Below are links to companies and sites online that I have found helpful for saving money, providing good service and we feel deserve our business. All these sites have been and continue to be used by Gerri Harrison Financial Services and/or Gerri personally. The links to some sites are part of an affiliate program and will pay Gerri Harrison Financial Services a commission for any initial purchase you make. Some are not part of an affiliate program but we believe they deserve the business. To go to one of these sites, please click on the banner or link at the top of each description.
Click on a link to see a description of what the website offers.
Links for Individual Services
- Upromise
- MyFico
- DebtProofLiving
- FinancesforEveryday
- INGDirect
- TheCouponClippers
- CreativeWealthforWomen
- Prosper
- Quicken
- Restaurant
- Mozy
- OneShare
- 123inkjets
- 101inks
- ResumeEdge
- Morningstar
- JustAnswer
- FindLegalForms
- ChecksintheMail
Links for Business Services
- VistaPrint
- FinancesforEveryday
- INGDirect
- Prosper
- MerchantCircle
- Quickbooks
- Mozy
- 123inkjets
- 101inks
- TheLogoCreator
- GoDaddy
- JustAnswer
- FindLegalForms
- ChecksintheMail
Links for College Savings
- StudentAdvantage
- CollegeBoard
- Ecampus
- JustAnswer
- FinancesforEveryday
- CourseSmart
- Fastweb
- Upromise
- Scholarship Experts
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Upromise is the ultimate in saving for a college education for your child, your grandchild or even yourself. The program is free to join. You register your personal and business credit cards and your loyalty cards such as CVS, Price Chopper or Wegmans. When you use a registered card and purchase a product from a merchant who is part of the Upromise program you earn a percentage which is contributed to a college 529 plan.
If you shop online at a merchant who is part of the Upromise you can earn a percentage on that purchase. Who is part of Upromise? There are lots of companies such as Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Kohls, Walgreens, Barnes & Noble, Staples, Best Buy, Sears, McDonalds, multiple hotels and travel companies. More than 100 in all! Many of the merchants you only earn a percentage if you shop online. If you prefer to shop locally you can purchase gift cards through Upromise, earn the percentage and use the gift card in local stores.
Get more benefit by downloading the Turbosaver. This automatically provides you the savings when you go the website of a store that participates.
You can select e-coupons on the website. Go to a participating store and use a registered credit card. The value of the coupon is added to your Upromise account. Use these coupons in addition to ones you actually use in the store.
If you get a Upromise credit card from Bank of America, you earn 1% on everything charged to the credit card.
There are so many ways to save and earn money towards college expenses. Register yourself. Have your parents, friends, and anyone who is willing to register. Check out the site for more ways to save. You could save thousands of dollars towards college tuition if you plan and start early!! Click here if interested ->UPromise – How Smart Parents Save for their Kid’s College Education
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Ever wonder what your credit score is? You can go to www.AnnualCreditReport.com and get the credit reports from the three agencies for free. To get your credit scores you must pay for them. MyFico.com provides you with the credit scores from all three major credit bureaus. Why do you need all three? You never know which of the three credit bureaus a lending institution is going to use. You need to know all 3 scores to make sure they are where you want them to be. Sometimes a lending institution will get all three scores and use the middle one.
A few points can mean the difference between receiving the best rates and receiving a high rate when borrowing. To receive the best rates you generally need a score above 720. A score below 620 means you may not even be able to borrow, at any rate. Those in the middle will probably get the loan, but not at the best rates.
Know what your credit score is and know there are ways to improve it. Correcting errors on your credit report, paying bills on time, reducing your debt to income ratio and maintaining a good ratio of the types of debt will all improve your score. MyFico.com will give you some suggestions – if you need more assistance call Gerri at 729-4144 and make an appointment to have us review your credit report and show you how to improve your credit score.
VistaPrint
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This is a great source for business printing. Once you register with an account online with them you find yourself getting emails for many free products they offer – premium business cards, magnetic signs for the car, a small quantity of brochures, letterhead or envelopes, rubber stamps and even sometimes a free T-shirt with your business logo on it. The “free stuff” changes with each email. If gives you the opportunity to try something and see if you like it before ordering in the quantity that you need. You generally have to pay for shipping.
