The 10 Golden Rules of Saving on Everything

You resolved to save more this year, but it’s just not happening. Take heart – it’s still early in the year. Use these tips and you’re guaranteed to spend less on the things you want.

On this website, as well as others like it, you’ll find thousands of individual tips to save money on virtually everything you buy. But when you boil it down, most ways to save can be condensed into some simple rules – use them and you’ll painlessly find ways to meet your savings goals.

Following is a short video Stacy recently shot that offers five golden rules to save on anything and everything. Check it out, then meet me on the other side to fill out his tips and expand the list to 10.

1. Never buy new what you can buy used.

That brand-new sparkle comes at a high price, on everything from cars to furniture to clothes. Let somebody else take the hit. Instead of heading to the department store, head to the consignment store, thrift shop, yard sale, or sites like Craigslist or eBay.
2. Never buy this generation when last generation will do.

Ignore the commercials that entice you to buy the latest and greatest. From cars to computers, buying yesterday’s technology can save you 20-50 percent. Early adopters are often paying for nothing more than bragging rights – why not wait and brag about how much money you saved?



3. Always ask for a lower price.

People say you get what you pay for. We say you get what you ask for. In addition to negotiating more traditional things like houses and cars, our writers have succeeded in scoring lower prices on hotel rooms, doctor’s visits, cable bills, and car repairs, as well as asking for and receiving lower rates on loans and higher rates on savings. Check out Confessions of a Serial Haggler.

From now on, consider the price of services or big-ticket items as what they are: an opening bid.
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4. Stop paying for name brands.

What’s in a name? Often nothing more than a higher cost. Paying more is OK if the higher cost means higher quality. But it’s not OK to pay more simply to help pay for some company’s annoying commercials.

One of many examples: More often than not, generic patent medicines like aspirin and cough syrup aren’t similar to their brand name counterparts. They’re identical. There’s only one reason anyone would pay up to 50 percent more for an identical item - some commercial told them to.

Check out 7 Things You Should Always Buy Generic for more on this topic, and stop throwing money away.
5. Share with your friends and neighbors.

It’s probably not practical to share a car with your neighbor, but what about his ladder, or your lawn mower? If it’s something neither of you need to use on a regular basis — and you get along well enough — get together with one or more people on your block and form a neighborhood co-op. In addition to reducing the cost of common household items by 50 percent or more, you also reduce clutter.

And if you use something really infrequently, rent it instead of buying it.
6. Try to substitute imagination for money.

People often pay for pre-packaged ideas by habit when they could easily come up with lower-cost ideas that are also better. Instead of buying cards and gifts, make your own. Instead of taking your date to a restaurant, take her on a picnic. Instead of meeting at a bar, have your friends over. Instead of heading to hotel, camp out.

Use your mind instead of your money and your life will be more interesting and less expensive.
7. Try to make it or fix it yourself.

Just because something’s available in a store doesn’t mean that’s the only place you can buy it. Check out 6 Alternatives to Expensive Household Cleaners, Do-It-Yourself Laundry Detergent and Household Products Vinegar Can Replace.

And that’s the tip of the iceberg. From Homemade Halloween Costumes to Home Repairs to growing your own food, you can save a bundle by using your hands instead of cash. And you can find help with just about anything online.

Additional benefit? You feel more independent, because you are.
8. Always use the Internet.

While using the Internet to comparison shop should be obvious, there are new techniques and technologies evolving constantly. For example, PriceBlink: This browser add-on automatically searches for a lower price and/or coupons on anything you’re looking at or searching for online.

Don’t ever buy anything online or off without first searching the web to see if you can find a coupon or discount. But the Internet is a double-edged sword…
9. Never subscribe to “deal” websites.

While it’s smart to be able to find online coupons and deals on the things you want, it’s dumb to allow websites to fill your in-box with dozens of potential impulse buys. Tell the Internet what you need: Don’t let the Internet (or TV commercials or your friends) tell you what you want.
10. Sell before you buy.

Before you buy anything you want, make it a habit to first sell something you don’t. Your garage and closets are full of stuff you no longer use. So before you go to the store or click that online “checkout” button, stop. Put off the purchase – first, take some clothes to the consignment shop, or take a picture of something you’re no longer using and put it on Craigslist. It only takes a minute.

