Now this will sound really off topic, but I think as I was talking about saving money a few days ago, this will help. Uzzz Productions have planned to take a vacation along with some friends to Tennessee. Our dates are final about time. We will be going there from Jan 2nd – Jan 5th 2009. This will be a ski/snowboard trip. And it is in Ober Gatlinburg Tennessee, so if you will be there let me know. But lets get to the point. After the trip was final, I decided to take a trip to the mall to get some winter shopping done.

I went to JCPenny as there was a doorbuster sale that started at 3p.m to close today, and tomorrow it will be from 7a.m to 1p.m, so you have a very good chance of finding some awesome deals. But aside from the awesome deals, there was this coupon that I used which I printed online.

A good habit that I have is that before I go to stores, I always go online and search for coupons. I came across this $10 gift certificate from JCPenny which gets you $10 off of every $10 you spent. So I printed out one page, and it had 3 coupons on one. I said well let me print some extra just in case.

So I head over to the store, and found things that I like. Majority were Buy 1 and get other for 88 cents. So I got some thermals, jackets, pants, sweat pants etc. Well I just made multiple transactions rather than having just one. The advantage of that is I got to use my $10 certificate multiple times because I had about 6 of those. So my pants that was suppose to be $20 ended up being $10. But ofcourse I didn’t stop there. I had another 15% coupon that I found online, so I got the thing for $7.

The website to go if you want to save money at JCPenny is Printable Coupons.

Note: The coupon that says it may not work, it works just to confirm. But it expires tomorrow, so use it tomorrow. And the sale is tomorrow at JCPenny, so head over there with the coupons. Both 15% and the $10 off ones.

Next event is at Macy’s. I got inside news that Macy’s will be giving out $10 gift cards again to their first 150 customers. And as you guys know that what it means exactly is that first 150 customers on each gate, so they have about 1000 of these to give away. Go and take advantage of those.

And aside from that gift card head over to printable coupons, and get the additional coupons from there.

I hope you guys get just as good of a deal as I got. I mean heck I spent $40, but I saved $120 lol. Ain’t that something. The lady at the counter said she needs to learn how to shop from me.

This post is actually sponsored by JCPenny and Macy’s in Gainesville Oaks Mall.

United States is suffering a budget crisis, and the economy is dropping. But that is not just the USA, it is a global issue right now. Unemployment is rising, businesses are failing, people are not getting any raises, but price for almost everything is increasing. Banks are not giving out loans etc etc. So well how do you survive this economy. Some people say savings is the right choice. It is, but it is hard to do that. So the key is you save money by cutting down your spending. So I was asked by Etienne to share some of my tricks on cutting spending.

As you all know that I am a college student. Our group is the most broke out of all, but we manage to survive. I mean I am pretty well off because of the awesome income, but If I don’t spend the way I do, I wouldn’t have good savings. So no matter how much you make, learn how to cut down your spending.

Reduce your Electric Bill

I don’t live in dorms because I just never like them. You don’t have enough privacy. So I live in an apartment and have to pay my own electric bill. Just like most of you guys. Electric bill is a pain in the ass. I have four roommates, so it shouldn’t seem that big, but considering the company just increased their base rate, and the other rates. Our bill ended up to be about $342 for last month. Then we sat and analyzed what could be the biggest problems. Well we have a soon to be best Alternative Rock Band coming along, so the apartment have over $20,000 worth of music instruments. But that is not the problem. The problem is that they are always left plugged in. Do you know that even if you are not using some electronics, and they are plugged. They are using electricity. That was our main problem. The next problem that probably caused the bill to be so high was doing so much laundry.

Solution

As for all your electronics, if you are not using it unplug them. Such as piano, or old television. The best way to take care of that is get a surge protector. Plug them all in in one surge protector. When you are not using the supplies, just unplug the surge protector from the outlet. That is what we are doing for this month, and it should be much better. Laundry is a main problem when there are 4 guys and all go to gym. But the way to fix that is do full size laundries. Rather than just doing half laundry. Don’t use too much lights. If you are leaving the house, then turn of the light. During day time, use sunlight. By doing the above you will reduce your electric bill.

Reduce Gasoline Spending

Sometimes people don’t know how much they are spending on their gas prices over a year. People like to go in their own car. Everyone just go to the gas station, and fill up the tank before it even reaches down the half. People like to accelerate really quick. People are freaking lazy, so they drive almost everywhere. People like to buy show off cars, and they don’t always look for the fuel efficiency.

Solution

Start car pooling or riding the bus. My roommates and I go play basketball every day at the gym. We always go together, so we don’t spend too much gas. Let your car go down to almost empty tank. That way you actually know how many miles you get per tank. You need to drive under 2 RPM, so that means don’t accelerate fast. Whenever you fill your car tank, make sure you reset the odometer trip reading, so you can measure how many miles per gallon (mpg) you are getting. If you are thinking of buying a car, buy a car that is more fuel efficient rather than buying something that is not fuel efficient.

