The Internet has changed a lot in our lives: it has changed the teaching and learning processes, the information flow over the world, the way important news is shared and spread, etc. Most people already realize the power of the Internet; too bad only few, really web-savvy users know how to take advantage of the Internet in any sphere of life, including, naturally, spending and saving money.

Save by Getting Educated

There are plenty of ways to share knowledge online. You can learn how other people save by using one (or a combination) of the following tools:

• Join and participate in forum discussions. People may get really open and frank when discussing money matters in a friendly environment of their favorite discussion board. It is easy to join the discussion by asking questions and watching what others discuss;
• Subscribe and follow money-saving blogs. These are quite plenty and it is really a matter of personal taste which one you will choose to follow: some are more personal, some are more news-based, others offer more actionable advice, etc.
• Discuss on Twitter. Monitor Twitter. Twitter is buzzing with conversations. Ask a question and plenty of your friends might know the answer. If your account does not yet have huge following, you can try using Twitter search to see what people are saying. You can also subscribe to Twitter search results to easier track new discussions on the topic.

Save by Learning Third-Party Opinions

Using the web search (Google, Bing, Twitter search, etc) you can easily find multiple people who have already bought stuff you plan to buy or tried a merchant you are planning to try. So the only trick is to find those people and see what they are saying. A few tips:

• Use some additional words to help your search, like “reviews”, “opinions”, “experience”, “scam”, “feedback” etc
• Make sure to only arrive at any conclusions if you have found and compared quite a few reviews. Remember that merchants may publish fake feedback and testimonials, so don’t get cheated.
• Check Scams.com forums if you want to research if the store you are considering has ever been caught cheating people.

Save by Aggregating Useful Information

There are quite a few really smart tools that let you aggregate relevant updates on any topic and receive it right to your email box or mobile phone. Google Alerts (as well as Yahoo! Alerts) is only one (obvious but not the best) example. You can create customized RSS feeds (with tools like Yahoo! Pipes), track blog search results (with Google Blog Search), or get updates right to your mobile (with smart Twitter apps). The only trick here is that you choose the tool that best fits your needs and interests.

An Example

The examples are really numerous. I won’t bore you by listing plenty of similar tools and comparing their features. Instead, I’ll share the one that combines most of the options above – just for the sake of visualization of what I have said above. Buxr is one of my most recent discoveries. That’s a social media community for bargain hunters who get together to share deals as well as money saving tips. What you will be able to find there is:

• The collection of daily updated, user-submitted coupon codes and freebies (for you to save money when shopping);
• Really active and friendly forums (for you to ask advice and feedback);
• Customized web alerts (for you want to keep track of new deals and coupons offered for something you buy often or plan to buy soon).

About the author
Ann Smarty
Can be contacted on myblogguestmail at gmail dot com

The good news for women: they live longer, so they will have longer to enjoy their retirement. The bad news: they live longer, and so their retirement will be much more expensive than for their male counterparts.

The fly in the ointment: As a woman, you may have to put in more effort before you get to enjoy a worry-free, financially secure retirement.

Women earn an average of 76 percent of men’s salaries. Does that shock you? Yes, even now, women are still way behind the earning curve in corporate America. But rather than get into a discussion of the fairness or unfairness of it all, let’s concentrate on just what women can do to ensure that they aren’t left out to dry in their retirement age!

After all, because women typically live longer than men, combined with the skyrocketing divorce rate, many women will find themselves alone in their older years. (Statistics show that most women are alone by age 56!) And the figures show us that if a woman took out any time from her career to have children (about seven years) she will pay for it later with only 50% of what her male counterparts will receive in retirement benefits.

So, what can a woman do to ensure that she can retire in style? Start by taking a look at some of our suggestions below.

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Most experts advise us to save about 10 percent of our income in order to have a sufficient amount to retire one, but if you are a woman, you should be saving closer to 12 percent. Because of the reasons listed above, you simply won’t receive the same amount in retirement pensions. What’s more, the way that social security figures your monthly payment is based on the top 35 years of your work history. But guess what? If you were out for seven or so of those years having children, they will be counted as “O,” and the overall amount will be reduced.

