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Free Printable Planner Pages for 2010

2009-11-03T00:10:00+00:00

It's a New Day blog has put together these beautiful 2010 planner pages you can download and print out for free. Pages include:

yearly calendar on one page

monthly calendar pages with to-do list

things to-do pages,

shopping list pages,

cover page

must make pages

planner pages

You can print these out and three hole punch them for a binder or you could go to Kinkos and get them bound to create a beautiful 2010 planner.

They are downloadable as zip files so you'll need a program to decompress them. I use 7-Zip which is free.

Here's the link to the free printable planner pages

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Weasel Tactics?

2009-10-31T19:00:00+00:00

I hate the little games marketers play to make you think you're getting more for your money. I got these Speed Sticks the other day. On the shelf it looked like I was getting a healthy size of deodorant for my money, but when I got home and turned it around I noticed that a third of it was just packaging. Also notice how they use the sticker in front to make you think more of the package is filled with deodorant than it actually contains.

The Consumerist has been following a somewhat related trend they call the grocery shrink ray, where marketers reduce the product size but not the price in an effort to make you think you're still getting the same amount of product for your dollar.

An interesting side note. I heard Margaret Thatcher's first job out of university was figuring out how much air you could put in ice cream without it losing its shape and characteristics. This was in response to rationing which persisted long after the war.

Frugal Stupidity: The Digital Money Jar

2009-10-31T00:15:00+00:00

While shopping at Sears this evening I came across the "Money Jar". It's a digital counting money jar which retails for $15. The tag line on the box says "See your money grow". I find it absolutely ridiculous that anyone would spend $15 on something that is suppose to help them save money when a simple free alternative already exists. It kind of reminds me of that old joke: "Learn how to avoid ripoffs send $5".

What's sad is some parents are going to buy this for their kids trying to instill the value of thrift. The best part of keeping a money jar as a kid was pouring out the coins on your bed and counting them out yourself like Scrooge McDuck. If the people purchasing this ridiculous item really want to see their kids money grow they should take the approach most kids do, get an old coffee can or juice bottle and cut out a slot in the top to fit coins through. It's creative, resourceful, and better displays the ingenuity of thrift. Best of all they're not out fifteen bucks.

With the recession clamping down on folks wallets, I've been noticing a growing trend on the part of marketers to pitch you products you don't really need under the guise they save you money. The digital money jar could serve as exhibit A.

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Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk

2009-10-30T16:30:00+00:00

Soon it'll be time to bake for the holidays. For your recipes that call for Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk, try this money saving version instead.

1 cup dry powdered milk
1/3 cup warm water
2/3 cup sugar
3 TBS melted butter

Mix together in a blender until smooth. Refrigerate. Makes 1 1/4 cups or one can of homemade Eagle milk. There is zero difference in the taste or the quality.

Photo credit: notahipster

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[expired] Oprah Coupon: Get 50% Off Everything in Payless Shoesource

2009-10-30T01:00:00+00:00

This is a great deal. Oprah.com has a 50% Off coupon good for anything in Payless Shoesource stores. The coupon is only good today, Friday October 30th. You can pick up some great shoes for $10-$20 with this coupon. I just bought a pair of shoes from Payless this week and was planning to go back and buy an additional pair. Now I'm going to stock up and buy several pairs of shoes. On Tuesday I spoke to a clerk at Payless and they told me they had a big shipment coming in Thursday so hopefully the stores will be well stocked for today.

Update: Just got back from Payless and bought three pairs of men's shoes for $15 each. I thought the store would be more crowded but it wasn't that bad just a half dozen or so people who know a good deal when they see one. I asked the clerk and she said this was the best deal they've offered as long as she could remember. They often do a "buy one get the next one half off".

I also noticed on my receipt they offer $2 off your next purchase if you call and a number and give your opinion.

You can find the coupon here (pdf)
http://media.oprah.com/sterm/payless-halfoff-coupon.pdf

Hat Tip to Judy Ross

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3 Frugal Photography Tips

2009-10-29T12:00:00+00:00

Want to shoot like a professional on the budget of a pauper? In an excellent interview in the Frugal Traveler column of the New York Times last week, Matt Gross interviewed Robert Caplin, a professional photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic, ESPN The Magazine, and The New York Times.

Asked how to make cheap cameras behave more like more expensive, professional cameras, Mr. Caplin discussed how you can trick your camera into taking better photos:

"You can trick the camera. Often I'm in Manhattan and I want to take a picture down on the street, but my iPhone's camera sees the street as much darker, it overexposes the street, and then the sky blows out. So what you can do is point the camera at the sky real quick, then bring it down and take a picture immediately, before it has the chance to adjust its exposure."

