4 Suprising Ways to Save Big on Big Auto Repairs on a Shoe String Budget

You're driving down the highway and your check engine light chimes. You begin to worry as your engine temperature rapidly elevates. 

Smoke rises from the engine as you pull to a stop on the shoulder. Opening the hood, you hear the sound of sizzling coolant on the engine block. The head cracked on your motor, producing not only a mess and added inconvenience, but a repair with a very hefty price tag. 

What are you doing to do?

Many of us have had to deal with a similar situation. Vehicles are imperfect, meaning that they are capable of breaking down at any time. 

Sometimes, the required repairs are quite expensive. If you find yourself in this situation, there are four ways you can dramatically reduce the price of your repair and get you back into your car quickly.

1. Do the Work Yourself

For most auto repairs, a significant cost in the repair at a garage or service center is labor cost. If you are mechanically-inclined, this could be a chance to save some major dough. 

Some jobs require a lot of time, so if you are willing to source your own parts and spend your weekend completing repairs, you could reduce your repair bill from thousands of dollars to hundreds.

2. Visit a Scrapyard

If you are comfortable doing repairs yourself, many parts can be found in salvage vehicles that have deeply-discounted prices over new OEM parts. 

Visit a pick-a-part style scrapyard, like U Pull & Pay, and ask for your year, make and model. Most sites will have a very similar vehicle. If you remove the parts yourself, you can get your car running for a fraction of the price.

3. Borrow Tools

If you have not had the chance to get a lot of specialized tools, you can typically go to an auto parts store and rent a tool. 

This is significantly cheaper than buying a special tool you may only use once.

4. Avoid Dealer Service Centers

If you are not comfortable doing the work yourself, take your vehicle to a local and trusted garage. 

Dealership service centers tend to have higher labor rates and higher part costs. By finding a small garage, they usually know the best ways to save you some money. This could be by using remanufactured or aftermarket parts, or charging a lower labor rate.

The next time you find yourself needing an expensive repair, keep these tips in mind to save yourself a lot of money.

7 Everyday Ways to Save Money

In today’s society, we often spend more than the ideal amount for our families. Whether you would like some wiggle room in your budget or a family vacation, you don’t necessarily need to make more. 

There are tons of ways to save money on a weekly or even daily basis. Below are 7 easy, everyday ways to save money for you and your family:

1. Make a Grocery List

Before you take the trip to the grocery store, make a list. When you go food shopping without a written list, you tend to buy unnecessary items and forget important ones. 

The cycle continues when you have to return to the store for those forgotten items.

Start by writing down the items you know you need like milk, eggs, and bread. Then, look through your local store’s circular for sale items you can use that week. 

Fruits, vegetables, and meats can be found on sale every week. It helps to write the list by section of the store to make it easier to follow. It can also help to add up each item’s price with a calculator as you put it in the cart. 

Though this makes the shopping trip take a bit longer, it will encourage you to stay within your budget. By using these tips, you can save money on your grocery bill.

2. Utilize Coupons

Coupons are gaining popularity and can be found in print and digital forms. A lot of people think of coupons for groceries but they are also available for retail stores and other products too. 

There are some great resources out there if you are unsure of where to start.

CouponMom is a website that covers major chain stores in most states and gives you clear coupon matchups to go along with sales. 

This allows you to save extra money on items you would buy anyway. RetailMeNot is another great website and app that allows users to find coupons for retail stores and either print or use them right from a smart phone.

The searches are simple and can save you a lot.

3. Cut Unnecessary Expenses

Do you wonder where all of your extra money is going? Take a look at your statements to see if there are any subscriptions you are being charged for and aren’t actually using. 

These can include newspaper, magazine, gym, and credit check subscriptions. Also, think about other items you buy regularly and determine whether you really need them.

4. Walk More

It’s true—we live in the land of getting everywhere fast; but sometimes it’s good to slow down and enjoy life. 

Choosing to walk to nearby destinations can be good for your mental and physical health, in addition to saving you gas money.

5. Maintain Tires to Save on Gas Mileage

Simply keeping tires inflated can help you save on gas mileage. When tires are inflated to proper levels, the amount of improvement can range from 0.6% to 3%. 

In addition to inflation, tires should be rotated every 5,000 miles. Rotating your tires helps to create even wear. Not only does even wear prolong the life of your tires, it can also save on gas mileage, so visit a tire center like City Limit Tire & Service today if you haven’t for a while.

6. Make Your Coffee at Home Instead of Purchasing by the Cup

Some of us cannot go a morning without our cup of coffee. If you usually purchase your coffee on your way to work, try making it at home and taking it with you for a week. 

Depending on how many coffees you have each day, there could be a pretty good savings (e.g. 2 coffees x $2 x 5 days per week = $20).

7. Bring Lunch from Home

It’s okay to go out for lunch when you can, but if you are looking to save money, bringing your own may be a better option. 

Say you spend $10 on lunch every work day. That’s now $50 per week. Add that to your $20 on coffee and you have $70 you could have saved.

Now that you have some ideas on how to save some extra money, give one or more a try this week. Check your tire pressure, make a list, use a coupon, and pack a lunch. 

These small steps will all add up over time and save you a lot of money.

Tokenization - Security Technology Incredibly Effective at Preventing Online Credit Card Frauds

Security is the biggest term of the decade regarding credit card buying that has become one of the most common habits of the customers. 

However, the data violation regarding the credit card online transaction or offline transaction is rapidly increasing. Even, the security has become more prominent among the users and business owners, after the current data breach at Best Buy and Target.

Advancement is the natural phenomena and by holding the hand of this guide, a new technology termed as EMV has been launched in the market in the recent time. 

