With our current recession and the huge drop in the stock market, many people are focused on getting out of the market. But, did you know that the Dow had its best July in 20 years – it was up 8.6% for the month?

Many people try to time the market, and they’ll either pull their money out of the stock market during times of decline and put them in cash or bonds. However, did you know that just one day can make a huge difference?

If you look at the average annual total return of the S&P 500 between 1978 and 2007, those who bought and held their money in an index fund had an average annual return of 9.6%. Those who missed the 5 best days, had a return of only 8.52%. If they missed the 25 best days, the average annual return dropped to only 5.57%, almost half.

You never know when the market is going to bounce back. Historically, the worst market fluctuations and losses were followed by a period of market recovery. For example, I started my 401(k) in 2000. I started out buying stocks at the height of the dot com boom. However, they quickly turned to bust, and I “lost” a substantial amount of money. It did recover (plus profit) before the current downturn. You’ve only lost your money on paper until you sell, and I figure I have at least 30 years before I “have” to sell at retirement (and even then, you’re only required to pull minimum withdrawals once you hit 70 1/2).

Has the downturn affected the way you invest? Are you still saving and investing your money? Do you feel optimistic that things are going to change? For more frugal ideas, please visit Frugal Friday at Life as Mom.

Photo by OmirOnia

Back in December, I wrote an article about knowing your store’s price policies in order to get the best deal. At the time, Target did not price match, but as of 7/12, they have a new Low Price Promise.

Target will match advertised prices from competitors on identical items in local markets. If you find a lower price on an identical single item (the same brand and model number) that is listed on a local competitor’s printed advertisement, during the effective date of the ad, Target will match that price. All price matches will be done at Guest Services, so you’ll pay the Target price and bring your receipt and the ad to Guest Services for the adjustment.

Also, if you find a lower price within seven days of purchase, you can bring the actual printed competitor ad and a Target receipt of purchase of the same item to Guest Service to receive a price adjustment. You must have the original advertisement and receipt for the price match.

Do you price match? Walmart already has this policy in place. Do you find it’s worth the effort? Plus, neither Target nor Walmart double coupons, so it may be better to go to the original store (like Meijer or Kroger) that do double coupons. What do you think?

For more frugal ideas, please visit Being Frugal.

A couple of weeks ago, my 2 boys and I took a roadtrip to visit my sister. It was about a 12.5 hour drive each way, so I broke it into a 2 day trip (there was no way a 5 and 3 year old were going to drive for that long in 1 day).

Last week, I wrote about how we decided to drive vs. fly or some other mode of transportation. Today, I’ll give you some tips on how we saved money on our road trip:

• Plan Your Gas Fill-ups Before you Leave – you don’t need to know exactly which exit your going to get gas, but each state has different taxes on gas, so the prices can vary widely by state. For example, I knew that MI usually has higher gas prices than other states, so I made sure that I filled up in OH before I crossed the state border. You can use the site GasBuddy to get an idea of gas prices in each area before you leave.

• Check your Tire Pressure/Air Filter – Make sure that your vehicle is well-tuned up to get the best gas mileage possible on your trip. Also, if you drive slower, you will improve your fuel mileage. You will use about 15% less fuel driving at 60 mph vs. 75 mph.

• Get a AAA Card – We already have a AAA card, but we earned back some of the annual cost by booking the AAA rate at the hotels where we stayed. Plus, if anything had gone wrong with our vehicle, we would have the added security of knowing we had someone to help us.

• Use a travel site to search for the best hotel prices – Although I ended up booking directly through the hotel site to get the AAA card rate, I searched using hotel search sites like Hotels.com, HotelsCombined.com or OneTravel.com to see the prices and reviews on all the hotels in the area. That way, I had an idea of the prices in the area.

• Get cash-back on your hotel stay or Join a rewards club – If you do end up booking through a travel site, you can get 5% cash-back from Cashbaq for Hotels.com and 1% cash-back from Cashbaq or Ebates if you book through Expedia.com. Although it’s not much, every little bit counts. Or, if you book directly through the hotel site, see if there’s a rewards program where you can earn points towards free nights in the future.

• Bring snacks/drinks/lunches with you in the car – In order to save money on food costs, bring snacks and food for at least lunch the first day. If you have room, bring a cooler for cold drinks for the road.

• Choose a hotel with a free continental breakfast – Although we stayed in close to bottom-of-the-barrel hotels, each of the hotels offered a free breakfast. I wasn’t expecting much from them (based on the complaints in the reviews), but they were actually pretty good with cereal, bagels, donuts, juice, and milk. They filled us up, and helped us save money on breakfast food.

How do you save money when you go on a long trip in the car? Did I miss anything? For more frugal tips, please visit Being Frugal.

Photo by MarkMiller.

As the school years winds to a close, several stores offer freebies for students with good report cards.

- Streets of New York – bring in a report card with straight A’s and receive a free 10 inch pizza as well as a free soda.

- Chuck E. Cheese – bring in a report card and get free tokens for grades – up to 15 free tokens per child. You will need to make a food purchase for this offer.

- Pizza Hut – If your child has at least 3 A’s on his/her report card, receive one Personal Pan Pizza and a small soft drink or carton of milk by presenting his or her report card to the manager. See the site for details.

