Ranking your friends

Not that you should rank your friends by the hookups they have, but there's something to be said for hanging out with other people who have hookups. My friend Maria and I are each 'in' with a different set of venue owners and bartenders, so when we hang out we somehow get stuff comped everywhere we go. The problem is when you're just throwing down big tips in exchange for free drinks, you end up getting double the drinks you intended to, tipping twice as much as normal, and therefore spending more than you would have if you'd paid for the drinks in the first place.

I didn't say we were very clever. Just very popular.

Recycling Cell Phones

An article in the New York Times today pointed me to these two sites that will pay you for your old cell phone, or at least recycle it.
www.cellforcash.com
www.oldcellphone.com

t-t-t-t-too much time on your hands?

Have a lot of extra time? Perhaps you're a student on summer break or you have an office job where they don't track your internet usage. If so, sign up to take online surveys. Most of them pay terribly or in gifts, but when you're bored anyway it feels like free money.

About.com lists 77 sites for online surveys.

Price-Adjustment

I get called a no-good scamming weasel all the time for the advice in the book. But in Marie-Claire magazine in July, a writer lists an equally scammy plan:

If stores offer a "price adjustment" policy- if the store puts an item on sale that you bought within a certain time after purchase, they will refund you the difference in price- then you can take advantage of the policy for seasonal items. This woman said she'd buy a St. Patrick's day t-shirt a few days before the holiday, then as they go to like 80% off on the day after the holiday she'd go get the refund and have gotten a shirt for next to nothing.

Rock stars and housewives: we're both bastards.

Upgrades

DailyCandy lists tips on how to get airline seat upgrades.

Make your own sports drink

After paying about $2.50 for Gatoraid at the supermarket, I got the clever idea that someone had probably come up with a recipe for sports drinks you can make at home. These two I found look the most practical of several sites I researched:

http://www.dissidents.com/articles/sportsdrink.htm

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf641006.tip.html

Let me know how it goes.

Free Audiobooks

audiobooksforfree.com let's you download audiobooks at low quality mp3 format for free or pay a few bucks for better quality. (Link found on Lifehacker.com)

Ebay alternatives

From July's Budget Living (yet still more research), I found these sites listed as alternatives to Ebay, which raised its charges from 5.25 to 8 percent of the closing price. Some are auction sites and others are just stores.

BidChaser.com
Overstock.com
blujay.com
iOffer.com

and of course, there's always Craigslist.

Putting the moves on

In July's FHM magazine (more research), there was some "special advertising feature" where guys try out new moves to score on women. The two pick-ups I think are best are:
-Sharing stories of your family to demonstrate commitment (even when the stories are fake).
-Complimenting a woman on her shoes.

Ones that didn't work were
-Dressing like a smart guy. (Everybody does that now.)
-Pretending to be a virgin. (That's so eighties.)

Travel Tips

I was reading Redbook (for research, not recreation) and came across these travel tips from Peter Greenberg, author of The Travel Detective.

-Airfares are lowest Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings.

-Make hotel reservations at 4PM on Sundays- that's the best time to ask the clerk for a discount because it won't be the regular hard-ass hotel clerk.

-Rent cars on Saturday afternoons for the best discounts, because at that point they're worried about the no-shows.