Make Your Own Greeting Cards

Valentine's Day has passed for this year and many people doled out big bucks for cards for their special someone. Paying 3 to 6 dollars for a folded piece of cardboard with some witty picture on it seems like a big waste to me. The better way to go is to make your own cards.

All you have to do is buy a pack of colorful construction paper and some glue. Now add in some scissors, markers, and creativity and you can make several years worth of cards for under 5 bucks! Typically you will give at least 2 cards to everyone close to you throughout the year and up to 4 or 5 for certain people in your life. Let's say an average card price turns out to be $5. With the number of people you know well enough to give cards to, one could easily spend anywhere from $25 to $200 on greeting cards throughout a year's time.

Not only is making your own cards a lot cheaper, it is can also be more heartfelt and personable. You can say what you really feel inside the card, make up your own witty picture or tag-line, or use an inside joke to make it really hit home. The possibilities are endless and you'll never have trouble finding a card that says "the right thing". If you're feeling really adventurous you could try to make a pop-up card for a challenge. Whatever you try to do, just make sure you use your creativity and keep your recipient in mind.

If you think you lack the creativity and can't pull off this method, then I'll tell you not to give up yet because you can do it with a little creative corner cutting. Let's say you're not up on your cutting or drawing skills and wouldn't dare try to make a picture for the card cover. Instead, you can try to craft a picture with a computer image editor or just search for some applicable image from a simple Google image search and print it out. Glue the printed picture to a construction paper card, throw on an applicable line of text, and voila! You have a card. You can also just try to think simple with your card cover. Shapes like hearts and stars are easy to cut out and can easily be put to use on a card for a special occasion. If you can't think up any good ideas, then you can cheat and look through the card aisle at the grocery store or look online. Find something you like and replicate it by hand with your own special spin. A last pathetic effort that I can't really endorse is to find free cards online and just print them out. It won't really have the same effect as a handmade card though. In fact, it will probably come across as lazy.

I would still purchase a tasteful sympathy card if needed, but for any other occasion I think that handmade cards are open season. I really do think that they end up being better cards overall since they are special made for a specific person and the effort can be seen and appreciated. The potential savings for hundreds of dollars over the course of several years doesn't hurt either.

Pay Bills Online

Everyone has their monthly bills that keep on coming. The commonly ignored extra expense to paying your bills is the postage you pay if you still mail your payment in. Stamp prices seem to be on the rise at a quicker pace than ever in the past few years and the price to send a single envelope currently stands at 44 cents. It doesn't sound like much, so many don't really consider it when thinking of expenses, but those cents can add up.

One monthly bill payment that is mailed in throughout the year at the current rate is going to run you $5.28. Now think of how many bills you have coming every month and how that can turn into 30 to 40 dollars fairly easily. These are dollars that can easily be saved by simply paying your bills online. Online payment is free for virtually all companies with an online presence so you should take advantage. You also don't have to worry about the random times when your payment gets lost in the mail (This has happened to me) or shows up late for no reason. These problems can result in large penalty fees and can hurt your credit score. Online payment is easily traceable and you will know that your payment has posted. All of my online payments will email me confirmation of payment and then email me again when the payment has posted. It's free and worry free!

There's a little benefit for planet Earth with online bill paying as well. Many companies will allow you to enroll in paperless billing. This way they don't have to mail you the billing statement and payment envelope every month. You instead will receive your monthly billing statement in your email and have to pay it online. As a result, plenty of paper can be saved. Score one for the green movement!

These savings may not sound like a lot over the course of a year, but you have to figure that every extra dollar that you save can help you. It's the type of mindset you need to really build wealth later in life.

The Best Savings Account

For any money you may be putting into a savings account, there is only one great bank for this in my mind. That bank is an online bank called SmartyPig. SmartyPig has boasted the highest savings rates for a long time now. During the peak of savings rates it was above 6 percent. These days, with the horrible economy and near zero government interest rates, there isn't too much interest out there anywhere, but SmartyPig still leads the way with 2.01 percent interest compounded quarterly. Even most CD's have trouble matching SmartyPig rates. You may find slightly higher rates advertised at a few random banks, but those rates always come with catches. They may just be introductory rates, have high minimum balance requirements, or require direct deposits and frequent debit card use. SmartyPig doesn't have any catches and only needs a minimum balance of $25 to open. There used to be a required monthly deposit, but that is now even optional. Now there is no reason not to use SmartyPig as your savings account.

The only difference between a savings account at a physical bank and one on the Internet is that you will still need a checking account at a regular bank anyway. You will need to deposit your money into the checking account and transfer it to the Internet account. Transfers take just two business days. Since this is the Internet age and it is quite easy to link the accounts together, I don't even really see this as a barrier.

