I am preparing for a very important job interview. This one isn’t my first interview by any means, but it is for a really good job for me (if it were my first, would I have any advice to give…?). To be fully prepared for the interview, I have a set of 5 go to essentials; and not just any essentials, but 5 P’s. And while you don’t need to bring the exact same kit that I do, I feel that many of these items and tips are useful.

Padfolio

A leather notebook is the most essential thing to bring with you on the interview. It will literally be your lifeline. Almost all of the rest of the 5 P’s will be stored in this handsome case. Always keep a notepad along with a couple of pens in here. Even a calculator may come in handy.

Pages of Notes

Exactly what kind of notes? Well, everything that you need for your interview, of course. These can include:

• Directions to the office
• Info about the company
• Questions you want to ask
• Answers to Common Interview Questions

And by the way, you can use the pages to take notes! Another tip, for when you are stumped, is to tell the interviewer that you are taking a note down; meanwhile, you will have time to think of a reply!

Personal Swag

Alright, now don’t go making pens and gift bags covered in your name to give to interviewers; that is borderline bribery. Instead, be sure to bring plenty of good clean copies of your masterpiece resume. The fact is that you have only 30 seconds to make an impression with you resume, so make sure it is bullet proof. Don’t forget to have some form of business card as well; although I wouldn’t go too crazy!

Professional Clothes

This is something that I feel is often overlooked. It is not just enough to wear a suit or the equivalent for a girl. It needs to be crisp, clean and well put together. Now, you don’t need to get a sweet Armani suit from Saks, but it is a good investment to take your older suit or clothes to a skilled tailor who can really get the fit right. And accessories do really matter; nothing too glitzy. A watch is all that a guy needs and for the ladies, a watch and a conservative earring and necklace set will do.

Personal Digital Assistant

PDA’s are essential for any serious business person. Combining calendars and contacts is a great enough feature, but now when you throw in email and phone calling, you have the ultimate scheduling and productivity machine. You will have a hard time forgetting where you interview is, or what the name of the interviewer is. Anything Blackberry or iPhone like will do. Of course, if that is too high tech for you, there is always the famous hipster PDA!

Bonus Essential: Thank You Cards

While sending a thank you card may not land you that dream job, it will help the interviewer remember you. And the main reason I use them is to build up my network. It will keep you fresh in the mind of the recipient and they will be more likely to call you if something opens up. The Simple Dollar has a great post telling when and how to write great thank you notes.

Do you have anything uniquw that you take to an interview? I would love to hear about it!

Four dollars a gallon! Four dollars a gallon!! I can’t believe how much I paid at the pump today! I drive a Lexus RX 400h; the h standing for hybrid. Yet, I am still hit just as hard in the wallet as anyone else. Sure, it doesn’t help that my hybrid SUV only gets decent mileage (about 25 mpg’s), but things are still horrible. The question I asked myself and the question it seems that everyone is asking themselves is, what can I do about gas prices?

Well, the short answer is nothing. There are market and political forces at play here that are beyond any individuals control. At the same time, there are ways to alleviate this pain until prices (hopefully) settle down at a more comfortable level.

50 Ways To Save Money On Gas

Short Term Gas Saving Solutions

1. Change your oil.
2. Make sure your tires have proper air pressure.
3. Don’t constantly haul around large items.
4. Change your air filter.
5. Take off your bike rack when you aren’t using it.
6. Avoid things like drive through to stop idling.
7. Avoid braking hard.
8. Avoid accelerating too fast.
9. Plan your trips in advance to avoid wandering.
10. Get a GPS navigation system.
11. Take off slowly when you are at a complete stop.
12. Park in the shade.
13. Walk whenever you can.
14. Park in the first spot that you see.
15. Join the gasoline company loyalty clubs.
16. Sign up for credit cards that give your cash rewards.
17. Use the lowest octane gas for your car.
18. If your car requires a higher octane, try mixing it with a lower one to save.
19. Keep your eye out for gas deals while you are driving.
20. But don’t go crazy driving around for deals.
21. Check out the web to find low gas prices (see below).
22. Don’t fill the tank until you are really low on gas.
23. Fill your tank completely full.
24. Use the radio to avoid traffic jams.
25. Stay on the highway as much as possible.
26. Try to average 55 mph.
27. Buy gas on Wednesdays (statistically the cheapest gas prices fall here).
28. Buy gas a few days before a holiday to avoid the price hike.
29. Go to your dealer for a tune up.
30. Anticipate slowing down by keeping your eye on all traffic.
31. Carpool with you colleagues.
32. Make use of the carpool lane while carpooling.
33. Avoid gas stations that are right off of the highway.
34. Some club stores and grocery store offer gas discounts.
35. Ride the bus or subway at least every once in a while.
36. Use your car’s cruise control.
37. Don’t shop at gas stations that charge extra for credit card usage.
38. During the winter, don’t warm up the engine for more than a minute.
39. Make sure your gas cap is on securely.
40. Bring lunch with you to work, to avoid going out to lunch.