Although their regular prices can be a bit expensive, each time you order you generally get a coupon with 25% off your next purchase which makes the pricing very reasonable. You can also find many coupons online to reduce the cost of their products.
VistaPrints.com has many templates you can chose from or you can upload your own logo to use. Check out all this site has to offer.
www.DebtProofLiving.com
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If you are looking for tips and techniques for getting out of debt, this site can be extremely helpful. It offers a monthly newsletter, books and general information about how to get out of debt.
One great feature is the Rapid Repayment calculator that helps you determine the order in which you should pay off your debt. It shows you the effect of adding an extra monthly payment amount to your debt. It shows you the ramifications of making biweekly payments rather than monthly payments and how much quicker you will get out of debt. There are also several other financial calculators that will help you improve your financial situation.
You can sign up to receive their daily email called Everyday Cheapskate that will provide you a savings tip of the day.
Mary Hunt has a no-nonsense attitude about how to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Check out this site if you are looking for ideas of how to get out of debt quicker. If you need more hands-on help, come see Gerri for debt management consulting.
www.CollegeBoard.com
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This is the first place to go when you are starting the college financial aid process. You can fill out the federal financial aid form, FAFSA here. You can calculate your expected family contribution to know what you are expected to contribute towards your child’s college education.
You can find scholarship information listed here if you are looking for additional funding to pay college expenses. CollegeBoard.com provides you with general information about student loans that is not biased towards a particular institution.
If you need help in choosing a college this site can be invaluable. It allows you to enter criteria to determine which schools will fit your needs best. You can enter things such as state desired, college size desired, major, city or suburb setting, tuition cost limits, and more.
CollegeBoard.com is a wealth of information when it comes finding ways to pay for college.
www.Fastweb.com
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Like College Board, Fastweb contains a wealth of information regarding how to finance college. You will find information about scholarships, grants and student loans.
You create a profile about yourself that includes interests, groups and organizations that you and your parents belong to, grades and numerous other data about you. This allows Fastweb to customize what scholarships you may be eligible for and helps weed through those that you will not qualify for.
This website is a must for any college student or soon-to-be college student who is looking for help in paying for college.
www.FinancesforEveryday.com
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This is a website that I have created to provide financial information in plain language. The website contains my book “Mom, Can I have that?” It contains many special reports on a variety of topics from “50 Ways to save Little Bits of Money” to “How to Become a Millionaire Saving $25 a Week” and many more. New reports are added all the time so be sure to check back occasionally.
FinancesforEveryday.com also contains more than 40 financial calculators from determining loan payments, the effect of bi-weekly payments, what your true hourly rate is and many more.
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If you are looking to earn better interest rates on your savings, check out this website. The interest rates on their savings accounts and certificates of deposits are generally better than you can find anywhere locally.
INGDirect.com does not have physical branches so it is not paying a lot of money out in overhead costs which allows it to pay you a higher interest rate on the money you are saving.
You set up one account or multiple accounts on INGDirect.com. Money is transferred out of your local checking account on an automatic basis if you set it up that way or you can transfer funds whenever you want. There are no balance or transfer minimums – you can save as $5 a week if you want.
You can nickname each account as to the purpose you are saving for. For example, I have over 15 accounts with them saving for car repairs or a new car, tuition, an emergency fund, Christmas, vacations, house improvements and more. I make one transfer out of my local checking account each time I get paid into one of the savings accounts. I then have automatic transfers set up out of that one savings account to all the other savings accounts. That way it does not clutter up my checking account, but I am able to save for multiple things at the same time.
By having the individual savings accounts I know how much money I have available for each purposes. There are no fees or no minimum balance requirements for any of the accounts. And the interest rate is much better than I can get at any local bank.
They do offer a checking account option too which earns interest!! Check out this site if you want to get your finances organized and get paid more interest while doing it!!
www.TheCouponClippers.com
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Would you like to use coupons and save money but do not have time to go searching for them? This might be the website for you then.
