Christmas on a Zero Budget

Snail Pace Transformations has a great article on how to pull off Christmas on a Zero Budget

Things to buy at a Dollar Store

We have a few Dollar stores in my area but they are not convenient to get to. So when I do end up going once in a while, I end up stocking on few items I've always bought there.

Some of the items I always buy there:

• Greeting Cards
• Stickers
• Gift bags
• Some Novelty Items
• Party Decorations
• Books
• Balloons

I came across another article which talked about 67 things to buy at a dollar store. Here are some more items I now plan to buy at the dollar store.

• Parchment paper, Tin Foil, etc
• Holiday
• Elastic Hair bands
• Puzzles, Board Books and colouring books for kids
• Swifter Pads
• Aluminium trays and containers
• Goo Gone
• Chip Clips (they always go missing somehow)
• Pregnancy Tests

The article from BargainBabe has a whole lot more but these are what I plan to buy.

Should I get another credit card?

Conventional wisdom now says to avoid getting more credit cards but in certain instances, it might be good for you to get another credit card. I was reading an article at Wisebread about signs which indicate you should think about getting a credit card.

I was surprised to see that since it's been a really long time since I applied for a new credit card, I should probably think about getting one.

10 Signs You Ought to Get Another Credit Card

More tips on saving money on costumes!

BabyCheapskate has some great articles on how to save money on costumes for Halloween. Here's the latest article below.

Finding Scary-Good Deals on Second-Hand Halloween Costumes | Baby Cheapskate

Cash back programs

In general, I'm not a fan of cash back programs since my only experience with them has been with Ebates and every time I've tried to use Ebates, it's never worked for me.

Everytime, I've had some issue or the other and I've never earned anything, despite the back I buy so much online.Recently, I found out that perhaps Adblock has been blocking my attempts to get Ebates. I modified Adblock on my computer to bypass Ebates.com and tried to buy something. I will post an update in a couple of days on how that turned out.

I use American Express Rewards and HSBC rewards to get 1% cash back on all purchases.Other than these, so far, I haven't used any other cash back opportunities.

Another cash back program I've heard of recently is BigCrumbs. I will try it out and post about it.

Controlling spending

Last month, I exceeded my shopping budget by a big amount and this month, I'm already over shopping budget. And over the last few days, I've been fighting an urge to shop for clothes for my daughter.

She's outgrown all her pajamas and night clothes. She needs new clothes and there were some pretty good deals online. I kept looking online and pushing items to cart but am resisting the urge to spend the money right now. I also put on some weight over the last year and need some bigger clothes - my old clothes don't fit me well especially my work clothes.

I know these are needed and maybe I'll end up buying some anyway. But I don't want to use this as an excuse and buy a ton of other stuff not needed right now.

Any tips on how to stop myself from shopping?

5 Money Saving Apps I use regularly

I own an iPhone and have been an iPhone user for a long time. Here are some of the main apps I use for saving money on a regular basis.

• Mint :- I have been using the website Mint.com for several years now and it has been a great help to me in helping me budget and seeing where my money has gone. Two of my favorite features which I use regularly on the the website are the Budget and Trends features. I use the iPhone to keep an eye on my finances on the go.


• Feedly :- I use Feedly to read all of my favorite RSS feeds including all my coupon and money saving blogs. I can quickly read and save for later all the articles I want to read later. 


• Checkout 51 :- This is one of my favorites ways to save money on groceries and I started using them recently. It's one of the easiest ways to save money - shop for items which quality for cash back, take a photo of your receipt and upload and you will get cash back in your account. 


• Target and Cartwheel :- I recently started using them and found some great savings using these mobile apps. With the iphone, I save the barcodes in Passbook and just show them during checkout. The coupons and savings are automatically applied. It's so easy!


• SnipSnap :- This is also one of the easiest ways to save money. When I'm at a store and before I checkout, I just do a quick search on SnipSnap to see if there are any coupons I can use. If there are any for that store, I just bring it up and show the barcode to the cashier and the coupon is applied. 

Invest $82.28 a day for comfortable retirement

I was reading an article today on USAToday about the amount of money to save/invest for retirement. According to this article, to live comfortably after retirement, a basic number to start with would be $82.28 per day. This does not count for inflation and makes some assumptions about the rate of return of investment and kind of lifestyle you would have after retirement.

It's a good number to start with but it's a hard number for a lot of people to accept - $2500 per month. A lot of people's monthly income after taxes is $2500 - how can they save $2500 per month.

Hopefully, this number does not discourage people from starting to save, however. Every dollar counts - how much ever you can put away every day matters.

Ask Matt: To live well in old age, invest $82.28 a day - USAToday