Honeymooning in Jamaica Tips and Tricks

After my wife and I got married we went on our honeymoon in Jamaica.  It was absolutely everything we wanted it to be but reflecting on the trip there are some things that we wish we would have known before we ventured out.

1. Have transportation from the airport to your hotel
Walking out of the airport after customs is a crazy experience.  There are people trying to sell you everything from souvenirs, to alcohol, to transportation to your hotel.  Transportation to your hotel is the most important item but then comes who do you trust in a new country.  This can all be taken care of there but if you do not want the added stress there then make plans ahead of time.  This can be done several ways but I would suggest you call the hotel you are staying at and ask them to recommend some companies.  Then call the companies and make your reservation.

How to be Productive While in the Car

I spend many hours every week in the car between commuting to work and driving places for my work.  I used to listen to the radio but as my life became busier and busier I wanted that time to be productive in some way to allow me to relax when I got home.  These are the four ways I try and use the time in my car and all of these ways use my smartphone.

1. Listen to podcasts
The first way I thought about being more productive was to make myself a better person by listening to self-help items on the radio.  I found that it was easier for me to find items that could educate me in a number of different areas.  To load the podcasts onto my smartphone I use iTunes along with SyncTunes (the free version).  I chose podcasts dealing with personal finance (Dave Ramsey and Money Girl), religion (Your Move), and psychology (The Savvy Physiologist).

How to Budget Using Mint

If you do not want to pay for a budgeting tool and are not using Mint then you are making a big mistake.  Mint allows you to create a zero based budget, track and categorize your transactions, and create and track goals for your finances.  This article will concentrate on how I use Mint to create a zero based budget.

The first item when creating your budgets is deciding what you need to budget for and creating a budget for them on the budget page on Mint's homepage.  When creating a budget you need to know what your allocation for that expense is going to be.  Another selection you have is selecting if you want the budget to roll over to the next month.  While this is an awesome feature I do not use it since I create a new budget for each month.

How to Save Money On Your Wedding: Save the Dates

When I started researching and implementing items to save money on my wedding we tried to save money on our save the dates.  My fiance and I decided to create our own save the date magnets.  This was not a perfect process for us but hopefully with these tips it can be for you.

We followed the steps at DIY: Turn Your Fridge into a Gallery Wall, Make Photo Magnet Mosaics! to create our magnets.  We created the magnets using this websites steps with a little variation.  We did not use the dimensional magic glaze.  This is because it was very difficult to put the glaze on our save the dates without any bubbles and keeping it evenly distributed.  Also the glaze was rather expensive for the 100 save the dates that we created.  But, these save the date magnets turned out really well.  These magnets cost us $100 for 75 magnets.

How to Create Text Images For Free

How to Create Text Images Using Typo Effects

When looking for websites that created images from your text the best one I could find was Typo Effects.  Type Effects allows you to customize several things with your text images including the size of the words, the length of the text, how the text is presented, and how the text integrates into the picture.  There are several steps before using Typo Effects to create a great looking image and they are outlined here.

Step 1 - Go to Photo Joiner and upload your picture twice.  The reason for this is Typo Effects will put a watermark at the bottom of your picture so you will need to crop out the bottom.  You want to select that option where it puts your pictures on top of one another.  Save the created image somewhere where you can find it.  

How to Automate Your Phone's Battery Life Using AutomateIt

As I have previously mentioned in many posts is the powerful ability of AutomateIt to automate your phone in a variety of different ways.  Today's post is about using the app to manage your battery life.  I ask my phone to work very hard all of the time so when it is low on battery I just want my phone to be able to do the basics (text and call).  Using these rules allows my phone to last for approximately 2.5 more hours.

Battery Low Turn Off GPS 

The trigger for this AutomateIt rule is battery level below 15%. The action is turn off GPS. The battery rules enable me to save my battery when it is low. I turn off all of the stuff that drains my battery that is not essential (or I view as not essential) till my battery recharges and then it turns all of the items back on.

Battery Low Turn Off 3G 

The trigger for this AutomateIt rule is battery level below 15%. The action is turn off 3G.

Battery Low Turn Off Wireless 

The trigger for this AutomateIt rule is battery level below 15%. The action is turn off wireless.

How to Automate Your Phone at Work Using AutomateIt

AutomateIt is the best phone automation app out there so how do you use it at work.  The items I want automated at work include sound, Wifi connection, and data use.  I have many rules written for AutomateIt which can be found here, so the key is making sure the new work rules are compatible with those.

• Sound Work - Trigger is location is work.  The sampling rate is 5 min (anytime after 30 seconds will work since work enable time is 30 seconds).  Action is turn phone on vibrate.  I do this because I want AutomateIt to turn off my phone's sounds one time while I am at work.  I use this rule along with enable sound work and disable sound work to only allow my phone to turn my phone on vibrate once because I might want to have sound on and I don't want it to keep turning my phone volume off all day.

• Work Disable - This rule turns on your work sound rule. Work Disable works together with the rule Work Enable to check your location only once. I use the next three AutomateIt rules with my headphone jack but it could also be used with a time. The trigger for this rule is headset is unplugged. The action for this rule is enable rule Sound Work.

• Work Enable - The trigger for this rule is headset is unplugged. The action for this rule is disable rule Work Sound. The key to this AutomateIt rule is the delayed execution. I have mine for 30 seconds which allows Work Sound to check the location and then turns Work Sound off before it checks your location again.