Reduce Grocery Bill and Other shopping Bills

You guys like to eat right. Oo yeah I like to eat too. Eating is one of the necessity which you can’t really reduce. So it is stupid to say to cut down on your eating habits because that would be unhealthy. You buy clothes, I am not going to tell others to do something that I don’t do. So I won’t tell you not to buy brandable clothes or what not. But you can change your way of your shopping style.

Solution

Look for coupons. That is the solution. Change your shopping style. Wait for good sales, and use the coupons. Now you will say how would you know what sales are going on. Simple, as you walk in the store just grab their catalog. You won’t believe how many of those actually have good coupons in the back. So use those coupons. Try to get good deals. If you ask the employees sometimes they can help also.

Reducing Net Spending

Sometimes you spend money. But if you spend and get some of the money back then technically your net spending is reduced. How do you reduce net spending?

Solution

Simple, Don’t pay CASH. Why would you pay cash. Just use a credit card, and pay your credit card bills monthly. This way you get cash back. I mean 2% is better than nothing. It helps your credit score as well because you pay your bills on time.

Now those are the ways that I use to cut down my spending. I hope now you can save a little bit more money. Secure your future from the bad times. If you have any more tips feel free to add them in the comments.

U.S Presidential Elections are coming pretty soon. And I want you guys to go and vote. Do your research, and cast your vote and make a difference. But before you pick your candidates from the two main parties, you might want to check out the third one and that is me.

You guys know with the growing readership here at Balkhis, someone was nice enough to send my name into this virtual show and I got selected. Yay me. Check out the video and let me know.

This video is for people who don’t vote. Please do your research and make a difference by voting. Please Please Please….

Now Watch the Video and Enjoy.

So what do you think? I know it is a prank lol. But I only put it on the web just to tell people that they should vote and make a difference.

Now if you want to trick your readers, you can do it simply. Just copy the codes below, and change the name to whatever you want.

<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" WIDTH="384" HEIGHT="304"> <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="http://www.paltalk.com/marketing/media/vanksen/main.swf"> <PARAM NAME=flashvars VALUE="firstname=Syed&lastname=Balkhi&urlfin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tsgnet.com%2Fpres.php?id=357563%26altf=Tzfe%26altl=Cbmlijt%26lap=2"> <PARAM NAME="BGCOLOR" VALUE="#000000" /> <PARAM NAME="allowScriptAccess" VALUE="always" /> <EMBED src="http://www.paltalk.com/marketing/media/vanksen/main.swf" quality=high WIDTH="384" HEIGHT="304" ALIGN="" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" FLASHVARS="firstname=Syed&lastname=Balkhi&urlfin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tsgnet.com%2Fpres.php?id=357563%26altf=Tzfe%26altl=Cbmlijt%26lap=2" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" BGCOLOR="#000000" ALLOWSCRIPTACCESS="ALWAYS"> </EMBED> </OBJECT>

So as I mentioned to you guys that I was going to the NCAA Football game last night where my school University of Florida played Louisiana State University. Well the game was suppose to start at 8, but they open the gate 90 minutes before. So me and couple friends were in the stadium about 80 minutes before the kick off. This was my first time going to a gator game because until last year I had no interest in this.

Well now my seats were all the way up top to get a clear view of everything. There were 90,000+ Fans attending the game last night. Obviously UF Gators won woot. The final score was 51-21.

If you have been to any of the college football games, you should know parking is a big pain. Well here in UF Parking is a big pain in the ass during the game. If you ride the bus, they charge you $8, and they move slower then I can walk. Well my apartment is about 2.9 miles away from the stadium. But I didn’t walk all the way. I drove and park my car in front of my friend’s dorm who lives about 1.5 miles away from the stadium. Then we all walked from there. Hey atleast I didn’t walk the whole trip.

Anyways, I got the whistle, air horn and all that but found out that I can’t take those in the stadium eh. Lame…. But any who, I got myself a new gator shirt, Face paint and the cap.

Check out some of the pictures from the game. Note: None of the pictures are actually of playing the game because duh I was watching a long with 90,000 other people.

For those of you who may not know, yesterday was Syed Balkhi’s birthday. Our dear friend Syed has entered the world of adulthood and yesterday was his eightteenth birthday.

Who knew that our favorite webmaster was not even old enough to vote? In the almost nine months he has operated Balkhis, he has not only provided quality content but has presented it in a way that is easy to understand. He started Uzzz Productions that has provided quality designs for many of us out there. And who can forget his newspaper apperance?

So it is my honor to say happy {belated} birthday Syed, and I hope you all wish him the same. Lets hope the world of adulthood meets him with even more sucess.