The following is a list of expiration dates for some common foods. All the dates below assume you are storing these food items unopened in a moisture proof container and in a cool, dry place.
Forever
- Honey.
- Brown sugar
Forever (unopened)
- Mayonnaise. Once opened, it will last 2 to 3 months after “purchase by” date. Taste may be affected but is perfectly safe to eat.
5 to 10 years
- Worcestershire sauce. Once opened, you expected it to be safe to eat for up to two years.
5 years
- Maraschino cherries. Once opened, maraschino cherries will last 6 months refrigerated.
3.5 years
- Vinegar.
- Marshmallows. Once opened, marshmallows will last 3 months.
2 years
- Mustard. After two years, the color and favor may be affected but is safe to consume.
- Olive oil. After two years from manufacture date, color and taste may be affected but is safe to eat.
- Instant coffee. Once opened, you can expect it to last up to 1 month.
1 to 2 years
- Peanuts. Once opened, peanuts will last 1 to 2 weeks when stored in an airtight container.
1 to 1.5 years
- Frozen dinner.
1 year
- Dried pasta
- Maple syrup
- Bottled salad dressing. Once opened, it will last 9 months refrigerated.
- Canned tuna from “purchase by” date. Once opened, you can expect it to last 3 or 4 days refrigerated and not stored in the original can.
Car insurance is one of those things that cost a lot of money and you rarely use, until you need it. You’ve probably been tempted to cut corners when choosing a car insurance policy to find the cheapest option possible and still meet all legal requirements in your state. Below are some items to be aware of when shopping for car insurance:
Don’t skimp on liability coverage
Not having sufficient liability coverage could prove financially fatal in the event of a serious accident. While most people can handle a $500 deductible, most people would be wiped out if slapped with a million dollar lawsuit. Many insurance consumers opt for paying a higher premium to have a lower deductible even though they carry the bare minimum in liability protection.
A much better and safer option is to raise your deductible and increase the dollar amount of your liability coverage. Your overall insurance premium should remain approximately the same while providing you with significantly better liability protection. A good rule of thumb is to have a minimum of $500,000 of liability protection per person. This will vary depending on your particular financial situation and amount of personal assets. Your best bet is to consult with your agent or insurance professional.
A place to save some money is reducing or eliminating personal injury protection, also known as medical payments coverage. If you already have health insurance for yourself and your family, that would cover your medical bills after an accident. Again, check your health insurance policy to make sure you have adequate coverage.
Total liability versus coverage per person
Many policies are written with a total of $300,000 liability protection with a maximum of $100,000 per person. This doesn’t help you much if one person is involved in a $200,000 lawsuit. Instead, have your policy written so that the total and per person amounts are the same. That way, $300,000 in coverage is really $300,000 no matter how many people are involved.
Consider “umbrella” coverage
If you have considerable wealth, you probably will want to consider purchasing an umbrella policy that would protect both your home and car. Umbrella policies usually start at $200 to $300 a year for up to $1 million worth of coverage. Cheap when you consider the potential cost of a lawsuit.
Seek out professional advice
Your friend or well meaning uncle may be a great guy, but you probably don’t want to rely on his advice when it comes to car insurance. It best to get advice some advice from a neutral, credentialed professional.
Seek out an insurance professional who has earn industry credentials. Things to look for include: CPCU(Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters), CIC (Certified Insurance Counselor), or the AAI (Accredited Adviser in Insurance.) All three certifications require rigorous training and testing to earn.
Maintain a good credit rating
Many insurance companies will use your credit rating as an ingredient in determining whether to accept you as a client and how much to charge you for coverage so it pays to maintain a good score.
Car rental coverage
Unless you own a second car, make sure your car insurance policy covers the cost of a rental should you lose the use of your car after an accident. Being without this coverage could cost you significant cash especially if need to rent a car for more than a few days.
Shop around
In addition to calling local agent for price quotes, use online sources to search for the best price. make sure your compare “apples to apples” when determining what a good price is for the type of coverage you’re purchasing. Check customer satisfaction statistics. Often companies with the best scores have the best prices too.
Take advantage of discounts
If it’s been a number of years since your last accident or ticket, if you store your car in a garage or drive less than a certain number of miles each year, you can probably get some significant discounts on your premium. You should be able to get additional discounts for such things as having airbags, anti-lock brakes or an alarm system. Also consolidating your home and auto coverage with the sale company often gets you additional discounts.
Drop collision coverage on older cars
If your car is older than eight years or so, it may not make financial sense to spend money on collision coverage. For example, if your car is only worth $2000 and it’s totaled in an accident, all the insurance company will pay is $2000. Why not save that money and earn interest instead of paying it to your insurance company. If you are in an accident, you’ll have money already saved to use toward a new car. If not, you’ll have that much more money to spend on other things.