He also shared this tip for adjusting the flash by using a beer bottle or even a tortilla chip:

"There's the beer bottle technique. You put your empty beer bottle up to your flash and shoot, and what it'll do is, depending on the color of your beer bottle, is create an interesting color of light. One of my friends had the tortilla-chip flash. He would take a tortilla chip and put it in front of the flash so when the flash popped, it had to go through the tortilla chip, and it created some light but not a full-on harsh flash."

Don't want to buy or carry around a tri-pod? He suggests bringing a hand-sized bean bag with you. You can place it on a table or other surface and make a divot to adjust the camera's angle.

All in all, Mr. Caplin says you don't need an expensive camera to take great pictures. Be sure to check out the full article as there's much more: Q&A With the Travel Photographer Robert Caplin

Homepage photo credit: bigtallguy

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50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again (Green Planet)

2009-10-29T12:00:00+00:00

According to Timothy Jones of the University of Arizona, 14% of food purchased by American homes is wasted. In my own home, I've thrown out tons of vegetables, fruits, and left over meat dishes that have gone bad. I've begun a conscious effort to lower the amount of our family's food waste. At the forefront of my efforts: to cut down on food waste by planning my meals out for a full week in advance and to really start scrutinizing my food purchases much more closely -- with particular attention to perishables.

A recent article in the Planet Green blog suggests 50 ways to cut back on food waste. Some of our favorites include:

Vegetables

7. Celery leaves usually get tossed. There's a lot of good flavor in them; chop them up and add them to meatloaf, soups, or stews.

11. Too many zucchini? Make zucchini bread or muffins. If you don't want to eat the bread now, bake it and freeze it, then defrost when you're ready to eat it. (we do this in our family, zucchini bread is unbelievably delicious).

Fruit

13. Make smoothies with fruit before it goes bad. Berries, bananas, and melons are great candidates for this use-up idea.

15. Dry your fruit and store it in the freezer or in airtight containers.

Grains

21. Make croutons out of day-old bread.

24. All of those little broken pieces of pasta in the bottom of the box? Collect them and mix with rice and veggies for a simple side dish.

Meat

31. Don't toss those chicken bones after you eat the chicken. Boil them to make chicken stock.

Dairy

37. Eggs can be frozen. Break them, mix the yolks and whites together, and pour into an ice cube tray. Two frozen egg cubes is the equivalent of one large egg.

38. You can also freeze milk. Leave enough room in the container for expansion, and defrost in the refrigerator.

Herbs

43. Make pesto with extra basil or parsley.

Coffee

45. Leftover coffee in the carafe? Freeze it in ice cube trays. Use the cubes for iced coffee or to cool down too-hot coffee without diluting it. You can do the same with leftover tea.

There are tons of other great food-saving tips in the article, so be sure to check it out at: 50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again.

Do you have any tips on how to cut back on food waste? Please share them with other Tip Heroes in the comments section below!

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Scrap Value for My Cash for Clunkers Car

2009-10-14T14:18:00+00:00

I just read in the Oregonian today that Ron Tonkin, a local car dealer, is mailing checks to customers for the scrap value of the cars they turned in for the Cash for Clunkers program. When a car is junked the dealers are paid for the scrap value. Apparently the Cash for Clunkers legislation left out where the money from scrap should go, except to say that dealers can keep $50. Tonkin said the average scrap value of the cars that were turned into his dealership came to $375 and that they would be mailing out checks for the amount of scrap minus the $50 they are allowed to keep under the legislation.

Ron Tonkin is doing the right thing by announcing this scrap issue and proactively mailing checks to customers. The article mentioned that other car dealers may only send you a check if you ask. So if you participated in the Cash for Clunkers program, make sure to call your dealer and ask if they will be sending you a check for the scrap value of the car you turned in. If you know of someone who bought a car through the Cash for Clunkers program, please alert them to this post as they may not be aware that they could be eligible for a check amounting to several hundred dollars.

5 Ways I Save Money on Groceries

2009-09-28T19:00:00+00:00

Like many Americans, I decided to make saving more money a priority this year. One of the areas with which I've had some success is food. Here are five tactics I instituted this year to cut my grocery expenses:

Coupons - Although I've always considered myself a frugal person and I've tried to use coupons whenever I could, I never really got into the whole couponing thing. This year, I decided to jump in with both feet to see how much I could save. I discovered that the real savings from couponing doesn't come from coupons alone, but rather from combining manufacturers' coupons with store coupons or sales -- or both. It's amazing how much you can save when two or three of these stars align.

One recent example: My parents eat Fiber One cereal every morning, which runs up to $4.79 a box. Well, this past week, Target put it on sale for $2.50 a box, and if you bought five boxes they gave you a $5 Target gift card. They also had a $1 off store coupon on their website, and I had a $0.75 manufacturer's coupon. All told, I got them for $1.15 per box or over 75% off the regular price. Another key tenant of successful couponing is to stockpile when that once-in-a-year deal comes along. We bought 35 boxes, which should last through much of the year. We checked the boxes use-by date to make sure they would still be good several months later.