- Sbarro’s Pizza – June 23 is PizzAchievers Day. On that day, stop at Sbarros with your report card and say, “A’s and B’s… Pizza Please!!”. Sbarro will then provide every PizzAchiever and an accompanying adult with a free slice of cheese or peperoni pizza and a small soda.

- Topps – Every time you bring in a report card to this store, the manager will award you with a gift.

There are several other offers that could possibly be regional/dependant on franchise, so you will want to call the store to make sure they participate before you bring your report card.

- Chick-fil-a – bring in your report card with all A’s and B’s and receive 8 free nuggets

- Krispy Kreme – get a free donut for each A, up to 6

- McDonalds – if you child has straight A’s, get a free Happy Meal

- Blockbuster – get 1 free “Kids/Families” movie rental for “A’s” on your report card

- Family Video – free rental during the summer for A’s on a report card.

- Baskin Robbins – get a free scoop of ice cream for good grades on your report card

Thanks to Debadoo at SlickDeals for parts of this list.

Are there are stores that I missed where you can get freebies for good grades? Fore more frugal ideas, please visit Being Frugal.

After I graduated from college, I started having to make toiletry and cleaning product purchases for myself. I usually made my purchase decision based on either which item had the lowest price, or I was brand loyal.

If I didn’t really care about the product, I would purchase the lowest priced item, which was usually the private (or store) brand item, or I would pick a product I liked and always purchase that brand every time I made a purchase. To my credit, I did usually keep an eye out for sales and try to stock up then.

That strategy worked for me, because I would save a little money, and it would diminish the amount of time that I had to spend thinking about every item I was going to purchase. Who wants to spend 10 minutes deciding what to buy for every item they place in their cart?

However, once I started playing the CVS game, I discovered that the best way to save the most money was to drop most brand loyalties. Once I decided to go after the best deals regardless of the brand, I was able to get many items for free or almost free. Many times, when manufacturers introduce new products (or product improvements), they’ll often have great promotions and coupons that allow consumers to try to product for “free”. The goal is to get the consumer “hooked” on the product, so they’ll pay full price in the future.

For example, I have always used Tide detergent, since that’s what my mom used when I was growing up. I loved the smell of it. But, would other detergents clean my clothes just as well and still smell good? I have recently purchased Arm & Hammer detergent as well as All, and they have both worked out well for me. Plus, I was able to get a much better deal than trying to get Tide on sale with my usual $0.25 coupon.

By relaxing your brand loyalties and shopping the drugstores at “rock-bottom” prices, you are also able to try out many different brands that you might not have experienced. If you hate it, you just don’t purchase it again (I know not to buy any more Soy Joy bars for my husband!), but I have discovered some great shampoos and deodorants that I might not have normally tried.

Even if you (or your family members) have some items that you are very brand loyal, by saving money on the other items that you don’t care so much about, you free up money to make your brand-loyal purchases. And, you can still pair sales and coupons on those items and stock up.

But, most importantly, I have been able to decrease my family’s toiletry and household goods budget dramatically. By shopping at the drugstores and having very little out-of-pocket expenses, I probably spend about $20 per month on these expenses vs. a much higher amount previously.

Have you decreased your brand loyalties to save expenses? If not, what’s holding you back? For more frugal ideas, please visit Being Frugal.

Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 12.6%, and its economy is looking pretty bleak at the moment due to the plight of the auto industry.

I was listening to my usual radio station today, and I heard one of the public service announcements that they’ve been letting various companies use. This one happened to be for a car dealership. The gist of the announcement was asking people to purchase a new car to get our MI economy moving again. It would provide jobs to the dealership employees as well as the employees that manufactured the car.

I had to stop and think when I heard this commercial. Of course I know many people whose jobs are affected by the slump in the auto industry, and I feel really bad for them. But, should people really go out and make an unplanned automobile purchase just to help the economy? I would argue, “No”. Isn’t spending beyond our means one of the reasons we’re in this economic mess?

So, I started thinking about whether we should spend just for the sake of helping out the economy in general. We haven’t really changed our spending habits much due to the economy, since we’ve always tried to spend within our means and save for an item before we purchase it. In fact, years ago, a friend of mine thought it was weird that we were saving for a new roof for our house before we had it done rather than just taking out a loan.

In fact, we still have about $1300 of our $1800 2008 stimulus rebate left in our money market account. The only reason we spent the $500 was we had a car repair that we used it for. We do plan on using it someday for a Disney vacation, but we want to wait until our boys are old enough to remember it rather than just to stimulate the economy.

What do you think? How do you feel about spending to stimulate the economy? Have your spending habits changed since the downturn? For more frugal ideas, please visit Being Frugal.

Do you or someone in your family take prescription medicine on a regular basis? Even if you do not, you can still save on prescription costs.

I am currently using a prescription skin cream that is VERY expensive. Thankfully, my insurance copay is only $25. Although my copay is a very small percentage of the actual cost of the drug, it can still add up over time. But, how can I reduce my out of pocket cost?

• Prescription Coupons - almost every week, there’s a new coupon for a new or transferred prescription. Usually, the coupons for a new prescription offer a $10 gift card and the transferred prescriptions offer a $25 gift card.

• Check for Discount Cards or Rebates – my doctor was kind enough to give me a discount card for one of my prescriptions, which reduced my copay to zero (plus I still used a gift card coupon). The prescription I’m on also offers a $25 rebate that I can send away for twice a year (which I found on the internet), so that reduces my copay to zero too.