You can also check with companies like A.M. Best Company Inc. and Standard & Poor’s Insurance Ratings Service to research a company’s financial solvency. Cheap coverage does you no good if the company takes your premium and folds.
Interested in Gold as an Investment: Here Are The Four Most Common Methods of Investing
With the economy still on shaky ground, many common investment vehicles have taken a beating over the past several months. Stocks, bonds and commodities have all been affected, most experiencing steep price declines. Even precious metals such as gold and silver have not been untouched. In the case of gold, prices have recently started to break out to the upside over the past several weeks. If you’re considering investing in the precious metal, you’ll need to decide how you will purchase your gold holdings. Below are four common options to invest in gold and advantages and disadvantages of each:
Gold Bullion
This is the actual metal, typically available in the form of bars or coins in various weights. Bars, available from Credit Suisse and other suppliers, are generally the least expensive option in owning the actual metal. You can also opt for gold coins which will normally be more expensive if they are part of a collector’s series.
Pros: Owning gold in this form is the purest form of ownership and offers a hedge in the event of a financial collapse.
Cons: The biggest risk of owning the actual metal is theft or other catastrophic loss if it is kept in your home. It is advisable to rent a safety deposit box to store your gold to guard against theft.
Pooled Accounts
These are like a gold bank account in that your gold is held in a vault along with other owners. Fees are generally lees than 1% of the market price of your holdings making this a cost efficient method of owning bullion. Depending on your provider, accounts are either “allocated” or “unallocated.” In an allocated account a specific number of gold bars are allocated to you. You also pay additional storage and insurance fees. In an unallocated account, you’re asigned a sum of gold, not the actual bars. There are generally no additional insurance or storage fees with unallocated accounts.The markup per ounce is usually less than 1% of gold’s current market price, making this cheaper than owning physical bullion.
Pros: Generally recognized as the most secure form of owning gold, since the metal is securely store in a vault and regularly audited. You also retain the option of having your gold shipped to you upon your request.
Cons: Fees paid in allocated accounts will add up over time. In unallocated accounts, the gold is held in the providers name and is at rick in the event the provider goes under, including your gold.
Exchange-Traded Funds or ETFs
Shares in ETFs trade like stocks on an exchange. Each share represents a pre-defined factional ounce of gold. These shares are backed by the actual metal which is held in vaults in locations throughout the world. The price of these shares closely track the actual price of gold.
Pros: A low cost of entry and high degree of security are the two main advantages of owning shares in gold ETFs. Liquidity is another benefit since buying and selling is easily handled through your stock broker.
Cons: Taxes. The government taxes capital gains on gold ETFs at a flat 28%, almost twice the normal log term capital gains rate on stocks. You also pay managements fees of approximately 0.4% which adds to the cost of this form of ownership.
Mining Stocks
Another option is to consider the common stock of the gold mining companies. While you don’t own actual gold, you do participate in the success of the companies that actually acquire the gold Also the risk in associated with rising an falling prices are spread across all the available gold the mining company has, both mined and still in the ground.
Pros: This options generally gives you the most bang for your investment dollar. You will usually have to commit twice as much money in bullion or ETFs to get the same level of exposure as you get with the stock of mining companies.
Cons: As with investing in any company’s stock, you are exposed to the overall financial performance of the company in addition the the fluctuations of the gold itself.
Is investing in gold something you’re considering? I welcome your comments.
Business Clichés Are Not Creative
If you have ever worked in a corporate job or have attended business meetings, you have probably been subjected to a number of well worn business clichés. I don’t know about you, but I find people that don’t rely on these highly overused phrases are the true leaders and creative forces in business. Below is a list of some of the most well known and popular clichés:
At the end of the day
A lot on my plate
Hit the ball outta the park
Go for the low hanging fruit
You have a lot on your plate
There’s no “I” in team
You need to step up to the plate
You need to strike while the iron is hot
Let’s not beat a dead horse
Caught between a rock and a hard place
In a nutshell
Everything from soup to nuts
Don’t put all you eggs in one basket
You need to think outside the box
Do you or have you used any of the clichés? Do you someone who does? Are there one’s I missed? I invite you to add clichés to the list and to resolve to eliminate these verbal crutches from your vocabulary. Resolve to rely on your own creativity in 2009. I welcome your input and opinions.
Happy New Year In The United State of Pop
I know this is off topic but I thought I’d start off 2009 with a fun post to get the new year off to a festive start. The above video is a very creative mash-up put together by DJ Earworm of San Fransciso of the top 25 Pop hits of 2008 according to the Billboard music chart. For more from DJ Earworm, visit his website at djearworm.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @djearworm. Enjoy.
Happy Holidays To All From Money Maker Times!!
I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone much health and happiness during this holiday season and a successful 2009!! I especially want to thank all the members of Entrecard that have taken the time to drop their card here during the past year. It is very much appreciated. Thanks again everyone.
