Tag Archives: market research

Winter Weather Woes, 2014

152997244Here’s another web roundup, this time all about this NUTTY weather. As they said, “first the snow, then the cold.” Even here in Charleston SC, it’s going to down to 21 degrees (but it will feel like 9!)

So here are some links about travel delays, economic impact, lost work, etc. More importantly, how to stay ALIVE in this mess if you find yourself stranded, or if you happen to be unlucky enough to have to work outside (yeah, I would call in sick!)

So there’s your roundup! Two questions: have you ever heard of a Polar Vortex before now? Secondly, who is naming these things? Hercules? Ion? Give me a break!

Also, who has an outdoor NFL playoff game this weekend? Have fun with that!

New Year’s (Financial) Resolutions

new-year-sNot everybody makes New Year’s resolutions. I decided years ago to quit while I was behind. But many folks still keep the faith, and resolve to Get Healthy, Reconnect with Friends and Save More Money. Those are the three, right?

Anyway, if you are in the mind to do better when it comes to personal finance, here are some handy links to light your path. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

Dave Ramsey: What’s In and Out this year

Huffington Post: 5 Ways to Keep Your Financial Resolutions Beyond the New Year

Forbes: The Secret To Making Financial Resolutions You’ll Actually Keep

Fidelity Investments: 2014 New Year Financial Resolutions Stud

Investopedia: Financial New Year’s Resolutions You Can Keep

Schwab: 10 Resolutions for a Happy Financial New Year

Daily Finance: 7 Financial New Year’s Resolutions You Should Keep

American Institute of CPAs: New Year’s Financial Resolutions

How about YOU? Have any spending or saving resolutions you wish to share? Let us know over at the MindField Online Facebook page!

Last Minute Tax Reduction Tips

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2010-year-end-tax-tips-landlords-250x250I know we’re all distracted by Holiday shopping madness, but it’s never too soon to start looking for ways to reduce your 2013 income tax obligation. You only have 3 weeks left to make adjustments!

Things like deferring income until the new year, making charitable donations, pre-paying next year’s college tuition, and maxing out your IRA and HSA contributions are all legitimate ways to cut your tax bill. For a more comprehensive list of tax ideas, I went on a little Google search. Here is a list of links that will get you started.

And, just in case you miss the boat, there’s always next year!

Of course, you should definitely consult with your tax professional before doing this. That’s if you can catch him – he’s probably out Christmas shopping!

How about you? Have you used any of these techniques? Did you save much? Let us know over at the MindField Online Facebook page!

Holiday Spending 2013

christmas_spending-258x300Ah, statistics. How much are we spending this holiday season? You can ask 5 different experts and get 5 different interpretations of the numbers. What seems to be universal is that we still aren’t back to where we were in 2007, before everything went wacky, but slowly (painfully slowly) we are clawing our way back. Of course, that’s relative too. Is spending $800 per family at holiday time something we SHOULD be striving toward? I’m not so sure.

Anyway, here’s the latest look at Holiday Spending by the Numbers, 2013 edition, courtesy of Mint.com.

  • 2007: The year holiday spending peaked, before the crash
  • 39%: How much spending went down in 2008
  • 2009: The year holiday spending bottomed out
  • $682: The low point, per family, in 2009
  • $750: what we worked our way up to, per family, in 2012. Expected to rise again in 2013
  • $400: How much we spent on family gifts, 2012
  • $75: Gifts for friends, 2012
  • $25: Gift for co-workers, 2012
  • 60%: The number of us that bought gifts for ourselves, 2012
  • $224: The amount moms spend on each child and spouse
  • #1: The most requested gift on wish lists: Gift cards!

The article is full of stats from different survey firms. Sometimes the numbers differ, but the trends seem stop hold up across the board. It also offers for tips to cut costs (I’m going to guess “buying gifts for yourself” is the first to go!) So check it out!

How about you? Are you spending the same? Less? More? Let us know over at the MindField Online Facebook page, and have a great (shopping) weekend!

November Deals!

