Healthy Halloween Treats

What are some healthy Halloween treat for your kids?  The following is a partial list for health conscious parents:

• CLIF Kid twisted fruit ropes (pack of 9 at $19.99)
• Boxes of Raisins (pack of 4 at $12.98)
• Whole Foods pressed organic fruit leather
• Annie's organic bunny fruit snacks (pack of 4 at $15.44)
• Nature's Path Envirokidz Organic Crispy Rice Snacks (pack of 6 at $18.46)
• Bag of peanuts (pack of 144 at $38.89)
• Organic snack pack of peanut butter and crackers (pack of 4 at $19.90)

Clearwire's 4G Rover Puck - Perfect for College Students

If you live in a Clearwire Wimax city, like true mobile broadband (e.g. 4G) on the go, also have several devices need mobile broadband service at the same time, and most importantly, want to save money (i.e. $50 a month for UNlimited usage vs. capped by 5G usage), Clearwire's Rover Puck is definitely the one to use.  More detailed reviews are here and here.

Are You Eligible for the Free $50,000 Government Money?

Who says there is no FREE money in the U.S.?  If you know uncle Sam well, you might get one.


In early October of 2010, HUD started an Emergency Homeowner Loan Program in 32 states.  The goal is to hand out up to $50,000 declining balance, deferred payment, nonrecourse, and zeor interest loans to each needy family.  Of course, not all families are eligible.  As you can expect, there are many restrictions, some of the key ones include:

a. Income eligibility: not higher than 120% of area median income

b. Primary residence

c. Lost of income at least 15%

d. Able to recover lost income in 2 years

e. Expense to income ratio limit

Check out http://www.hud.com/ to find more details.  Congratulates if you fit the profile!

Free Smartphones at Best Buy - Oct 22 Only

Best Buy started something deal lovers love - free phone Friday - a few weeks back.  This Friday - Oct 22, you can find Samsung's Galaxy S phone on Verizon, Blackberry's Bold 9700 on T-mobile and AT&T, and Sanyo Zio on Sprint Nextel, ALL are FREE!!!

Yes, these are old phones, but they are all smartphones each has its own fans.  Free is a pretty good deal, who can beat that?

Where to Find Cheap But Good Collectibles?

The following is an incomplete list of websites for people who like to do online garage shopping.  Just like the physical world's garage shopping, you will often find pleasant surprises:

www.1stdibs.com (if you like to spend money on exotic foreign accent furnitures, this is the one)

www.lumas.com (you don't have to go to art galleries, here is one you can browse anytime)

www.rubyland.com (a collectible fanatic's heaven)

www.beehiveco-op.com (a collection from some of the most famous artists)

www.formerfurniture.com (buy or sell, modern and antique)

www.etsy.com (handmade stuff from hundreds of thousands small mom pop shops)

www.casasugar.com (this should be your first visit each day, cheap but elequent)

www.remodelista.com (artful design, step by step instructions)

www.shopgoodwill.com (cheap but beautiful)

www.overstock.com

www.ebay.com

sohaute.typepad.com (design ideas from a designer)

Comparison Shopping On the Go - iPhone App

Consumer Union, the independent nonprofit publisher, just unveiled its Consumer Reports Mobile Shopper iPhone application touting unbiased information encompassing thousands of appliances, electronics, children's products, automotive and home products. 

Its annual price is $9.99, will jump to $14 from Jan 1, 2011.  So grab it fast!

Consumer Reports Mobile Shopper allows consumers to:

• Instantly scan barcodes, browse or search to find product information
• View complete test Ratings for thousands of products
• Compare Ratings, features and specs
• Check overall reliability by brand
• Shop online or shop locally: find the best deals online or at nearby retail stores.
• Share deals or product ideas with friends and family via email or Facebook
• Save products for quick and easy access

The app is available in the iTunes store, for iPhones using iOS 4.0 or greater.  A version for Android is currently in development, as well.

