moneytalks

Football is the most highly bet game of all the major sports. The super bowl is the most bet on game of the year, in any sport. You can bet on the coin flip, first score, who will make the first score, which team will win the toss and anything else you could possibly imagine. But among all these prop (proposition) bets there are your basic point spread and total wagers. These will be what you’ll be betting on for the entire season and in the playoffs. The point spread is when the book maker decides how many points one team should give another to make the contest fair. Take for example if you have a team that’s 5-0 and everyones pick to win the Superbowl, they are playing a 1-4 team that at home and the 1-4 is even missing their star QB. The spread might be somewhere around 10 points for this game. That would mean if you bet on the favorite, you would have to win the game by more than 10 points to win your bet. If you bet on the underdog you could lose the game up to 9 points. Both sides would push on 10. The total is the expected total score of both teams combined. That means if the score is 21-17, the total for the game would be 38. Let’s say that the total for the game was 42, the under would win and the over would lose. Picking winners is tough, most people will end up picking right around 50%. Which is bad because the books charge a fee for betting. This is called vig or juice. It is usually 10 cents. Or you may see -110. This means that you must bet $110 to win $100. If you bet 20 games for a season and win 10 and lose 10 and are a $100 a game bettor, you’ll have lost $100 for the season. This makes it so you must hit around 56% of your games or higher to make any sort of profit. Betting can make a boring game seem fun but just as long as you know your boundaries and know your limits.

Me and my girlfriend go grocery shopping like everyone else does. When we get there I tend to head towards the cheaper brands, a brand called “value time” is the generic brand at my grocery store. Right away my girlfriend will complain, she claims that we need to buy more natural foods. We both are already vegan, we don’t consume animal products, so most of what we can eat is pretty natural. But sure enough the yellow #5’s and other chemicals are not her idea of quality food. I pretty much agree. The only issue I have is if it is actually worth it. Do these little things make that big of a difference in your health? Organic produce I understand, though I do tend to migrate towards the non organic if left alone. We can afford the better product but I always seem to want to save that extra money. I guess there is no way to actually measure the benefits of either one. It is all in what is more important I guess.

Metropolitan national bank is offering a free $200 to any person opening a new online checking account. As usual I’ll try to point out all the positives these types of offers have but I also make sure that any fine print that I see is pointed out as well. I advise you to always read everything for yourself, don’t take my word as gospel. Anyways, with this free checking account you’ll receive a Visa check card and free ATM transactions. Some nice features of this account are the no minimum balance, no fees involved and online banking with free bill pay. The draw back is that to receive your $200 you’ll need to set up a direct deposit with a $500 minimum. 30 Days after the first full qualifying direct deposit the money will be credited to your account. The deposits must go on for 6 more months. For any reason if the deposits stop the bonus will be charged from your account. Not a bad deal if you have plans to start using direct deposits or if you are willing to transfer your deposits. Make sure you keep checking back for the latest updates and offers.

Now that you know what blackjack is you are ready for some ways to win some money. When playing blackjack you must realize that it is all math. There are stats and odds that have been calculated already for you. All you need to know is the right thing to do at the right time. There are two ways to make your blackjack experience as pleasurable as possible. One is to know how to count cards. Card counting is not against the law like some may think. But casinos can kick you out if they figure out that you are doing it. Most likely you will never be able to invest the time needed to become a successful card counter. But there is one way to make the odds nearly even and this is called basic strategy. All this is, is mathematical odds of what will give you the best chance at winning. It breaks down like this.

If the dealer has a 3-6 showing you stand on any hand that could bust. (go over 21) which means you have a 12 or higher.

If the dealer is showing a 7-ace–you hit on any hand until you get to 17 or higher.

This is an absolute basic rundown of the basic strategy. There are more in depth charts available.

There are a couple of other basics that you need to know. Double downs and splits are terms you need to make familiar. A double down is when you place an additional wager, usually equal to your original wager. This is done when you have a 10 or 11 and you agree to take just one more card in exchange for doubling your bet. You double down on a 10 against any dealer card except an ace or 10. You double down on an 11 against any dealer card.

Splits are the other plays that you’ll need to know. A split is done when you are dealt two of the same cards and you lay down a bet equal to your original bet. This now becomes two separate hands that work independently of one another. You always split on ace’s and 8’s.

This was a very basic explaination of blackjack but still enough information to head into any casino well educated and ready to win.