Wiser since you will need to save more by retirement age, you will have to more careful with your . Know your risk level, and then don’t exceed it under any circumstances!

Join the Team Many employers offer investment and savings strategies such as 401K plans and savings matching programs, and if you are a woman, you should plan to participate in all of them that you can.

Use Cash, Not Credit

An alarming number of Americans today are in serious financial trouble. This was made evident recently with the passing of the new bankruptcy bill that will make it more difficult to file. A record number of people filed for bankruptcy in anticipation of it.

It’s easy to get into when people today spend an average of $1.21 for every dollar they earn, but don’t be tempted to fall into that trap. Instead, plan to put as much money away for the future as you can.

Don’t Go It Alone : While it is important for all women to step up to the plate and get serious about their finances, it’s equally important for them to get advice from professionals. Talk to planners, investment specialists and budget planners to get all the advice that you can.

From simple colds and viruses to life-threatening diseases, any kind of health problem can put a huge strain on your pocketbook. By adopting certain habits you cannot only save money on fewer doctor’s visits and medications, you can preserve your cash in other ways.

Below are eight frugal living tips that will actually lengthen your lifespan.

1. Quit Smoking
Although quitting may be easier said than done, it is a no-brainer that doing so will cut costs and help save your life. The CDC actually offers a helpful guide to quitting smoking, which could be a great resource when you decide to put down the tobacco once and for all.

2. Stop Tanning
There is a growing fad for people of all ages and cultures to look bronzed. If you are seeking the warmth of a tanning bed in order to look a certain way, then it is time you stopped. Quitting now will decrease your chances of developing malignant melanoma.

3. Cancel Your Paid Television
It is obvious how this will save money, but you may not see the direct connection to your health. Simply put, it will get you off that couch and encourage you to pursue more active, healthy activities.

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4. Drink Only Water
Water is essential for good health and you should definitely be drinking a minimum of eight glasses per day, maybe even more. By ditching all other beverages for simple tap water, you will also save a considerable amount of money.

5. Wear Sensible Shoes
This is a hard message to get across to many women, as they seem to think they are better off in stylish, expensive shoes. Not so, as many high-end shoes are terrible for your back and posture. This can, in turn, lead to other problems. Opt for sensibly priced, comfortable shoes – both your wallet and your back will thank you for it.

6. Avoid the Drive-Thru
Eating out while on the go can nickel and dime your pocketbook until there is nothing left. Not only that, but the food is often terribly unhealthy.

7. Eat Slowly
When you eat too quickly, you will often overeat as a result. This will likely cause you to spend more money on larger portions and it will also contribute to digestive issues. Take it easy when you start a meal and finish at your leisure.

8. Relax at Home
Rather than going out on the town when you have some free time, save your money and have a relaxing night in. Believe it or not, your stress level will be reduced when you can relax in a calm atmosphere. This, in turn, improves your overall health.

By following the above advice, you will save a ton of money. Luckily, you will have many more years to enjoy that saved money, as you will also be much healthier. Many people sacrifice health for money or vice versa, but it is possible to have it all by improving your everyday habits.

* Helen Anderson is a regular writer at Bankaholic. She also take up freelance writing work from other blogs. Her area of specializations are money, personal finance and economics.*

Before the year is over, you always have a list of New Year’s resolutions. It could be about an oft-repeated promise to lose weight, quit nicotine addiction, or to budget your paycheck and get out of debt.

But even before the first month of the New Year is out, you give up. These useful but practical tips will bail you out of the overspending trap. Budgeting a slim paycheck can be frustrating, especially when unexpected money emergencies crop up. If you are receiving less than $1000 every 14 days, the prognosis is grim. Cutting back on some regular expenses can be very inconvenient for you, especially if you have kids to consider; but better the one-time inconvenience than a lifetime of never ending debt.