There are other SmartyPig perks to go with the high interest rates as well. There are cash savings boosts with numerous retailers that can get you up to 12% back with purchases. So if you want to spend $100 at Macy's, then you can buy a gift card for $100 through SmartyPig and automatically get $12 put back into your account. If you don't want to do that you can always just put your balance on a debit card or transfer it back to your checking account. There is also a way to use your account on social networking sites. You can use pre-made widgets on Facebook, Myspace, or your own website that show your saving progress and can accept donations from friends and family. This is optional, but can add a whole new dimension to your savings potential. SmartyPig doesn't slack on the extra features either. You can find plenty of ways to view your savings data through text and graphs to see how much you have really saved over time and where every penny came from.

If you are saving money, make sure you are saving the smart way with SmartyPig.com.

A Frugal Way of Thinking

Here's is a money saving trick that I use myself, though it may start to drive you to complete frugality when you use it. It's a mental trick where you just convert the price of the item you are buying into the number of hours you worked to make that much money. The more you hate your job, the more effective this mental trick will be.

So let's say you take home $10 per hour after taxes. You are considering buying a new pair of shoes that cost $120. So that means you worked a day and a half that week just to be able to afford to buy these new shoes. You worked and slaved for 12 hours so that you could wrap your feet in some new leather. Now weigh that in your mind. You may second guess this purchase and really need to analyze whether you need these shoes. Shoes at least will last you for a long time and you may need new ones, so you might be able to rationalize this. Or maybe you'll realize that 12 hours of your time and effort is worth more than a pair of shoes and not get them at all or settle for a much cheaper pair.

Let's look at another example that many can relate to. Are you a coffee drinker who shells out $6 at their local Starbucks every morning before work? Well think of it this way. Every morning you are already in the hole for 40 minutes of your time. You will need to spend the first 40 minutes of your day working just to pay for that coffee purchase in the morning. Multiply that by all 5 days and you have spent 3 hours and 20 minutes working just to pay for your coffee habit.

Try using this thinking on your big ticket item purchases and your head will explode at the thought of buying a new vehicle. A $30,000 new car would take you 3,000 hours of work to pay for. That's 75 weeks of full-time work. That's almost 19 months of your entire salary! Of course this isn't even taking into account the interest you will pay if you took out a loan to get it. Once you look at this figure, you might wise up to the idea of buying a nice used car at a third of the price and with cash if possible.

So take into account every minute you count as it ticks by slowly on the clock at work. Remember every horrible meeting you sat through listening to people rambling on. Think of all the bull you had to listen to your boss spout out. Think of all the work you put in every day at your job. Then think, "Is this item worth that much to me?" before you buy it. Try this out and you might be surprised at the purchases you just don't find to be worth it anymore.

Buy Clothes For Less

Designer names cost more and everyone knows that. The easy thing to do is to just not buy designer clothes. If you are truly a money-saver at heart, you'll be able to do that. I'm not just talking about the super high fashion names that only the rich indulge in like Gucci, Prada, and Louis Vuitton. I'm talking about avoiding all brand names like Nike, Adidas, Gap, A&F, etc. Any name with a significant brand recognition will have a boost in their price to feature their logo on it. So when you buy new, buy store brand or no-name brands without their logos plastered everywhere to save money. Another way to think when buying new clothes is to consider anything that's on-sale as a regular price item. Stores have sales so frequently that if you aren't getting some sort of sale discount, then you are just getting ripped off.

A better idea to follow is to buy used clothes. This way you can get those no-name clothes dirt cheap or even snag any of those high price brand name clothes for a fraction of the price. There are plenty of great thrift shops and consignment shops out there that offer great clothes. The shops that pay for used clothes are very picky with what they'll accept checking for both style and quality. They won't put anything not in fashion or anything damaged on their racks. I know a consignment shop called Plato's Closet that will have special sales from time to time where you can buy a shopping bag for $10 and whatever you can fit in the bag is yours. Nothing sounds like a better deal to me than buying clothes by volume.

There are also ways to find knock-offs and "mistake" items for less either online or at flea markets. Knock-off items like purses are fairly prevalent so get those instead of the real thing. I mean they look the same so what does it matter to you who stitched it together. The "mistake" items are clothes with problems that are usually unnoticeable. It might be a crooked stitch or a misplaced label. No big deal.

So there are plenty of ways to get clothes very cheaply out there and, if you need to, you can still be fashionable too.

