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Fifteen Great Websites That Saved Me Money in 2010

LivingCheaply — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:00:23 +0000

At the start of 2010, I decided to start an ongoing list of websites that directly saved me money with the intent of sharing that list (and my money-saving experiences with each entry) when the list hit fifteen sites in length (perfect for a good post – not too few and not too many). I fired up OneNote (my default note-taking app) and just started jotting down any experiences I had where a website directly saved me money. It only took until mid-April to reach that count. Here they are – the fifteen websites that have directly saved me money so far in 2010, along with how exactly each one saved me money. Craigslist (and its’ cousin, Freecycle ) http://www.craigslist.org and http://www.freecycle.org This is definitely the big one, at least to this point in 2010. About a week ago, I posted an article talking about how we bought a 2004 Honda Pilot off of Craigslist , saving us quite a bit of coinage. Beyond that, we’ve also *almost* picked up three or four additional items off of Craigslist over the last few months but, as users know, stuff can sometimes go very fast on there. I usually just look for stuff that’s outrageously undervalued (a la yard sales on occasion) or free. PaperBackSwap http://www.paperbackswap.com This has been my primary source of books for years. It’s simply online book swapping – mail out a book you’ve already read to someone who wants it and get a credit, then spend that credit to get a book from someone else. I get books in the mail for about $2 (the cost of sending out one of my old ones). Recent books to arrive in the mail include Foucault’s Pendulum by Unberto Eco, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The Accidental by Ali Smith, and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Skype http://www.skype.com Skype allows you to use the internet as your telephone service, allowing you to call any number in the U.S., Canada, and a few other countries as well as have your own phone number for about $3 a month. I’ve been using Skype as my business number since last year and it’s worked like a charm. The best part? When I don’t want to deal with business calls, I just close the program. Problem solved. FeedSifter http://feedsifter.com My biggest problem with online coupon sites is that they often convince me to go ahead and buy stuff I don’t actually need or really even want if I thought about it rationally. Feedsifter allows me to set up automated searches of coupon sites for the things I actually want, then pumps the results to me. I’ve saved $10 on Magna-Tiles and about $30 on some All-Clad pans to replace our peeling Teflon-covered pans. RetailMeNot http://www.retailmenot.com Of course, sometimes – in a short-term pinch when you have an urgent need for something – such coupon sites can actually come in handy. You’re going there with a purpose and you just find what you need. In one case – when we ordered pizza from Papa John’s online – Retail Me Not came in handy. It showed us a pile of coupon codes, including one that fit what we intended to order quite well, shaving some cash right off of our total bill. DealCatcher http://www.dealcatcher.com/ Another time when a coupon site can be useful is when you go there for a specific purpose. Earlier this year, my wireless mouse failed and, after looking at a bunch of replacement options, I settled on several different models. One of them – the Microsoft Wireless Mouse 5000 – had a very nice price listed on DealCatcher, so I went for it, saving myself about $15 off of Amazon’s price and about $25 off of just running to Best Buy to get it. Kayak http://www.kayak.com As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve been planning a summer trip up to the northern reaches of Minnesota. Over the years, I’ve used lots of travel sites for planning, but this time I’m using Kayak to help us figure out exactly where we’re going to camp and what services are nearby – with a four year old, a two year old, and a baby, something will come up, I’m quite sure. Travel Iowa http://www.traveliowa.com Thanks to this website, we’ve hit several community events over the past few months, including Toddlerfest (which our children loved) and a few events at Iowa State University. It lists all kinds of events taking place all over Iowa during the entire year, allowing you to narrow it down as much as you’d like. Many other states have similar services. Healthy Grocery List http://www.healthygrocerylist.com Hand in hand with a grocery store flyer, I used this site to come up with a set of healthy recipes and a grocery list for those items a few different times. I’d take the flyer, find some recipes using a few of the fresh ingredients on sale, then generate a grocery list. I’d then cross a few items off the list (because they were already on hand) and add a few staples, then head out to the store. A day is coming when this type of interface is available for a home recipe collection and when that happens, I’ll be a happy man. Gas Buddy http://gasbuddy.com/ I’ve used this site several times while out and about, usually with my wife. We notice we need gas, so I fire up Gas Buddy on either her Kindle or my cell phone and we find the cheapest price on gas near us. More than once, we’ve driven right by a gas station to one a half mile further down the road with prices ten cents a gallon cheaper. YouTube http://www.youtube.com/ I use YouTube all the time for do-it-yourself projects. Two recent examples include a toilet repair ( here ) where I replaced the flapper and some other parts, and a video on replacing a shower head ( here ), which went incredibly smoothly after watching the video. In both cases, watching the video saved me from hiring a repairman or botching something badly myself. BillShrink http://www.billshrink.com We’re currently shopping for a new cell phone provider as my wife’s contract just ended. We identified at least three providers that will save us significant money (according to BillShrink) – we haven’t quite pulled the trigger because we’ve asked people we know about service issues with the various companies and are still deciding which one to take. So, this is more in the form of savings in the bush, not quite in the hand yet. Yard Sale Treasure Map http://www.yardsaletreasuremap.com I love going to yard sales. It’s a fun Saturday activity and every once in a while, you find a stupendous deal – I once found some trading cards worth hundreds of dollars in a box marked $1 and, several years ago, I found some rare Atari cartridges for $0.50 a piece. We’ve also picked up strollers and tricycles at yard sales. If nothing else, they’re quite entertaining and this site makes it easy to find ones near you. Hulu http://www.hulu.com We’re about to disconnect our cable entirely, saving us about $40 a month. Although we don’t watch much television, some of the series we do watch can be found on Hulu for free. Netflix http://www.netflix.com At the same time, we now subscribe to Netflix (a downgrade from $50 a month cable to $9 a month Netflix!). We watch streaming stuff on our Wii, including some children’s programming (like Follow That Bird and our son’s favorite show, Caillou ) on rainy days. In fact, we’re likely going to shrink our DVD collection yet again because some of the disks are redundant with what’s available on Netflix.