• If you don’t have prescription insurance, you can get a free drug discount card to help you save on the cost of your medicines or do a search on Swagbucks for a prescription assistance program that some of the pharmaceutical companies offer to people with limited incomes and no insurance. Here’s an example of a program offered by Pfizer.

How do you save money on medicine? Do you know of any additional pharmacies that accept competitor’s coupons? For more frugal ideas, please visit Being Frugal.

Do you know all the key tax credits and deductions from the latest stimulus plan? If you don’t, you are in danger of doing what one of my tax clients did last year – he purchased all new windows for his home, thinking that he would be able to get a credit for them. However, he would have been able to get a credit in 2007 and a credit in 2009 (as long as he followed certain guidelines), but Congress did not allow the credit in 2008. So, he spent $8,000 in a year that it had no taxable benefit to him.

Previously, I discussed the Making Work Pay Credit and some of the benefits for the unemployed, and today I’ll talk about the rest of the main provisions in the bill.

• First-time Homebuyer Credit – Most people know about this credit, but it can get confusing because there was a credit available on your 2008 taxes for $7,500 where the buyer has to pay the credit back over 15 years ($500 a year). However, in the latest stimulus plan, it has been changed to an $8,000 refundable tax credit (10% of the purchase price, up to $8,000) for first-time homebuyers who purchase a home between 1/1/09 and 12/1/09. The $8,000 does not have to be paid back. A first-time home buyer is someone who has not owned a principal residence during the three-year period prior to the purchase, and the credit starts phasing out at $75,000 ($150,000 for a joint return).

• Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit – You can get a credit of 30% of the cost, up to $1500 for certain energy efficient improvements that you make to your house in 2009 or 2010. Not all improvements qualify; it usually only includes products at the highest efficiency levels. See this article for more information.

• American Opportunity Tax Credit -This credit is similar to the Hope Credit, except that it can taken during any of the 4 years of study (instead of just the first two). During 2009 and 2010, the Hope Credit has been expanded to up to $2500, and 40% of it is refundable (meaning available for lower-income taxpayers who may not have qualified in the past). The credit phases out at $80,000 ($160,000 for joint filers).

• Section 529 plan distributions – Congress has expanded the definition of qualified higher education expenses to include computer and related equipment to be used for college. In 2009 and 2010, you will be able to use your 529 plan to purchase computers (and you won’t pay tax on your withdrawal).

• Vehicle Purchase – If you purchase a new vehicle after 2/16/09 and before 2010, you will be eligible for a tax deduction for any state and local sales tax that you paid on the new vehicle costing up to $49,500. Fortunately, you can claim it even if you don’t itemize on your 2009 return. The deduction begins phasing out at $125,000 ($250,000 for joint filers).

Do you plan on taking advantage of any of these new tax credit this year? Do you think these will make doing your taxes next year more complicated? For more frugal ideas, please visit Lynnae @ Being Frugal.

Back in December, I wrote a post about one of my favorite sources for kid-friendly activities in my area – GoCityKids. However, I recently discovered another website that has some great ideas for things to do with kids in your own city (and when you’re traveling too).

The site is called Best Kid Friendly Travel, and it was created by Stephany Wiestling who travels a lot with her son and her husband. She began compiling a list of her ideas for frugal travel with kids on her website, and it grew to include ideas from moms from around the country.

I recently wrote an article for her with some ideas for fun things to do with kids this summer in my area. Check it out here… Don’t worry, if you’re not from my area, there are plenty of other ideas of things to do in your area (and if there’s not, she would love for you to contribute some ideas to her site!).

We love to do activities as a family. It’s fun to take a break from the everyday to see and learn new things. Plus, it’s great for family bonding (ok…with a toddler…it’s not ALWAYS fun ). We like to take advantage of the free (or almost free) activities around our city so our boys have learning experiences and release some energy.

A couple of years ago, we had a zoo membership, but we decided to forgo it this year and go to the zoo only on the first weekends of the month when Bank of America has Museums on Us (free admission). My boys look forward to the firestation open house each year where they get to try on a fireman’s uniform, spray the firehose, and site in a fire engine. I enjoy the price tag – free! Also, why go to a fancy waterpark, when a local park offers a free sprayscape during the summer?

How do you take advantage of the free activities around your area? For more frugal ideas, please visit Being Frugal.

This year, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In real people’s terms, it’s the stimulus bill. Well, what’s in it for you?

If you think back to previous stimulus packages, the key to the package was a rebate check that you received in the mail. You will also receive a rebate this year, but it’s a bit different than in the past.

It’s called the Making Work Pay Credit, and it’s a credit of up to $400 for a single person and $800 for a married couple (or 6.2% of your earned income, if that amount is lower than $400 or $800). The credit phases out (meaning you are not eligible for the full amount) with a modified adjusted gross income of $75,000 for a single person and $150,000 for a married couple. Full phaseout (meaning you will no longer eligible for the credit) occurs at $95,000 for an individual and $190,000 for a couple.

However, this time, instead of a rebate check in the mail, you will receive your rebate each paycheck for the rest of year by the employer reducing the amount of income tax withheld in each check. Sounds great, right? You get a little bit extra in each paycheck and we avoid the huge fees to mail out the checks.

