Insurance rates are based on the ability to do damage. Potential damage is directly proportional to the amount of power that your automobile has. Therefore reducing the size of your automobile engine will get you the largest discount on your auto insurance rate.

The second cost saving strategy is to eliminate collision coverage entirely. If you drive a car that’s typically worth under $5k – I would consider dropping collision entirely. I mean what’s the point paying extra bucks every year on a car that’s worthless anyway?

In rural areas buying an older car may or may not make sense depending on your situation due to safety issues such as inability to get a tow, excessive snow etc.

But in highly congested/metropolitan areas, buy a beatup fast revving smaller car, especially if you have to park on the street and make many sales calls. You will not care less if 20 new dings get on your car each year. Your insurance payments will be very reasonable.

In addition, a profit sharing contribution of 25% of W-2 compensation can be made if you run an incorporated business and 20% of self employment income if you are a sole proprietorship. The maximum contribution for 2008 is $46000 and $51,000 if your age is above 50 in 2008.

The bottom line is that if you are in a job where there is an option to get paid Corp. to Corp., consider setting up your own company and billing out your services. Right now the stock markets are depressed. And this is a great time to get into a Solo 401k and get your retirement account rolling. $46,000 is a whopping savings any way you slice it.

Etrade.com is one of the companies that gives you the ability to manage your own Solo 401k – which I think is great considering that money managers on the whole have little or no credibility today.

But now Blockbuster seems to be silently making its way back into the marketplace. The fiasco of high late fees far behind them, Blockbuster is now promoting DVD rental plans that offer the online ordering capabilities of Netflix and leveraging their brick and mortar stores by providing the alternative to return DVDs to a regular store along with instant exchanges.

What this means is that, at a similar price point, Blockbuster’s offerings are now better than Netflix and you can avoid the hassle of mailing DVDs.

Most Blockbuster stores have been given an extensive facelift with more emphasis on HD entertainment and console games. All of these efforts along with selective advertisement on the internet looks like Blockbuster is on its way back to reclaiming top position. Whether this actually happens, remains to be seen but what this means for us is:

An opportunity to pick up Blockbuster shares on the cheap (BBI). At about $2.50 per share, I see can see this stock going to atleast $3.50 in the near term. While this company has plenty of debt, it has the cash flow necessary to service the debt and has seen increased same store sales and profitability over the last quarter.

Overall, the company is profitable. On the extreme side, the whole company could be a buyout candidate. One more thing billionaire activist investor Icahn holds a lot of ‘BBI’.