Archive | May 21, 2009

Going Green and Saving on the Fuel Bill

By on May 21, 2009 in General Interest, Society

Ah, the smell of fresh cut grass. It’s spring time and the cutting season has begun. In honor of our wallets and bank accounts here are a few more ways you can introduce economic stimulus in your own household. You can do so by reducing your gasoline bill, reducing green house emissions and getting more exercise. How do you induce this threefer?

You start by buying yourself one of the old school reel mowers. This is a video for a German brand but anything you can get from your local home store or hardware store will get the job done.


Brill Razorcut 38 Push Reel Mower – Funny bloopers are a click away

If you have a well manicured lawn these bad boys are great. The tumbling blade path sheers the grass blades cleanly instead of ripping and tearing them like a power mower does. No more of that brown hue across your lawn from shredded grass blade tips. Your local law mower shop can sharpen the blades for you before each year’s spring cutting season begins.

Use the sling blade to whack away at anything too tall for the reel to bring down. Doesn’t matter if it’s a tall lawn that you’ve allowed to go too long or brush that needs to be brought down.

Sling Blade

Put away the 2-cycle hedge trimmer and pick up a pair of old fashioned two handled hedge clippers. Your arms and shoulders will be in great shape if you use these once a week.

Two Handle Hedge Clippers

For you really half-way old heads, remember the hand held edgers that look like scissors? They still make those too. Get down on your hands and knees and enjoy mother nature in a way that you can’t on the other end of your weed whacker.

Think about it. The fewer emissions we contribute and the more sweat we generate – What better cardio routine than yard work? – the better off we all are individually and collectively. Not only do you get out on the cheap with your hardware purchases but you’ll reduce your health expenses. Now, who’s ready for some fresh air?

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Here’s Why You Need A PayPal Account

By on May 21, 2009 in Business, PayPal

Did you know that you, average Joe and Joanne with no particular technical skill, could use PayPal in a variety of ways to take payments from the people you provide services for? With the basic level of computer literacy and an email account you can handle business like the big boys.

So you don’t have a web site for your business or your sideline right? Not a problem. As long as you and your customers have email addresses you don’t need a site. PayPal has an email payment feature to handle business for people like you. When the work is done for your one price job, send an email to your customer. They can pay you through a link in the message.

Baby sitters, painters, tutors, heck even doctor’s offices can probably take advantage of something like this. Are you keeping somebody’s kids and they didn’t have cash or the check book handy? No problem. Send them an email link. In fact if you’re on a regular care schedule with the little tykes, send an email at the end of each month and get paid in one lump sum. Do you paint or do other home repair specialties? After you give your estimate and start working, send an email when the job is done. Are you a student or teacher who tutors on the side? Send an email to your tutee or their parents if they are minors. No need to handle cash or plan for a trip to the bank. Let them send it to your PayPal account. And you medical practitioners can save paper and postage. Don’t send a bill through snail mail send a PayPal email and receive your funds in a timely fashion.

Here’s an option that works well for organizations. Are you conducting a membership drive or dues renewal? Email your club members a PayPal invoice. It expands on the email bill by allowing you to add multiple line items to the bill. If there are levels of membership you can indicate those. If there is a one time fee for new members you can line it out.

This can obviously apply to any type of business transaction. Mobile computer repair services can really max out this feature. If you’re a property owner you could send your tenants an email for the monthly rent or lease payment. Are you an outdoor adventure guide? Use PayPal to reserve a spot for your weekend adventurers.

There are other payment options that PayPal provides as well including request wizards for QuickBooks and for Outlook. Additional features include reporting tools for your business tracking purposes and a virtual terminal to accept payments via phone, fax, mail and in-person orders.

PayPal is also typically used as an option with other software like Eventbrite. If you’re a conference or event planner simply tie in your PayPal account to your eventbrite page to pay for conference reservations. It’s an all around tool used for businesses of every size.

As you can see PayPal is used for much more significant things than just the donate button on your blogsite. It’s used to handle your serious business in serious fashion. There are a number of other options and services I didn’t mention so peruse the site and see what’s appropriate for you. Then drop whatever you’re doing and create your account while you’re thinking about it.

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