TheCouponClippers.com allows you to find the coupons you are looking for with just a few keystrokes. You purchase coupons for anywhere from one cent and up. They are mailed directly to you. No clipping, no downloading toolbars to print, no denial because they are Internet coupons.
These are coupons that have been clipped from Sunday papers and other sources that people did not need. In some cases you must order a minimum of 5 coupons. The coupons are mailed to you and generally you will receive them within 3 or 4 days. I often order coupons on Sunday for what is on sale at the local stores and I will have them before the week is out to go purchase the sale item with the newly acquired coupon.
There is a shipping charge so the more you order the less the shipping cost is per coupon. The minimum order is for $5 which I do not find it difficult to fulfill.
You want to pay attention to the expiration dates to make sure you will be able to use the coupons before then. The cheapest coupons are the ones that are going to expire in the next week or so.
They have a hot deals section and a section for products with rebates in addition to the standard coupon section.
Take a look and see what you can save!!
www.CreativeWealthforWomen.com
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CreativeWealthforWomen.com produces a program designed to help women become financially free. Designed by the same individual who created the Camp Millionaire I teach for kids it uses easy-to-understand language so that you will understand what you may think of as complex financial concepts.
Creative Wealth covers credit and debt, investing, insurance and much more. You will learn the Money Principles needed to achieve financial freedom and realize all your financial dreams. It is meant to teach you all about money and put you on the road to financial success.
There is a course you can purchase that consists of a workbook and CDs or there are workshops that you can attend. The one drawback is that most of the workshops are on the West coast since that is where Elizabeth lives.
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Prosper.com is a private lending site. For those that cannot get a traditional loan, there are individuals out there willing to take a risk and lend you money. Depending on your credit score you receive a letter grade of between A and F.
Individuals will then bid on what they are willing to lend you and at what interest rate. If your letter grade is an A you are likely to get a lower interest rate than if your letter grade is an F. Most individual lenders risk $50 to a few hundred dollars on an individual. Multiple individuals will bid on the same loan until the amount you wish to borrow is fully funded. It is possible that enough lenders will not be willing take a risk and the loan will not be funded.
As the borrower you will make one loan payment to Prosper and they will disburse the funds to the appropriate lenders. The loans are generally three years in length, but you can pay them off early to pay less interest.
If you have money that you are willing to lend, you can be a lender. Interest rates earned can be in the 20% to 25% range if you are willing to take on a high risk loan. You determine what you are willing to risk on a particular individual and what interest rate you want to earn. Someone else may outbid you by being willing to lend money at a lower interest rate.
If you need money or are willing to lend money in a private lending situation, check out this website.
www.MerchantCircle.com
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MerchantCircle.com allows you to advertise your business for free. There is a portion of the website that allows you to place a coupon for your business at no cost to you. It provides you with the opportunity to have one more place that people can find out about you.
MerchantCircle.com provides you with ability to do additional types of advertising, but there is a cost to this service. You may or may not be in the situation where this is worthwhile.
Consider going and at least put on your free advertisement. You will find a coupon for Gerri Harrison Financial Services out there. I find that I get 70-100 hits per month which have resulted in a few new clients.
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Many of you know that Quickbooks is a small business accounting program that allows you to maintain your financial records for a business in a format that makes it easy for you and your tax preparer to see at a glance what your business looks like.
There are different versions of Quickbooks. Most find that Quickbooks Pro is the most appropriate for them unless there is a specific package for your type of business. There is, for example, a Quickbooks version specifically for contractors, for retail stores and for non-profits.
Quickbooks does have a Simple Start program that you can download initially to determine if it is a program that you want to use, but most find that they quickly outgrow the capabilities of the Simple Start program.
Quickbooks acts much like a check register for most income and expenses. It does give you the ability to input credit card information, reconcile bank accounts, and print invoices. For an added cost you can use the Quickbooks credit card system for accepting credit cards. There is a couple of different types of payroll options for doing your own payroll. You can do banking online if you desire.
