Summary of Travel Related Articles

Now would be a good time to start planning a summer vacation.  I've written quite a bit about travel over the years.   Take look back at some of those articles for some good travel related money saving ideas.

General Travel Frugal Tips

First of all you can use some basic ideas to save money on your transportation and lodging :

Planes,Trains, Buses and Cars - Picking How to Get There- Save money on getting there and back by picking the 'best' option.
Save money on car rental by changing rental location - You can cut your rental car costs by using this trick.
Using Hotwire and Betterbidding.com for good hotel rates and eBates and Hotwire.com or Hotel.com for 2-3% off hotels - These are a couple ways to shave some cost off of your hotel costs.
 
Milking The Most out of Miles

Don't pass up free airline miles and hotel points.   If you travel much those free rewards can add up over time.

Consolidate your airline miles and hotel points - Its better to have all your points on as few as systems as possible rather than having small amounts of points across several companies.
How airline loyalty can pay off - Sticking to certain providers might make sense.

Sign up for Mileage card and get free airfare- Using a mileage credit card can get you a free trip.
Should I cash in airline miles sooner or save them - Consider when to use the miles to maximize the benefit.
Cheap ways to delay expiration of airline miles - Keep your miles from dying or expiring.
Ways to use small amounts of airline miles- Finally if you can't use the miles for travel then you might get some other benefit out of them

Vegas Baby!

I lost count of how many times I've been to Vegas.  Its at least a dozen times I'm sure.   I learned a few things in my multiple trips and some of my experience there can help save you money.

A few frugal learnings from Vegas vacation
Beware Las Vegas Resort Fees - If you're booking a hotel in Vegas you need to know about this so you don't get caught with that surprise $120 extra bill for the resort fee you didn't notice when you booked the room.
Saving Money in Vegas series: Ground transportation, Hotels, Food, Entertainment - This is a series of sub topics covering different costs in Vegas and how you can save money in each category.

Miscellaneous Travel : GPS good, Timeshare bad

GPS navigation for your car saves time and money  - I really like my GPS unit.   I think its a great buy and it can be helpful on vacation trips too. I may be stretching it to try and claim they are money savers, but hey if they save time thats good enough.
Buying a timeshare is not a good idea - Frankly I think that timeshares are a horrible rip off.   

Updown Performance : March up 2%

My Updown account was UP 2.0% in March 2011.    The S&P 500 was down 0.1% in the same time.    I beat the index this month.

After being beat in Jan. and Feb. I'm still down versus the index for the year.    For 2011 so far I'm 2.3% behind the S&P 500.   My portfolio is up 2.5% for the year and the index is up 4.9%

Almost half of my assets in Updown are in cash.   If I was fully invested in my portfolio then my performance would be about double and closer to on par with S&P 500 for the year.

I didn't do to much trading this month. 

Trading activity in March :

Sold some of my Verizon at $38 which is 23% more than I paid in Jan. '10.
Sold some Pfizer at $19.80 or 18% more than I bought in Apr. '10.

I also Bought ABT at $48.27

Net worth Update : March 2011 : -$1,491

I track my net worth monthly on NetworthIQ.

By end of March 2011 our net worth was $646,381.   This is down $1,491 from the previous month in February.


Our cash balance went up quite a bit as we got a year end pay out from some rental income.   My stock value dropped because my employer stock value went down.   Our retirement accounts were up a couple thousand.   Unfortunately the value of our real estate all went down yet again and that alone undercut all our other growth.

Best of blog posts for week of April 1st

Doughroller explains What is IRS Tax Form 2106EZ?

Tom at Roofery points out that you can actually get a tax credit if you use the right kind of 'cool' roofing product : 2010 Cool Roofing Tax Credit: 10 Things You Need to Know

Consumerism Commentary discusses The Adoption Tax Credit

And so that its not all about taxes we look at Rewards Credit Cards: Rotating Categories 2011 April to June (Home Improvement) from My Money Blog

No foolin.