For emergencies like this, it’s best to be prepared. Instead of dividing your money into the usual groceries and food, bills and utilities, and rent, add one more money envelope or money clip – this time, one for savings. Impossible, you say, because you can barely survive on your paycheck.

You are right – it is downright impossible to save money when you’re already penny-pinching. Here’s how to stretch your budget some more. Go over your previous expenses and trim down the fat, and say goodbye to impulsive shopping.

Make the budgeting fun. Consider the amount you save as points, and these points should go into the savings envelope. You’ll marvel at the way your savings envelope grows, slowly but surely.
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Plan a two-week menu to determine how much fresh produce, canned goods, and staple you need to buy, but don’t stint on the children’s milk. Buy fewer sweets and expensive cuts of meat, and go for more fish and vegetables, or try those nutritious one-dish meals. At the end of two weeks, there will be less unused items in the refrigerator.

Bring home cooked meals to work, instead of crossing over to the deli for your lunch or coffee breaks. If your office is not issuing freebies like bottomless brewed coffee, take your instant brews to office. As much as possible, avoid the adjacent coffee shop because you cannot afford a bagel, which adds up to your unnecessary expenses.

Schedule your family activities at home to minimize the use of the TV, and make sure that lights are off by 10 in the evening. It may sound a bit Nazi-ish, but sticking to your guns and making sure that everybody follows the new regime pays off wonderfully in many ways.

For your daily commute, take the public transport and convert the unused gas money to savings. Compute the expenses for gas and everybody’s daily commute to school and work. If it’s cheaper to buy gas, then load up the tank. You can stretch your gas mileage by avoiding the morning and after office rush.

There is no contest when it comes to the rent. It has to be paid upfront monthly (no ifs and buts), or else you’ll land a pitiful heap in the streets. You have other options, though, like looking for a house that’s cheaper, or one that’s nearer your place of work. If you can find a house that is rent-to-own, so much the better, but stick to your rent budget.

When living on a Spartan budget, forget about shopping for new clothes and shoes, unless it is a matter of life and death. But let everybody try to save their allowances for something they’d like to buy. This may take time, but they will learn the value of money and saving it.

My basic money-saving strategy goes like this: Decrease your expenses, and increase your income. That’s really all there is to it.

While the concept itself is not at all complicated, in reality it can be difficult to actually put into practice because it requires you to change your poor spending habits. But complicated? No, not at all.

So how do you actually go about following this money saving technique? What, specifically, should you do?

Let’s use the following analogy. If you were trying to lose weight, you could accomplish that by going on a diet and not doing any additional exercise.

You could also accomplish the goal of losing weight by eating the same as you’re eating now, but doing a lot more exercise to ensure weight loss. However, the best, fastest and healthiest way to lose weight would be to do both: eat healthy food in moderate proportions AND exercise regularly.

Similarly, you’ll get out of debt and maximize your financial results most effectively if you reduce your expenses AND increase your income at the same time.

Reducing your expenses is fairly self-explanatory. Spend a day or two reviewing the past 60 days of expenditures in your check register, or if you haven’t kept good records, start tracking every single penny you spend, thus compiling a list of your ACTUAL expenses.
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Then you look at the list and determine what can be reduced or cut out altogether. Consider ways to becoming more frugal; clip coupons, cancel subscriptions and memberships you don’t need – and so forth.

If you can stick to a new streamlined budget that alone will dramatically increase the amount of money you have left over at the end of each month. But if you really want to TURBO-CHARGE your progress, you need to find a way to increase your income, too.

That part is a little less self-explanatory. If I already have a job, and if getting a raise isn’t an option, then how am I supposed to make more money?

There are actually many ways. Consider working overtime hours at your job. Is there an at-home business you can do on the side? Do you have things you could sell on eBay for a profit? Do you have skills that can be utilized for consulting or freelance work?

