Energy saving tips for today's economy.courtesy Food Network

With the recent downturn in the economy and increase in gas and fuel price everyone is looking for money saving tips. These money saving tips could be energy saving tips or gas saving tips or even grocery saving tips. In my previous post I talked about a healthy and moderately priced dining out options in the rough economy and recommended Sweet Tomatoes.

Lets see some myths transform into energy saving tips.

Ever thought of cooking salmon in a dishwasher or cooking an egg over your car engine?
Recently while watching the Food Detective Show on Food Network TV I came across these crazy ideas or myths as you call it.
Ted Allen runs the show covering myths around food and drinks along with some not so usual energy or money saving ideas.

How to cook a salmon in a dishwasher:
1. Take an aluminum foil and then apply some olive oil at the bottom.
2. Lay your raw salmon on the oil and then apply some lime juice over the salmon.
3. Carefully cover it up with one more layer of aluminum and then wrap it up nicely so that soapy water does not get in.
4. Load it in your dishwasher with all those dirty dishes.
5. Start your dishwasher with the normal or full cycle.
6. Sit relax and enjoy! At the end of the cycle take out the covered foil and unwrap to see what happened to the salmon !
Food Network claims nicely cooked Salmon thanks to the heat that the dishwasher creates to properly sanitize the dishes.

Late for breakfast , got to get to work quickly? Take that egg break it up and carefully wrap in layers of aluminum foil layered with olive oil and open your car hood. Place it on an engine so that the aluminum bundle with the egg in it does not spill over parts of the engine. The car hood should hold your egg with all the aluminum is in place.

Drive to work , your egg's ready.

I have not tried any of these saving tips but thought these as being quite unusual and worth sharing.

What are your thoughts?

Dining in today's economy

Image courtesy: http://www.souplantation.com


As most of us know Sweet Tomatoes is one of the famous salad chains in northern US.
"Sweet tomatoes", "Sweet Tomatoes coupon", searches are on an increase in today's economy. I made a quick google adword tool keyword search on Sweet Tomatoes. I saw the second most searched word for the keyword "Sweet Tomatoes Coupon".
Is this the result of people looking for cheap dining options?

If you are looking for a cheap option to dine out with the opportunity of eating healthy Sweet tomatoes is a great option. For around $7.5 for lunch along with a chance to get 10-15% off if you join their veggie club one gets a choice of plenty of fresh salads.

Feeling bored with eating the same salads? Sweet Tomatoes has been creative in creating an Asian week or a Mexican food week where customers get to taste some delicacy.

We recently got a chance to visit the Sweet Tomatoes Asian Week and we thoroughly enjoyed the Asian Ginger broth Soup.

Looking for some Sweet Tomatoes coupons? Type "Sweet Tomatoes coupons" or check out links like this.

If you have more of such ideas please feel to free by leaving a comment. Thank you.

Promote high traffic blog using StumbleUpon

Slightly shifting from my normal finance entries this note is about promoting a blog in general. Recently I came across Problogger's how to promote young blog and have started taking steps towards the same. The big catchaway to promote young blog to become a high traffic blog is to network on StumbleUpon. I have been a passive user of stumble upon.

Leaving the "Stumble Upon" issues aside I am starting the network on StumbleUpon to attract people with similar interests.

Sane Investing in an Insane World - review

Recently I have been reading this book . Definitely some takes and some "non" takes from the book. Cramer goes over different stocks to be purchased at different times in the economy. Once an industry is picked , next is the choice between various companies within it.
Here are some guidelines that are outlined in the book for comparing stocks in an industry
1. P/E ratio, this seems to be the #1 principle.
2. Growth rate of a company: Online sites like thestreet.com or reuters or yahoo finance will list the rate the company is growing. This should be in sync with the growth rate.
3. Dividend comparison: Yield is the trick, Compare yield vs. the actual dollar amount of the yield.
4. Think outside the box: Real business world. Are there some take over or other orders lurking for the company?

5. How does the company perform vs. S&P 500. A bargain is a company with P/E lesser than the industry but has better sales and earnings faster. For example in the current market non cyclical stocks would normally outperform the other ones in the market.

As an example Coke vs. Pepsi comparison is listed at http://seekingalpha.com/article/91789-coke-vs-pepsi-cramer-s-mad-money-8-19-08 Seeking Alpha

More useful tips coming up in the upcoming blog(s).

Disclaimer : Author does not hold KO or PEP at the time of writing the blog and is provided as an example.