Reviews and More

I have homes in two different countries and I tend to move between them quite frequently. As a result, I have to make numerous international calls in order to keep up with my friends and family, so I’m always open to trying a new international calling card service whenever I hear of a good one — like Pingo.

I first found out about Pingo a couple months ago, but didn’t try them until I received a code for $5 worth of free calls. I tested the service and liked it, so now I’m thinking about buying more prepaid calling cards from them. I was looking at their United States calling card rates earlier and was surprised to see that their rates are just $0.018 per minute. I currently pay $0.035 per minute whenever I’m in Japan and thought that was a good deal, but I guess I was wrong. Looks like I should put in an order for some calling cards pretty soon!

Yesterday I wrote a review of Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary and said it was the best dictionary out there for beginning language students. I still stand by that statement, but also want to add that you can’t become totally self-sufficient in Japanese without having a good kanji dictionary at your disposal as well. That’s why I’m also recommending The Original Modern Reader’s Japanese-English Character Dictionary by Andrew N. Nelson, informally known simply as Nelson’s.

A kanji dictionary is necessary because there will inevitably be times when you, as a student of the Japanese language, come across a written character that you’ve never seen before. If you don’t know how to pronounce the character, then there’s no way for you to look it up in a dictionary like Kodansha’s. Instead, you have to break down the character itself, identify the “radical,” count the number of strokes, and use your Nelson.

Nelson uses a highly methodical, 12-step approach to identifying different kanji. It takes some time to get accustomed to analyzing characters according to the Nelson method, but I found that after a few weeks of practice, I didn’t even need to refer to the instructions anymore.

As for the dictionary entries themselves, they are rather short and concise and have no sample sentences to help you learn about the usage. I’ve found that I can’t get by with a Nelson’s alone; I always look up a character in Nelson first, and then once I learn the pronunciation, I hit Kodansha or another dictionary to get a fuller explanation.

Nelson’s is the only kanji dictionary I’ve ever used, so I can’t compare it to similar products. I will say that it has served me very well and I believe it would be a useful tool to anyone studying Japanese.

Right now, I feel blessed to be able to say that my family’s finances are relatively stable. We do occasionally run into some problems, but they’re usually minor ones that we can bounce back from pretty quickly.

Things haven’t always been this way, though. In fact, there was a time when my credit rating was so bad that I got turned down for a credit card with a $200 limit! That’s because I made a critical mistake when I was in college: I signed up for a student credit card (for the free t-shirts they were giving away at the booth), got approved, and was suddenly able to buy practically anything I wanted. Then I got two more cards and was living the high life. I filled my closet with clothes, supplied beer to my entire floor, and ended up with a mountain of debt that I had no way of paying off.

At first I ignored my bills and just hoped that the creditors would somehow just be willing to forgive my debt. That obviously wasn’t going to happen, though, so when I left school I decided to face up to my mistakes and make some payments. After a few months of making the minimum $20 monthly payments, I saw that I wasn’t even covering the interest charges. It would have taken decades to pay off my bills at that rate, so I needed to do something more drastic.

I saw an advertisement for free debt consolidation and thought that sounded like it could be the solution to my financial problems. I went in for a consultation, talked to a credit counselor who walked me through all the steps, and decided to go for it.

It took several years of hard work and self-control, but I was finally able to pay off all my credit card bills thanks to the consolidation loan I received. The interest rate was lower than what my creditors were charging, so I ended up saving a lot of money by taking that route.

Now, more than 10 years later, I finally have a good credit rating again. So it is possible to recover from bad credit, but you have to be proactive about the process and look into debt consolidation or other solutions that might work for you.

I posted this app on one of my other blogs and figured it would be fun to try over here as well. Have you ever wondered how much your blog is worth? Well, you can go to this site, type in your URL, and get a quick answer. Here’s what I came up with for Reviews and More:

Are you kidding me???? Between this $20,300 and the $15,700 for my Fire Pit blog, I could sell my sites and, oh, I don’t know, BUY A LEXUS!!!!

Come on, people! Where are the offers?!

When I first started working from home two years ago, I figured it would just be a temporary measure and that I’d go back to my office job after my son started school. But I’m really enjoying myself, making better money than I thought possible, and can’t really imagine working for someone else anymore.

Now that I know I’ll be here for awhile, I’m ready to start making improvements to my home office. I’ve been using makeshift furnishings for the last couple of years, and I definitely want to upgrade in this department. I’d heard some great things about Powell furniture, so I checked out some of their offerings today.

I thought this desk looked ok. I’m have simple tastes, and don’t like wood furniture, so I like the design. However, it’s actually not much different than the setup I have now, which wouldn’t really help me much. If I’m going to upgrade, I definitely want more space too. Guess I’ll keep looking!

I’ve recently become interested in Oxfam International’s Make Trade Fair campaign, which strives to bring awareness to the problems that coffee growers, rice producers, and other laborers face in getting fair market prices for their goods.

There are different ways to support the MTF campaign, and I decided to start by purchasing Fair Trade goods. I found a site called GlobalCrafts.org that sells a bunch of items handmade by people in third-world countries. The producers are guaranteed a fair price for their goods, which gives them a real opportunity to rise above poverty.

Please check out the GlobalCrafts.org site and buy something if you can.

I’ve decided to take the plunge and order business cards to help promote my various blogs. I am looking for inexpensive ones to start out with, and saw that 123print.com offers 100 full-color cards for just $4.95. That sounds like a pretty good deal, so I might just go ahead with this. Maybe I’ll even throw in some personalized letterheads and envelopes as well!

I’ve been shopping on the Internet for years because I’m often able to find all the products I want at prices that are significantly lower than those offered by regular stores. In addition, I can usually enjoy additional savings and rebates by taking advantage of online coupons, free shipping vouchers, and other special discounts. Where do I find these coupons and vouchers? From websites like Ebates.com.

Ebates.com not only offers daily coupons and deals from hundreds of well known stores such as jcpenney, Gap, Dell, Target, and Staples, but also offers members cash back on all their purchases. All you have to do to start receiving rebates of up to 25% is sign up for a free membership, then shop by using store links on Ebates.com. It takes just a few seconds to sign up, and you get a $5.00 credit when you do so.

Ebates.com has been featured on CNN and in other mainstream media such as the New York Times, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal, so you know that the site lives up to its claims. Check it out!