My husband is a home inspector, and he says that as the economy gets worse that it’s amazing how much he finds stolen from homes that have been vacant on the market but are now ready for inspection.  We’ve all heard on the news that people were going around cutting and stealing copper pipe from warehouse sites, but now its spread to private homes.

For instance, he’s been into crawl spaces only to find that all the piping has been cut and taken away from underneath the house!  He says it used to be just copper pipe, but now it’s everything including galvanized pipe.  He says he’s been in bank-owned houses where people have broken in and even sawn into the drywall to get to the water and gas pipes.  They do this because they know that the banks have turned everything off, plus these houses typically get less traffic. 

But no house is immune:  he’s finding water heaters and furnaces stolen, air conditioning units and even outdoor appliances.  If the house has a drop in grills or an outdoor sink, that’s a target for theft as well.  And it’s getting worse and worse:  I saw on the news that a fully occupied house had the tubing leading up to the air conditioning unit stolen in the night!

Technorati Tags: drop in grills, home inspector, outdoor sink

One of my friends is a photographer.  The bulk of his business centers on weddings and graduations.  From what he told me, while weddings are a lot of fun, he makes most of his money off of graduation photo services.

My friend is one of those people that you see standing at the podium that takes your picture as you are getting your diploma.  He then takes proofs from all the graduates and solicits graduates for those photos.  Also, he does specialized sittings for these photos.  He will even sell you a customized graduation picture frame for your photo.An item that has been particularly popular with some of his customers is combination diploma display.  With this display, you can put both your photo and a picture taken of you on the day of graduation.  It is very popular, and very expensive.  From what he told me, he makes about 70% profit on the frames.

From an average graduation class of 400, my friend says that he will get around 100 sales.  For his time and effort, he claims that he breaks even after about 4 sales.  As you can see, graduations are wildly profitable for him.  Of course, college graduations are only once a year, otherwise he would probably just work graduations and nothing else.

Technorati Tags: diploma display, graduation picture frame

I have been thinking about making the drastic move of eliminating or reducing some of my insurance coverage in order to save money. However, I’m having a tough time trying to figure out which insurance I really need to keep and which I can reasonably stand to get rid of. It’s a really hard decision to make because it involves so much risk.

One option that I’m considering is getting rid of my FL health insurance. I pay a lot of money each month to have Ft. Lauderdale health insurance and I’ve never once needed to use it since I first got it. It seems like such a waste of money. Then again, if I actually get sick then I’m going to really regret not having health insurance.

Another option is to reduce my car insurance down to minimum liability. This would save me a good bit of money but it would mean that I wouldn’t be able to afford to repair the car if it were to get damaged in an accident. I’m not sure if that’s a risk that I want to take.

What do you think? Are there types of insurance that are better to cut back on or should I just try to hang in there and continue making the payments that I need to make in order to keep all of my insurance coverage?

Technorati Tags: FL health insurance, Ft. Lauderdale health insurance

I tend to be impulsive.  Hair color, jobs, apartments, they all change for me on a dime.  When I recently woke up one morning and decided to go back to school, I was amazed at how quickly things happened.  I found a program I loved, applied and within a week I was accepted.  Classes started in a few days and I was living about 6 hours away from the school. 

With the help of the school’s administration department, I found an apartment.  Now I just needed to figure out how to move my stuff.  I was having a hard time finding boxes and was starting to panic when a friend suggested I go to a local self service storage facility. 

I thought at first she was suggesting I put all of my stuff in storage, but apparently sometimes companies that rent out self storage units also sell moving supplies.  Fortunately the one nearby did, and I was able to stock up everything I needed to pack, including boxes and packing tape. 

Once I had the supplies it didn’t take me long to pack at all.  I piled everything in the back of my car and headed on my latest adventure.

Technorati Tags: moving supplies, self service storage

I’m looking around my house right now and I am absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff that I own. I am not a materialistic person and I don’t do a lot of shopping so I really don’t know how I ended up with so much stuff. Somehow I did and I am itching to get rid of it.

The first thing that I’m going to do is to sell the gold jewelry that I have. Most people who sell gold do it because they need the money. I’m certainly glad that I can get cash for gold but there are better reasons that I’m starting with selling gold to clear out my house.

You see, all of the gold that I own is gold that was given to me in the past. Old boyfriends gave me gold jewelry. I have an engagement ring from a fiancee that I never married. I have gold from family members that are long gone. And you know what? Keeping it around is keeping me in the past.

Cleaning out your home can be a way to clean out your life. You get to reassess what you have and what you really want. There’s a lot that I just don’t want anymore and it starts with this gold jewelry!

Technorati Tags: Cash for Gold, Sell Gold