Frugaling

Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency founded by a mathematician, Satoshi Nakamoto. Essentially, it is a peer-to-peer currency network. If that doesn’t make sense, it’s the same as the US Dollar – without the centralized government maintaining and monitoring it.

Purchasing A Bitcoin

Last week I purchased one Bitcoin (BTC). I used a service provider called Coinbase. The U.S.-based company offers USD to BTC conversions by linking with your bank account. By giving them more information than you’d like to provide, they offer buying and selling capabilities to your real, concrete wallet. Even more, they just announced instant buying and selling.

After transaction fees, it cost me $84.98. Unfortunately, I had to wait about a week to receive the funds (prior to the instant development). This meant watching white-knuckled as the currency fluctuated between $90 and $65 over the week (on Bitcointicker.co). Just days before the transaction was complete, the conversion rate stood at $65 for one Bitcoin. I was looking at losing $20 in my little experiment – before I actually owned one.

Unregulated, Decentralized, Volatile

After reading Forbes writer Kashmir Hill try to live on Bitcoin for a week, I was inspired to learn more about this mysterious currency. Only a few months ago it was up to astronomical levels around $230. Now, it was hovering around $85. Why was there so much excitement and glee around a product that had no formal reserve or legal backing?

Here’s to hoping I survive on the virtual tokens that promise to make online transactions more anonymous and decentralized. No handing over your name and credit card number every time you make a purchase. It’s the online equivalent of paying cash. -Kashmir Hill, Forbes

All of a sudden, in April 2013, Bitcoin received one of the greatest media pushes ever. Everyone was talking about its potential and whether keeping money in the currency was a reasonable investment. The spike caused a wave of surprising outlets to start covering the currency. CNBC, The Atlantic, NBC, Fox, and many others were writing and featuring prominent people in the market. After the illustrious climb, BTC fell back down below $100, and much of the jubilee has quieted.

Due to its unregulated and decentralized status, Bitcoin offers governments around the world a significant challenge. What can they do to monitor a powerful cash-flow underneath the market? Meanwhile, the currency is becoming an increasingly popular method of payment at restaurants and with web services.

A Frugal Cryptocurrency

The grand appeal of Bitcoin comes from the liberated nature of buying and selling something that has no tax or transaction fee. Most payment processors (e.g., American Express, MasterCard, and Visa) charge lofty fees to merchants. This cost of convenience often gets passed onto the customer.

What Bitcoin has the potential to offer is the flexibility and ease of credit cards, with the fee-free nature of cash. The cryptocurrency could offer a win-win for customers and businesses. It could be a new, frugal way to spend and receive money if the infrastructure develops and people can gain interest and invest like traditional currencies.

The only reason more companies aren’t accepting the currency is the possibility of American intervention. The U.S. Government has the capability to block all transactions in and out for companies that deal in Bitcoin. That’s one nasty possibility.

What About My Coin And Yours?

On Wednesday, July 10th, I received the precious coin. Surprisingly, Bitcoin recovered and reached about $100 to the US Dollar. I decided to sell a fraction of the coin back, and have netted a funny little profit from the experiment. Honestly, the risk is scary, but seemingly reducing. With time, it may be comparable to what email has done to regular mail – dwarfed it. If proven safe with time, Bitcoin has the potential to reduce fees and create a more decentralized economy for all – a sort of international currency.

Will you ever use Bitcoins? What’s preventing you from buying into the currency?

Read more about the consequences of advertising: Remove Ads for More Money, Health. Also, are you curious how much advertising is in Rolling Stone Magazine?

A deluge of subscriptions has hit my mailbox recently. Everything from Rolling Stone, Wired, ESPN, and the Wall Street Journal is delivered daily and/or monthly. The best part? It’s all free. The worst part? These stalwarts of the news world have become magnets for advertising.

Today, I opened my mail and found a brand new copy of Outside Magazine. The August issue features a cover story on Ashton Eaton. The olympic runner, along with athletes like him, are catalogued in a fantastic new article. But like my experience with Wired Magazine, it’s clear why they’re giving it away.

Advertising is the only thing keeping most news and media outlets alive. Subscription rates – at least to hardcopy products – have plummeted. Much like free newspapers rely on local advertisers to pay for the difference, Wired Magazine and periodicals like this are inserting more advertising space than ever. By giving away subscriptions, they can inflate their readership and draw in more exclusive advertising.

Without covers (back/front), Outside Magazine is 116 pages long.

41 pages are dedicated ads (not including partials).

The magazine is 35 percent advertising.

Compared to prior examinations, Outside Magazine appears to be far less advertising-based. Unfortunately, many of the ads are contextual (e.g., new products for camping, hiking, and adventure). I didn’t count that style, as it would be less objective. About 10 more pages were dedicated to this article-based marketing, and would’ve made the magazine 44 percent ads.

Being exposed to this amount of advertising can be dire to a frugal budget. Find out how you can take action.

Discounts on fresh foods like strawberries, apples, and salads tend to be hard to come by. Produce has a shorter shelf-life and stores have highly regimented, programmed systems to buy just the right amount each time. Places like Coupons, SmartSource, and CouponNetwork hardly ever offer discounts in these areas. Aside from the weekly specials ad for your local stores, you may never see an added coupon. Fortunately, that’s all changing with Target Cartwheel.

Target Cartwheel (Beta)

Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of it, as Target considers this new coupon platform to be in the beta stages. Target Cartwheel is a personalized savings site that offers discounts from 5 to 50 percent on things you already buy. Users have already redeemed over $470,000 in coupons. Even more, you can save on Target’s store-brand products and in-house “Archer Farms” line.

Search For Products You Love

The secret to Target Cartwheel is searching for what you already purchase. This removes the potential of finding something tangential and unnecessary for purchase. I’m a frequent purchaser of Target’s Archer Farms coffee. All I need to do is search for, “coffee.” Like magic, here’s a coupon for 5 percent off:

Browse For New Coupons

Deals are exceptionally easy to find on this platform and can quickly add up. If you’re inclined to browse for all the available deals or look at select categories, the platform offers a detailed list of areas:

Print Out Your Savings

When you’re finished finding all the deals you want, just print out the full list. Unlike competing coupon companies, the list prints out as a checklist with one barcode. This means that there’s no time wasted clipping and wasting multiple sheets of paper (for 3 coupons a page). In my first experiences using the barcode, everything worked perfectly.

Interested in finding out more about Target Cartwheel? Check out Target’s FAQ page here: http://cartwheel.target.com/help-center