Manage Lists On Your iPhone And Sync To The Web For Free
For all you iPhone users out there, I’d like to share one of my most favorite free apps for keeping and organizing all sorts of lists. Zenbe Lists is a free and easy-to-use iPhone app designed to let you create multiple lists of items or tasks and automatically sync it to a free web based account. This feature allows you to share lists online with other users you specify. The sync feature also provides the benefit of an online back-up of any lists you create on your iPhone using the free Zenbe iPhone client. Simply search “Zenbe” in the App Store on iTunes to download.
As mentioned above, the sharing options makes Zenbe Lists great for people who need to access and edit common lists. That means anyone who has access to a particular list can edit, add or delete items and the changes are Immediately visible to all assigned users. This eliminates any confusion over who has the latest version, common problem with paper lists.
Sharing can also be done via email. A simple tap of the “share” button in the Zenbe Lists client on your iPhone creates an email message that contains a link of the list your want to share. Anyone with an iPhone with Zenbe Lists installed can then open the list by clicking on the link and save a copy of the list in their Zenbe Lists.
If you don’t need advanced task management or list creation features, Zenbe Lists provides a simple and straight forward option for managing multiple to-do lists. But it’s the iPhone app’s online syncing and sharing that is the killer feature. The best part is that it’s free which makes it a cool tool for keeping your grocery and to-do lists synced between multiple devies and available on the web without dealing with all those paper scraps.
5 Easy Ways To Save 2000 Dollars
With Labor Day fast approaching and school starting again for the fall, finding ways to keep your budget in check are important. With that in mind, what follows are five easy ways you can immediately reduce your expenses and add up to $2000 to your bank account over the next year:
Cancel HBO
Premium cable networks such as HBO and Showtime can add upwards of $1000 per year to your total cable or satellite subscription bill. If you’re not watching the content you’re paying for, it makes sense to cancel that part of your service and pocket the savings. Most people only watch a handful of channels compared to the hundreds they are paying for.
Cut back On Those Subscriptions
Are you receiving magazines or other periodicals you rarely ever look at? If you subscribe to say a half dozen magazines, that could mean a couple hundred dollars each year. Much of the content found these periodicals can be obtained for free online. In addition to saving you money, the online content is many times much more current and immediate.
Fire Your Bank
Banks are notorious for “nickle and diming” you to death with fees for everything from checking accounts to withdrawing money from an ATM. The banking industry is intensely competitive. These fees can add it quickly over the course of the year. If your bank is charging you fees to do business, it’s time to find another bank.
Pay On Time
This may seem obvious but paying your bills on time is probably to simplest way to keep more money in your pocket. While it can be easy to forget to pay a bill, the late fees and other charges that comes with that forgetfulness can add up in a hurry. These fees can ranges from just a few dollars to $30 or $40 or more for each incident. One way to insure on time payments is to make use of any automatic electronic payment systems your bank may offer.
Brown Bag It
Instead of ordering out for lunch, pack your own. Bringing your own lunch to work each day can mean a savings of $800 based on spending only $6 a day. Even you you can’t bring your lunch everyday, try to do so a couple of days. Even two days a week will save you a significant amount of money.
Do you have other simple ways you use to save money? I welcome your comments.
Have you ever wished there was a way for you to be able to quickly communicate news and information to a large group of people without having to call each individual person? Maybe you’re the leader of a social or work group and you need to get the word out quickly about a change in plans? Well, a new company focused on simplifying group communication has just launched a new and innovative free service into private beta. The company, Tatango, Inc, is offering the ability for anyone to collect, manage and mobile message all of their group members from both a mobile phone or a computer via their website at Tatango.com.
Tatango launched into private beta as of July 15. As a recent company press release states:
…Tatango was born from the promise of giving groups the ability to stay connected anytime, anywhere via SMS. The Tatango service doesn’t require any special phone or its users to download any software to use the service. The service is completely free and ad supported, Tatango places 30 character text ads at the bottom of group messages, costing you no more than a standard text message to receive a group alert. However, the advertisements can be removed from group messages at a low monthly fee…
I have been able to secure 10 private beta invites to join Tatango for the readers of Money Maker Times. To get your invitation code, be one of the first ten people to email beta@tatango.com with the words “Money Maker Times” as the subject.
As Derek Johnson, Founder and CEO of Tatango states in a recent company news release;
We are very excited for the launch of Tatango. The feedback that we’ve received from our users has played a huge role in the creation of Tatango, and also with the ease of the website in both it’s functionality and user interface.
Since the announcement of the launch of Tatango into private beta, over 1,500 people have signed up for beta invitations in anticipation for launch. I invite your comments regarding your experiences with this new and innovative communication service.
Tim Russert On Being A Father
On this Father’s Day weekend, I believe this recent clip of the late Tim Russert speaks volumes on what it is to be a father. Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there.