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Fifteen Great Websites That Saved Me Money in 2010

The Simple Dollar Time Machine – August 29, 2009

cheapo — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:00:08 +0000

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, as well as the five best posts from two years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine. One Year Ago (August 23-29, 2008) Everything’s So Easy for Pauline: Thoughts on Luck, Fate, Money, and Life This may be my favorite post I’ve ever written for this site. Luck plays such an enormous role in financial success, and looking down on people who haven’t achieved success because of things out of their control is just poor form. How to Avoid the Trap of Splurging as a Reward for “Being Good” I fell into this trap more than a time or two. In the end, it undermines the value of “being good” – there’s no point to good behavior if you’re just going to shoot it in the foot. The Retirement Perspective: Today’s Dollars Are Far More Valuable Than Tomorrow’s Inflation ensures that a dollar will be worth less tomorrow than it is today. This is a huge consideration when it comes to long-term planning, like saving for retirement. Is a Positive Attitude Enough? This is my response to the plethora of “positive thinking” and “positive attitude” books out there. In a nutshell, no, positive thinking isn’t enough. Personal Finance 101: Money Market Accounts Versus Normal Savings Accounts What’s the difference between a money market account and a savings account? It turns out that there’s a big difference, and knowing that difference can be quite important. Two Years Ago (August 23-29, 2007) Seven Nifty Tactics Credit Card Companies Use To Get Into Your Pocket – And How To See Right Through Them Credit card companies try all kinds of ways to extract a few dollars from your pocket, some obvious and some not so obvious. Here are seven of the most common tactics – and how you can protect yourself from them. Should A Frugal Person Bother With The Coupon Section In The Sunday Paper? Many people immediately associate being frugal with clipping coupons from the paper. I don’t necessarily believe frugality leads one to coupons, though. An Interesting Voluntary Simplicity Exercise That Can Really Improve Your Financial Situation This is so simple, yet so effective. Just walk into a room in your house and take an inventory using this lens. You might be surprised as to what you find out. Ten Things Any College Student Can Do To Prepare For Success In Life College sets the foundation for later life in so many ways – I wish I had seen it then. Here are ten things that college students should consider doing because they put some of the foundations for a successful life in place while you’re cracking the books. What To Do When Debt Seems Insurmountable Many people find themselves in such terrible debt situations that it seems like there’s no way they’ll ever find their way out. What do you do in this situation? Here are some thoughts on how to handle it. If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology , where all posts are listed in chronological order. Nine Ways to Get More out of The Simple Dollar This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are nine great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar. 1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader . 2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in! 3. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track. 4. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover. 5. Follow me on Twitter. I post tons of interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter , it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page. 6. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month. 7. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article! 8. Become a “Friend of The Simple Dollar.” If you find the stuff on The Simple Dollar valuable and are willing to spend five minutes or so a month to help me out with small things, please consider signing up to be a “Friend of The Simple Dollar” . 9. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!

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The Simple Dollar Time Machine – August 29, 2009

