With the price of gasoline climbing higher and higher, many people are looking for ways to reduce the cost of driving their car.  Sure, you could buy a hybrid and get better gas mileage, but the extra cost for having the hybrid feature installed in your car doesn’t really give you relief in the short term.

So, in an effort to give consumers a better deal, many credit card companies now offer gas credit cards.  What a gas credit card aims to do is give the card holder cash back on all their purchases of gasoline.  This not only makes buying gas more convenient (you could pay at the pump and not have to go inside to pay), but helps ease the burden of driving a car.

Some of the gas cards on the market also give you cash back on other purchases essentially giving you a discount on products you buy wherever you go.

Where can you get a gas card?

Check with your financial institution as many of them now offer credit cards with cash back on all your gas purchases.

As some of you know, I used to do a lot of computer consulting.  I don’t do it much anymore as I had a bad customer in the past that soured the whole experience for me.  But, I still help my existing customers, and today I found myself out fixing computers.

The reason that I was called out was that they needed a formatted hard drive recovery.  It seems that the child of my client accidentally formatted their work computer.  Unfortunately, they had no backup of the data on the machine, so it was up to me to get everything sorted out.

This wasn’t the first time that I had this experience, and I had some disk recovery software with me for situations just like this.  Sure, the software was not cheap, but it has made my life much easier.

It only took about an hour for me to complete the hard disk recovery and I was able to save her data.  I also showed her how to lock her computer to hopefully prevent this situation from occurring again.

I am taking a commerce class at the local college on investing. I have been investing, myself, for a few years now, but I wanted a more in depth education on the subject. I have enjoyed investing since the day that I started and this got me to thinking that maybe this was a career path that I needed to be considering.

I did a lot of stock picks research for a term paper that I was writing and I learned so much through the research that I did. It was a great learning experience for me and I was so happy that I had chosen that particular subject to write on. My professor was equally impressed and actually urged me to continue with my education, as I could help a lot of people who did not understand the stock market.

He said that I was a natural and it would be a shame to waste that gift. It was easy for me to understand this language that most people felt was foreign to them. It got me to thinking that I really ought to give more thought to this as a career choice. I am still thinking about it, as going to school full time is a big commitment and I want to make sure that I am ready to do this.

With my wife’s birthday coming up shortly, I really needed to hunker down and decide what to get her for her birthday.  I had found myself in this situation in the past, and learning from my mistakes, I knew that I needed to get her something - or else I would find myself in hot water.

Now, there are not a lot of things that my wife really needs or wants - but she does have one hobby: scrapbooking.  I thought I could look for some "scrapbooking supplies Canada" on the search engines and get her some good scrapbooking stuff.  Seeing that I am a boy, I don’t know a whole lot about it, so I hope that I get her some good stuff.

Some of the scrapbook supplies Canada sites that I did check out had some good deals.  When the prices for most of the items is less than what I would pay in town here (even including the shipping) it is very encouraging.

I was happy to see that a lot of Canadian scrapbook supplies sites had adjusted their prices to reflect the stronger Canadian dollar.  I took advantage of this and bought my wife more supplies than I had planned.

Well, I just need to order the cake and I think then we will be all set.  It will be nice to have her happy with the gifts I bought her this year - not like the television that I bought her.  I know that I have learned from my mistakes.

As much as I love to look at flyers that are in the mail, I try not to.  Usually, they are just full of junk and stuff I don’t need.  By avoiding them, I tend to keep more money in my pocket.  But, today in the mail, I did find a flyer that was interesting and I just couldn’t resist a peek.

You see, the flyer in question was from a store that specialized in bathroom suites.  You see, they had some nice shower baths pictured on the front page and that got me thinking that my bathroom was ugly.  In fact, I don’t know if I have ever changed it since I moved here years ago.

Looking inside the flyer, I found what I have wanted for many years now: whirlpool baths.  It would be like sitting in a hot tub for one - and after a hard day at work, it would be the perfect remedy to my daily aches and pains.  I was surprised at how inexpensive they were and that they even fell within my budget.