Long Term Gas Saving Solutions

41. Buy a smaller, more fuel efficient car.
42. Buy a Japanese car.
43. Buy a hybrid!
44. Buy a scooter.
45. Buy a motorcycle.
46. Buy a car with a manual transmission.
47. Get rid of your car.
48. Sign up for ZipCars.
49. Move closer to your work.
50. Replace your car’s fuel injector.

Website’s That Help You Save Money On Gas

• My Mile Marker
• The Top 10 Highest Gas Mileage Cars
• GasPriceWatch.com
• Motor Trend
• Gas Buddy
• Gas Price Watch
• FuelMeUp.com
• AltFuelPrices.com
• GasNearU.com
• MSN Autos

How are you weathering the storm of high gas prices? Do you have any other tips for saving money on gas? Are you any closer to buying a hybrid?

Photos courtesy of robceemoz at Flickr.

Nowadays, in order to get yourself a decent Wordpress theme, it seems like you need to pay for it. And some of these premiums will cost you a pretty penny. But besides alliteration, what advantage do they have? Well, I am glad you asked. I plan on answering that as well as showing my picks for the creme of the crop.

Why Pay For Wordpress Themes?

This is in fact the million dollar question. With such a vibrant theme making community within Wordpress (including my very own creations), why should anyone bother paying? Well, the answer lies in market forces. When there is proper incentive like a price, more times than not, the end product will be of higher quality. Now, this is not always true and in some cases there are superior free themes (something I may have to post about later…). But my point is that you usually get what you pay for. Not only are you buying a better designed theme, but you usually also get support, free updates, and sometimes even the original PSD’s for your editing pleasure. So without further ado, lets get to the themes.

The Best Premium Wordpress Themes

Polaroid Press $49

Quommunication Video $39

Portfolio Press $49

Omni $80

Blubs $49

Magazine News $49

Mimbo Pro $90

Fresh News $100

The Market Theme $55

Would you consider using a premium theme? Are they even worth the premium to you?

I don’t want to mention the name of the company yet, but it is a Dallas based financial firm. And so far, I have only gotten through their first filter of resumes. But I never would have gotten that far without my survival kit and a well timed follow up call.

Hopefully this job will work out, but if not, I have also applied to Best Buy…

As part of my new life makeover, I need to get myself fit; because right now, I am the exact opposite. Yet, the time has never been better for me to get in shape. I have plenty of time to exercise, I have just come off repairing my ACL, and I am extremely motivated. In my hunt for a routine, I have come across this one hundred push ups challenge. And boys and girls, I have taken it!

What Is The Challenge?

Here is a little intro from the website:

If you’re serious about increasing your strength, follow this six week training program and you’ll soon be on your way to completing 100 consecutive push ups!

Think there’s no way you could do this? I think you can! All you need is a good plan, plenty of discipline and about 30 minutes a week to achive this goal!

No doubt some of you can already do 50 consecutive push ups, but let’s face it, you’re in a big minority. Most of you reading this won’t even be able to manage 20 pushups. Actually, I’m sure many of you can’t even do 10.

However, it really doesn’t matter which group you fall into. If you follow the progressive push ups training program, I’m positive you’ll soon be able to do 100 push ups!

My Personal Benchmark

In order to get started with the program, the first thing you need to do is gauge where you are in terms of strength. To do this, you simply need to do as many push ups in a row as you can. The number of good form push ups that you can do at one time is your starting point. From there, you look at the chart on the initial test page, and then start your 6 week workout!

I completed 14 push ups in one session. How many can you do? Will you start the program?