Nine Ways I Use Google Calendar to Keep My Money Straight

cheapo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:00:03 +0000

Over the last year, I’ve been gradually moving away from a paper calendar (I used a Moleskine desk diary for it) to using Google Calendar for keeping track of all of my appointments, important dates, and other such information. It’s been a slow process – I’ve been using paper calendars for more than a decade, so the transition wasn’t immediate and I often fell back to using the paper calendar. There were several big reasons that finally made me transition completely. What I found, though, is that most of those reasons actually directly helped me manage my personal finances, believe it or not. It turned out that my money was one of the biggest reasons to finally make that transition. Here are nine ways I use Google Calendar to make my personal finances that much easier. Many of these can be done using paper calendars, but in most cases, GCal makes it easier to do them. 1. Keep track of bill due dates This is perhaps the most obvious use of using a calendar for personal finance. When you know a bill’s due date, add it to your calendar, then pay the bill when you see it’s coming close to its due date. So, for example, our mortgage payment is due on the 28th of each month, so on my calendar, on the 28th of each month, there’s a note that our mortgage payment is due. It helps me keep track of our payments. How can I do this? It’s simple. Log onto Google Calendar . First, I recommend creating a new calendar specifically for bill due dates if you haven’t already – this makes it easy to highlight them. Then, click on the day the bill is due, create a new event , and add the appropriate information – the amount and the type of bill, at the very least. If this bill recurs on a regular basis, make the bill a repeating event . You might also want to add an event reminder so you’re emailed a few days in advance of the bill due date. Free from Broke offers a nice visual guide to adding a bill due date to your calendar. 2. Plan ahead for gift-giving occasions My family has always been really into gift-giving and it’s considered a serious faux pas to forget someone’s birthday. In order to make sure I don’t forget a parent or a niece or a nephew, I schedule all of those important days right into Google Calendar. How can I do this? I use almost exactly the same technique as for the bill due dates. I have an “Important Personal Days” calendar and I add birthdays, anniversaries, and the like to that calendar, scheduling them to recur every year. I also have two email reminders for each one – one about twelve days in advance, and another about five days in advance. 3. Pencil in key dates for sales Let’s say I’m shopping around for a washing machine, and I’m looking for the best deal I can get. I discover that the local appliance store is having a sale on washing machines next month and given that their prices are already decent, I want to take a look at their numbers. But I might forget the sale! Not any more – I just pencil in the dates of the sale in the calendar, reminding me to check out the sale during that time frame. This works for any sale that you come across. But, as with any sale, it’s important to distinguish between buying something because it’s on sale (bad) and buying something you already need and taking advantage of a sale to do it (good). How can I do this? Again, this is just a simple scheduling of an event, except that I set the event as a multi-day one, with the start date and the end date matching those of the sale. Since this isn’t too regular, I have a “Miscellaneous” calendar where I put such events. 4. Keep track of milestones for big goals As I’ve mentioned a few times on here, I have a handful of pretty big goals: finishing my second book (here’s my first one ), running a 5K, and saving for a van. For each of these goals, I have some milestones along the way. I try to make my best attempt at a 5K each week, for one, and I have a word count goal on the first draft of my book each week, too. So I schedule these milestones. I just create an event each Friday saying something like “Book word count target: 30,000.” On Sundays, I have a “Walk/run your best 5K” penciled in. How can I do this? Just pencil in your milestones whenever they occur. I have a “Goals” calendar that I put these under. Why so many calendars? It allows me to make groups of things appear and disappear at will when I’m looking at the calendar, which makes it very easy for me to keep track of what’s going on. Dal, Chilean style, with chickpea curry, which I discussed in this earlier article . 5. Schedule meal plans intelligently Remember my post about making multiple casseroles ? As I mentioned there, it’s usually worthwhile to eat those casseroles within two months or so. So, in that example, I made four casseroles on a Thursday afternoon. We ate one that Thursday night, then I actually scheduled the casserole again for three weeks, six weeks, and nine weeks later. Then, when we sat down to plan for the week, my calendar would show me that we already have a meal in place for one night that week, meaning we can plan for fewer meals and save money at the grocery store. If you do these in multiples, it gets really neat. Let’s say you cook six pounds of chicken breasts on a Tuesday in a slow cooker and freeze four and a half pounds of them. You’ll want to use these within a month or so, so I’ll mark down the following Tuesday, the Tuesday after that, and the Tuesday after that that we have 1 1/2 pounds of cooked chicken that need to be used. This keeps us from “wasting” food in the freezer. You can do the same thing with any frozen item you buy in bulk – for example, we often buy beef in bulk from a local butcher because of the quality and low prices, so in order to avoid freezer burn, I’ll pencil in when we should use the meat. Again, having this information right there drastically reduces our grocery bill and fits in perfectly with planning ahead for meals , which is itself a huge money saver. How can I do this? I use a “dinner” calendar to manage these things. I just create recurring events for both of the cases above, and when we plan meals once a week, I create events with what we plan for meals those days. I usually label any ingredients we need to use by saying “Ingredient: ” right in the name of the event. That doesn’t mean that we’ll use the ingredient on that exact day, but it works as a reminder when I sit down to exactly plan meals that we have, say, chicken breasts to use that week already in hand. I schedule a meal each night and include the recipes in it – we even usually pencil in a “leftovers” night about every third or fourth night. This really works well. 6. Plan ahead for scheduled maintenance Home maintenance saves you money, period. Taking a bit of time on a regular basis to do things like change furnace filters, check fire alarms, check vents for clogging, and so on can make an enormous difference in the life of your appliances, the appearance of your home, and the energy efficiency of your home. I speak from experience here. When we first moved into our home, we didn’t realize that our dryer occasionally ejected a very small amount of lint into the ventilation, which led directly outside the house. After several months of use, our dryer seemed to not work very well. We had to run it two or three times to dry a reasonably-sized load. We puzzled over this and considered calling a repairman, but my two year old son actually figured it out. He came walking over to me with some lint in his hand one day. I asked him where he found it and he walked me straight to the vent. A few finger sweeps later and the dryer suddenly ran as good as new. The problem is remembering the numerous little home and auto maintenance tasks you need to take care of. The solution? A home maintenance calendar, which tells you when you need to change filters and when you need to do a walkthrough to check on things – and, yes, when you should check vents. I made a big list of home and auto maintenance tasks – picking out the ones you use and scheduling them can save you some serious change over time. How can I do this? Again, with a “maintenance” calendar. These are almost all recurring events on different schedules – some every month, some every three months, some every six months, some every so many weeks (so that I don’t have days LOADED with tons of such tasks). If I see some maintenance tasks for that day, I just do them and then I know that things are being maintained. 7. Take control of your portfolio planning I often encourage people to just put their retirement savings in a “target retirement” fund and just forget about it, but many people like to have more control than that. They want to balance things themselves. Perhaps they want more risk than those plans give, or maybe they want less risk. They might also want low risk investments in their retirement accounts but very high risk investments in their taxable accounts. Either way, rebalancing those investments regularly is key. On a regular basis, it’s important to sit down and think about whether or not your investment allotments match up with what you really want to be doing. You might change your contributions significantly – or you might even actually move your investments around. It’s important to do this regularly, and that’s what a recurring event is very useful for. I “rebalance” every three months or so, mostly by just altering my contributions. I’m fine with using a “target retirement” fund, but I actually enjoy digging in and tinkering with things myself. How can I do this? If you’re involved enough in your investing to rebalance it regularly, just set up a recurring event with a reminder of what you want to be doing, as a note. So, you might have a “Rebalance my Roth IRA” event, with a note that says “I want to have 10% in this fund, 20% in this fund, 30% in this fund, and 40% in this fund.” I actually keep mine on my “maintenance” calendar. 8. Set up seasonal reminders Different times of the year bring different things we should think about with our personal finances. Charles Schwab has a very useful article listing many of these seasonal concerns, some of which may apply perfectly to you. Some things we all might want to do: get a copy of our credit report every four months from the FTC at AnnualCreditReport.com (you get one from each of the three agencies each year for free, so just get one from one agency in January, another from another agency in May, then again in September), start budgeting for the holidays in the spring or summer, plan seasonal charitable giving or volunteer work, and so on. How can I do this? I put these in my “miscellaneous” calendar, but many of these are recurring. For example, I remind myself a few times during the summer to look for Habitat for Humanity dates, and I also prod myself regularly to put aside money for and shop ahead for Christmas. I also snag my credit report like clockwork and I also remind myself to occasionally touch base with my parents about their financial needs (a will or a master information document or anything else like that). 9. Remind yourself of the things that really matter If you’re putting forth this effort into saving money, you ought to be doing it for a great reason. For me, my children are my big motivation – I want to make a truly great life for them. Of course, a great life means that I spend a lot of quality time with them, so I plan ahead for that. Aside from the “evening block” that’s devoted every day to family time, I often pencil in other events. Some of them are known – soccer practice and the like – but others are surprises, like whisking my kids away for a long afternoon at the Science Center of Iowa or going to story time at the library. Make sure you’re taking time out for the things that actually matter in your life. It’s easy to see the big reasons before we get started, but often when we’re involved with projects and get so drawn in, it’s sometimes hard to remember to take time for the reasons why we’re doing this. How can I do this? I have a calendar called “Family” where I schedule things like this. When I look at the week ahead and see a trip to the library or a trip to the Science Center or something like that, I feel like my week is more … complete. An effective calendaring system has almost unlimited uses. Just remember that it’s a tool – the calendar doesn’t have meaning, your life does.

