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Annual Fees the Latest in Credit Card Surprises
Dear Mary: My son has been saving to buy a house. He got a credit card through our bank to build a credit history. Now he's received a letter saying the bank is going to start charging an annual fee. He feels he's stuck because canceling the card …Read more.
4 Tips To Help Parents Save Money Every Day
Sometimes, cutting costs is more a matter of getting clever than it is waiting for things to go on sale. Take today's first tipster, for example. Rather than give up her family's favorite treat because it was too pricey, she found a clever way to …Read more.
Do Your Back-to-School Shopping in Someone Else's Closet
If your cash flow has been reduced to a trickle, you may be finding the thought of back-to-school shopping more than a little stressful. Of course you want to send the kids back to school with new shoes, clothes and school supplies, but what can you …Read more.
Why You Should Beware of Debtors' Prison
Debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. I surprised myself when I remembered that fact as I read a recent headline from the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, "In jail for being in debt." Immediately, I …Read more.
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Packaging for the Birds Wins Tip of the Month
Not long ago in this column, you read a tip from a reader who uses popped popcorn for packaging material. It's lightweight and cheap, and when the package arrives, the recipient can just toss it in the trash. Whoops. Hundreds of readers were not fond of that tip -- the throwing away part. You let us know that there are other uses for the popcorn. None was quite as creative as our first tipster today, who receives the coveted Tip of the Month award:
TIP OF THE MONTH. I use popcorn to protect items that I'm shipping, just as a previous "Everyday Cheapskate" tipster suggested. In the box, I include a recipe for "Birdie Popcorn Balls." Cut an apple into quarters. Spread peanut butter on the apple quarters, and roll them in popcorn. Wrap a string around the apple quarters, and hang them from a tree. -- Marsha, Iowa MAINTENANCE MATTERS. I had been putting off pulling out the dryer for the big job of cleaning the hose from the dryer to the vent. It had been years since I last cleaned the hose. When I finally moved the dryer, not only was there a lot of lint on the walls of the silver coil tube but also there were earrings, plastic BBs, buttons and safety pins! I did a thorough cleaning, which I'm sure will improve the dryer's efficiency and our electric bill, not to mention the safety factor. -- Leslie, e-mail LINEN SWITCH. I had a beautiful set of bedsheets that were too worn to use as such, so I turned them into dinner napkins. I cut the strongest parts of the sheets into squares and used a zigzag stitch around the edges to sew two squares together. I have a large pile of napkins from those sheets that I still am using two years later. That was one of my most pleasant sewing projects ever! -- Michelle, e-mail CREATIVE PRESERVATION. To preserve my children's artwork, I take digital photographs of it and create notecards with their art as the photographs. SMART SAVING. I allow myself to eat out for lunch at work once a week, and I budget $10 a week for that purpose. Whenever my lunch bill comes to less than $10, I slip the change into my "lunch money" envelope, which I keep in my desk. After six or seven weeks, I usually have enough saved up to treat myself to lunch without dipping into the $10 I'd budgeted that week. It's like getting a free lunch! -- Elizabeth J., Michigan JAR NUT. I use glass jars from things such as spaghetti sauce, relish and mayo as containers for my nuts, seeds and dried fruit. The jars look fashionable displayed on a serving tray on my kitchen counter, and they encourage people to eat these nutritious snacks. -- Terri W., Ohio PROMO-PRONE. I do most of my shopping online. I have found that if I go to the "live chat" section of most retailers, I can ask for an online coupon and they will be happy to oblige. Most give me a promotion code for free shipping or a percentage off my order. I have saved a lot of money this way! -- Christina B., e-mail Do you have a unique or surprising money-saving tip? Send it in, and yours just might be selected as the next Tip of the Month. The winner gets a free one-year subscription to my hugely popular Web site www.DebtProofLiving.com. Send your great tips to mary@everydaycheapskate.com, and you could be the next winner! You can e-mail Mary Hunt at mary@everydaycheapskate.com, or write to Everyday Cheapskate, P.O. Box 2135, Paramount, CA 90723. Mary Hunt is the founder of DebtProofLiving.com and author of 17 books, including "Debt-Proof Living" and "Tiptionary 2." To find out more about Mary and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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