Get creative; the sooner you can pay off your debt, the more quickly you’ll be able to concentrate on building wealth!

If you’re married, even if you’d rather not have both spouses working full-time outside the home, consider your options. If Mom is home with the kids during the day, she may be able to devote some time to an online-based business.

Debt-to-Income.com shows people hundreds of ways to make more money at home. Reading these real life stories may be just what you need to get your creative juices flowing.

Either reducing your expenses or increasing your income will help your savings situation. But if you do both at the same time, your financial reality will improve at a much faster pace.

Do both, earn more – spend less. It’s the best money saving technique you’ll ever hear. While the strategy is simple, no one is saying it’s easy. However, the effort you invest now to get out of debt will be well worth your time and attention.

I said goodbye to an old friend a few weeks ago. We’ve known each other almost thirty years, ever since I started high school really.

We were together on my first date, first kiss, and first trip overseas. We were hand in hand when I left home to go to university.

My friend was there when I started my first real grown-up job, has seen girlfriends come and go, and has been my solace when I had nobody to turn to.

We briefly parted ways from time to time but always managed to find each other. We laughed, we danced, we stressed and we wept together.

We shared our ups and downs. Some times we exercised together and every now and then we even bathed together. That’s a lot of togetherness.

In the past few months I have slowly wakened up to the fact that this friend of mine, who I thought had always been there for me, has slowly been poisoning me from the inside out.

My friend has been digging into my pocketbook on a daily basis for the past 30 years, and stealing my money at the same time as he’s been stealing minutes from my life. My friend has not really been my friend at all.

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My friend has been blackening my lungs, stinking up my clothes and shortening my breath.

There is more to creating or destroying health than diet. If you are still smoking tobacco, or are concerned about a loved one who is then read on. Even if you are a non-smoker or x-smoker remembers the rule of polluted air – if you can smell it you are inhaling it.

Some people say that giving up smoking is one of the hardest things they have ever done. For me, cigarettes have been the punctuation in my life. They have provided the pauses, full stops and exclamations. They have defined moments.

They have marked the end of meals, the beginnings of conversations and the middle of periods of waiting. They have taken up random moments that I needed to occupy. I associate just about everything with smoking.

And yet quitting smoking has been surprisingly easy this time around. Last time I quit I found each day was a battle. I finally gave up on the fight after six months. That was five years ago.

I have known for some time that my relationship with smoking was on a downhill slope. It’s not that we haven’t been getting along. It’s just that I’ve been starting to realise how much more I was giving than receiving.

For the past few months, as I woke up and hacked up a lung while wheezing down my first smoke of the day, I told myself that I needed to quit smoking. I guess I was just mentally preparing myself.

Then one day I just snapped and realised that I’d had enough. I told myself that my next day off I would quit. And I did.

It’s been three weeks now and I’m mostly fine. Sometimes I pause what I’m doing and realise that the old me would be lighting up a cigarette right then. So I just find something else to occupy my thoughts and my hands.

Even though I know that I’m better off without them, I still do grieve a little for my old friend. We were together a long time and shared many important moments.

This has all left me with a few questions though. What do non-smokers use to punctuate their lives? Maybe quitting smoking is less about the cigarettes and more about learning to fill those moments.

Maybe it’s about not needing to define moments at all. Either way I suppose I am freer now than when I was tied down to my pack of smokes. I have to do it all alone, but at least I can breathe easy as I do. And of course not to forget the money I am going to save.

When people discuss retiring or having a sea change or chasing their passion, the different reactions usually involve money: “I’d love to do it but I don’t have enough money.”

You reach retirement age and don’t have enough to retire on, you’ll be left with two options, either to delay your retirement or reduce your standard of living in retirement. Which one would you choose?

It always helps to know what you are aiming at and wealth creation is no different. I will assume that you want to build wealth in order to be able to retire and still live well. How much money will you really need?

I was attending a wealth building conference and one of the other speakers, a financial planner, made a statement that when you retire you only need about 50% of you pre-retirement income. I was amazed at this statement and I asked him back stage how he came to that conclusion. He told me that all retired people do is sit around and watch television all day.