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SavingsThe madness begins. In a few short weeks you will be strapping on your armor and heading into the mouth of madness known as black Friday. And, as we noted yesterday, Black Friday is six days later this year, meaning that the holiday shopping season is cut short by nearly a week. So, if you want to get a jump on things, here is a list of links to tell you where the deals are this November. Enjoy!

End-of-year car deals

A lot of Halloween-expiring deals, but also several that last through the weekend and beyond

November travel deals

November deals on “Weddings, Tools and More” from the Wall Street Journal

Deals & Bargains in November from CBS News

The Best and Worst Things to Buy in November from DealNews

Online tech retailer Newegg announces “Black November”

Insider article on the types of deals to look for in November

So, are you ready to rock? Do you know of other good deals? Let us know at the MindField Online Facebook page! And have a great weekend!

Spending Snapshot, 1973

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made_in_1973_personalized_invites-r77027731f425487fb56691e8eb6c1eec_8dnmv_8byvr_512When you compare how much our incomes and spending have changed in the past 40 years, I guess you could say that there’s good news and bad news.

The average person spends 81.2% of his or her post-tax income on food, housing and other expenses, according to ConvergEx Group, a New York-based brokerage. That’s down from the 85% that Americans shelled out for mandatory and discretionary items in 1973. LA Times

  • Household Income After taxes: UP. $9700 in 1973, $63,000 today (adjusted for inflation.)

As a percentage of income, spending in the following categories went…

  • Savings: DOWN. Way down. We put over 13% of our income in the bank in 1973, now a terrible 4.6%!
  • Housing: UP. 15% of income in 1973, 19% today. Partly because the average square footage of a home has nearly doubled since then!
  • Food: DOWN. 19% of income in 1973, 13% today. Of course, family size has shrunk, from 2.9 to 2.5 people.
  • Cars: DOWN. 9.5% of income in 1973, 6.6% today. However, the next item…
  • Fuel: UP. 4.2% in 1973, 5.4% today.

So, it’s a mixed bag. Maybe it just SEEMS like we are paying more and more and more?

Personally, I think these numbers are wack. Like, the size of our homes has doubled, but we’re only spending 20% more of our income for them?  My theory?* They are measuring expenses as a percentage of household income. In 1973, less than 40% of moms worked outside the home.  It’s over 60% today (I looked it up!) So, in 60% of homes, it’s taking two incomes to enjoy a 4% decrease in overall household expenses. Yay progress!

My question to those who remember 1973 is this: what do you think? Do you think we are better off, worse off, or about the same as we were back then? Did Dad and/or Mom work as hard/harder/about the same to pay the bills as we do? Let us know over at the MindField Online Facebook page, and have a great weekend!

*Disclaimer: I’m an English major!

Online Shopping Habits

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She found a great deal, and her hair looks fabulous!
She found a great deal, and her hair looks fabulous!

I knew online purchasing was a big deal, but I didn’t know it was THIS big:

Online customers are becoming important to most businesses. For example, in a recent Nielson Global Survey more than 85 percent of the world’s online population has already used the Internet to make purchases.  SmallBizTrends.com

Since the hardest part of getting people to accept a trend is getting them to try it for the first time, I’d say online shopping has conquered 85% of the world!

This article I point to is a little inside baseball – online marketers talking to other online marketers – telling each other about OUR online buying habits. Who says we can’t peek inside?

Guys and Girls:

  • Both tend to purchase from desktops (M 87%, W 82%)
  • Both tend to purchase from home (M 81, W 84)

Distractions, distractions!

  • Marketers study the number of “abandoned” shopping carts on retail sites. You were shopping and wandered off somehow. They blame cookies. If you have never understood what exactly cookies do, it’s this. They follow you, create a distraction, and try to lure you back to their site.

A Multi-screen experience:

  • “65 percent of purchases begin on a smartphone, while 25 percent begin on a laptop and 11 percent start on a tablet.” Ending, as we said, at home and on your desktop about 90% of the time. For me this is true because I will only give out my credit card on wired cable, never wi-fi.