As soon as it sells, apply the money to the purchase you were going to make. Now you’ve saved on something you wanted, and gotten rid of something you didn’t.

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The 5 Golden Rules of Saving on Insurance

Most people spend more time and effort shopping for groceries than insurance. And that’s a shame, since you probably spend more insuring your family than feeding it. Here’s what you need to understand, organize, and save on insurance.

Think about all the money you spend insuring your house, car, health, and life. If you’re like most people, it’s thousands of dollars. Now think about how much time you spend making sure you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck. If you’re like most people, it’s measured in minutes.

There’s probably no other area of most people’s financial lives where less attention is paid in relation to money spent. Maybe it’s time to learn something about insurance: especially how to pay as little as possible.

Here’s a video story that I did on insurance savings – it’s only 90 seconds long. Check it out, then meet me on the other side for more.

Now that you’ve seen some general principles, let’s add some detail and turn them into the five golden rules of insurance.
Golden Rule No. 1: Don’t buy more than you need

The insurance industry wants you to insure against financial inconvenience, rather than financial catastrophe. The problem? If you buy enough insurance so you’ll never lose a dime, you might be paying so much you won’t have a dime to lose.
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If you want to pay less for insurance, the first thing to do is assume more risk yourself. That means having a deductible as high as you can comfortably afford, and even doing without insurance where it makes sense.

Call your existing insurance company and ask them what would happen to your premiums if you raised your car, home, or health deductibles. Then use our insurance search and call another company and see what they say. If your deductibles are low now, you’ll probably find that you can save at least 10 percent by raising them.

The deductibles on my home and car policies are $1,000 – $5,000 on my health insurance. Being forced to pay the first $1,000 of damage to my stuff and $5,000 for my health is unpleasant, but it’s not going to send me to McDonald’s for a second job. Insuring for catastrophe, rather than inconvenience, makes my insurance more affordable.

Does that mean you should do the same thing? That depends on you. If you’d rather trade the additional premium for additional peace of mind, that’s your decision. But at least make it an informed one.
Golden Rule No. 2: The person who’s selling you insurance isn’t your friend

When you buy a house, car, dress, or virtually anything else, the more you spend, the more the salesperson and their employer makes. This is also true of insurance.

It makes no sense to base your insurance-buying decisions on the advice of a person who directly benefits from its sale. Unfortunately, this is precisely what most people do when they call an insurance agent and ask them what kind and how much insurance to buy.

This can also be true online when you go to an insurance company’s website and use an insurance “calculator” to determine how much insurance you “need.” Because as far as a salesperson or company is concerned, the amount you “need” is enough to protect against inconvenience, not catastrophe.

How do you really know what kind of and how much insurance you need? By understanding it. Which leads us to…
Golden Rule No. 3: Learn what you’re paying for

Pull out one of your current insurance policies and write down the pertinent information: what’s covered, deductibles, phone numbers, policy due dates, etc. Having this information in one place will not only give you the big picture, it will make comparison shopping a snap.

I use Microsoft Excel to create spreadsheets for the various policies I have, but you can use anything from Google Docs to a simple piece of paper – anything that will allow you to write stuff down and keep it straight.

As a simple example, here’s a car insurance spreadsheet from a car I used to own, a 1982 Mercedes…
380 SEL
Company Wrecks-r-us
Phone 800-wreckus
Policy Number XXX XX XX
Annual Amount $655.74
Dates Due 10/1, 4/1

Coverages Amount Cost Notes
Liability (Part A)
Injury Each Person $100,000 Maximum payment to each person I maim or kill.
Injury Each Accident $300,000 $256 Maximum payment for each accident. 300/500 Injury: add $123.
Property Each Accident $50,000 $120 Maximum payment for property I destroy. 100 Property: add $8 yr.

Personal Injury (Part B) $10,000 $92 $2,000 Deductible No loss of work coverage. Required. 10K is all that’s offered in FL.

Uninsured Motorist (Part C)
Bodily Injury Each Person $100,000 As above, but if some uninsured fool does the damage. This covers anyone in my vehicle.
Bodily Injury Each Accident 300,000 $188 You can’t get Property for UM. This can be raised, lowered, rejected.
Total $656

Where did these notes come from? I called the toll-free number on my insurance policy and sat on the phone with some hapless customer service representative and asked. I simply went over each and every line of my insurance bill until I understood it.