It is a chip, inside the credit card which is very much useful to control the fraud case in various environments like supermarkets, retail stores where you need to deal with your credit card. 

Nevertheless, in the event of a card-not-present transaction, the information is more susceptible to fraud because the details are loaded on the server of the high risk merchant accounts. Protection is the only key in this context. 

Secure payment processing with Tokenization:

With the assistance of tokenization, the encrypt security has become stronger by securing the detail information of credit card and by avoiding the violation data feasibility altogether for card-present and card-not-present transactions. 

 In this process of tokenization, the system or defined technology converts the information of customer’s credit card into a bunch of random numbers. 

It should have been assimilated in the virtual vault so that when the recall of information is required, it can be dragged again.

The tech world has faced a rapid and nifty advancement in this domain in last few years. Tokenizing is the essential tool to secure the personal credit card information from the cheaters or hackers. If customer's data is saved to your server, then you are liable for data breach damages.

What is Tokenization and how does it work with EMV?

Tokenization is the keen way to reinforce the way of security for e-commerce and credit card transactions. Also, it minimises the cost complexity by complying all rules and regulations of government and industry standards. 

The working procedure of tokenization evokes a particular pathway in which the merchant is issued with a specific tokenization service provider which drives the credit card to convert into a random token of alphanumeric or numeric combinations during any transaction. 

As tokens are not the real cards, it cannot be used by hackers outside this context of the transaction. In that case, the service provider bears the liability to keep the data secret.

EMV is designed to improve the inherent security of e-commerce card transaction that is an enticing gun to protect from the fraud at the POS (point of sale). 

It is an authentication process that can reduce the retail fraud in the e-commerce e-market. However, it is not entirely technically sound to protect the chip-enabled cards. In the sphere of online marketing, EMV does not provide protection more than traditional cards. 

It just asserts the swipe and sign in of the card by delivering the card number, CCV code and an email verification to complete the process of purchase. 

What is encryption?

Data encryption is the profound way to protect the information of the card holder. Nevertheless, the latest launch is the approach to secure the data beyond encryption, and that is called Tokenization. 

This viable solution to avoid the breaching of credit card information is ideal regarding encryption at the point of card swipe. The point-to-point or end-to-end encryption is designed to locate the risk of unwanted interception during the transaction from POS terminal to the payment processor. 

Which method is best?

To identify the fraud patterns and to prevent them as well Tokenization is the latest solution. 

When it is applied to the data security concern, it transforms all given information into equivalent non-sensitive information from sensitive data element. The original value is stored in a protected local data warehouse. 

The goal is to eliminate the risk factor of losing sensitive information in the retail fraud case, and Tokenization is the best in this regard. 

Concerns with Tokenization:

A number of mindful considerations are related to this system, and they are compiled below.

• Data isolation
• decreased scope for PCI issues
• Internal protection
• goes well with other technologies
• Online protection
• Secured usernames, passwords, employee and patient files, e-mail addresses
• is cost effective 

Should you embrace Tokenization within your store?

Tokenization is to be incorporated in every store, whether it is a small scale retail store, or if your store is to be accessed online. 

This is effective because the hackers won’t get anything to track for as your store does not have any data right after the transaction.

You can always make your tokenization process more secure with the help of secure gateway of payment. Remember, thieves are meant to steal, and their endeavour shall continue as more advanced technologies come up in the market. 

Nevertheless, the system of tokenization is comparatively easy to install in your workplace. You do not have to change your infrastructure entirely to adopt this process.

3 Incredibly Useful Practices to Avoid Debt Relief Scams in Retirement

Debt relief is never a time that people want to fall victim to a scam but unfortunately is does happen. There are some signs to look for though which can ensure that you remain protected against fraudulent financial scams. 

While the great news is that many debt relief companies are in fact legitimate, it is highly suggested to conduct more research in finding out how effective they truly are. 

Here are a few great tips to help you discern which companies are worth looking into and which are not. 

Conduct a Search on the Internet

The Internet, by far, is the easiest way to find out all of the information that is needed. You can check out the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for reviews and to see how helpful the company has been. 

Many individuals and companies alike that have found they needed to know more about debt consolidation, have gone through the motions conducted the research and have already received the help that they are looking for. 

In turn, many will state whether they have had a pleasant or unpleasant experience to help others that may find themselves, in a similar situation in the future. 

Additionally, searches conducted on the Internet will automatically link you to the sites that have the most traffic, have gained the most recognition, and most importantly – have helped many that have suffered from accruing too much debt. 

Go With Your Gut!

Trust yourself! Even though you may find yourself in a financial bind and feel overwhelmed with the amount of debt that has accumulated, if you get a funny feeling or something is not sitting right within you, do not allow that to go unnoticed. 

As humans, we all have natural instincts and typically, they are not far off from steering us in the proper direction. 

The Association of Settlement Companies

There is always The Association of Settlement Companies (TASC) as well. This is a well- established company in the debt relief sector that is responsible for setting the standard for the current debt settlement process and practices going on now. 

In knowing this fact, you can utilize the information because there is not really a debt relief/consolidation company should not belong to an organization such as this.

Trusting in yourself and the information that is given to you will certainly help you avoid any scams and fraudulent companies. If a company is promising all the bells and whistles, and it sounds too good to be true, more than likely – it is. 

Getting out of debt does take time and effort it is a process and will not happen overnight. Speaking with the right people you will easily be able to gauge your own comfort levels and be able to tell how educated they are, how much experience they have and what they are willing to do to help you out of your current financial situation.

Bio: To know more about debt relief, contact the highly esteemed Stephanie Clarke. With her experience and knowledge in this particular sector you can rest assured that you are in good hands and trust the fact that she will go above and beyond informing you with the right information and steer you down the path to financial freedom.