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Nine Ways I Use Google Calendar to Keep My Money Straight

Nine Ways I Use Google Calendar to Keep My Money Straight

LivingCheaply — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:00:03 +0000

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Nine Ways I Use Google Calendar to Keep My Money Straight

Seven Ways I Use Evernote to Improve My Finances

cheapo — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:00:23 +0000

Over the past several months, I’ve gradually come to use Evernote for all kinds of tasks, from managing my writing to jotting down grocery ideas to drafting articles. It’s free and it’s become my single most used application on every computer I use – my Mac (where I do most of my work), my laptop (remember the frugal laptop ? I’m still using it!), and even my iPod Touch, which is constantly in my pocket. A big nod to Manny, a long-time Simple Dollar reader who introduced me to Evernote (see comment #5 on that thread). Hold On… What Is Evernote? Evernote is basically a note manager that synchronizes the notes across computers. You can create and edit notes on any machine with a web browser and several types of mobile phones. You can save pictures, web pages, voice recordings, text – anything you want. The thing that I find really useful, though, is that if you take a picture of a handwritten note – if it’s legible at all – Evernote will automatically extract the text for you. So, let’s say I’m at a meeting and I’ve jotted down a few notes that I might want to write about later on. I can just take pictures of the notes with my camera, stick them on Evernote, and boom – I’ve got the text. The best part? It’s free (well, not entirely – there’s some very high level of data beyond which you have to have a paid account (40 MB), but I’ve never reached it). I have upgraded to a premium account there, simply because I have a deep philosophy of supporting what I use, but you can use it to your heart’s content without paying a dime. They pay the bills with a small ad on the site. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to store highly sensitive personal information on here, but for 99% of the notes you’ll take, Evernote simply works . Seven Ways I Use Evernote to Improve My Finances Given that Evernote makes text notes basically ubiquitous, this means I can update them pretty much wherever I’m at. This is perfect for little pieces of personal finance data that you’ll want to retrieve later on. Here are seven examples of how I’m using Evernote in that regard (note that you could also use a pad and pencil for these, but that having them in electronic form is almost always more convenient). I use it to track my spending on the go. I keep a note going where I just record my expenses. A great example of this was on vacation, where my parents and I had agreed to split all expenses equally. During the vacation, whenever we simply paid for an activity or something else, I jotted it down in Evernote. Then, at the end of the trip, it was quite easy – I just copied the numbers into a spreadsheet and automatically totaled them, easy as pie. I use it to jot down prices for comparison shopping. Evernote is incredibly useful as a price book . Whenever I’m in a store and I spot a great price on an item, I jot down that price and where I found it. Later, I’ll compare it to other prices, both online and off. If you’re shopping for a large purchase, like a piece of furniture or a television, this can be a great way to compare prices. However, I’ve found it really useful for little things. Since we split a lot of our shopping for food and domestic items between Fareway (most food), Sam’s Club (some bulk purchases), Target (most household), and Hy-Vee (specialty foods), I find it really useful to keep track of what’s actually cheapest at each store and buy them there. Evernote makes this really easy – I now know that many deli cheeses are cheapest at Fareway, but some upscale cheeses are far cheaper at Sam’s Club thanks to using this technique, and that enables me to easily get the best price on the items that I buy. I use it to take notes if someone lets me in on a bargain. Let’s say I’m chatting with my neighbor and he mentions that he saw that Lowes is having a sale on lawnmowers this weekend – and I’m in the market for a lawnmower. That can be a very valuable piece of information – and so I immediately jot it down. Later, when I see it electronically, I remember to visit the Lowes website, see what’s on sale, and do some comparison shopping. Similarly, I overheard recently at the grocery store that one could find $1.50 off coupons for V8 Fusion online. I jotted that down quickly, went home, searched for it, and unfortunately came up short – but it’s easy to see how something like this could really pay off (if someone has a link to $1 off or more V8 Fusion coupons, I’d love ‘em!). I use it to keep track of potential investments. On Sunday mornings, I’m usually found at the kitchen table reading the Sunday Des Moines Register – and while reading, I usually find out something interesting about some investment. I also find myself reading the Wall Street Journal sometimes at the library, and I always find some interesting businesses or investments in there. Obviously, I want to follow up, so I just jot down that investment’s symbol on Evernote. Later, when I’m home, I just copy and paste that symbol into Google and into Yahoo! Finance and see what I find. This has helped me become more familiar with the business side – and the product side – of many companies and also led me to quite a few index funds that I’m watching for potential future investments. I use it to jot down product research notes at the library. As I’ve mentioned many times, whenever we begin to look at a major purchase, I hit the library. I dig out piles of old issues of Consumer Reports and other consumer magazines and go through them, finding out what independent testers have to say about it. Naturally, I take my laptop along on such journeys, and I find that jotting these things down in Evernote is quite helpful. I’ll type the interesting notes in quickly, take snapshots of anything interesting with my camera, and collect all the research electronically in one place. Later, when I’m at home, I can add to this research. Or maybe I’ll be at my parents’ house and I find something useful to add – I can just log on via the website and add to a note. I use it to keep a convenient schedule of automated transactions. One note includes nothing more than a list of the automatic transactions that come out of our primary checking account every month – our children’s 529 accounts, my Roth IRA, our car payment, our mortgage payment, and a SmartyPig savings goal (for a better laptop sometime way down the road). This has come in handy several times. Once, not too long ago, we were in Texas on vacation and I was trying to decide if I should pull some cash out of my checking account or my savings account. I pulled out my list of automatic transactions, did the math, and realized it wasn’t a problem at all to leave the savings alone – we had plenty of buffer. The best part: if I make a change to the automatic transactions I have, I can just update one text file and I have the info everywhere. I don’t have to write a new note or make a bunch of scribbles on it. It’s clean and just works . I use it to keep track of gift ideas for people. I keep a constantly running list of gift ideas for people. It’s actually quite easy – I just listen to what people talk about and if they mention anything they like or may want, I jot it down on this note. Then, every once in a while, I’ll go bargain hunting with this note – I’ll update my Amazon deal search filters with these items and I’ll search through several different bargain sites that I look at. Occasionally, I’ll find a hit – and when I do, I might turn a $70 idle wish someone has into a gift from me that only cost $20. Not only that, this gift list comes in big handy when the holidays are actually close. I’ll get out this gift list just before Black Friday and browse through the circulars on Thanksgiving Day – and sometimes I’ll find an amazing match, connecting a great deal to a recipient who actually wants the item. To put it simply, the sheer utility of Evernote gives me tons of opportunities to save money. The examples above just scratch the surface.

