PM's Self Reliance Tools: Dad's Day Deals, 6 Ways to Get Money, Cut that A/C Bill

Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

http://www.PoorManSurvival.com

For Independent Minded People!

ISSN 2161-5543

In This Issue:

1. eBay essentials for the novice

2. 9 Ways to Cut that AC bill

3. Do you need a nanny or do you want to fix America?

4. What to do for Father’s Day

5. 6 Ways to find free money

Robert Orben
Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards.

What to do for Father’s Day?

Compared to Mother’s Day, most Dads I know come up with the short end of the stick. We don’t need another tie or game. We need another steak and a beer!

There are many things one can do to support dear old dad on this day and they don’t have to cost a lot of loot. Siblings can pitch in and do some chores like sharpening the mower blade or cleaning the BBQ grill. Buy him a case of his favorite beer and one of his favorite snacks to go with it.

My Mom was pretty cool. One year she threw him a party and hired a stripper for Dad. Unfortunately, I was on the other side of the country and missed it!

Personally, I could use a new chain saw. None of the locals here sharpen the blades anymore so it might be easier to get a new blade or a new saw. Here’s what one family did which I thought was pretty nice…

One year my siblings and I pooled our allowance savings and paid the electric bill as our Father's Day gift to our dad. It wasn't the flashiest or most exciting present, but we liked the idea that we were checking something off his endless to-do list and giving him a brief opportunity to relax with us. Over the years, we've given him concert tickets, cameras and iPods, but that one gesture stands out as one of the most meaningful. Even something as small as an app that's related to your dad's interests or hobbies can make for a thoughtful Father's Day gift. -Megan Beauchamp

Here are a few discounts to take advantage of this weekend:

Beef ‘O’ Brady’s: Dads eat free with the purchase of an entree on Father’s Day [6/17 only].

Boston Market: $1 off a half-chicken individual meal (print first) [6/17].

Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant: Free small pasta dish with the purchase of a large entree (print first) [6/17].

Del Taco: Free carnitas taco al carbon with the purchase of a drink (print first) [6/9].

Friendly’s: Three-scoop sundaes are buy-one-get-one-free on Father’s Day [6/17 only].

Hooters: Free $5 bonus card with the purchase of a $25 gift card [expiration unknown].

Let’s raise one for those under-appreciated men in our lives! Try this recipe for a classic English beer cocktail, the Snakebite. Combine one part hard apple cider with one part Stella Artois or Harp Lager in a tall glass adding the cider first…great with burgers or ribs!

Make gourmet burgers using chuck roast instead and have your butcher grind it!

PM’s Compendium of Useful Resources

Versatile modular panels can be combined to create myriad portable structures

Modular building components increasingly offer an array of fresh alternatives to the traditionally prebuilt housing structure, and we’ve even seen an entire eco-minded home that can be snapped together using Lego-style bricks. Teal Panels, however, are a new option offering even more versatility because they can be joined together to create a variety of temporary homes, sports cabins, trailers, campers and more.

A Phillips head screwdriver is all that’s required to assemble Teal Panels, which are rotationally molded from rugged polyethylene plastic and then injected under pressure with polyurethane foam for rigidity and insulation. Basic, corner, window and door configurations are available to permit the construction of a wide variety of styles, and they can be cinched together with nylon straps to create a weather-tight seal. Cabinets, beds, dinettes and camper pop-up tops are available, and panels can be attached to the floor as well as anchored to a trailer, pickup, ground or floor surface.

Website: www.tealinternational.com

NEED DONATIONS FOR MEDICAL EXPENSES? A BOOK PROJECT? A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN? ANOTHER CROWDFUNDING SITE GOES LIVE

Crowdfunding - which means soliciting money directly from the public - is becoming a hot trend.

At Indiegogo.com, you can seek donations for everything from medical expenses to political campaigns. At Kickstarter.com, as I've mentioned here before, you can pitch "creative projects" such as books, photography, online games, and movies.

Now a new site, Indiebackers.com, narrows down the Kickstarter approach, and accepts pitches for creative visual projects such as animation, a music video, a documentary, a TV pilot, or a "webisode" (online TV).

It’s been awhile since I posted anything about eBay resources…here are some good ones!

EBay Essentials-17-Part Video Course for Newbies

http://www.auctionarbitragesecret.com/ebay-essentials.html

Deb's information is a great companion piece to my Auction Arbitrage Secret, for which finding your own lucrative niche to sell in is vital. Niche finding and domination is one of the best routes to selling success for beginners and intermediate users of eBay. Let Deb's information give you an edge on your competition.

No forms to fill in. Nothing to pay.

How to find niches on eBay. It's a report by Deb Henry, writer of Fishing For Niches, an eBay Instructor who's an expert on this topic.
http://petebruckshaw.com/ ISoldItOneBay.pdf

Visit this site to find business plan templates, financial tutorials and more – all designed to help you succeed with your business start up.