But…workers need to be careful that the correct amount for the rebate is really being given to them. Individuals with multiple jobs as well as dual income married couples need to make sure that they are not too little withheld from their paycheck. Each employer cannot account for the other income that an individual/family receives.

So, in the case of an individual with multiple jobs, he may received $400 back from each of his employers. When he goes to file his taxes next year, he’ll still owe the $400 in taxes (or have a $400 less refund).

The same applies for a dual-income couple. It appears that the employer withholding tables give back about $600 for a person filing married on is W4. So, if you have 2 married individuals getting back $600 over the course of the year, you will receive $400 too much.

How can you avoid owing taxes next year?

If you are in one of the situations I outlined above, you can adjust your W4 by recalculating your exemptions or you can simply figure out how much overage you are receiving and ask for that amount to be added to your withholding. Don’t forget to change it back at the beginning of next year, though.

How do you plan to use your extra money each month? Do you plan to spend it, use it for debt repayment or save it? For more frugal ideas, visit Being Frugal.

Although opinions vary about whether you should provide some or all of your child’s college tuition, if you do plan on saving for college, you will want to maximize your earnings.

I have spoken in the past about how I’m using UPromise to boost our college savings (about $1,600 earned since 2001), but we are also trying to save on our own to supplement our UPromise earnings.

To increase our earnings, we invest our money in our state’s 529 plan. The money that we contribute to the 529 fund is deductible on our state income taxes. Plus, the money grows tax-free (we don’t pay taxes on any earnings). We even received a match from our state when we contributed a certain amount the first year.

Of course, as the state 529 plans are somewhat of a monopoly (usually each state chooses it’s own plan), some plans are better than others. Morningstar releases a report each year listing some of the best and worst funds in terms of the fees that are charged. You will want to decide whether the state tax deduction is worth the fees (if your state offers one of the funds with high fees). Check out your own state’s 529 plan for more information.

Most 529 plans have various options for investing your money. You can choose an age-based plan (our plan offers aggressive, moderate, and conservative options for each age-based plan). If you are skittish of the market, you can often choose a fixed-income plan too.

When your child goes to college, you can withdraw both your contributions and earnings tax free (for an accredited institution) for both tuition and fees as well as books. If your child doesn’t attend college, you can transfer the beneficiary to another family member, and if they receive scholarships, you can also withdraw the money penalty free up to the scholarship amount. If the funds are not used for qualified expenses, you will pay a 10% penalty on your withdrawal.

On Friday, I plan to write about saving for college using a Roth IRA as an alternative to a state 529 plan.

Do you save for your child’s college? If so, do you use a 529 plan? For more frugal ideas, visit Being Frugal.

Thanks to Sara from Learning the Frugal Life for writing this guest post on her family’s journey to using cloth napkins!

My family switched to cloth napkins about a month ago. I have been thinking about making the switch for about a year and finally decided to take the step. It was actually a little intimidating since my family had become so dependent on paper napkins and towels.

We used paper towels and napkins for everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Having 4 children in the house you can imagine how many we could go through in a day. We used them for noses, spills, eating, smashing bugs, wiping up mud, you name it. I could easily go through a package of 500 every couple weeks. While I know that paper napkins are fairly cheap (I could usually get a package for about $2-$3) that is still around $50 a year. Then if you add the cost of paper towels it begins to add up. What was really bothering me the most was the waste factor. So, I decided to make the switch.

There are many ways to get cloth napkins without buying brand new fancy ones. You can buy them second hand from thrift stores or yard sales. You can make your own from any fabric, old t-shirts, bed sheets or towels. If you watch the stores you can sometimes find napkins on clearance, especially around the holidays. Last month I picked up a whole bunch of Valentines napkins on clearance for .31 cents each. For everyday use I figured it wouldn’t matter what they looked like. Besides it’s kinda fun having a little variety.

I made my first set of napkins from some cotton fabric I found on clearance at Wal-Mart for $1.97. From this fabric I made 9 napkins, that averages to about .27 cents each. I sewed them all by hand in my spare time. I measured them each at 12 x 12 inches. I made them a little smaller than most of the conventional napkins to maximize my fabric. I cut them out and folded over each side and sewed them. This made them about 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches. While this is a little smaller than I initially wanted, they ended up being the perfect size for my toddlers to use.

Some people will argue the fact that using energy, water and soap to wash the cloth cancels out the good your doing by not using paper. I disagree. I don’t feel like the cloth napkins have increased my energy or water usage at all. The napkins are not that big and I just throw them in with my other laundry. Plus, we are typically only using about 6 napkins per day. Unless they get extremely soiled we just keep reusing them until they are dirty. I wash all my cloths in cold water, thus reducing energy. And if you hang them to dry you are using even less energy.

I invested less than $7 for my cloth napkins. I figured I spend about $100 per year on paper towels and paper napkins. While I have not totally eliminated paper towels I have definitely cut back our usage. So for that small initial investment up front they have more than paid for themselves, as I estimate that I will be saving about $70 per year. It feels good to be wasting less, and saving more. I expect my napkins to last me many years. I recommend that everyone look into switching to cloth. Not only will you save money, you will also be helping the environment.

Have you switched to cloth napkins or thought about doing it? For more frugal tips, visit Being Frugal.

