I am not a very meticulous person and it reflects on the way I keep (Do I really?) a track of my grocery bills. The very thought of spending hours and hours in keeping notes of each and every grocery item purchased from stores gives me a headache. I am not an overspender and buy things that I need (things that are necessity) but of late I have realized that I can save some extra money if I start paying a little more attention towards reducing the grocery expenses. I have started adhering to these simple tips to cut down my expenses on grocery and its working. So, I thought of sharing them with you all.

• Make fewer trips to store: I have cut down my trips to the grocery store. My trips have been reduced to once or twice a month. The fewer times I visit the store, the less opportunities I will have for impulse buying. Shoppers making a ‘quick trip’ to grocery stores end up spending 54 percent more than they intended.

• Every weekend plan for the coming week’s meals and snacks: On Saturdays I sit down and make a plan of the menus that will be cooked for the next week. I also plan for the snacks. Planning ahead restricts me from buying unwanted stuffs and also gives me an idea about the quantity of the items I need to buy.

• Try generic grocery products: Most of the people rush to grocery stores and grab the name brand. They simply overlook the generic products. I was also a bit apprehensive about using generic items at first, so I compared the ingredients in the generic and the national brand items. To my surprise in most cases, the ingredients present in the generic and the brand items were same. So, buying generic items do not imply that you are compromising on quality. Everything from breakfast cereals to canned goods and prescription drugs is available under a generic or store brand label. And by purchasing them you can actually save from a few cents to a couple of dollars per item.

• Stock up the necessity items if they are put on sale: Items like soaps, tissue papers and toiletries can be stocked up. Buying them in bulk will be cheaper. Instead of rushing to stores and wasting gas, you can easily use the items from your stock anytime when you need a new supply for your own use.

• Use coupons: I usually clip out the coupons that I intend to use in a week from the Sunday paper. I usually buy items that I regularly use with coupons- it does save money.

budget,grocery bills,budgeting tips,reduce grocery bills

Technorati Tags: budget, grocery bills, budgeting tips, reduce grocery bills

This is another step towards offering free help to people who can’t afford or are scared of all fishy debt settlement companies. We have a lot of community members in DebtCC who are counseling experts but do not want to disclose their personal identity due to personal as well as professional reasons. Now here comes the good news for all of them who want to help others yet do not want to disclose their identity. There are lots of financially distressed people out there who need counseling but can’t avail it as they do not have money to pay the fees for counseling or are scared of dealing with a debt management firm (rightly so).

How is DebtCC trying to help people who can not pay the counseling fees?
People who need financial counseling can call at the DebtCC numbers. Then our system checks the list of the financial coaches available on the phone and will send call requests to the available coaches. The person who is calling will not know the number of the coach as the call will be routed via the DebtCC numbers. The process will almost look like:

The community members interested to help financially challenged people have to register their phone numbers with us (which will never be disclosed to anyone). As mentioned above the caller won’t come to know about financial coach’s identity as well as the number.

Discuss the idea with community members.

Technorati Tags: financial coach, debt help, counseling, debt, credit, community

“Learning from real life students, the real life debt students, who experienced it themselves“. Here comes the good news for all the DebtCC community members who want to be authors and readers who are sick of reading crappy advices on debt relief……yes you have heard me right! Now, the DebtCC members can share their real life debt stories with the whole world.

The whole plan is about publishing a book entitled “20 authors 20 real life debt stories” with 20 debt stories from 20 different authors (normal people who fought the debt and won over it). It will be a narration of what worked and what didn’t, what they knew and what they didn’t, what mattered and what didn’t. A complete story in their own words.

The book won’t be merely a collection of 20 odd clichéd stories; rather it would be an ensemble of real life stories written by people who were once sucked in to debt. At its most basic, the authors will share how they got trapped into the world of debt and how they clawed their way out. Being in debt is very intimidating as well as depressing. You do not find anyone near you with whom you can talk to and share your money worries. I guess the stigma with the word DEBT still exists and it’s really very unfortunate.

With the help of this book, the community is hoping to help all the individuals who are struggling with their debt problems on their own, with no one beside to support them. They will be helped and more importantly motivated by these real life stories.

Within 2 days we have got two authors (FYI and Frogpatch) and soon we will have another 8 to start. So, if you want to participate then post your responses in the forum under 20 stories – 20 authors – book – how I solved my debt thread.

Technorati Tags: debt, books, authors, community, debt help, credit

“No more (anonymous) comments on blogs. No (anonymous) forum posts in debt forums.” Does it sound like our web future? A year back it reflected as the future of Chinese bloggers but thanks to the efforts of bloggers across the globe forcing the Chinese government to convert it to a self-discipline code.