Back to gambling. I really love to head off to a casino whether it’s a big trip out to Vegas or going to one a couple hours away. And I’m sure a lot of you like to go to casinos as well. The problem is that you may like to go but do you know what to do when you’re there? I explained craps, hopefully well enough that you could walk up and fit right in. Now onto blackjack. This was  the only game I played before I knew craps. Well that’s not true, I played a little roulette as well but I don’t like to admit that. The basics of blackjack is pretty basic. You are trying to beat the dealer, period. You want your hand to be closer to 21 (without going over) then the dealer. If you have 20 you want the dealer to have 17-19, if you have 15 you want the dealer to bust. Here is how it plays out. The dealer starts by dealing one card to each player, than to his/her self starting with the person to their left. Then they deal the second card to each player, lastly to themself. Unless you’re playing a single deck game you’re cards will be face up and you are NOT allowed to touch them. Most of you will be playing multi deck games so I’ll go ahead like that’s what we’re doing. One card of the dealers, the “whole” card, will be face down. This is where they have the advantage. You must make your desicion from seeing their one card. At this time the dealer will go across the table, starting at their left, and ask people to hit or stand. All requests are done with hand motions. This is because the cameras up above need to see what’s going on since they don’t record sound. To hit simply tap your finger near your cards and to stay wave your hand over top of the cards. And now you know what to do when at a blackjack table. I’ll get more into basic stratagy, the what to do and when to do it, at a later date. Til then, have fun at those casinos.

Back in the day when you needed to borrow money you either hit up mom & dad or you went to the bank. Now you can hit up someone elses mom and dad or their brother or sister or maybe their uncle or aunt. Basically I’m saying that you don’t have to know the person that you borrow money from. You can go to a website called Prosper.com and there you can lend or take out loans from individual people. How this works is you go on this site and give your information to the website. They do a credit check on you and you ask for your desired amount of money and the interest you are willing to pay. Interest is based on credit though. Then an individual or a group of people offer either all or parts of your requested money, each lender offering as little as $50.00. In a time when loans are becoming harder and harder to get this is becoming a more viable option for personal loans. Check it out for loan options or for an investment opportunity.

OK, a lot of us don’t have an extra 10 grand or more laying around looking for a home. But if you are one of those people than this may be of some interest to you. There is an offer through WT Direct a partner of Wilmington trust family. This deal gives you a bonus of $100 to $250 depending on deposit amount. It breaks down like this

• $100 if your balance is $10,000-$14,999
• $150 if your balance is $15,000-$19,999
• $200 if your balance is $20,000-$24,999
• $250 if your balance is above $25,000

This deal is coupled with a nice 3.31% interest rate. Not if you’re looking for a place to house some extra money. This offer is valid on new accounts opened by September 5th 2008 and after 60 days of keeping the account open. Free money is always a good thing.

Me and my girlfriend are a member of Costco. Her parents bought us the membership for a gift about 8 months ago. And as of right now we’ve stepped foot in there, oh maybe 3 times. We did buy a Vizio HD TV from there and a set of glass bowls that have lids for food storage but other than that we’ve spent zero dollars there. And here’s why, I don’t think we’d really save money if we shopped there. We may have a lot of food when we leave but buying two cartons of orange juice shrink wrapped together is not my idea of saving money. I did some price comparing and have found that select items can save you a little money. Over all you’d have to be careful what you buy if you plan on buying cheaper food for just buying food in bulk. The membership is not worth it in my opinion. Just go to the store and buy two of everything if you want to buy in bulk.

I’m always trying to pass along information that could make or save you money. Today is no different. I have a deal that offers you a free $50. This deal comes to you if you sign up for a Discover credit card and spend $500. Another great deal that comes along with this card is they are giving you 5% back on your first $100 spent on all automotive purchases. This could be money spent on repair or gas. That’s a potential of an extra $5 a month for doing nothing. Along with this card you’ll be getting 0% APR your first 6 months and no interest on balance transfers for 12 months. Not a bad deal if you’re in the market for a new credit card. You can choose between a card that gives you nothing or a card with a free 50 attached to it.

I always watched these reality show on television and wondered who would do these shows? You’re on camera non stop for a month or longer, you get ridiculed by the entire viewing public. Who needs it? I have now found out why people put up with it, and who needs it. My girlfriend works at home so she goes to a website for work at home moms. The site is WAHM.com here you’ll find tips on freelancing and other jobs that are from home. Well yesterday she was looking through the site to see what was new when she came upon an advertisement for the show, Wife Swap. They are offering $20,000 for the families to be on the show. That’s a years income for a lot of these work at home moms, if not more. Who couldn’t use that. They are looking for extremely leinient moms and strict moms and you must have children between the ages of 6-16. Just a hint for anybody out there willing to be on TV for 20 grand. If you end up on the show from my blog. Make sure to give me a plug on t