Giving freely without depriving your family

Give for FREE!

As we get close to the holidays and toward the end of the year, we are surrounded by opportunities not only to buy, but also to give. There are so many good causes out there - I’m sure you have your favorites – and it is the season for giving.

But in these tough economic times, can you afford to give as much as you’d like? Wouldn’t it be great if you could give to some great causes without depleting your own budget? Well, YOU CAN! There are a number of websites where you can just click a link, and an advertiser makes a donation.

www.TheBreastCancerSite.com - provides mammograms to needy women

www.TheHungerSite.com - provides food to hungry families

www.TheChildHealthSite.com - funds preventatives and treatments for child health around the globe

www.TheLiteracySite.com - funds free books for children

www.TheRainforestSite.com - funds the purchase of rainforest land

www.TheAnimalRescueSite.com - provides food for some of the unwanted animals given to shelters in the U.S.

At all of the above sites, simply click the Click Here to Give button, and your click will be counted. You can then click the tab of one of the other sites, and click again to give there. Click at each site, or just at the ones that support what you’re interested in. You’ll be shown links to the advertisers who support the causes, in the hope that you’ll purchase something, but of course you don’t have to.

Another site where you can click to support a cause: www.Children.Care2.com. Your click will help provide food for a hungry child. This site also has tabs at the top, linking to many other sites where you can click to support causes that are important to you, such as global warming, primates, big cats, breast cancer, pets, and more.

So be sure to visit these sites every day to do your part (for free!) to make our world a safer, healthier place for all of us.

Eating Out and Saving, Too

Saving for College and

Saving Money Eating Out

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Yes, I had a birthday this week, but I’m not telling you how old I am – it’s none of your business!

It is the custom in my family to go out to eat at a nice restaurant to celebrate birthdays. Sometimes the birthday person will choose several restaurant preferences, and the rest of the family will surprise him or her with the final choice (complete with blindfold and roundabout driving), and sometimes the birthday person will make the final decision. With the economy being as it is, and our cash flow being as it is, I knew I had to make a frugal decision, while still choosing a nice place.

So where did I turn? I turned to Upromise.com. Upromise is a free service, and making online purchases through their site earns college savings. And you don’t have to shop online to get benefits - registering your credit, debit or grocery card means that you can begin saving money for college every time you shop at participating retailers.

So on my birthday, I used Upromise.com’s link to restaurant.com and bought a $25 gift certificate to the restaurant of my choice for only $5 (half off the regular price)! I saved our family $20, which was half our bill. How can you beat that? Here’s how I beat it – I used a registered credit card for the gift certificate purchase and for the balance of the restaurant check and earned money toward my sons’ college expenses both times! Those dollars really add up!

Join Upromise and earn up to 8% of your bill in college savings rewards when you dine out at any of over 8,000 participating restaurants.

If you don’t have kids, you can register and designate a grandchild, niece, nephew, or any child to receive the benefits, or designate a local school to receive rewards. Upromise - Support a local school AND save for college!

Don’t forget to register your credit, debit or grocery card to begin saving money for college every time you shop. Upromise - Turn your everyday spending into college savings.

Plus, if you apply for and receive their Upromise credit card, you can use it to earn even more rewards, even at non-participating merchants. They're thinking up new ways to save you money every day!

Saving Money by Spending Wisely

Welcome!

An introduction and taste of things to come.

Greetings! And welcome to my blog. My purpose for this blog is to share my strategies for saving money, many of which I learned from my mother (may her memory be eternal) and adapted for my purposes, and some of which I’ve discovered on my own over the past 25 years or so of adulthood.

I owe a lot to my mother, who raised three children on her own with a very minimal income. Her shrewd and frugal shopping (which, I admit, sorely frustrated me as a teenager) provided for us all, and instilled in us an appreciation (after a time) of watching every dollar.

I love you, Mom, and wish I had told you so more often.

I’m going to begin with some advice from my mother that I did not follow, and I regret it heartily. That is, put money in a savings account (and eventually into other investments). Take 10% or 20% of each paycheck and put it away. You’ve heard it said – pay yourself first. (People of faith will “pay God” first – tithing, or percentage giving – and that is as it should be, but then pay yourself before anything else.) If you begin when you are young and your expenses are few, then it will become habit. This will do at least two things for you: you will be more likely to continue this practice even as life gets more complicated, and the money you put away early will grow and grow. It’s called the “time value of money.” This is the key to financial security.

Even if you’ve done this, and especially if you haven’t, you’ll benefit from money-saving strategies in all areas of life. In this blog I’ll outline some of the ways I’ve managed to make ends meet in spite of my shortsightedness in not socking away a nest egg. The way to save money is to spend only when necessary, and then do it wisely. Here are some of the things I’ll write about:

$ - Discount shopping around town

$ - Discount shopping online

$ - Saving money buying a car

$ - Saving money while driving

$ - Saving money while traveling

$ - Saving money grocery shopping

$ - Saving money around the house

Any anything else I can think of along the way. So I hope you’ll stop back here often to see how many ways you can save money by spending wisely.