HTC EVO 4G Only $99 and Free Shipping

This is scorching hot - HTC EVO 4G, which revolutionalized the mobile industry as the first 4G phone back in June 2010, has been in short supply since then.  Even you are lucky, you have to hand over $199 to get it.

Amazon.com is offering a brand new HTC EVO 4G for only $99 to new customers who sign up a 2-year contract with Sprint.  This offer comes with free 2-day shipping, free activation (until Oct 18), and no tax.  This is definitely the best smartphone offer in the marketplace today!

How to Get Low Cost Textbooks II

Rent Instead of Buy

There are many ways to rent textbooks online, here is a partial list:

1. www.Rent-a-text.com, it partners with over 800 universities to provide rental textbooks at half of purchase prices.  Students can also book online and pick up at local bookstores.

2. www.Chegg.com is another website well known for its rental textbooks.

3. Some less known websites include: www.BookRenter.com, www.CampusBookRentals.com, www.ECampus.com, www.Textbookrentals.com, www.Collegebookrenter.com


Comparison Shopping

1. www.Campusbooks.com allows one to do comparison shopping to find the best deals online

2. www.BigWords.com is another online comparison book shopping site


Buy Second Hand Books

1. www.Half.com

2. www.eBay.com

3. www.Amazon.com


Use Online Coupons

The following websites provide coupon codes for different publishers:

1. www.CouponWinner.com

2. www.PromoCodes.com

3. www.PromotionalCodes.com

Free or Low Cost Textbook Deals

Nobody wants to spend $100 or more for a textbook, use it for a semester, then sell back for only $12 or less.  The following is a collection of ways to beat the expensive Textbook system:

Use Free eTextbooks
Nothing can beat free, the following list includes some of the most popular sources of textbooks:
1. Check www.books.google.com which includes many eTextbooks
2. Check Project Gutenberg www.gutenberg.org which includes many books with expired copy rights
3. Access Open Source Textbooks from www.flatworldknowledge.com
4. Download from www.ManyBooks.net to your Kindle or iPhone

Buy Cheaper eTextbooks
1. eBooks cost you half or print versions.  Buy a Kindle for only $139 or iPad for $573, then enjoy eTextbooks from their libraries.
2. Check out www.CourseSmart.com which includes many eBooks that you can draw underlines, take notes, or print out to read (max 10 page per print).

T-mobile HTC G2 for only $99

Smartphones are typically priced at $199 or higher, especially for high end smartphones.  Not anymore, although not anywhere yet, Amazon is offering T-mobile's HTC G2 for only $99, shipping is free!  The caveat?  A 2-year contract with T-mobile, which is typical and you really can't get away from it from any wireless carrier, unless you opt for a prepaid plan.  But prepaid plans and high end smartphones are really two different camps that don't mingle together.

How good is the T-mo HTC G2?  Let's compare it with Sprint's Epic 4G.  We can see many similarities, as well as a few differences aside from them being two different manufacturers and carriers.

Download speeds are essentially the same, which was to be expected.  Both smartphones have all the features you’d expect for an Android smartphone, but below we’ll highlight what you usually don’t see in feature spec details…processor speed tests and their results.

The tests were performed by apps from the Android Market. Those apps are;

• Speed Pi – installed on both phones to calculate the speed the phone can calculate the  value of Pi to 1 million digits
• Quadrant – more granular benchmark tests including 2D and 3D video and CPU clocking.

After testing, the G2 came out on top with an average of 25% better results than the Epic 4G (Galaxy S). Something to mention however is the 4 inch AMOLED screen on the Epic 4G and the much more appealing, true color display as opposed to the 3.7 inch LCD screen on the G2.  Both graphics tests finished great, but you can see the difference with the naked eye.

Best of all, G2 normally costs $199 at almost anywhere, but Amazon currently offers it for only $99 with FREE shipping.