Saturday 1/21/2012

So, I have decided to embark upon another month long tracking of my expenses.

I do it once in a great while to see what I am spending on what.

I can mostly go to my checking account and see what's going on, but there is a lot more information to be gleaned when you write every single purchase you make and bill you pay whether online or at the QT - not only the amount you spent but WHAT you spent it on.

I'm looking for ways to increase my savings is the point.  With my 401k loan payment, my contribution and my company's contribution, it's around $200 per paycheck - which quite frankly, isn't near enough.  That's only around 5k per year.  I also have $40 per week going into a savings account, but that money is being saved up for emergency use.  It will go beyond that if I ever get it up to where I want it - which is going to take quite a while since I figure I should have at least 5 grand in a savings account for emergency use if the occasion rises.  I am thinking of increasing that to $50 per week.

Onto other things.  Finally going to try making Navy Bean soup with the ham bone and extra ham fatty that I have left over from the last ham I cooked.  I was going to make it today - but I didn't know the beans have to be soaked "overnight".  I am going to let them sit in a pot 6 hours and then try it anyway.

I kind of find it odd that this South Carolina voting is being done on a Saturday. Maybe they've always done it that way and I've just missed it?  Or perhaps they have a set date for it every year and it doesn't matter what day it falls on?  I did watch the last debate, it was quite entertaining from the git-go.

Nothing much else.  Randy apparently has all of his permits now to build his house.  It will be quite interesting to see what, exactly, is going to go up over there.

As for today?  I am burnt out from working this week.  I don't feel like doing anything.

I'm sure that will change as the day grows longer, but for right now, I am doing a lot of nothing.

ben

Cafe World Tips 33: How To Easily, Automatically Collect Bonuses And Gifts From Your Cafe World Neighbors

Let's face facts, Cafe World, if you let it, will take up a LOT of your time.
Going around attempting to collect bonuses and gifts off of your neighbor's wall feeds is one of the most time-consuming elements to this game, an element that is easily by-passed by using one of numerous auto-collect tools that are to be found on the internet.

Yes, that's what this article is about.  I have hundreds of Cafe World neighbors and no way am I going waste as much time as it would take to visit every one of their Facebook walls to find the gifts and bonuses that they have posted.

When I found out that you can simply use an app to collect them for you, I was all over it.  The app that I am using is called Friendly Gaming Simplifier.  This is, for me, the best one out there.  Unfortunately, Facebook has been giving the individual that created this particular app legal troubles and it appears he has taken down the link to install the app.  But, you can do a search around the web and many sites appear to have a link to download it available.

Here a few links to other apps that do the same thing:
http://bonuscheckers.com/
http://gamersunite.coolchaser.com/games/cafe-world-bonus-collector

There are more of them out there, just giving you a clue how to get all of the bonuses without all the work!

Cafe World Tips 32: Live Chat: How To Access Cafe World Live Chat Zynga Live Chat For Any Zynga Game

This will be a short one.
First off, you DO have to have been a paying customer sometime in the past to even have access to Zynga Live Chat.  If you have never bought Cafe Cash, you won't be able to access the Live Chat option - but on the same page I am about to take you to, you WILL be able to access their email version whether you have paid or not.

Okay, having said that, go into your Cafe (or any other Zynga game, it's all the same).  On the top right hand corn of the screen, you will see the large, red Zynga bulldog.  Click on it.

It opens up a separate, new page.

On the top, right-hand corner of the new page, click on Support.

Yet another page opens.

On the left side of the next page that came up, click on Cafe World (or whichever game it is you are wanting to access live chat for).

Sometimes the live chat option comes up immediately (it will show up next to the  "Search All Articles" bar) and sometimes you have to wait. Other times it won't show up at all - Live Chat is not always available.  But if it IS available, it will come up without having to do anything else.

If it doesn't show up and you don't want to keep trying/waiting, you can also support and Email ticket on that same page.  Just click on the white arrow in the red box right next to the "Search All Articles" bar.  It will bring up the email option and click on that.  However, be prepared to wait an extremely long time for an answer, up to 2 weeks.  Yes, I have recently submitted tickets that took them 2 weeks to respond to.