USASpending.gov

Hi All,

Government spending isn't as glamorous a subject as movie stars or the latest scandal on a soap opera.  But it is so relevant to our life that it may as well be as important. 

After finding out about the website USASpending.gov I knew that I wanted to blog about it.

USASpending.gov is a result of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.  Users of the site can find the following types of information on USASpending.gov: "All the data on prime recipient transactions is submiyted by the federal agencies making federal contract, grant, loan, and other financial assistance awards. Agencies are required to submit data within 30 days of making the award or after making a modification or amendment to an award. The exception is the Department of Defense which delays its submission by 90 days to protect operations. The data on sub-awards is provided by the prime recipients.  ​

The charts, graphs, and maps display data from October 1, 2008.  All data prior to September 30, 2008 can be downloaded.   For more information on the data displayed on USAspending.gov, the data sources, and the timing for refreshing the site, go to About the Data.

An example of the information available will make it more interesting and more understandable.

I did a search for 'navy seals' on the site.  The results summary lists the total number of transactions, total prime recipient transaction amount, total sub-aware transaction amount,  the number of contracts, the number grants, the number of loans and the amount of financial assistance.

Under the topics listed above is a table with the 36 transactions.  Clicking on the first one (ACS Cable Systems, LLC) yields contact information and even more information on transactions, total funds awarded and more. Under the search results, users can click on the Award ID to get more information about the transaction details.  Also in the table (which can be sorted by various columns) users can find the award amount, award type, awarding agency, funding agency and the role of the recipient.

Finally, note that in the Fall 2017 USASpending.gov will be releasing a new version of the site.  The new site will continue to provide data on federal awards as well as include data on agency expenditures. For a preview, go to this link from USASpending.gov.

I hope the site enables you to find out what the government is exactly spending its money on!  Hopefully transparency is more than just a catch-phrase - USASpending.gov might help that come to fruition!

Regards,
Stu 

Money, Money, Money....

Hi All,

I've got a riddle for you.  What is green, everybody wants more of it, some people have a lot of it, and some people don't have a lot of it?   Take a guess...

It's money.  Yep - we all need it to get by in this life and world.  And even though I've shied away from blogging about websites that discuss or cover money over the first few years of this blog...I've recently been writing about it a bit more. 

Today's entry is a poorly named site - Rockstar Finance - but it has lots of good, quality, useful and interesting money/finance/saving related articles.  Rockstar Finance bills itself as 'a collection of awesome money articles'. Basically it finds money and investing and budgeting articles from other blogs and sites from around the web and publishes them...interesting.  And its a good place to find lots of useful and timely money related articles.

There really isn't any index or summary on the site - just a long page of interesting, timely money related articles arranged chronologically. 

There is a category section beneath the top mast of the page though. It has 17 or so categories.  Highlights of these categories include budgeting, building wealth, debt, early retirement, frugality, home ownership, minimalism and retirement.

Examples of the types of articles on the site under the 'budgeting' category include:
Why Car Payments Suck
Everything We Know About Money on Index Cards
The Power of Not Budgeting
20 Things I'd Tell My 20-Year-Old-Self
How MacArthur Geniuses Handle Their Windfalls
3 Tricks I Use to Spend Less....
My 12 Year Old's Secrets to Saving Money

Enjoy the sites and hopefully the advice and ideas will pay off - or at least you'll find the articles interesting and useful.

Regards,
Stu

Coupon Websites

Hi All,

Just a quickie blog post today - but I think it might cover one of the most popular topics around currently. I'm talking about coupons and couponing.

The internet is a vast resource for this type of activity. There are dozens and dozens of websites that offer up coupons and advice on saving money.

Some issues to consider when signing up for coupon websites:
1. Try to make sure that they are legitimate. Consider sending the owners an email. If the site has a bulletin board or blog, follow it for a few days or a week to make sure the site isn't just trying to poach your email address.

2. Don't give out personal information like phone number or address. Likewise, don't include a social security number or a credit card number. That is just way too much information to give out to a coupon website.

3. You might want to consider creating a separate email account for when you sign in to the various coupon websites so that the emails are separated from your regular email.

Now, on to the coupon sites.

Coupons.com - possibly the mother of all coupon sites....Similar to the other sites listed below - Coupons.com has a comprehensive list of topics on the left side of the screen. For example, there are automotive coupons, beverage, flowers and gifts, foods, health care, household, entertainment, office supplies, personal care, pet care, restaurants and more topics for coupons. One different with Coupons.com is that you can see the coupons on the first page - you just click on the coupon you are interested in and then scroll down to the next page of coupons. When you are finished you need to click on the print icon and you will be prompted to download the Coupon Printer installer. Essentially this downloads software to your computer to download the software...fyi, you only have to do the download once.

CouponMom.com
CouponMom is a well organized coupon site that has been seen on the Today Show, CNN, and Oprah's television show. The site has categories like grocery deals, drugstore deals, restaurant deals, online coupons, free samples, and a blog. Don't miss this site!

CouponCabin.com
Site has links to coupons by vendor or store name and by coupon type (food, clothing, category, printable, online coupons, etc...) The thing that I never understood about these various coupons sites is that they have categories that encompass two categories. For example, when a user goes on to these sites, they are, by definition, looking for printable coupons. In addition,all of these coupons are online - so why do these sites have these two categories? Beats me - but the real interesting thing about these sites are the coupons themselves.

Users can download software the first time they visit the site and then they'll be able to print out the various coupons that they check off on the site. Pretty simple and easy to do - even the download is fairly easy. Users can search the site using the search box at the top right side of the homepage. There is also a section on 'Extreme Couponing Made Easy' - click here for that link.

Enjoy and hopefully the sites will save you time and money!

Regards,
Stu