU…”. So I smile and just say, “it means ‘child of God’.” I don’t want to have to hear people mispronouncing the name of our soap, so we need to spend some time thinking about it.

I already know where my first market is and how I will get our first sales. Word-of-mouth will likely give us more orders than we can handle, especially around Christmas and Valentine’s Day. I’m nearly 100% certain of that. We’re very excited for the potential we have with this venture, especially since it could really help us get my debt paid off that much faster!

So stay tuned. Expect to see posts here about the process. I may start a separate blog later on, but I’ll be sure to let y’all know.

-j

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I have been reading the personal finance blog Money Help For Christians for a while now and decided to contribute something to it. Craig had opened it up a while back for guest post opportunities. I came up with an idea that I’ve been implementing successfully for two months, thanks to a savings account my bank gave me.

The article I wrote explains my idea about being your own rewards card. Essentially, I’ve found most rewards credit cards to be more dangerous than helpful for people who can’t control their spending, so I use a method that lets me get “rewarded” for making purchases without going into debt.

The article might get me some hotly negative reviews. I said “Earning miles is a joke.” Craig actually has a course he teaches on earning miles, so I directly contradicted him. He said he really liked my article, though, and is going to use it as a springboard for some articles in the future. I’m counting on the “love of the brethren” I’ve seen displayed there before to keep people from ripping my head off.

Anyway, go check out my article if you’d like. I’m pretty happy with it!

DIY Rewards Cards: Pay Yourself Back Without Going Into Debt

-j

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