Frugality

My wife and I live more than four hours away from our hometowns, so when we visit our parents and extended family, we spend a lot of time in the car. Over the years, we have developed several techniques for optimizing the cost of the trip. Here’s what we do:
Perform some basic car maintenance before [...]

Continue Reading Saving Money on Road Trips

Over several years as a regular but non-professional eBay seller and buyer, I’ve been accumulating a set of “best practices” for online auctioneering as a seller. eBay has regularly published such lists, but these lists are often skewed towards choosing “best” practices for maximizing your profits only when they overlap with eBay’s utility and profits. [...]

Continue Reading Defining eBay “Best Practices” For Dollar-Conscious Non-Professional Sellers

I used to be an active follower of Microsoft Office and McAfee, but the constant upgrade cycle and payments to continue getting antivirus updates got old. So I did some research and discovered free, top-notch alternatives to these money hogs for use at home.
Instead of using Microsoft Office, I’ve switched to using Open Office. These [...]

Continue Reading How I Saved $300 On Software This Year

The next time you fill up, spend an extra few minutes at the gas station performing a simple, free task, and you’ll put a few dollars right in your pocket.
The secret is air. Most gas stations have a free air pump for your tires available on the side of the station. A lot of stations [...]

Continue Reading A Gas Station Trick That Puts Money In Your Pocket

We wanted to create a first birthday party for our child that would be full of memories for all of the attendees and would make for a great home movie for him to watch later (as he is too young to remember it himself), but since he is only one, we didn’t want to have [...]

Continue Reading Saving On A Child’s First Birthday Party

Once every few months, I will purchase an item at the store, take it home, and discover a serious problem with it. The bread has a very odd taste, or the tortilla chips are very stale, or the salsa is very very watery, or the Glade plug-in doesn’t work. Most people I know react to [...]

Continue Reading Bought A Flawed Product? Here’s The Best Way To Handle It

When my son was born, I wanted him to have the best of everything, so at first we spent a good deal of money on all sorts of stuff. Rattles, balls, play pens, and so forth – we dumped a lot of money on these things.
Do you want to guess what his three favorite toys [...]

Continue Reading Free Toys For Your Infant Or Toddler

Many people simply go into a store, look for the items they want, and leave.
Others (those who are a bit savvier) go into a store, find the item they want, compare all of the sizes, and buy the one that is the cheapest per unit. These people get a lot of bang for their buck, [...]

Continue Reading The Art of Buying in Bulk

If you’re like me, you’ve probably spilled something on your laptop at some point during your computing experience. For me, it happened just last week with a tall latte all over the keyboard and display, dripping down in the cracks and crevasses of my laptop. As soon as it happened, I figured it would be [...]

Continue Reading Liquid Laptop Accident? 9 Steps To Save Your Laptop

I used to waste tons of money on silly little things. I did it so often and so regularly that I didn’t even realize that it was adding up to a huge dent in my finances. A pack of Tic-Tacs here, a CD there, a DVD here, a new book there… it wasn’t long before [...]

Continue Reading The One Month Challenge