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Seven Ways I Use Evernote to Improve My Finances

The Simple Dollar Time Machine – June 27, 2009

cheapo — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:00:33 +0000

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, as well as the five best posts from two years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine. One Year Ago (June 21-27, 2008) Addiction and Personal Finance Addiction is a dangerous thing. It can destroy finances, families, friendships, and lives. Having faced addiction in my own past, here are some of my own thoughts on the issue. You Can’t Buy Love Love doesn’t have a price tag. If you’re throwing money at someone or something to try to make them love you, it won’t work. Starting a Natural Collection A natural collection is a great free way to rediscover and enjoy the environment around you. My mother-in-law collects rocks, for one. Ceiling Fan Hacks: Save Big on Energy Use A few simple tricks can maximize the value you get from your ceiling fans, cutting your energy bill and increasing your comfort in the process. Giving Now Versus Giving Later: The Gospel of Wealth Versus Everyday Charity Should you build individual wealth and give a large amount later, or give what you have now? It’s a tricky question, indeed. Two Years Ago (June 21-27, 2007) Money, Spirituality, and Charity This sums up my feelings on the intersection of money, religion, and charitable giving quite well. You Don’t Need Six Figures: The Financial Realities of Living in Iowa I’d far rather live in “boring” Iowa than in an “exciting” large metro area. The cost of living is so low, yet there are still tons of opportunities for things to do. Trimming The Fat: Forty Ways To Reduce Your Monthly Required Spending Monthly bills will eat you for breakfast if you let them. It’s a great place to start looking for ways to trim your spending. Cook Once, Eat Twice With A Crockpot Here’s how to make reusable meals in a crockpot. Our favorite strategy, actually, is cooking a bunch of chicken breasts at once in the crockpot, freezing them, then using them in other dishes. The Financial Implications Of Living With Mom And Dad Moving back into the nest is a major challenge for both parents and children. Here’s some advice for making it work for both sides of the coin. If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology , where all posts are listed in chronological order. Eight Ways to Get More out of The Simple Dollar This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are eight great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar. 1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader . 2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in! 3. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track. 4. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover. 5. Follow me on Twitter. I post tons of interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter , it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page. 6. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month. 7. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article! 8. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!

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The Simple Dollar Time Machine – June 27, 2009

A Deal-Collecting Email Address

LivingCheaply — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:00:14 +0000

A while back, while checking out at a Williams-Sonoma (this place is my guilty pleasure – what can I say?), the cashier asked me if I wanted to sign up for their email list. I said “Sure!” and gave them an email address. On the way out of the store, my wife chided me. “Don’t you always say on The Simple Dollar that it’s a bad idea to open yourself up to more advertisements?” I smiled back at her and gave her a little wink. In fact, whenever I’m asked for my email address at a store or a restaurant I might ever return to, I’m quite happy to give them my address. Seem like a contradiction in terms? Well, the truth is that I don’t give these stores my real email address – my personal one or my work one. Instead, I have a separate account that I use for just this purpose. That address has helped me out time and time again to save a few bucks here and there – and even better, I’m never tempted by ads that come in via email. Here’s the game plan. Sign Up For a Webmail Account All you have to do to get rolling is sign up for a fresh new email account with one of the web-based email services. I find GMail to be the most convenient – but Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail work just as well for these purposes. Choose a name you’ll easily remember. Your first name + “stuff” will probably be available, for example. If it’s not, try putting a very simple memorable number on the end. So, you might end up with something like “trentstuff2009″ for your name. The key is just picking something you won’t forget, because you’ll want to pull it up from memory fairly often. Sign Up For Your Favorite Retailers’ Lists From then on, whenever you’re at a retailer and they ask for your email address, give them this new address. The retailer will almost always begin mailing things to this address – sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly. If you’re anxious to get started, most websites for such retailers have sign-up forms somewhere on the site that will get you on their mailing list. So, for me, I might visit the websites of various booksellers ( Borders , Barnes & Noble ) and, of course, Williams-Sonoma . Once you’ve done that, don’t worry about it. Everything is good to go. The Next Time You’re About to Shop There Anyway… … just sign in to that email account and search for the retailer you’re about to visit, then check the most recent two or three mailings. You’ll often find a few coupons and notices of any sales that are going on. Since you’re not receiving this stuff in your normal inbox, you won’t be tempted to go chase “bargains.” However, you still get the advantage of coupons for your favorite retailers without having to dig through coupon sites (and the resultant popup ads and the like that such sites typically bring). Good luck!

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A Deal-Collecting Email Address

Web Design Contract Documents

cheapo — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:07:33 +0000

Media Surgery offers inexpensive, professional web service contract documents for web designers / developers. If you’re looking for a template for client contracts, check it out.