Anyway, those are the highlights. You can read more at the original piece.

How about you? Do these traits sound familiar? What kind of online shopping do you enjoy? What BUGS you about it? Let us know over at the MindField Online Facebook page, and have a great weekend!

Gettin’ Thrifty

"I want to go to there!" _ Liz Lemon
“I want to go to there!” – Liz Lemon

So, any thrift store junkies in the crowd? I know I’m one. Charleston SC has at least 8 Goodwills, 2 St. Vincent de Pauls and a couple of Salvation Armys, as well as 3 or 4 independents run by some disease or another. I manage to hit at least 2 each week, usually as “retail therapy” or out of pure boredom.

I have been down on Goodwill lately. Speaking as a dude, I’m there looking at the “wares,” and not clothes. I think their clothing prices are OK, but their wares are TOO DANG HIGH. I’m convinced that you can only get a good deal when they don’t know what they are selling! Example… like new, official Army cots.

oooh...COMFY!
oooh…COMFY!

I saw them on the Cabela’s website for $70 each, but Goodwill had them for $6! Then 2 weeks later, I saw them at a different Goodwill for $30 each.

Anyway, some blogger somewhere has put together 12 tips for thrift store shopping. Here are the bullet points. Enjoy!

1. Go in With a Plan…

2. …But Be Open-Minded

3. Look For Quality Brands…

4. …But Also Try New Brands

5. Try Things On

6. Don’t Go With Kids

7. Know Your Local Store’s Sale Days

8. If You Really Need Something, Ask

9. Find Ways To Repurpose

10. Stockpile; Think Long-Term

11. Go Often

12. Go With Cash

Read the original for all the details. How about you? Do you enjoy a good thrift store? Have any shopping secrets to share? Let us know at the MindField Online Facebook page, and have a great weekend!

September Savings!

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LB_01Hope everyone had a fun and safe Labor Day!

Here’s a fun exercise: do a search for “September Savings” and see what you get! Among the most popular items, you will find:

  • Bicycles
  • Camping Equipment
  • Cars
  • Perennials, shrubs and trees
  • Lawn equipment
  • Ceiling fans
  • Outdoor furniture
  • Summer food items (picnic, BBQ, etc.)
  • Diabetes products (weird!)
  • Seasonal Produce (summer items)
  • Camping gear
  • Gardening supplies
  • Bug spray
  • Fans and air conditioners
  • BBQ supplies–grills, charcoal, lighters
  • Air Fares: Late September is always a good time to book a flight!
  • Beach houses: If you’re somewhere warm, there’s plenty of time left to enjoy the beach!

There are a bunch of websites to help fuel your September spending – I mean SAVINGS – so check them out here, here, here, here and here.

How about you? Found any good deals lately? Let us know at the MindField Online Facebook page!

Online Privacy?

online-privacyDoes it seem like we all know at least one person who has been hacked or had identity-theft problems? Heck, in South Carolina (where I live) the entire Social Security Department got hacked. Hundreds of thousands of SS numbers were exposed. They had to give free privacy software to EVERYONE in the state!

Now, with that guy running around in exile in Russia, hacker “vigilante” groups like Anonymous, and growing questions about what the government does with the info it collects, people are getting more interested in online privacy. WAY more interested.

In recent days, American Consumer News reports:

  1. Online privacy firm Abine said that downloads of its free DoNotTrackMe browser add-on, which blocks commercial web tracking, increased by 42 percent.
  1. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that, unlike Google, Yahoo and Bing, doesn’t collect or store the data of its users. They got a mention on CNN and Bloomberg, and business went through the roof. Four days in a row of record-breaking traffic, up 33% over the previous week.

Why the focus on commercial web traffic? Because, regardless where the information ends up, commercial traffic is where info-gathering begins.

So, how about you? Are you being more careful? What are you doing? Do you feel safer? Let us know at the MindField Online Facebook page!

BTW, be sure to check out the privacy section of the MindField Online official website!