Week of 9/27/2010

Frugal Friends Make Saving Easier

If you've ever tried to diet while your friends and family are gorging themselves on pasta and pastries, you know how near impossible it can be to stick with the plan. The same holds true with trying to save money. If you surround yourself with people that have no regard for frugality, your savings plan could be on a slippery slope. If you're finding it hard to save because of peer pressure, you might want to seek out some frugal friends for partners in crime.

• Frugal friends will see the benefit of dining in and sharing dishes (pot-luck) instead of heading for the nearest eating hot spot.
• Frugal friends will give you a manicure or a pedicure if you'll do the same for them.
• Frugal friends will agree to share the cost of items you don't use everyday like lawnmowers, snowblowers, ladders, power tools, etc.
• Frugal friends will split the cost of a Groupon coupon with you.
• Frugal friends will carpool with you.
• Frugal friends will walk or jog with you instead of paying for a gym membership.
• Frugal friends will never expect a birthday present or a Christmas gift from you. Of course it doesn't mean you couldn't cook them their favorite dessert and serve it up to them.

You've heard the saying, "There's safety in numbers." Surrounding yourself with frugal friends and family makes it much easier to stick to your savings plan because everyone is on the same page.

Week of 10/06/2010

Don't Let Halloween Spook Your Budget

The final quarter of the year -- October, November, December -- is a budgeters nightmare if you haven't planned for it. But take heart. There are lots of creative ideas for the holiday season that won't break the family budget.

Everybody loves Halloween, but it can drain the bank account if you're not careful. Costumes can run upwards of $40 apiece. Goodies aren't all that cheap. And decorations can put you in the hole. It's still early, so we've discovered some sites that will help your creative juices start flowing and hopefully will keep more money in your pocket while enjoying Halloween to the max.

Who would have thought of Lowe's for some great ideas for food like Franken Fingers and Monster Eyes, and decorations like Giant Spiderwebs and Scary Screens.

Anybody can buy a costume, but who wants the same thing everyone else has. Be different and make your own costome. How about dressing up as a cup of coffee, a box of popcorn or a traffic light. Find these and hundreds of costume ideas for children and adults that you can make at home at the Costume Idea Zone.

You also don't have to spend a lot of money on masks. If you have a color printer, you can print a mask for free. You might even want to try a celebrity mask like Al Gore or Martha Stewart.

Oh yes. Don't forget your local dollar store for your treats and much more. Halloween can be fun for everyone without busting the budget.

Week of 10/13/2010

 Save Money Shopping Online With Price-Comparison Search Engines

You know what a time saver online shopping can be. It can also be a big money saver if you know how to go about it.

Your BFF for online shopping is the price-comparison search engine. You no doubt know their names: NexTag, Shopping.com, BizRate, PriceGrabber, ShopZilla. But which one should you use? Both Consumer Reports and the Wall Street Journal's Smart Money, after testing them all, agree that PriceGrabber.com is the clear winner rated easiest to use and delivering the best results. Yahoo!Shopping runs a close second followed by Shopping.com and NexTag. If you want to save money online, the price-comparison search engine is where to start. Begin with PriceGrabber and follow up with one or two more because no one site always delivers the best prices.

Try to be very specific about what you want. "Blue shoes" is only slightly more than generic, but "blue suede shoes" begins to get specific. "Blue suede sling-back pumps" is about as specific as you can get. If the item you're searching for has a make, model and model number, enter all the information, ie. Sony Bravia KDL-37L4000 LCD TV so that you will be comparing apples to apples.

Always click-through to the seller's site to verify the price, check shipping costs and return policies. One e-tailer may offer the lowest price, but shipping charges make the item more expensive than another e-tailer that ships for free. If the item you want has a high chance of being returned like clothing, an e-tailer's return policy should also be considered. Big e-tailers get huge breaks on shipping charges, but they aren't passed on to you. If you have to return something on your own dime, it can get expensive. Consumer friendly e-tailers like Amazon.com offer free shipping with orders of $25 or more and free return shipping as well.

Before you buy, always check to see if there is a current coupon code for the item you want at sites like RetailMeNot.com or Coupons.com. These can make a good buy even better.

 Week of 10/20/2010

If you're like a lot of people that eat out, you end up taking half your meal home.  Unless you have the appetite of Godzille, it's a wonder how anyone could clean a plate piled with enough food to feed a small army.  Of course by taking half your meal home, it means you actually get two meals for the price of one. But what do you do with the plastic take-home container? Or what do you do with that one-quart yogurt container? Or any of the large plastic containers you end up with after the contents have been drained. If you're like me, you save them.

Many times I make too much food whether it's for dinner with friends and/or family or just for myself. I want to send people home with leftovers or surprise a friend with a taste of my latest soup creation. But I don't want to put the food in my Tupperware or Rubbermaid containers for fear that I'll never get them back. I pay way too much money for these kitchen life-savers to let them go.

This is where all those saved containers come in handy. Pack the clamshells with leftovers; fill the yogurt tub with soup, chili or stew; never feel bad about losing your more expensive containers. What's more, it keeps them out of landfills. Plastic can take as long as 400 years to break down, so you're also helping the environment.

Discover more ways to reuse plastic containers.

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