Money Saving Habits

A few nights ago my expensive high speed internet went down.  Not for a few minutes, but for hours.   And then it happened again…..every day (but not all day) for 2 weeks.   While this was inconvenient it could have been worse.  So many services today tout the ease of storing your data online.  They tout high up time and redundant servers, backup systems, etc.  That’s all find and good — but what if you can’t get online?  You can’t access your data.

Here’s a few things to think about storing locally (on your own computer) or at least not keeping your only copy online.

• Address/Phone Book – I use Palm Desktop to sync my Palm.  This has been a great tool for looking up phone numbers when I don’t have online access.  And it’s backed up, locally and on my Palm.  Last night I even used an old fashioned phone book to look up the number for a local store.
• Financial Data – Keep it locally in Quicken (my favorite), Microsoft Money, or even a spreadsheet.  If you don’t like any of these programs, you can still do it the old fashioned way — in a check register.
• Podcasts – download into iTunes so you can have something to listen to when you’re offline.  Last night I caught up on the nightly news, NPR shows, and a devotional.  I know way more about the oil spill than I did 24 hours ago — because I had podcasts to listen to.
• Documents – I love Google Docs for the ease of sharing documents with others, but when I’m not online I can’t read and edit them.  Keep a copy locally for when you work offline.
• Recipes – Ever had the net go down when you’re making dinner and trying to find that recipe you read about on someone’s blog?  Buy the book, print out the recipe, or at least save it to your computer.
• School Projects — My kids use Education Backpack to move files between school and home.  This eliminates the need for thumb drives to be lost or stolen.  Make sure you have a backup at home for when the internet is down.  This is most likely to happen the night before a big project is due.

Make it a habit — and don’t store all your data online.