By the way, you may have noticed that the policy above doesn’t say anything about an expensive part of any car insurance policy: comprehensive and collision.

That’s the part of the policy that pays for damage to my car that’s my fault. The reason it’s missing is because I didn’t have any on this car. There’s a rule of thumb that suggests that if comp and collision premiums exceed 10 percent of a car’s value, you should consider assuming the risk yourself and dropping that coverage. This car was only worth about 3 grand, and the premiums for comp and collision were more than 10 percent of that, so I dropped it.

I’m not suggesting you make the same decision, but this does provide evidence that sometimes less is more. Driving a cheap car and assuming a little additional risk allowed me to save several hundred dollars a year.

On the other side of the coin, note that I didn’t have very much liability insurance: $100,000 per person, $300,000 per accident. I have more than that now, because I have a higher net worth. Liability insurance: not a place to scrimp!
Golden Rule No. 4: Never stop shopping

If you have any semblance of a life, you have things you’d rather do than shop for insurance – a fact not lost on your insurance company. So they’ll raise your rates, hoping you’ll simply send in a bigger check rather than shopping for a better deal. Hopefully, they’re wrong.

A few years ago I did a TV news story on health insurance and needed some video of online shopping. So while my camera guy set up, I went to our insurance search. Result? I found identical insurance for 40 percent less than I was paying – from the company I was with!

That’s right, my health insurance company had raised my rates annually for so many years that they were actually selling new customers identical insurance for nearly $4,000 less per year than they were charging me.

Here’s what I’ve done ever since: I shop my insurance every other year. One year I’ll shop insurance for stuff – home and car – and the next for my body – health and life. (These days, however, I no longer have life insurance. That’s because I have no dependents that need my income to survive. So life is another area in which I’m self-insured.)

While changing insurance companies is a bit of pain, shopping is simple. I just go to our insurance search, get a quote, make sure what I’m paying is still competitive, then get on with my day. No big deal.
Golden Rule No. 5: Avoid gimmick insurance

Credit life is a type of insurance tied to a specific debt. For example, it will pay off your mortgage, car loan, or credit cards if you should die. Term life insurance is typically a less expensive and more comprehensive way to do the same thing.

Specific disease insurance, as the name implies, is health insurance tied to a specific illness, like cancer. A comprehensive health policy is typically a better idea.

Whole life insurance combines a life insurance policy with a savings account. For most people, buying a less-expensive term life insurance policy and investing the difference makes more financial sense.

These types of policies typically carry high commissions for insurance salespeople, so they’re often sold using high-pressure tactics. Avoid being steered into something you don’t need by understanding what you do need.
Knowledge is the best policy

I can’t begin to cover every nuance of every type of insurance policy in this article – that’s for a book. And I’m not suggesting that you adopt my minimalist approach to insurance: develop your own approach. But try to learn more about the insurance you’re paying for by asking questions and doing a little research on sites like this one and others.

Most people spend more time trying to save a buck or two on groceries than they do shopping for something that could save them hundreds. Don’t be one of those people. Create a few spreadsheets, ask some questions, take some notes, understand what you’re paying for, don’t buy what you don’t need, and shop your coverage early and often.

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Where to find free tax help

Virtually everyone in the United States is eligible for some sort of free tax preparation help, from free in-person preparation and electronic filing to filing free forms online.

Every year Americans spend millions of dollars paying professionals to do their tax returns when they could be getting the same help free.



Don’t be one of those Americans.



If you made less than $49,000 last year, you can have your taxes prepared and electronically filed by a trained volunteer for nothing. If you made up to $58,000, you can find free online preparation and electronic filing. And no matter how much you made, if you’re willing to fill in the forms online, you can also file electronically for free.



Watch the following 90-second news story I recently did at a volunteer income tax assistance site, then meet me on the other side for more.

Let’s recap those options and provide you some links:


Income less than $49,000: Free in-person help



Check with Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. There are thousands of VITA sites in places like churches, community centers, libraries, schools, malls, and military bases, as well as in some IRS offices. The office we visited to do the story above was in a county assistance office.