My response to him was that this was a description of what broke people do (namely his clients). Retired people who have successfully built a decent wealth portfolio are living the time of their life! What are you aiming at? The lifestyle of the television watching clients of our financial planning friend or the time of your life lifestyle that comes with wealth?

How much will you need for a good lifestyle in retirement?

The short answer is that, if you want to maintain the lifestyle that you are accustomed to then you will need a monthly income equal to your monthly income one month before you retired. Anything less and there is something that you will have to give up.

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When I say this I often hear the following argument. If you were investing money prior to retirement and you no longer need to do this after retirement then you don’t need as large an income as you did before retirement.

I don’t know why so many people are so determined to aim at reducing their income but I will answer the question anyway, Firstly it depends on what age you are retiring at. If you are young or at least plan to live a long time after retirement then you may well need to keep investing.

Secondly, even if it is true that you don’t need to invest any longer then let me ask you what you plan to do in retirement. You see the biggest difference that retirement makes in your life is that you suddenly have a lot more free time to fill. How do you plan to fill it and what will that cost you?

If you plan to do some traveling then you will need to fund it. I don’t know too many retired people who would prefer roughing it in low quality accommodation of last resort. The retired people I know prefer high quality accommodation of a five star resort.

Realistically determining your financial needs in retirement is the first step to actually achieving the income that will provide for those needs. The only thing worse than aiming too high and missing it is aiming too low and getting it.

I would like to suggest that you put pen to paper and answer a few simple questions.

1. What age do you want to retire at?
2. How many years do you expect (considering today’s life expectancy) to live after retiring?
3. What lifestyle would you like to live in retirement?
4. What will that lifestyle cost per month?
5. Am I doing enough now to provide for that?

Please don’t make the mistake of aiming too low; there are too many people at that end of the retirement economy now!

In simple economics, there is little distinction between savings and investments. One saves by reducing present consumption, while he invests in the hope of increasing future consumption.

Therefore, a fisherman who spares a fish for the next catch reduces his present consumption in the hope of increasing it in the future.

Most of the people probably have savings accounts with ATMs to access their hard-earned cash and be able to store away any extra cash in a place a little safer than a mattress. A few of you may even have some stocks or bonds.

Let me explain why while a savings account in the bank may seem like a safer place than the mattress to store your money, in the long-term it is a losing proposition! If you open a savings account at the bank, they will pay you interest on your savings. So you think that your savings are guaranteed to grow and that makes you feel extremely good! But wait until you see what inflation will do to your investment in the long-term!

The bank may pay you 5 percent interest a year on your money, if inflation is at 4 percent though; your investment is only growing at a mere 1 percent annually.

Saving and investing are often used interchangeably, but they are quite different! Saving is storing money safely, such as in a bank or money market account, for short-term needs such as upcoming expenses or emergencies.

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Typically, you earn a low, fixed rate of return and can withdraw your money easily.
Investing is taking a risk with a portion of your savings such as by buying stocks or bonds, in hopes of realizing higher long-term returns.

Unlike bank savings, stocks and bonds over the long term have returned enough to outpace inflation, but they also decline in value from time to time.The rate of returns and risk for savings are often lower than for other forms of investment.

Return is the income from an investment. Risk is the uncertainty that you will receive an expected return and preservation of capital. Savings are also usually more liquid. That is, you may quickly and easily convert your investment to cash.

The decision about which investment to choose is influenced by factors such as yield, risk, and liquidity. Investments may produce current income while you own the investment through the payment of interest, dividends or rent payments.

When you sell an investment for more than its purchase price, the profit is known as a capital gain, also called growth or capital appreciation.

Get real about money. Let’s face it: Most people spend way too much money on things they don’t really need. The more money we make, the more we tend to spend. This endless cycle of materialism has led many people to confuse the word “need” with the word “want.” As in, “we need a big-screen TV for our new home theatre.” Or, “I need a new pair of shoes to go with my new outfit.”