At Gerri Harrison Financial Services we use Quickbooks almost exclusively. I conduct seminars in how to use the program. I can assist you in setting up your company and show you how to use the program.
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What Quickbooks is for small businesses, Quicken is for individuals. This is software allows you to keep track of your personal finances. Again, it runs much like your checkbook register does that you maintain by hand.
You have the added benefits of being able to track where your money is going, maintaining investment information and determining how investments are doing, and creating budgets and cash flow requirements to see what will be needed for cash.
You can use the online bill paying feature to pay bills without having to write a check. You can download bank statements, investment information and credit card information into the program so that you do not have to re-input information.
If you want to become financially free, you need to know where you are at all points in time. Quicken gives you the ability to do that.
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Restaurant.com allows you to purchase certificates to use at local restaurants around the country. There are not many chain restaurants found here, but many of the local Mom & Pop types can be found here. The key to using this website is to get on their mailing list and watch for the specials. For example, last month I was able to purchase $250 worth of certificates for $20.
Examples of local restaurants that accept the certificates are Cosmos and Christy’s. If you expand the radius to about 50 miles you can pick up over 50 restaurants. If you are traveling somewhere you can look for restaurants in that area.
Check this website out if you like to eat out and want a way to do it less expensively.
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Need a backup system on your computer? Mozy.com may be the answer. They provide an automatic online backup of your computer system either nightly, weekly or how ever often you set it up. By maintaining that backup online it means if something happens to the building where your computer is stored you still have all your computer information.
Mozy does allow you to maintain a small amount of backup information without a charge. If you are looking to backup larger amounts of information there is a monthly fee for doing so – depending on the amount that fee could be $10 a month or less.
Think about what it would be like if you lost your computer hard drive and could not recover the information? Whether it is business records or family photos, it is something that you do not want lost forever.
Take a look at Mozy.com and learn how to protect your data.
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Are you looking for an inexpensive way to purchase a share of stock? OneShare.com may be the place for you. Most stocks can be purchased for the price of the stock plus $4. And the stock certificate is delivered to you!
This is a great way to start getting your child or grandchild interested in investing. Consider purchasing a stock that has a dividend reinvestment program with it so that additional shares can be accumulated as the dividends are paid. If you are not familiar with how DRIPS work, check out the special report on www.FinancesforEveryday.com that I wrote about dividend reinvestment plans.
It can be an easy way for you to start accumulating a portfolio if you do not have a lot of cash to invest at once.
Replace that gift of a savings bond that does not have enough growth or toys that are disregarded a few days later. Look to change the financial future of those in your life!!
www.123inkjets.com or www.101inks.com
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These two sites allow you to purchase printer ink at a significant discount over most other websites. They contain most of the popular brands such as HP, Brother, Epson and many others.
Each site also contains re-furbished ink and toner cartridges at a lower cost if you are willing to use them. My printers are all HP and I have used the re-furbished without any trouble.
Which site is better? That depends on what you are purchasing. Even with the HP cartridges I found different ones are less expensive on a different site. So – shop both and find out where yours are the lowest cost.
These sites also have fax machine cartridges, typewriter ribbons and copier cartridges which can be a lower cost than your normal supplier.
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This software package priced at less than $50 can help you design a logo if you are starting a small business and need help in that area.
The program has over 140 pre-designed templates that you can use to give you some ideas. It does also allow you to design your own logo from scratch.
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Need help in creating a new resume or in sprucing up your current one? Resume Edge may be the ideal answer. At less than $40 for a basic package it helps those with little work experience, those with work experience in a different area than you are looking for work in or those with an “age issue” make the most of what they have.
Resume Edge has been reviewed by dozens of human resource heavy weights and passes with flying colors. The one compliant that I have seen a couple of times is that spelling errors can occur.