Sara @ Learning the Frugal Life is a wife and mother to 4 boys. She used to work as a Medical Assistant, but after the birth of her third child decided to take the job of homemaker. She enjoys teaching herself and others how to live more frugally in their day to day lives. Sara also enjoys gardening, baking, organizing, scrapbooking and coming up with new arts and crafts for her kids to try. You can visit Sara at Learning the Frugal Life for some great tips on saving money or at her personal/crafty blog at One Mom, Five Boys.

What would you do if you applied for a home loan and found out that someone had been using your identity for years? You can find out for free if you’ve been a victim of identity theft (or if they somehow put something incorrectly on your credit report).

In 2001, Congress passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act. As a result, each consumer is entitled to receive a free copy of their credit report from each credit reporting agency once every 12 months.

Many companies have jumped on the free credit report bandwagon, and there are commercials out there advertising a free credit report. However, once you order your “free” report, surprise…you need to pay $14.95 or some other charge. The names of the sites are so close, that each year I can never remember which site is the official free credit report site, and I have to search the internet.

The official site to use when requesting your free credit report is called AnnualCreditReport.com. I always request my report annually, but did you know that you don’t have to request your report for each of the 3 credit agencies at the same time? You can space them out over the year, so you don’t have to wait a full year between checks.

So, be careful when you request your free report and use only the official site (AnnualCreditReport.com). You should never have to pay anything for your free annual report. Also, make sure you are checking your credit report at least once per year to make sure that everything is correct.

Do you check your credit report for free each year? For more frugal ideas, visit Tightwad Tuesday over at Being Frugal.

Do you make charitable contributions each year? In addition to our church tithes, my husband and I like to make small contributions to our alumni universities and a few other small charities. Although, we are unable to give too much money, we can double our contribution just by doing a little bit of legwork.

How is that possible? Well, my husband’s company matches our contributions dollar for dollar (up to $1,000 per year). So, when I made my contribution to my school, I made sure that the donor was both my husband and I, so we could submit a match request to his company. Now, our small contribution is still small…but it’s not as tiny as before.

How do you know if your company matches contributions? Contact your HR person in your company to see if there’s a program available and what the restrictions are. Do they accept all charitable organizations or just universities? What’s the minimum amount necessary to contribute before it’s matched? How do I submit my match? If you need to fill out a paper form, it’s probably best to have a few of the forms handy so it’s easy to fill out and to remind you of the match.

How do you increase your charitable giving? If you’re not giving cash, your drugstore deals are a great way to give goods. For more frugal ideas, visit Tightwad Tuesday at BeingFrugal.net.

Do you get cash-back when you shop online? If you don’t, you’re missing out on one of the many good reasons to make purchases online.

How Does it Work?

Every time I’m about to make a purchase online, I shop through a cash-back site and get a % of cash back on my purchase. For example, say I want to purchase a book at Borders.com. I’ll check the cash-back % amount at some of my favorite sites such as:

• Big Crumbs – I would get 4.8% of my purchase back in cash
• Ebates – 4% back plus a $5 sign up bonus if you open a new account and make a purchase within 30 days
• ShopatHome -  4% back, plus a $5 bonus if you open a new account
• Cashbaq – 4% back plus a $5 sign up bonus, if you open a new account
• Mr. Rebates – 4% back
• UPromise – 3% added to my UPromise college savings account – click here for more information about UPromise.

Once you’ve decided which cashback site to use (based on which offers the highest cash-back), search for the name of the store and click through the store link to shop. It’s very important that you click through the cash-back site, since that’s how credit is determined for your order.

I used to shop through UPromise for every purchase, until I found out about some of the other sites. So, now I usually shop through the site where I get the largest return. So, for my Borders example, I would probably shop through Big Crumbs.

Please note: Each cash-back site lists various online coupon codes that you can use when you shop. If you have a coupon code that you use that’s not listed on the cash-back site, you may not get any money back. For example, when I used the free shipping coupon at Snapfish back in December, I did not receive cash back on my order, even though I shopped through Ebates, since it was a code they didn’t list (and because of that, Ebates didn’t get paid by Snapfish).

So How Do you Get your Cash?

• Big Crumbs – You will be paid monthly by Paypal around the 15th of the month. There is a $5 minimum required for payout.
• Cashbaq – Need at least $10 payable in your account (includes the bonus amount). You will be paid by check or Paypal around the 20th of each month.
• Mr. Rebates – Need $10 in “Available Rebates” to cash out. Payments are made by check or Paypal around the beginning of each month.
• Ebates – “Big Fat Checks” are sent via check or Paypal every 3 months when your account balance is at least $5.01, excluding bonus rewards.
• ShopAtHome – Checks are sent out monthly once you reach the $25 payout minimum.
• UPromise – The order will show up in your Upromise account a couple of days after placing your order. It will show up as pending until Upromise is paid. Once it is paid, the money can be transferred to your 529 plan during your quarterly transfer.
• Frugali - Payout via ACH, check, Paypal, or Google checkout when you reach the $25 minimum.  Get a $5 bonus for joining.

Using a cash-back site is how I save even more money while shopping online.

Thanks to Tia from Tia’s Saving Cents for writing a guest post for me on preparing for a layoff.