If you want to achieve your vocational passion, where every day you jump out of bed and can’t wait to go to work, then you need to re-order your priorities. Stay away from the purely material.

The pursuit of material success often is the root cause of burnout at midlife. In fact, a recent study found that people primarily motivated by the love of their work grow dissatisfied as they begin to make more money. The first step to breaking free from the materialism trap is to understand the difference between “need” and “want.”

We need food, clothing, shelter, reliable transportation, education, enrichment, and the technology necessary to do our work. Also, we need the occasional small indulgence to treat our children and ourselves.

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We do not need 500 cable TV channels, brand new luxury cars, 5,000-square-foot homes in exclusive neighborhoods, lavish ski vacations, and smart phones that do everything but think for us.

There is nothing wrong with wanting these things. But understand that these things do not make us happy, in and of them. And, they are often links in the chains that bind us to jobs we despise.

Often, those who make a leap to vocational passion end up making more money over the long term. But in the short term, income usually declines. It may even go away for a period of time. Typically, the first two years of a career change – in particular, one motivated purely by vocational passion – are financially difficult. Major lifestyle and attitude adjustments are critical to making the money last while you pursue your dream.

The amazing thing is that once you learn to live on less, it becomes a habit. The peace of mind that comes from relying less on materialism to define success usually leads to a greater and deeper happiness.

Now we understand that pursuing vocational passion requires a major adjustment in our attitude toward money and material comfort. The next step is getting down to the details.

The trick is to look at all expenses, both big and small. Leave no stone unturned. No savings is too small, and no category of spending should be free from scrutiny.

Consider these options to cut down your burn rate. Some will seem dramatic. But if you have decided that your only chance at happiness is to pursue a vocational dream, small measures won’t cut it.

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Not many people are left out there who have yet to discover card cravings. Nearly everyone is out to chase card bills.This is because the majority remains unaware of the insurance deals offered with the cards, most are suffering from credit card debt and are ergo unable to apply for second mortgage, let alone equity loans.

Stuff happens. And it usually costs money. If you don’t have an emergency fund equal to three to six months worth of basic living expenses, you’re living on the edge. There’s no time like the present to get started.None of us have the ability to foresee the future or predict the hurdles which lie ahead of us. This makes building an emergency fund a financial priority. People who are living on a lean-and-mean budget will have the toughest time setting aside money for emergencies. If it’s possible to squeeze out another $40 or $50 each month and put it in a money market account, it’s worth doing.

Establishing an emergency savings account is vital in good times and in bad. The purpose of the fund is to sock away three to six month’s living expenses. But this money could also be used when you’re staring at major, unplanned expenses such as a car breakdown or a leaky roof.

Housing a small rainy day fund should be a vital part of an individual’s financial goals. This is of high importance if you don’t already have readily available funds in your account for covering any unanticipated expenses. They provide financial security because they give you funds to fall back on if you become ill, or if you or your spouse loses your job, you incur large medical bills, or have an unexpected large bill such as a major car or home repair. You do not want to end up in a situation where you have to buy daily necessities on credit.

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Saving your money in a small account for emergencies is definitely a better alternative to taking a loan or cashing in your long-term investments. If you take a loan, there is the additional burden of paying interest. Encashment of your investments before maturity means not only will you lose out the interest, but also some part of the original investment. This will also set you back significantly in your overall financial plan.

I echo the idea of treating the emergency fund as a bill, put the money away and don’t be tempted by the latest sale. Success at building an emergency fund depends on consistency of saving money on a regular basis and keeping this money separate from the general savings account. Otherwise you will be tempted to dip into these monies even if you simply run over your budget at a certain point.

The size of the special savings account will depend on your personal situation. I always advice my clients to keep between three to six months salary in the reserve. But you will have to decide on an appropriate amount based factors such as your Dependants and fixed monthly expenses.