My 25 Favorite Personal Finance, Career, and Personal Development Blogs

LivingCheaply — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:00:58 +0000

Collin writes in: What personal finance blogs do you read? You can actually find the answer to this question on any page of The Simple Dollar. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see a section in the lower right entitled “Blogs I Read.” Under that heading is a list of twenty five blogs that I keep pretty close tabs on – I visit all of them most days. I update this list about once a year, and because of Collin’s prompting, I decided it was time to give that list a good refreshing. I removed about half of the sites that used to be there (a few are now defunct, the rest have simply become less compelling) and added quite a bit of new blood to the list. So, which personal finance, career, and personal development blogs do I keep tabs on? Here they are, along with some notes on why I find them so compelling. If you want to visit any of these sites at any time, just visit any page on The Simple Dollar – the full list can always be found in the “Blogs I Read” section. Ask MetaFilter http://ask.metafilter.com Ask MetaFilter is an interesting community blog of sorts. Here’s how it works: members pay a small fee to join, then they’re allowed to ask questions that are on their mind. The questions are all over the place , ranging from whether a person should move from Boston to Colorado to things like how budget reconciliation in the Senate works . The diversity of questions – and the wide range of responses, many of them well thought out – makes Ask MetaFilter a compelling read. Bargaineering http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/ Bargaineering (formerly Blueprint for Financial Prosperity) is probably my favorite personal finance blog for interesting ideas. Jim Wang, the author of the site, is quite good at generating compelling core ideas, which usually gets my mind moving. Quite often, I’ll see an intriguing idea on Jim’s site, stew on it for a while, try it out, look at how it works in my own life, and find myself eventually telling a story that goes off in some completely different direction. Two great examples of Jim’s interesting ideas are his post on the meaninglessness of net worth by age and his far-too-short introduction to the “100 boxes” budgeting technique . ChristianPF http://www.christianpf.com/ ChristianPF has a distinct take on personal finance: that the themes of Christianity and the themes of money management have quite a bit of overlap. Because the site focuses so heavily on that overlap – and because the author is a solid writer who occasionally throws out a few amazing gems – ChristianPF consistently offers insights that leave me thinking. Some of ChristianPF’s best stuff includes this amazing detailed description of how bloggers earn an income and five essential pieces of scripture that discuss money (although he missed the one that really impacted me, Ecclesiastes 2 ). Clever Dude http://www.cleverdude.com/ Clever Dude keeps me coming back because of the tone and the sense of humor underlying most of the posts. The site does a great job of putting just the right touch of humor on personal finance and frugality issues, often with the humor sneaking up on you and just brushing you when you least expect it. It’s just the right amount – enough to make the articles enjoyable to read, without going too far and making it all into a farce. Two great examples of this include the article about creating a frugal lunch for a lot of people and the post on saving money by reducing waste (with fifty examples) . Consumerism Commentary http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/ Flexo, the writer at Consumerism Commentary, has the knack of a good essayist. He can turn a simple, seemingly unrelated event or idea into an interesting personal finance take. For example, his article on whether it makes sense to follow what makes you happy does a great job of riffing on Arrested Development , and this piece on money and unintended consequences turns a look at ethanol in fuel into a great discussion of looking at the ramifications of your choices. Consumerist http://consumerist.com/ Consumerist is a blog run by Consumers Union, the folks behind Consumer Reports . It focuses directly on consumer issues, which means that it often calls out poor customer service from companies, faulty products, and so forth, mixed in with some great advice on saving money and making good buying choices. This is what I call a “flood” blog, meaning there are a lot of posts each day – I usually find myself just leafing through the piles of posts for the handful that really apply to me. Some great examples of what Consumerist brings to the table include 112 ways to save money and a a great look at the dark underbelly of the housing crisis, where awful homes are built in middle-class neighborhoods . Deal Seeking Mom http://www.dealseekingmom.com/ Deal Seeking Mom mostly just provides a lot of great coupons and freebies – the site does a great job of filtering out many of the less-useful items and just provides some of the cream of the crop – and occasionally drops a great article on specific money-saving tactics in the middle there. Two great examples of this dual nature is a great article on the learning curve of saving money and the guide to getting free rentals at Redbox (which I’ve used several times, actually). Dumb Little Man http://www.dumblittleman.com/ I keep coming back to Dumb Little Man for the variety. The site posts articles on a wide variety of topics – productivity, personal development, money management, careers, and so on. The author usually gets right to the point, outlining a handful of good suggestions on the topic. For me, it usually serves as a great starting point for ways to improve myself, whether in terms of money or career or even my day-to-day life. Two great examples that I found particularly useful are 14 Simple Ways to Convert Your Sedentary Lifestyle (I’m a high-volume writer, so I’m more sedentary than I’d like to be) and 50 Very Simple Ways to Be Romantic (I’ve used many of these with my wife). Freelance Switch http://www.freelanceswitch.com/ Freelance Switch focuses very specifically on the money and career issues that face people who are freelancers – of which, to an extent, I would include myself as a member. Because of that tight focus, Freelance Switch can toss out many of the extraneous details and really hone in on factors that matter specifically to freelancers. Two articles that really clicked with me: 101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and Generate New Client Leads and Mixed Marriages: When One Spouse Goes Freelance (which was particularly insightful for our household). Free Money Finance http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/ Free Money Finance succeeds for me because the author is very, very effective at combing through the mainstream media, finding the articles on personal money management that are really compelling, and commenting on them in a relatable fashion. The (slight) majority of the posts at FMF follow that general format and, for me, those are the ones that keep me coming back for more. Two good recent examples of this technique are The Little Things Matter to Interview Success and Ten STeps to Becoming a Millionaire . Frugal Dad http://frugaldad.com/ Frugal Dad. The name alone tells you exactly what you’re going to get: frugality tips and personal finance thoughts related to kids. Two topics that, unsurprisingly, appeal to me quite a bit. Another factor that works in Frugal Dad’s favor is that the site, over time, tells the story of his life – a meshing of good advice and memoir that I find appealing. Two of my favorite posts from Frugal Dad include The Language of the Perpetual Poor and Planning a Frugal Family Fun Night (from which I’ve used several ideas over the years, in some form or another). Get Rich Slowly http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/ Point blank, this is the best personal finance blog out there (besides TSD, of course). JD and I write with a fairly similar tone and have similar ideas so often that I’ll sometimes check Get Rich Slowly before I post a new article just to make sure that JD hasn’t randomly came up with a similar idea. Here are two examples of that, where JD has written articles I’d be proud to say were my own: The Road to Wealth is Paved with Goals and The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good – but I could list dozens and dozens of great articles from GRS. I Will Teach You To Be Rich http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/ I read I Will Teach You To Be Rich for two reasons. First, Ramit’s focus is largely on entrepreneurship – it’s fairly obvious that his audience is the Silicon Valley startup crowd. Second, his tone is pure entertainment – a pastiche of self-assurance and compelling advice that makes most of the articles there quite worth reading. Two great examples of his style and advice are The $28,000 question: Why are we all hypocrites about weddings? and Money Diaries: The 20-something cube-dweller with an addiction to phone accessories . Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/ Lifehacker is a very frequently updated site (ten or more times a day) focusing on productivity technology issues, but occasionally brushing on personal finance, personal growth, and other areas. I almost always find a gem or two by browsing through Lifehacker – a useful piece of software, a good piece of advice, or something wholly unexpected. Two articles from Lifehacker that really influenced my thinking: Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret (”don’t break the chain” is utterly brilliant) and How Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Gets Things Done (some great advice from a person I admire a lot). Money Saving Mom http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ Money Saving Mom is something like a hybrid between Frugal Dad and Deal Seeking Mom – it’s a real medley of frugality tips, solid coupons (I’ve used more coupons from MSM than from pretty much any other site I’ve visited), and excellent anecdotes about parenting with frugality in mind. Walgreens 101 , for example, is a great introduction to saving money at that particular store, and a great example of how the site can really save money is with this method for getting Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers for $0.16 at Target using coupon stacking and finding deals from flyers (my kids love these crackers – and the post is a good example of the type of thoughtful deal-finding that shows up on MSM). Pick the Brain http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog Pick the Brain is an excellent wide-ranging self-improvement blog, offering up tons of interesting articles on motivation, productivity, money management, and other aspects of self-improvement. The variety of ideas is what keeps me coming back – it’s infrequently updated, but when I do see an update, it’s usually full of solid ideas. Two articles that really made me think were 7 Ways to Grow the Action Habit and George Orwell’s Five Rules for Effective Writing (all of which I strive to use). Productivity501 http://www.productivity501.com/ Productivity501 focuses squarely on how to be more productive with your time – and time is money, after all. Mark does a consistently great job of digging through ordinary tasks and finding ways to reduce our time investment on those tasks, resulting in more time to spend on other things of greater personal value (like spending time with my kids, for example). Here are two excellent tastes: Components of a Paperless Office (this is something I strive towards, and the article is my guide for doing it) and Getting the Most Out of Magazines (which basically describes how I tackle personal finance magazines). Queercents http://www.queercents.com/ Queercents is actually a collective blog, including writings from a large number of writers that are all members of the LGBT community. As with many group blogs, the presence of many writers creates a great diversity of opinion and perspectives – and often you find a writer or two that you really click with (I like Nina, for example) while being exposed to a lot of ideas and angles that you would have never considered before. Two great articles: Answering The Question: Should I Go To Graduate School? and Build A Business While Keeping Your Day Job (something I had to do when The Simple Dollar was first getting started). Red Tape Chronicles http://redtape.msnbc.com/ Red Tape Chronicles (from MSNBC) focuses on consumer issues – mostly, how to deal with customer service headaches, identity theft, and other painful elements of modern financial life. Bob Sullivan provides great fact-based coverage of consumer fraud, writing really strong material that often leads me to investigating similar experiences in my own life. Two great examples of the material you’ll find there are How to Save Money on: Bank Accounts and Win Customer Service Phone Battles . Smart Spending http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/ Smart Spending is something of a “meta-blog” of personal finance blogs. Karen Datko and Donna Freedman do a great job of scouring a wide range of personal finance blogs, finding a wide variety of commentary on personal finance issues while adding their own unique views. Smart Spending is a great resource for seeing what lots of different voices are saying on personal finance topics. A couple of great examples: Is Bankruptcy Her Best Choice? and ‘Gifting Club’ Pyramid Schemes Flourish on Web . The Digerati Life http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/ I often look at The Digerati Life as something of an urban parallel to The Simple Dollar. The author lives in the Bay Area and often has a more urban perspective than I do, but we regularly come to the same conclusions. What keeps me coming back? A warm tone and a lot of excellent advice. Two samples: Force Yourself To Save! 15 Painless Ways To Pay Yourself First and Borrow, Barter, Buy Used: Espousing The Frugal Lifestyle . The Wallet http://blogs.wsj.com/wallet/ The Wallet is a personal finance blog from the Wall Street Journal. It can be dry at times, but if you want a flood of thought-provoking reading on personal finance, this is a great source. It’s a mix of link collections to interesting articles from all over and short pieces from WSJ staff writers, all adding together to create a compelling mix of money material. Standouts (to me) include Be Aware of Who’s Behind Advice on Cell-Phone Plans (this is part of the reason why I tend to trust bloggers whose material I’ve read over a long period of time) and Extreme Finance: Cutting Out 401(k) Contributions . Unclutterer http://unclutterer.com/ Unclutterer is a fascinating blog with a very specific topic: reducing clutter. In Erin’s eyes, clutter stands in the way of personal productivity, personal happiness, and good personal finance, too. Her soft, witty tone and her consistently thoughtful ideas on reducing the clutter in one’s life keep me constantly coming back for more. Two great examples: Retail tricks that get you to buy more and If you have a job you hate, prioritize what is important to you and align your career accordingly . Wise Bread http://www.wisebread.com/ Wise Bread is a group blog that looks at a huge array of personal finance issues, providing a wide range of voices and insights on money matters. The wide variety of voices (in particular, the always-excellent Philip Brewer) and wide variety of issues make this one a great blog for getting your juices flowing when it comes to money management. Two great examples include Baby Carrots – The Frugal Idea That Isn’t and Like DIY? Avoid These Ten Costly Mistakes . Zen Habits http://zenhabits.net/ Last but not least is Zen Habits, a site focused on simplicity in life, money, work, and love. Leo’s goal with Zen Habits is pretty clear – if you reduce the complexities in your life, you have much more life to enjoy , a philosophy I wholeheartedly agree with. Leo’s posts vary widely, but they all strike the common theme of finding a simpler way in life. Two great examples: Handbook for Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity and The Cheapskate Guide: 50 Tips for Frugal Living . Got a favorite blog along these lines? What’s great about it? Let us know in the comments.