A few months ago I learned that my job would be ending this April. I am very blessed. I received a lot of notice and the plan I am leaving with has a severance package, which I know is a lot more than many are left with when they are handed that pink slip. I was in denial the first few weeks. I was still getting up and going to that job everyday, so it did not seem real. When the first round of leave dates arrived for my co-workers, it hit me. This is real, and I need to take advantage of this time to prepare.

Build Up The Stock Pile- My first focus was to build up my stockpile. I reviewed my Top 50 items and started taking inventory of what I had, and how much I thought I would need to last a 3-6 month period. I reallocated money from our entertainment budget to help me double my stock piles, and so far I have been able to find some really great free and really cheap deals to assist me. The big challenge will be keeping my teenager from devouring it all!

Cutting Back On Extras- This is the hardest for me. We don’t have a lot of “extra” to cut from. The one area we do trip up in keeping costs down is eating out. We have significantly cut back on this in the past 2 years. First, to prepare to buy our house last April, and then to keep in our budget, but I do “reward” myself for staying on my menu for 13 days by ordering pizza or some other fast food on the 14^th day. When you are feeding a family of 6, even with coupons this is expensive. I have started menu planning for all 14 days and have been lucky enough to be able to get jobs mystery shopping a pizza establishment, so we have not lost this luxury all together – we just try to indulge when it is free.

Another “extra” is gifts. I love to give them and on my clearance expeditions I often find fabulous deals too good to pass up. This year I have (passed them up that is). I picked up the gifts for my son’ birthdays for this year at Target’s 75% off toy sale and set a budget of $30 total for the toys I would pick up for all my nieces and nephews birthdays this year. I was not able to cover them all at this sale since some of them are now in their teen years, but I was able to get all of the kids covered with gifts I know they will love, and at 75% off did not break the bank ($25.84 was the final total). I will cover the teenager’s gifts this year with mystery shopping at a few local stores they love. A definite win win situation! In the past I felt that because they were free to me, I needed to buy something too, but since the girls do not know that they were free to me, I will let go of that and take advantage.

Increase Savings- I am great at saving money while spending it, if that makes any sense, but not so great at saving it in an interest bearing savings account. This is where my husband is great, so we discussed how much we wanted to increase our savings and have tried hard to stick to it. Life has thrown us some interesting curve balls. My husband works for our state and they are implementing 2 day furloughs a month. This cuts our income significantly. When we purchased our home in April, we knew I was not working in a stable job environment so we made sure we could pay all the “bills” with his salary alone. We did not expect that his salary would be cut at the same time as I would be losing my job. I also do not anticipate finding work quickly. My field is in complete layoff mode and even chances of finding a job in a law firm are slim to none, so having this savings is important. I am hoping even with the curve balls, we will be able to reach our goal before April 30.

Keep Communication Open- This is a biggie. Monetary stress is huge and can really be hard on a family and a marriage. Keeping the communication flowing keeps concerns on the table and allows you to work and plan together.

Do you have any tips for me? This is my first experience with a layoff. I started this job 11 years ago straight out of school and have never been unemployed so this will be a new journey. If you have any experience to share I would love to hear it! My income is 47% of our household. This will be a significant life change. I am looking forward to finding the direction God has for me and my family thru this. It has definitely refocused my prayer time.

Tia is a blessed wife and mom to 4 busy boys ages 15-3. She loves finding great deals, shopping smart and sharing it all at TiaSavingCents.com. Join her there daily as she shares great deals, smart shopping tips and how you can keep your hard earned money in your bank accounts.

In my post last week, I gave some frugal ideas that we use at our house. One thing that I do each year, is make my own chocolates to give as a gift to my husband and boys.

Making homemade chocolates is really not that difficult…and they’re delicious (especially the ones with peanut butter filling). The picture on the left shows all the items that you’ll need to get started:

• Chocolate Melts (I’m using dark chocolate)
• Chocolate molds. If you want to have a filling in the chocolate (like pb or mint), you’ll need a deeper mold
• Paintbrush – you’ll need this for spreading the chocolate on the filled chocolates

Not Necessary:

• Chocolate Melting Pot – you can either use this, microwave the chocolate or use a double boiler on the stove
• Box for chocolates

Step One: I made my peanut butter filling.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 stick (2 tbsp) melted margarine or butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Mix together until it looks like the picture above.

Step Two: melt the chocolate. You can either purchase a Chocolate Melting Pro, like the one pictured (with a 40% off coupon at Michaels or JoAnns, of course), or you could melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler on the stove. It is very important that you do not get the chocolate wet or too hot (in the microwave) or you will ruin it.

Step Three: once the chocolate is melted, you can start spooning it into the molds.

Solid Chocolates – For solid chocolates (like the ones above), spoon some chocolate into the mold and then bang the mold on the table to level it. You will want to level the chocolate pretty quickly after spooning the chocolate in, so that it doesn’t solidify first. Once you have all the molds filled, stick it in the freezer in a level spot for about 10 minutes.

Filled Chocolates: In order to do a filling, you will need to spoon some chocolate into the mold and then use the paintbrush to spread the chocolate around the bottom and sides of the mold (to create a shell). You don’t want the chocolate to be too thick (or there’s not much room for filling and it will have a thick shell when you bite into it), and you don’t want it to be too thin. I usually pick up the mold and check for any thin spots where I can see the light through it. See the picture above for an example of the shell. Once you have all the shells complete, stick the mold into the freezer on a level spot for several minutes.
Step Four: pull the mold out of the freezer and add your filling. I usually take some peanut butter filling and roll it into a ball and pat into the shell. It’s easier to add more filling than it is to pull some filling out, so smaller is better. Once you have the filling in, add some more chocolate to the top, making sure that it touches the shell to completely enclose the filling. You can see an example of some chocolates with the pb filling and with the top on it in the picture above.