Thanks to the flyer, I think it is time to seriously consider renovating the bathroom.  Besides, a new bath never hurt anyone, right?

With all the buzz that has been over the Internet and television, I really wanted to check out what an iPhone had to offer me - and why I should consider getting one.  Though most of the iPhone news that I had read was positive, I still needed to make up my own mind as to what I thought about it.

So, I made the point of going down to a mobile phone retailer to see what all the buzz was about.  There I was able to see the iPhone first hand and I fell in love with it.  It was sleek, shiny, and just about the coolest thing I had ever seen.

But, I wanted to know more.  The sales clerk showed me some of the iPhone accessories that I could get to go with the phone.  It seemed that there was a huge selection and I felt quite overwhelmed by it.

I was a bit excited about the next thing that the sales clerk showed me: iPhone games.  I have always been a bit of a video game addict, and the games I was shown were the best graphics I had ever seen on a mobile phone.

Though I am not sold on the iPhone yet, I sure feel that I might just need to get one someday.  It would sure be a nice toy.

I am addicted to shopping. I don’t have to spend a lot of money, but I can still go and spend a whole Saturday afternoon at the mall, browsing and dreaming of things that I will buy one day when I am rich. I do love to look for bargains, but I don’t like it to look like I found a bargain.

The best deal for me is when I can go and find clothes that are actually trendy on the clearance rack. I have bought the most fashionable jeans for nearly next to nothing. I am frugal, but I always look good and I get compliments on my fashion style all the time.

Shopping, for me, is relaxing and it is like a release after a stressful week of school and work. It is also a time of socialization with friends and a time when I can just unwind and be myself. I am no longer scared to say it, but I am addicted to shopping.

I have been awarded to do a study on the variation of car rental rates in different centers in the Sate of Florida.  The findings of my study will be published on a blog and economic journal when it is completed.

In order to get accurate results and trend data, I have decided to select 25 car rental companies in each of Tampa, Orlando, and Miami.  The study will then collect data for twelve months and observe the trends in pricing in these three markets.

There will also be monitoring of rate increases during special events or holidays.  This is important as many companies will increase rates on days or weekends when there are conventions, sporting events, or other activities that will drive up the demand for car rentals.

First off though, I will need samples of companies that offer Orlando car rentals, Tampa car rentals, and Miami car rentals.  We will be using the Internet to gather the companies in the area, compare their offerings, and find a common class of vehicles to base our studies on.  So, I better get working on it – it will be interesting to see what the results show us.

I just came out of a meeting with my financial advisor.  You see, I have a little nest egg kicking around and it is not making enough interest in the bank - so I thought I should check out what would be good options for my money.

There were a few questions and questionnaires to answer before my financial advisor would give me any advice.  He needed to know what my investment knowledge was as well as my risk tolerance.

Once that was out of the way, he told me that Index Funds would be a good choice for me.  Not only would they give me exposure to a broad market, but they wouldn’t put me at the same risk as an ETF (exchange traded funds).

I asked whether or not they had any funds that would be considered to be socially responsible investing options.  Unfortunately, their firm didn’t deal with those types of funds.

I told him that I would have to think on it, and give him an answer on what I decided after the weekend.  I sure have a lot to think about.

This year, we thought that we could do something a little more creative for Valentines Day.  We have a couple of children, and in the past all we have done is buy them gifts from the store.  But, now our children are older and we thought that we could get them to make something special for them.

My wife came up with the idea that we could take some of their drawings that they have done and make some custom T shirts for them.  That way, they could have something they could wear around as proud grandparents, and yet it shouldn’t be something that gets put in a closet or stuffed into some drawer somewhere.

Her girlfriend showed us a website that she had used in the past that let you make your own T shirt.  After a couple of tries with their “make your own T shirt” wizard, we finally had the final product – and it looked great.

I can’t wait to see their faces – it will be the best Valentines Day gift our children have given yet!