Blog era was an era of shift from anonymity (Internet’s original strength) to identity. It was a shift by choice not by forceful laws. Internet/Web still has its own charm with its anonymity (for good and bad). This month an Eastern Kentucky lawmaker wanted to ban Kentuckians from anonymously posting information on the Internet.

Is it becoming a trend? First NY and now KY

Last month (Jan, 2008), New Jersey became the first state to enact a law requiring the dating sites to disclose whether they perform background checks. Ban on anonymous web postings is very different from the law that was passed on NJ’s online dating sites as dating is an act where two people make personal relationship while forum/blog is a place where a community meets as a group, the individuality doesn’t come into play at all. At many forums like debtcc forums, the community members are connected because of some common topic of interest and making personal relationship is not mandatory. It is up to the members whether they want to personally interact with others or not.

Now, let’s see what the proposed law says.

According to the proposed law:

1. Anyone who contributes to a website needs to register their full name, address and email address with that site. (How is one supposed to verify it?)
2. Their full name would be used everytime a comment is posted.

Punishment for violation:

1. $500 for a first offense.
2. $1000 for each offense after that.

Did Rep. Tim couch hear of his fellow member Publius? I know that it is practically impossible to impose such a law. We went ahead and asked our community members about it (Post 1: “Feedback about proposed law” and Post 2: “About disclosing their identity on debtcc forums“).

Some of the feedbacks from our community members:

• I can not have my “true name” out there because of my work. There are other people who have posted that they were in the same position. They have actually posted that they could lose their jobs over their financial difficulties. One person who worked in an accounting firm did, over her pdl issues. As JCEMT said about google-ing your name..that could really hurt some of the members and has the potential to keep others from getting the help they need- RoxyNY (not the real name)
• If posting under actual names became a requirement, I’d be gone. I’ve grown to love this place, and I consider some of you as ‘really-extended family’. But I have valid reasons, both personal and professional, to keep my private life private.I deal with sensitive data on behalf of my clients. As an IT consultant, I have their businesses literally in the palm of my hand. While my financial woes are older than dirt and all but insignificant compared to many I read here, would you want me hacking on your servers, knowing I was an active member of a site like this? Think about it….
  - Says unclewulf (not the real name)
• I totally agree. I would never have posted any of my problems here and because of that I would not have gotten where I am today. I hope that makes sense …
  - says spatterson_40 (not the real name)

The last comment is real worrying and can be considered as an opinion availed by almost 50% of the masses with debt problems.

Will the proposed law reduce the criminal activities or increases it?

It will probably increase stalking and real crimes as folks will now be able to actually find the person they are pissed at (says a member at WMW, another forum). Remember the case of Kathy Sierra, blogger and author, who got death threats over her blog. Some people want to avoid it while enjoying the same status as of Kathy on blogosphere esp the financial knowledge-o-sphere.

Other factors to consider

1. The cost involved in verifying the identity of the user.
2. How is one supposed to know that this is the same person who claims it to be behind the name? The accuracy is almost impossible.
3. Will bloggers be ever interested in doing such a level of interrogation while accepting a comment?
4. Will I ever respond to the emails/phone calls asking for verification?
5. How would KY succeed where China failed? Internet is controlled by KY webmasters alone. Will KY have a restricted use of Internet participation?
6. This would be a dream come true for marketers and spammers. They will get some more information in public and more information from website owners.
7. Then what will happen to services like blogger, wordpress.com, who will verify the user’s commenter?

I am just hoping that we aren’t seeing a trend here (Will Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will raise such issues too?). Earlier China, then NY and now KY. If it continues to influence other representatives then Web would lose it original strength of being anonymous. As webmasters most of us are very carefully about user privacy but a law might make it impossible to survive esp for community websites.

Let’s raise our opinion!!!!

politics, human rights, china, freedom of speech, freedom-of-speech, media, blogging, web, forum,Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama

Technorati Tags: politics, human rights, china, freedom of speech, freedom-of-speech, media, blogging, web, forum, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama

Debt in itself is a simpler concept but while sailing through the sea of debt it sometimes feel otherwise. We have tried to make the concept simplified using some pictures and symbols.

Movie cast:

• Lead role : Mike (the debtor).
• Acrtress in leading role: Jessi, the debtcc community member.
• Actor in supporting role: Mr Tom (the financial coach).
• (Negative role) Payday lender: The friend, the betrayer (with his pet shark).

For the complete movie visit
http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/movie/seaofdebt.html

And the oscar goes to …