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My 25 Favorite Personal Finance, Career, and Personal Development Blogs

A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating a Deal-Finding Homepage

LivingCheaply — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:00:27 +0000

I love keeping an eye out for bargains. I’m the type of person who will come up with Christmas present ideas for people in March and spend nine months sitting on that idea, waiting for the right price to come along. I won’t hesitate in the least to jump on obviously exceptional bargains in areas I’m familiar with – video games, for example – because, if nothing else, I can usually trade or re-sell them at a profit. The only problem is that chasing bargains like this takes time – time I don’t necessarily have . I used to have a routine of visiting a number of bargain sites, but after a while, I found more and more useful sites and it became harder and harder to keep up with all of them. So I found a better solution (which I’ve hinted at in the past). Using a number of easy-to-use online tools, I built a single webpage that shows me the best deals from tons of different online sources all in one place, customized to show me just the deals I want. Better yet, I can access this page from any computer. Sound good? Here’s how it’s done. iGoogle : The Backbone iGoogle is quite nifty. To put it simply, it lets you create a custom web page that is automatically updated with whatever you want to add to it – news, sports scores, weather, stock tickers, and so on. Here’s the URL: http://www.google.com/ig When you first visit the URL above (and sign in, if you have a Google account), you’ll get a small handful of default “gadgets.” Get rid of these so that you have some space to add more useful stuff. First, click on the down arrow on the left (seen below) and choose the option to “Edit this tab…” Then, click on “Delete” for all of the gadgets and then click on the “Save” button in the upper right. You’ll go back to an empty iGoogle page, ready to be loaded up with some great gadgets for bargain hunting. Adding New Gadgets So, how do you actually add new things to this page? This is similarly easy. Just click on the “Add stuff” link over on the right hand side of the page… … then click on the “Add feed or gadget” link on the right. You’ll get a little popup box that asks you to paste in a feed URL. Once you do that, the contents of that URL will be added to the iGoogle homepage. But what URLs can you add? There are lots of great URLs out there loaded with bargains. Let’s go through a few. Bargain Websites Below, I’ve listed ten different feed URLs that you can copy and paste directly into iGoogle, as described above. Just copy the URL below, paste it as described above, and it becomes an automatically updating part of your iGoogle homepage. If you use a feed reader, you can subscribe to any of these (likely just by clicking through, depending on how your system is configured). Amazon Gold Box http://rssfeeds.s3.amazonaws.com/goldbox This lists almost all of the daily deals available from Amazon.com. CheapTweet http://cheaptweet.com/all.rss This lists deals posted on Twitter, filtered by the users of CheapTweet.com . Coupons.com http://www.coupons.com/rss.asp This lists the latest coupons from Coupons.com, most of which are for discounts on household products. Dealnews (Most Popular) http://content.dealnews.com/dealnews/rss/popular.xml This lists the most popular deals discovered by Dealnews.com. Dealspl.us http://feeds.feedburner.com/dealspl/all This lists a huge number of deals on a wide variety of products, filtered by social bookmarking sites. This is definitely one worth filtering (see below) because a lot of stuff comes through. FatWallet.com Hot Deals http://feeds.feedburner.com/FatwalletHotDeals This lists a wide variety of deals (mostly technology items). Free Deal World http://freedealworld.com/feed/ This lists a lot of good freebie offers. Money Saving Mom http://feeds.feedburner.com/moneysavingmom/mNWf This is a well-written blog that features a lot of good coupons for household products. SlickDeals.net http://feeds.feedburner.com/SlickdealsnetFP This includes a wide variety of deals from many sources, all filtered by the SlickDeals community. This is definitely one worth filtering (see below). Woot.com http://www.woot.com/Blog/Feed.ashx This is a daily tech deal site that often has amazing bargains. Bargain Twitterers A few months ago, I mentioned that there are many useful people on Twitter worth following for the deals they post. If you’re not into Twitter and would rather “follow” these people in another way, you can keep track of the posted deals using this iGoogle technique. Here are the feed URLs for seven Twitterers I mentioned in the article. DellOutlet http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/5688592.rss Computer deals from Dell. AmazonDeals http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/1922861.rss Lots of “hidden” deals from Amazon.com. AmazonMp3 http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14740219.rss Excellent legal albums in mp3 format for $1.99-2.99. Dealyzer http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/17331003.rss A wide variety of deals of all types. DealUniversity http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/17893953.rss An excellent assortment of tech deals. CheapTweet http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/17545909.rss An aggregation of many of the best deals posted to Twitter. BooksAMillion http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/17248079.rss A great collection of deals on books. Filter These URLs You might find that all of these things are overkill – you can’t possibly keep track of hundreds of deals a day. If that’s the case, it’s quite easy to simply filter them, focusing in on the specific items you’re looking for. FeedSifter.com lets you put in a RSS feed URL (like the ones above), then filter it for any list of terms you put in, then gives you an output feed that contains only the items that match the terms you listed. I actually described using FeedFilter once before, to similar ends . Let’s see this in play. I like to use Amazon’s Gold Box (described above) for certain types of bargains: video games, cookbooks, and a few other odds and ends. I don’t have time for – and don’t really care that much – about the other deals that Gold Box might give me. So, I’d fill out Feed Sifter like this: A quick note: search terms fewer than three characters match everything, so use ones longer than that. When you click on the “Filter my Feed” button, you’ll get an option to subscribe to that new feed. Click on that and you’ll find that the Amazon feed is now filtered for those search terms. Copy THIS URL and add it to iGoogle as described at the top of this post, and you’ll be able to see the latest deals, filtered to your specifications, whenever you want. You can filter ANY of the above URLs in the same way using FeedFilter. Personally, I filter some feeds (SlickDeals) and don’t filter others (AmazonMp3). How Do I Use It? I have a nice big page built on this technique that I visit several times a day. Perhaps once a week, I’ll find something worth picking up – but when I do find something, I’m usually saving quite a bit on that item. Give it a try! It takes a bit of time to get such a page set up, but once you’re set up and ready to go, it can be a big help when you’re looking for Christmas gifts or for specific bargains for yourself.