Archive for the ‘Save Money!’ Category

Is your home energy efficient? Columbia Water and Light now offers the Home Performance with Energy Star program. Learn how you can get involved with this program to save money on your utility bills.

Household electronics can add to your utility costs even when they are not in use. Energy guy Dave Mars shows you how to protect your home from phantom power loss.

Let energy guru David Mars show you ways to save energy and water in this short video.  His tips are easy, do-it-yourself projects that don’t cost a lot of money but keep your utility bills low. 

In this episode: Dave Mars shows you how to insulate an electric or gas water heater to save energy and money.

Kids Eat For: Free! ($2.99)

On a budget? What mom isn’t these days?! Kids Eat For will help you find a local restaurants offering a Kids Eat Free or discount specials.

Kidtivities ($1.99)

Do you have a child 2-6 years old? This app provides 100 fun and educational activities for you and your child to do together. Most of these activities are inexpensive (or free) requiring the use of nature and/or materials already found in the typical home.

Baby Monitor & Alarm ($2.99)

How cool is this app?! Turn your iPhone into a baby monitor — no matter where your baby falls asleep. Just enter your home phone number or tap in a new number and place it next to your sleeping baby. When iPhone hears your baby wake up, it calls you. Gotta love technology!

1800 Flowers (FREE!)
Flowers are a Mother’s Day must! Pick out a beautiful bouquet and get

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 it sent to right away!

Spa Finder (FREE!)

What mom (or anyone for that matter) doesn’t need a spa day? Over 5,000 spas listed. Automatically locate spas closest to your current location. Discover deals and last minute special offers!

The best thing to make for dinner is reservations! These are also fantastic apps to have when you need to pick a new restaurant for a client meeting. Here are my 2 favorite apps for that:

OpenTable (FREE!)
With OpenTable for iPhone you can make free restaurant reservations at over 13,000 OpenTable-enabled restaurants in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.

Urbanspoon (FREE!)
Can’t decide where to eat? Urbanspoon can help. Shake your iPhone and the Urbanspoon slot machine will pick a good restaurant for you to try. Keep shaking until you find a restaurant you’re happy with.

Credit scores range between 200 and 800, with scores above 620 considered desirable for obtaining a mortgage. The following factors affect your score:

1. Your payment history. Did you pay your credit card obligations on time? If they were late, then how late? Bankruptcy filing, liens, and collection activity also impact your history.

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2. How much you owe.  If you owe a great deal of money on numerous accounts, it can indicate that you are overextended. However, it’s a good thing if you have a good proportion of balances to total credit limits.

3. The length of your credit history. In general, the longer you have had accounts opened, the better. The average consumer’s oldest obligation is 14 years old, indicating that he or she has been managing credit for some time, according to Fair Isaac Corp., and only one in 20 consumers have credit histories shorter than 2 years.

4. How much new credit you have. New credit, either installment payments or new credit cards, are considered more risky, even if you pay them promptly.

5. The types of credit you use. Generally, it’s desirable to have more than one type of credit — installment loans, credit cards, and a mortgage, for example.

For more on evaluating and understanding your credit score, visit www.myfico.com.

For more information, call Prudential Vision Properties at 573-449-6200 to speak with a real estate expert without any obligation or cost. You can also email your questions to info@PrudentialVision.com (email responses usually come back within the hour)