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So the other day I was really wanting to be on a vacation. I am talking, anywhere. I could care less. I would go to the beaches here in Texas if I had to. But later that night, after I really thought about it, I came up with a short list of places that I really want to go to someday. Hopefully, I will eventually have this elusive money stuff so that I can go on quite a few great vacations. But until then, I will just post beautiful pictures on my blog…

Israel

Alaska

French Polynesia

Prague

Moscow

So those are the places I would go to if I had the money. I don’t yet, but eventually, I will. Where would you visit if you had the money?

Having recently been sent off on my own financially, as well as own my own living (in Dallas), it was time to form my own personal banking setup. This is exactly what I have done and I want to share with you what decision I have made and why. I have opened 1 checking account along with 2 savings accounts to form the foundation of my financial life.

Checking Account

Choosing a checking account is, in my opinion, the most important decision. It is essentially the gateway to all of your finances. It should be linked to all of your savings and investments, which are inflows, and then also linked to your bills as outflows. Either way, all of your money flows through it. With that in mind, I set up some criteria to choose a checking account:

1. Has to have physical branches
2. The branches and ATM’s must be conveniently nearby to me
3. The bank should be a national if not international chain
4. It should have an in house investment division

After considering the options (and according to my girl friend, doing quite a bit of irritating middle of the night research) I have decided to go with Chase. Now I can hear people screaming, “they hardly offer any interest at all!” But if I were interested in interest rates, I would have obviously gone with ETrade or some other kind of online banking company. However, I don’t plan on keeping a significant amount of money in the account at any one time. Like I said before, it is a gateway. There will only be enough to pay what I need to pay. When you add the fact that I like the convenience and customer service of brick and mortar locations, it becomes much more obvious why I chose it.

Savings Accounts

The first savings account I opened was a Chase money market account. The reason I chose to do this is so that I had an in house solution to draw from in case I accidentally overdrew my checking; Those fees hurt a lot more than the laughable interest rate. However, I only plan on keeping $500 or so in this account.

The second savings account I went for was an online solution: Savings Square. Now to be frank, the choice of your online savings account isn’t always that important. They all offer variable rates that are roughly the same (currently around 3%). I chose this one, basically because I thought their logo was great. All you should look out for is a FDIC insured guarantee and you should be set. The cherry on top is of course, unlimited transfers and a really high monthly dollar amount transfer limit.

So there you have it! My financial foundation is in place! It is time to start building a fortune (even if it seems like right now things are only getting smaller; I suppose landing a job will alleviate that situation). What does your foundation look like? Does it need a bit of a remodeling?

All good bloggers have a formula or basic framework for putting together posts. Think of it as a post template. This should go beyond breaking an entry into paragraphs and throwing in a few gratuitous pictures. It should not only incorporate the theme of the post but also the individuality of the blog’s design. Today, I would like to share my blog’s framework with you.

Lead Image

My newest part of the template is to lead with an image. People are very visual and I myself find it most appealing when there is an image to start the post. It kind of puts me in the mental mood to read it. I especially like the way Nate Whitehill handles it on his blog. My own style involves adding a thick black line to a sizable image.

Going Big In The Opener

My next formatting tactic involves the opening paragraph. I like to increase the size of the first paragraph, which has the effect of bringing the reader into the main body; or at least, that is what I like to think… Anyhow, the inspiration for me to use this method comes from Steve Smith over at Ordered List.

Incorporate Images Intelligently

Of course, adding images to a post is a great idea. But there are two keys to doing it with blogging class:

• Use images only when necessary
• Incorporate the images into you blog’s design

I do my best not to throw in unnecessary images (although some may argue that the lead image falls into that category). As for integrating them into my design, I make them all black and white and try to make sure that they fit in, in terms of size and shape.

Add Affiliate Links

This method may not be for everyone, but I like adding amazon links to products that I mention in my posts. I don’t hardly ever make money off of these links, but if someone wants to buy the product I mention, I feel like it is very useful to the reader to be able to link directly to it.

Close With A Question

This little tactic I picked up from David Airey. He always closes a post by asking the reader a question. It invites participation in a direct personal way, and as far as I can tell, it works very well for him.

I opened this post by saying that all good bloggers have a formula or basic framework for putting together posts; what makes a blogger great is when they know when to mix it up a bit, you know what I mean?