One of the pitfalls of couponing is that the deals sometimes cause you to buy stuff you otherwise wouldn't, and thus what appears to be a savings strategy quickly becomes an overspending strategy. I only use couponing for items I would normally buy, and I'm careful not to let it dictate my shopping list. All told, couponing has saved me hundreds of dollars so far this year; I saved over $100 on my recent Fiber One purchase alone.

Going Generic - One of my vices is diet soda. I've always been a huge diet coke drinker, consuming roughly one liter per day. This year, I decided to switch from Diet Coke to my local store's brand of diet soda. We develop a taste preference after repeated consumption of a particular brand, and I've found it takes several weeks after the switch before I start to enjoy the new brand's taste. Comparing regular price to regular price, I save roughly 75 cents per 2 liters, which ads up to just over $136 in savings per year at my rate of consumption. My next step is to reduce my overall soda consumption and eventually eliminate it entirely. I've also switched to generics when it comes to ice cream, ketchup, cereal, you name it.

Buying from the Bulk Bins - Fortunately, I discovered a supermarket nearby with a great bulk foods section. I've found that, for many items, the bulk foods price beats the pants off of both national and generic brand prices. I buy old fashioned oatmeal for around 40 cents per pound, which is more than 50 percent cheaper than Quaker Oats brand at my local supermarket. For some items, there isn't much savings to be had, but for others, especially spices, you can save up to 90%.

Bakery Outlets - If you haven't visited a nearby bakery outlet, you should try it at least once. My family goes through about two loaves of bread a week. Unfortunately, we've developed a real fondness for Oat Nut bread, which can run $4.00 at my local supermarket. I decided to visit our local bakery outlet near my home. The price for my beloved Oat Nut bread was just $1.69. What's more, the outlet offers a senior citizens discount of 10%, and they give you a stamp card (you get a stamp for each loaf of bread you buy, and after ten stamps, you get one loaf free). I learned another tidbit from the clerk at the outlet: Thursday is double stamp day, where you can get a free loaf after buying just five loaves. So, if you're a senior citizen and you shop on Thursdays, you can pick up Oat Nut bread for just under $1.20 per loaf. We buy several loaves of bread at a time and freeze the extras. I've heard some people say that bread out of the freezer doesn't taste right, but I've tasted bread from hundreds of loaves that come out of our freezer and they taste perfect. On average, I figure we're saving $2 per loaf and, at our rate of consumption, that's a savings of $208 per year.

Food Substitution - Another tactic I employed this year to save money on food is substituting expensive processed foods for cheaper healthier foods. When I looked back at the previous year, I noticed I was spending a lot of money on convenience foods like Stouffer's pizzas, Eggo waffles, or pretty much anything that came out of a box that I could easily throw into a microwave or toaster. I reasoned that if I could get more of my daily calories from healthier home-cooked options like oatmeal at 15 cents per serving, rice at 10 cents per serving, or popcorn also at 10 cents per serving, I could save a decent chunk of change. So far this year I've saved well over $200 by not buying packaged convenience foods and replacing them with healthier options.

According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average economic unit (I believe that's their jargon for a family) spends roughly $3,500 on food at home each year. By just making small changes and shaving 10% off the grocery bill, the average family could save $350 a year.

photo credit: ralphbijker

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4 Cheap Home Security Tips

2009-08-23T01:11:00+00:00

When the economy tanks, there is typically an uptick in home break-ins. Here are four cheap home security tips:

1) This first tip came to us from a Tip Hero reader (note that this tip works well if you park your car close to your home). When you go to bed, take your car keys with you and place them on your night stand or some other place near your bed. If you hear intruders in/around your home, hit the panic button on your car keys. The sound of the car alarm might scare them off.

2) A cheap home security tactic my family uses is the use of motion security lights at key spots around the outside of our home. While cats and other animals can often set these lights off, we figure that an intruder would likely go elsewhere instead of having to deal with the added risk of motion lights exposing them. You can find these lights for under $40 at home improvement stores.

3) Landscaping is another key factor in minimizing your home intrusion risk. Make sure no big shrubs or bushes shelter key access points to your home from view. We also put down gravel near the side door into our garage.

4) We put wind chimes over doors to the outside. When they are opened, they make a ruckus of a noise. We hope this noise will scare off intruders.

None of these tips are going to keep determined intruders away from your home. The goal here is to simply increase the intruders' hassle factor and detection risk, making them less likely to move forward with a break-in.

Do you have any cheap home security tips? If so, please share them with other Tip Hero readers by posting a comment below. And thanks for being a Tip Hero!

Homepage photo credit: KaCey97007

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