Step Five: arrange your chocolates in a container to give for Valentine’s Day. I reuse this box that I bought several years ago for my husband. You can see all the chocolates that I made in the picture above using only 1 bag of the candy melts.

The important thing to remember when you’re making chocolates is to have fun! It doesn’t matter if the chocolates turn out perfect…they’re homemade, right? It’s the thought that matters .

Have you ever made chocolates before? Any additional tips you’d like to add? Are you inspired to try making chocolates now?

For more frugal tips, visit Being Frugal and for more Sweetheart Treats, visit Life as Mom.

At the beginning of the year, I outlined what my Frugal Goals for the year were going to be. Two of them included spending less money on the “little” things as well as spend less money on eating out. I resolved that I would switch to a cash-only system for these two items, so I could easily limit the spending.

So, how is it going so far?

It was going great until the second to last day of the month. Some moms from my 5 year old’s class invited us to meet them at McDonalds to play. Sounds great…but I had already spent all my cash for the month. I was going to decline the invitation, but my husband offered to pull some more money. If it wasn’t for this blog, I probably wouldn’t have thought too much about it, but I do want to be truthful and accountable. However, I have deducted the amount that I spent from February’s cash, and will adjust February’s spending down accordingly. I did learn that I should try to save some money for the end of the month, just in case something like that comes up again.

Other Lessons Learned

• I need to have an additional amount of cash set aside for practical items like washing the salt off our cars and other things that you have to pay cash for that I was reluctant to use from my budget.
• Cash burns a hole in my husband’s pocket. Since I was getting an allowance, it was only fair that my husband get one too. However, he quickly burned through his in less than half the month (his was much smaller than mine, because mine included the boys too). I believe he spent much more than he did when we used our credit cards for most everything (paid off each month, of course). So, I’m going to hold parts of his money to allocate throughout the month (with his agreement, of course).

I thought we did pretty well, though. I think that knowing exactly how much I had left helped me to make the choices as to what to purchase and when. I look forward to seeing how it goes this month.

Have you tried doing cash only for a budget item? Do you have any tips to help me? For more frugal ideas visit Being Frugal.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about periodically doing an insurance rate comparison to save money. However, if you shop around for the best rate, and then pay a premium surcharge in order to make a monthly payment, you are losing out on some of your rate savings.

There are several things that you can do to avoid the premium surcharge (which can be as high as $4.00+ each month).

• Pay the entire balance due up front
• Ask your insurer if you can get the monthly surcharge waived if you have the premium automatically deducted from your checking account each month (I know that Liberty Mutual offers this).

Ever since we got married, my husband and I have always paid our auto insurance premium in full. Once you’ve gathered the money the first time, you simply pay yourself each month into your savings account so that you have the money when the full premium bill comes due.

How do you accumulate the money the first time, though?

• If you’re getting a sizable tax refund, you can save this money for your next premium bill. We actually use our tax refund each year to pay for our auto insurance. Throughout the year, I keep track in a spreadsheet of what our expected tax refund will be each year. If the refund is expected to be less than our annual premium, then I will save the additional money needed each month. Please Note: In my opinion, it is better to get a higher paycheck each month than give the government an interest-free loan throughout the year, but when my husband receives a bonus, a large chunk is pulled out for taxes. We shouldn’t have that “problem” this year…since we’ll probably not get a bonus.

• Each month when you pay the insurance bill, allocate a little bit extra to your savings account to try to save up for the full premium when the annual bill is due.

• Save any “extra” money that you can find throughout the year towards your next 6-month premium bill. Some ideas include getting a money change jar, selling items on ebay or Craigslist, do online surveys, etc.

How do you avoid paying fees on your insurance premiums? How have you saved up enough money to pay the semi/annual insurance premium in full? For more money saving ideas, visit BeingFrugal.net.

Photo courtesy of asterisco at stock.xchng.

Do you want a relatively easy way to save at least $25 a week? Pack your lunch each day and bring it to work (or send it with your kids to school). If you stay at home with the kids, eat your lunch at home or plan ahead and bring a lunch or snacks with you while you’re out.

It’s really not that difficult to do…with a little planning. If you wait until the last minute in the morning when you’re running late, it becomes easy to say, “I’ll just buy today”. But, if you pack your lunch the night before, then you’re ready to go the next morning with little thought.

A little confession…I really don’t like most leftovers. It’s against my frugal nature to throw any leftovers away, but I don’t have to worry about it. My husband loves leftovers! Usually, he’ll bring them to work the next day for lunch. Or, if we don’t have leftovers (which isn’t very often with 2 little, picky-eating boys), he’ll pack a turkey sandwich (or two), some granola bars, a banana, celery, and V8 juice.

How do you save money on lunches? What are some staples that you pack when you bring lunch? For more frugal ideas, visit Being Frugal.

