Saving on rental cars

In November our family took a trip down to Arizona. We were able to get great flights out of Missoula, MT..more on that later. While shopping for a rental car we checked out the rental companies rates online. Prices varied greatly. For the airport we were flying into, we found that Alamo had the best rates. They wouldn't let me book it online with my debit card, so I had to call down to Phoenix and book it directly at the airport. They weren't able to give me quite as good of a deal as was advertised if I booked through http://www.alamo.com/, but they assured me it was the best rate they could give me. I also was able to verify that there wouldn't be any extra holds put on my debit card when renting the car. When comparing prices I also checked out what coupons were available. Alamo had a coupon for one free day with a week long rental. I took that with us when we rented the car. We also checked with our insurance company to find out if our car insurance covered us in the rental car. They verified that we had the same coverage as we had for our own vehicle (but it wouldn't cover loss of usage fees in case of an accident). So we were able to waive any extra insurance that was offered. The total for our 8 days with unlimited miles was $186.43. (Hertz was going to charge $340 for those 8 days!) Alamo had great customer service and were very quick and efficient at check-in.

Should you pay more for quality?

When does quality count? Does it matter? Is it worth the extra cost? The answer is yes and no.

If you want to have something for a long time, there's a good chance you need to invest in quality. My husband has a Air Canada duffel bag that he has had for 15 years. This bag has survived trips on buses, cars and planes and is still in great shape. It wasn't the cheapest in terms of price, but it was good quality and shows very little wear after all this time. In this case, it was definetely worth investing in quality. You have those items too. Take a look in your closets. What did you have that just won't wear out? You invested in quality when you purchased those items.

There are other purchases where quality may or may not matter. Personally, I haven't found that a $4 toothbrush lasts me any longer than the special 2 pack I bought for $1.79. When it comes to aluminum foil, it depends on what my purpose is in using it. If I am wrapping up baked potatoes, the cheap aluminum foil works fine for me. However, if we are barbequing salmon, I wouldn't even bother if I didn't have heavy duty aluminum foil. When it comes to food, we've all heard about name brand and generic labels at times being produced at the same factory (of course this isn't always the case). Sometimes there is a huge difference in quality and sometimes there isn't. So, look for those areas where quality doesn't matter to you and see if you can save!

Magazines for 90% off the list price

Today I saved big on two magazines my husband wanted for his business. I had the check written for WIRED and the card filled out for Entrepreneur to send in. Today on http://www.slickdeals.net/ I saw they had some great deals on magazines at http://www.discountmags.com/ for 3.50 a year. I ordered the Weight Watchers magazine. I don't do WW, but am always interested in eating healthy and good recipes. When I put the Weight Watchers magazine into my cart at CheapMagazineSite.com the site offered me the opportunity to get other magazines for $5 a year or $8 a year. WIRED was one of those magazines for $5. I was so glad I hadn't sent in the check yet, so I voided my check and ordered it from discountmags. It lists for $59.40. The lowest I had seen it was $10. So when I got it for $5 it was a great deal! For Entrepreneur I found the best deal using ww.CheapMagazineSite.com (which just searches all the discount magazines sites and shows you which one has the best deal) was http://www.magazines.com/. This list price is $59.88 and the cheapest I had seen it was $11.97. I was able to get it for $6.97. They had the needed discount coupon listed at CheapMagazineSite.com. If you enjoy magazines, you can get them at a great price if you shop around and are patient.