SheTakesOntheWorld.net

6 Ways To Find Free Money

What are the two words that people love most? Oftentimes it's free and money! Who doesn't want to get free money?

What's amazing is the number of people who I run into on a regular basis who continue to leave money on the table!

If you woke up this morning, got your cup of coffee and went to the front porch to get your paper and instead found a nice, crisp $100 bill, would you pick it up? Of course you would! You wouldn't pick up your paper and say, "Oh a $100 bill" and turn and walk into your house, and yet thousands of people are doing just that.

One of the best feelings in the world is putting on a pair of pants or a jacket and reaching in the pocket only to pull out a crumpled $10 bill that you forgot about! I love that! So, let's find some free money:

http://www.stretcher.com/stories/10/10mar22f.cfm

9 ways to cool down air-conditioning costs

Hear that? It's the sound of your air conditioner running and the sound of your bank account drying up.

Heating and air conditioning your home take a 43 percent bite from your monthly utility bill, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Here's how to reduce those costs in summer.

Most heat that accumulates inside a house comes directly from the sun shining onto the roof or through windows, and heating the house directly," says John Krigger, owner of Saturn Resource Management, which offers energy conservation training in Helena, Mont.

Planting leafy trees around the building's exterior will stop the sun from reaching inside your home. "Even for the cost of going to the nursery and buying a 15- to 20-foot-tall tree, trees are still the best value," Krigger says.

The Post office has just introduced Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes that you purchase in advance and they are like the Forever stamps --the postage will never go up. Here is a link to the USPS site that explains the program. http://tinyurl.com/89frr7h

Build a Shelter: With a handful of zip ties and a bunch sticks, you can improvise a sturdy shelter that can protect you from the elements if you're ever get caught outdoors for a night. Soldiers in WWI and earlier built shelters with nothing more than sticks and grapevines.

The Nanny State Updates…

Don’t just sit there…Even when you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there! --Will Rogers

If you need a Nanny, don’t read this.

If you want to help fix America, please read…

The U.S. government is not going to help you survive when things hit the fan, but it is not going to disappear either.

In fact, the federal government will probably try to grab more power than ever in an attempt to "restore order".

For the 3^rd year in a row, the income for the average American family has dropped; It is nearly the same as where it was in 1996 when adjusted for inflation.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the latest victim of Washington politics. I don’t need a Nanny and I would think you don’t either!

We may change nothing. Indeed, the odds are against us given the financial entrenchment special interests have in our political system. But some of you reading this right now may change our future in a very decisive way.

There are 5% of us who make things happen. There are 45% of us who watch what’s happening and 50% who don’t know anything that’s happening. Which one are you?

Do you have ideas on how to fix America? Send them to me or post your comment at:
http://www.poormansurvival.com/Pages/HelpAmericaChallenge.aspx

Remove deck mildew with vinegar. Just spray the deck with undiluted white vinegar and let sit for 2 hours, then rinse off with your hose.

The Parting Thought –

Government Policies & Largess Strangling the Country

In the world of politics “the creation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion, distraction and/or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of the populace,” has become the norm.

Washington, DC, has honed “bread and circuses” to a fine art these days, and we, the people, are going to pay the price before long if we continue accepting these shallow gifts instead of standing firm against the rampant government spending.

Washington has been aided and abetted in this distraction by the mainstream media or, as our friend Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute likes to refer to them, presstitutes.

It is estimated that about half of American households now receive some sort of government benefit or service, creating what Charles J. Sykes has called “a nation of moochers” in his book A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing.

A Heritage Foundation report released in April found that dependency on the federal government increased by 23% in just the first two years of Obama’s presidency.

Believe it or not, over the years the health of the US job market owes a lot to initial public offerings (IPOs) and small business.

The Kauffman Foundation of Entrepreneurship just released a study showing that a steady stream of companies going public has substantially added to employment through the years.

From 1980 to 2000, the average number of companies going public each year was 298. But from 2000 to 2011, that average fell to 90.

Since small businesses are an important growth engine of our job markets, this statistic is very troubling.

Going public gives these entrepreneurs access to capital to finance their growth, expand revenues and employment and pay more taxes to Uncle Sam.

Kauffman shows that the 2,766 companies that went public from 1996 to 2010, employed 7.3 million Americans after their IPOs, compared with 5.1 million before their IPOs. That equates to a growth in employment of 45%.

Kauffman further estimates that had IPO growth remained at these levels post-2000, another 1.9 million Americans might be employed today.

The continuing raft of new rules and regulations on businesses, accompanied by more stringent laws on Wall Street, is stifling the ability of companies to go public, which in turn stifles job growth.

The amount of red tape facing entrepreneurs has grown tremendously during the past decade (no matter which party is in the White House) and that plain old discourages business growth and employment.

“Until the next revolution”, the Poor Man

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