Picture: leftover Frito Pie that hubby’s bringing for lunch tomorrow (it really does taste good…although it looks pretty bad as leftovers)

Are you using dozens of stamps each month when you pay your bills? If so, you could save lots of money by paying your bills online. There are several ways that you can pay your bills without ever having to shell out that $0.42 per bill again.

Set up Online Bill Pay at Your Bank – many banks offer free online bill pay to their customers. You just need to do a one-time set up for each of your bills with the name of the company, the address, and the phone number. After that, all you need to do is enter the amount and the date the bill should be paid. Often, the bank will do a one-day transfer to pay the bill, but if that’s not set up, they will send a check. As an example, I have my son’s preschool bill set up to pay each month online. Not only do I not have to remember to write the check and drop it off while I’m there, but I save the cost of the check, too. Plus, I save on any potential late fees because I forgot to make the payment.

Set up Autopay Directly with the Billing Company – many companies will allow you to set up auto billing where they will automatically pull the money for the bill from your checking account or charge your credit card with the amount due. Then, you don’t even have to worry about paying the bill online.

Are there any other things that you do to save money on postage?

Photo courtesy of scoll22 at stock.xchng.

It’s now the beginning of January, which means that for many people the Christmas bills will soon start to arrive. Oftentimes, it’s a stressful time – worrying about how to pay the bills, and if only the monthly minimum is paid on the credit card, you may still be paying for last Christmas at next Christmastime.

Or, you could save all year for Christmas gifts and have a cash-only Christmas (or at least pay all the credit card bills with zero stress, because you already had the money in your savings account when you made the charge).

In my family, we treat birthdays and Christmas like it’s a monthly expense. In a spreadsheet each year, I calculate how much money that we plan to spend for the entire year on birthdays and Christmas and then I divide it by 12 and have that amount moved into my savings account automatically each month. When I purchase a gift, I make a transfer back into my checking account to pay for the gift (I usually do a transfer back to checking around the 15th and 30th of each month, since I’m only allowed 2 transfers per month).

I want to make sure that I include everything in my budget, since often the “little” things can really add up fast. Some of the items that I account for in my spreadsheet include:

• Determine the number of people I will be purchasing gifts for (both Christmas and birthdays) and multiply by the budgeted amount per person. I usually spend $15 per child (since we have 8 nieces and nephews for both birthday and Christmas presents). We will spend more on our parents and we’ve agreed as a family not to purchase for adult siblings. We also spend a higher budgeted amount for our immediate family (like hubby, myself, and my 2 boys). I usually am under budget on the boys’ gifts, since they receive so much from other family members too.

• Budget an amount for Mother’s and Father’s Day both for our parents and for gifts to each other…from the kids of course .

• For Christmas, I budget an amount for helpers gifts (like teachers, tips for hairdressers, etc) as well as for stocking stuffers. I always think that stocking stuffers are little things…but it can quickly add up to about $20 a stocking. I want to make sure that $80 is budgeted.

• If you send out Christmas cards, I budget an amount to print out the picture card, letter and stamps to mail them out.

• Now that my kids are getting older, they’re beginning to be invited to friend’s birthday parties. You need to budget those gifts, too. I try to purchase those presents (and other family gifts) during clearance sales. I pick generic gifts that my kids would enjoy and save them for a birthday party invite.

What ideas work for you to pay for Christmas and birthday gifts each year? For other frugal ideas, head over to BeingFrugal.

Photo courtesy of sh0dan at stock.xchng.

Lynnae at BeingFrugal.net is hosting Tightwad Tuesday this week. I’ve never done it before, but I was intrigued with the theme this week, which is frugal goals for 2008. I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions, because I believe you can start change anytime. In fact, I normally don’t like New Year’s resolutions, because the gym gets really busy for a month or so . Anyway, I’ve been thinking over the last couple of days if there was anything that I wanted to change about my spending this year, so here goes.

• Spend less money on the “little” things – Sometimes when I’m out and about, I like to get a Coke…but those drinks add up over time. I’m thinking that I might go to a cash-only basis on “fun” money since then I’ll have to think harder about handing over my money and when it runs out, I’m done for the month.

• Spend less money on eating out – I don’t think that we do a bad job as a family, since I plan our dinners (and who wants to go out to eat with 2 kids hiding out under the table??), but I do have a weakness when it comes to lunches. If we get too busy running errands in the morning, I find it easy to go through the drive-thru on the way to dropping my older son off at school. I think that a solution to that problem is like the above one…a cash-only basis on “fun” money and planning ahead when we are running errands, etc, in the morning. I could pack a lunch or snacks to bring with us to resist the temptation.

• Get more organized at home – I feel like I’m pretty organized, but there’s always room for improvement. I plan on purchasing this system at Motivated Moms to help me this year. I want to try to figure out the best (fastest) system for me for couponing, sending in rebates, and blogging, so I can spend the most time with my family. If you’re not organized, you could run out of items from your stockpile (and have to purchase at high prices), stock up on too much of one item because you don’t know what you have, lose coupons, miss out on sending in rebates, etc.

• Tweak my budget to pay ourselves first – It was easy to save money when I was working from home (I would split my earnings out by percentage for IRA, 529 plan, and “fun” money/emergency fund). But, since I was laid off last May, we don’t have the extra money to do that. I need to find it in our budget this year.

Wow…for not normally setting resolutions, I was able to come up with a few . For more frugal goals for the new year, see BeingFrugal.net or the Happy Housewife.