If you are a recent graduate, have joined the ranks of the unemployed or are just looking for something new and different this site may give you the advantage you need to find that new job
www.Morningstar.com
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Looking for a way to be able to evaluate your investments? Morningstar is well known for its star rating system of one to five stars, but this website also contains a variety of additional informational. You can look at standard deviation and beta levels to determine how risky an investment is. You can see how your mutual fund stands up against other funds of the same type. You can find out what your fund is investing in and make sure that you do not have too much overlap in a particular company.
Morningstar.com gives you the ability to enter your portfolio and monitor it on a regular basis. It can provide you with alerts when something you own is in the news. You determine how much information you want or do not want to receive.
This can be a great tool for evaluating the funds in your 401(k) if you are not sure what to invest in.
Of course, you are welcome to come into Gerri Harrison Financial Services for a review of your investments and to discuss retirement, education planning and all your financial goals too.
www.GoDaddy.com
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Are you looking for a place to register your domain name? Looking for a place to host your website? Try GoDaddy for a site that offers reasonable fees but packs a lot of power.
www.CourseSmart.com
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If you have sent a student to college lately you realize that the cost of textbooks can add up quickly. I have heard of students spending $800 or $900 a semester on books. Sometimes these are books that they never even use in class, is it just an extra.
Want a less expensive option to purchasing textbooks and then reselling them for pennies on the dollar? Try CourseSmart. This site gives you the ability to download a textbook rather than purchasing one. The average cost is less than ½ of the cost of a hard covered textbook.
While not all textbooks are available you will find over two thousand on the site. You just need to make sure you are purchasing the correct edition of the book you need.
www.StudentAdvantage.com
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Looking at savings of all types for your college student? Consider the Student Advantage card. To be eligible you must be attending a post secondary school. You show the card at various locations and get anywhere from 5% to 50% off. The site claims to have over 20,000 discounts available.
Stores such as Barnes and Noble and Target are included. Travel expenses from hotel costs to car rentals, airplane and train costs can be discounted. Books, clothing, technology, gifts, health and beauty are just some of the categories that are listed on the website.
Cost of the card is as little as $52.50 for four years or $22.50 for a single year.
www.Ecampus.com
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This is the source for all your college textbook needs. You can purchase new textbooks. You can purchase used textbooks. You can rent textbooks. You can download textbooks as E-books.
Ecampus also has college apparel and supplies that can be purchased. They have a large selection of non-fiction books in addition to textbooks. Ecampus is one of the largest suppliers of used medical textbooks.
www.JustAnswer.com
Have a question you are looking for the answer to? Try JustAnswer. There are over 200 experts on subjects from household and automobile repairs, computer questions, legal questions and many other subjects.
There is a fee for each question you ask. If you are not satisfied with the answer, you do not pay the fee until someone gives you the answer to your question.
While you can search the web and probably find much of this information for free, you are talking with an expert on JustAnswer and can trust the information being provided.
www.FindLegalForms.com
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Looking for a legal document and want to avoid the cost of an attorney’s fees? You can try finding a form at FindLegalForms.com. You can purchase a subscription for monthly access or purchase a one-time form.
Note – consider carefully whether or not a local attorney can provide advice that is not found in an online website. I would consider purchasing one of these forms to give you a base line. Take the form to your local attorney and have him review it. You will be lowering your overall costs by decreasing the time that it takes for your attorney to complete the task.
Whether you are looking at leases, notes, wills, divorce documents or more you can find it at this website.
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Need an alternative to those high fees that the bank charges you for checks either personal or business checks? Looking for stationary products, address label products, photo products or more?
Try ChecksintheMail.com for reasonable prices, quick service and lots of choices.
Like College Board and Fast Web, Scholarship Experts is another site to find more scholarships. There are a few here that look like contests – read carefully since many times it means you are signing up to receive mailings from colleges or other associations. There are a few scholarships that you require you pay an application fee of $5 to $10 to be able to apply for the scholarship.
Most are simply a case of meeting particular criteria. You will be taken through a series of questions – GPA, SAT scores, clubs and organizations you belong, ethnic background, your anticipated college major and more.
One key – carefully read the questions. Some are related to just the student and some are related to the parental and student information.