Saturday, August 04, 2007

Tire Discounts

The booming Tire Discount industry has led to the mushrooming of Discount Tire Stores throughout the United States. While most of these stores sell tires directly to the customer, some are selling them via the Internet. Discount Tire Companies have come to represent an option that is affordable and can cater to various automobile requirements at economical rates.

Tire Discount Stores offer a range of tires to suit the varying needs of customers. In addition, they also offer tips and suggestions about making a good purchase, or tire maintenance. Some of these stores have also launched marketing drives to target potential customers. Some of the promotion initiatives include freebies like free mounting, coupons, or free servicing after a specified number of miles. Most of these Discount Tire Stores are located at advantageous positions, adjacent to highways and major roads, in order to give customers easy access.

Most Tire Discount Companies undertake various forms of research and development activities. This is to ensure safety, traction, reliability , durability, and any number of other factors that make for the perfect discount tire. These companies are aware of the vehicular requirements for tires, such as the speed index of the tires and the rating for load. These should not be lower than your original set of tires that came with your vehicle. The speed index indicates the safe top speed of the tire, and needs to be taken seriously. Generally, a decreased speed rating means that the tire’s ability to contribute the overall performance of the automobile is reduced.

Tire Discounts provides detailed information on discount tires, discount ATV tires, discount motorcycle tires, discount tire company and more. Discount Tires is affiliated with Used Race Car Parts.

Personal Budgeting Tough Love

Developing and living by a personal budget is by far the best way to get your expenses under control which, in turn, can mean a much less stressful life.

However, many families find it very difficult to stick to a personal budget. It does take hard work and a lot of self-discipline, at least in the beginning. The good news is that most families find the longer they can stick to a budget, the easier it becomes. This is because sticking to a household budget eventually becomes an unconscious habit, just like driving a car. And once it becomes a habit, the budgeting process just sort of goes on cruise control and requires much less thought or effort.

But what do you do during those first three, four or six months, when sticking to a personal budget feels so difficult?

There are several answers to this. The first is to make sure your budget categories are realistic. You may think you can get by with $100 a week for groceries, but is this real? Do you have checks or receipts that verify how much you have been spending at the grocery store? You really need to know. Otherwise, you may household budget too little. In turn, this becomes frustrating because you will always be over budget.

Second, make sure you have all categories covered. There are some categories that are easy -- rent, mortgage payment, utilities, car payments, etc. But think hard about all other categories such as clothing, eating out, prescriptions, pet care, tuition, books, allowances, movies, CDs and DVDs, and computer software and games, to name a few. If you don’t budget for all these kind of expenses, I promise they will bust your personal budgets.

Finally, if you find you just can’t seem to stick to your household budget, here’s a sort of tough love answer.

Go to your nearest office supply store and buy a box of #10 envelopes. Take them out and label one for each of your budgeting categories. Then write on each envelope the amount you have budgeted for that category.

For the purpose of this exercise, it is not necessary to break down general categories into subcategories. For example, you can label one envelope “entertainment” and not worry about envelopes for “movies,” “eating out,” “DVDs,” etc. Just be sure the number you write on the envelope for any general category represents the sum of all its subcategories.

When you next get paid, cash your paycheck and bring it all home in $50, $20 and $10 bills. Then put and amount of cash in each of the envelopes equal to the amount you budgeted for that particular 6category.

Now, as you need to pay bills or buy groceries, etc., use the cash in the corresponding envelopes to pay them. You will know when you have reached the budgeted amount for any category because its envelope will be empty. What do you do when you find an envelope is empty? You do nothing. That category is all finished for this pay period. If the envelope is empty and you still have expenses, either you simply haven’t budgeted correctly or you have overspent. You might be able to fudge and take funds from another category envelope. For example, if you have a week to go and are $40 short for groceries, you might be able to take the $40 out of the entertainment envelope. Just keep in mind this means $40 less for entertainment.

Do this for a few months and I promise you will not only learn to budget accurately, you will learn to stick to your budget personaly.

Here's another good answer. Try Mvelopes Personal. Mvelopes is the modern version of the paper envelope technique. This is what I personally use and it works great. Visit Mvelopes.com