Profit From Your Credit Card

The majority of us have credit cards. Unfortunately the majority of that majority are losing lots of money on high interest because they don't pay off their full balance at the end of the month. There is a way though to actually profit from your credit card.

The first step to profiting from your credit card is to get the right kind of card. After making sure there is no annual fee you just need to focus on the rewards that you can get for spending. Many card rewards come in different forms. There is straight cash, point systems, and specific rewards like airline miles. I don't trust the point systems as much as straight cash rewards because they are counting on you to not figure out their value. You may get 1000 points for spending 10 dollars so it feels like you got a lot, but when you take a look at what you can buy with that it will be nothing. You'd probably need 100,000 points to get a $10 gift card. So that's about 1% reward. You may need even more points to trade in for straight cash of the same value. You can do better than this most likely. The gift specific rewards like airline miles may be worth it if you use that reward often. For example, a frequent flier may benefit from tons of free miles. But you also have to figure that you are also must stick to that reward. I recommend going for cash rewards. Also when choosing a card, you won't need to put too much emphasis on the interest rate since you will be paying it off in full every month. Of course a lower interest rate doesn't hurt and could come in to play if you have a freak emergency, so don't ignore it completely.

Personally, I use a Discover More card. This card gives cash back bonuses of 1% to 5% based on the type of purchase. You can also sign up every year to get 5% back on certain types of throughout the year. My favorite is 5% back on gas purchases during the summer months. So when gas prices are highest, you are getting the most money back. There are also 5% back promotional periods for hotels, groceries, travel, movie theaters, and much more. There are deals with leading brands to get more deals from 5% to 20% cash back at any time. The only drawback from the Discover card is that it is not as readily accepted as Visa and Mastercard are. So be sure to carry a backup card with another rewards system. My backup is a Visa that is on the points system.

Now that you know how to get a good credit card, the second step is to use your credit card for all of your purchases and use all the reward maximizing offers that you can. Grocery shopping, clothes shopping, gas purchases, and everything else should be charged as long as it fits on your card. If the option is available, set up automatic payments using your credit card for all of your recurring monthly bills. Things like your cell phone bill, mortgage, car loan, and utility bills could all be automatically paid by credit card. This will certainly raise your credit card bill, but will also raise your rewards. Another perk is that you won't have to keep track of so many bills to pay every month. You just need to make sure you keep track of how much you charged on the card and how much money you have so you don't fall behind and leave any balance carrying over. If you have trouble handling credit card spending I would refer you to my blog entry on the benefits of cash spending.

The only other warning I have about this strategy is that your card might get canceled eventually because the credit card company will realize that you are losing them money. It's no big deal though. There will always be another credit card company that will give you a card and you can take joy in the fact that you beat the credit card company at their own game. I've been going strong for three years with no account closures so far. Give it a try and get some cash back.

Use An Online Financial Management Tool

There are a few great free financial management tools out there on the internet that you should take advantage of. They have several uses for someone trying to save the most they can.

1. All accounts in one place - Seeing all of your financial data summed up in one place can give you a great overall picture of of how much money you have and how much is saved up on one screen. You won't need to enter log in credentials on countless other sites to get your complete financial profile anymore. That's convenient.

2. Data, data, and more data - With all of your finances in one place, these online applications are able to generate some very useful data. You can easily pop up a pie chart that lists all your expenses and allow you to see where most of your money is going. You'll be able to see totals. Say you are one of those coffee fiends who doles out $6 every morning for coffee. With a little data analysis you'll see that those coffees have cost you over $1,500 over the course of the year. Those sneaky expenses really add up and this will help you see that. You'll also be able to compare your spending habits to others around the country.

Chart from Mint.com

3. Reminders - You can get email reminders for bills that are due soon. This way you can have a little help to make sure you never pay another dreaded late fee again.

4. Recommendations - This software can also look at the accounts you currently have and offer money-making or money saving recommendations. It could be a different credit card with lower rates, a savings account or CD with higher rates, or IRA suggestions

There are a bunch of these free financial management tools out there like Mint, Yodlee, Thrive, and Wesabe. I personally use Mint and love it for it's speed, interface, and ability. Of the other listed tools Yodlee is the only other one that I can tell has a significant different feature of note. Yodlee allows you to pay bills online from within the application itself. I find it to be a little slower in general, but this feature might make it worth it for some. None are yet flawless since there are certain credit cards and loans that they might not be able to link to, but they do have the majority. Some recommendations are lacking too sometimes, but you can use your common sense to figure out if the suggested idea is better than what you have now.

So whatever financial management tool you may choose, use it to your advantage. It can be a great tool for finding more money and more savings. It certainly can't hurt to try. It's free.