Travel hacking vs extreme couponing, a stock for 78% off, and a creative way to lose your life savings

WHY TRAVEL HACKING IS BETTER THAN COUPONING: I’ve tried out couponing before, but ultimately gave it up as I found the my time could better spent on working financial and travel deals. Naturally, I’m favorably disposed toward this article which echoes the sentiment:

In the end, very few people take the time to master the art of free travel or free groceries… but I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to take the time for free travel. Extreme couponing gets you 5 gallons of toothpaste that will take up a room worth way more than the tooth paste. But with travel hacking, you can do very simple things to earn enough miles for first class flights on the finest airlines to exotic locations. Flights that are worth $20,000 can be had for next to nothing, if not nothing. Really, why wouldn’t you take the time to rack up at least a few hundred-thousand miles?

Seriously though, the same people who would rather just pay for a flight than take the time are missing out. I can’t say the same for cheez-its. You could pay $2.50 for cheez-its and save yourself an hour of scowering coupons. Right? But with travel hacking, an hour of research (or 10 minutes to simply email us), can get you a $1,000 flight to Europe.

Indeed! The hourly compensation for financial and travel activities is usually (though not always) better. I do keep my eyes open for the occasional awesome Slickdeal to take advantage of, though those have been far and few between lately. I’m always happy to pluck the low-hanging coupon fruit, such as that Target coupon that’s come out the last two Christmases, and to play off supermarkets against each other by going for their loss leaders each week, but in general bank and travel deals are more lucrative, and more fun.

Do any of you mess with couponing? Or are you all travel and credit cards, all the time?

SPEAKING OF COUPONS: How does 20% off everything you can fit in a bag at Staples sound? Valid through 6/22.

ASSETS ON THE CHEAP: Over at Oddball Stocks, Nate Tobik has found a company selling at 22 cents on the dollar:

The twist in this investment comes with Winmill, they own 222,644 shares of Bexil which at current prices is worth $11.187m.  They also own 25% of Tuxis, which is worth about $400k.  An interesting side note, Tuxis might be worth a look, they are trading at 18% of their 2007 book value.  Both of Winmill’s public subsidiaries are worth $11.5m in total.  Winmill’s own market cap is $3.045m, meaning they are trading for less than the value of their subsidiary stakes alone.  The market is valuing their investment management business at less than zero.  Winmill also historically had some cash and securities on their balance sheet, let’s call it $2m.  Their historic liabilities were close to zero.

Read the whole analysis here.

THIS IS WHY WE HAVE BANKS: In a word, termites.

CHINA — A Chinese woman almost lost her life savings recently when termites invaded a wooden drawer in which she kept a plastic bag containing 400,000 yuan: the equivalent of $65,000 U.S. dollars.

It was only after the woman decided to redecorate her house in Guandong Province that she noticed the termites had dined on her nest egg.  According to the Guangzhou Daily, the money was given to the woman by her children.

A local bank generously scanned the remaining cash and was able to identity 340,000 yuan which means the termite’s meal ultimately cost the woman roughly $9,786.