To find one near you, just go to a search engine and type “VITA sites” along with your city or state. In my state (Florida) there are 79 pages of VITA sites. So finding one isn’t tough. There are a few limitations, however, so check out this list of criteria for free preparation to make sure you qualify.

Over 60: Free in-person help



If you’re over 60 with low to middle income, AARP has thousands of places you can go for free preparation and filing. You do not have to belong to AARP. To find a site, just go to this AARP web page and put in your zip code.


Income less than $58,000: Free online preparation and electronic filing



If you make too much for VITA and/or aren’t old enough for AARP, you can still have your taxes prepared and filed for free online. According to the IRS, 70% of American taxpayers – 98 million people – qualify.



If you made $58,000 or less, head to this page on the IRS website. When you get there, you’ll be asked to provide some basic information, then you can select from any number of companies that participate in the program.



Most companies will charge you to prepare your state tax return, however, and prices are all over the place. Some charge $15 and some $40. Shop around.



Advice for those who made more than $58,000



While the companies you find at the free preparation and filing site won’t file your taxes free, this list is a good place to comparison shop online preparation options. For example, I found several sites that claim to prepare and file your federal income taxes for less than $10. That’s a lot better deal than the heavily advertised tax software you find at retailers this time of year.


Any income: Free filing with online forms



If all you need to do is fill in online forms -- in other words, you don’t need any advice from either a person or an electronic preparation program -- you can prepare and electronically file your taxes absolutely free. Here’s the IRS Free File Fillable Forms site. While no advice is available with this option, the forms will check your math.



If your situation hasn’t changed all that much from last year, you could just pull out last year’s return, type in this year’s numbers, and be done. But be aware that there’s a slew of tax changes this year. Here’s a link to a recent story I did that lists them. Also note this option doesn’t offer state tax returns.


Any income: Free assistance on the phone or in person



You can always get free help from the IRS by visiting an office or calling 800-829-1040. And while it’s not the easiest reading in the world, you can also find a lot of answers by doing a search at irs.gov.


If you show, they won’t tell



Some tax preparation services will happily pocket your money for doing your taxes even though they know you could easily get free in-person assistance elsewhere. I’ve asked employees of our nation’s largest tax preparation services if they feel any guilt over charging people when they’re aware VITA would help them free. Their response? Nope: It’s the responsibility of customers to explore their options.



Fine: Now you know your options. Don’t waste your money.

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Dow falls 118 as oil slides, Japan worries rise

Energy stocks stumble as crude oil falls below $107. Drivers are cutting back, a new report shows. Japan raises the severity rating on its nuclear problem. Gold pulls back, but airlines jump. Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble boost the Dow; Alcoa lags.

A series of inconvenient truths dawned on Wall Street today: The economy may not be as strong as thought; high gas prices are already causing people to change their driving habits; and the Japanese nuclear crisis is worse than thought.

The result was a sell-off in crude oil, gold and a broad array of commodities -- and a steep decline in stocks. In the afternoon, bargain hunters emerged, and the market modestly trimmed its losses.

The Dow Jones industrials ($INDU) were down 118 points, or 1%, to 12,264. The blue chips had been down as many as 148 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) dropped 10 points, or 0.8%, to 1,314, and the Nasdaq Composite index ($COMPX) was off 27 points, or 1%, to 2,745.

Crude oil settled down $3.67 to $106.25 a barrel in New York. Brent crude was down $3.34, or 2.7%, to $120.64 a barrel in London.

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10 home-improvement ideas for renters

There are plenty of (reversible) projects that can spruce up your living space without breaking the bank — or incurring the wrath of your landlord:

1. Play with color
Most apartments will let you paint walls and even floors. So give your rooms a shot of color. Some ideas: Paint one wall to liven up a room and create a focal point; paint the floors and molding a contrasting color, or paint a stenciled border along the tops of walls.

If your lease specifies that you return the walls to their original color when you leave, use lighter shades, as they are easier to paint over. (If you're not sure what your lease says about painting, check with your landlord before the first brush stroke. You don't want to have your deposit dinged when you move out.)

To bring some life to that blah beige carpet, "toss down a big colorful area rug and you've changed the room," says Linda Holmes, the president of Creative Carpentry Remodelers in Aurora, Ill.

Her advice: Focus on using items that are portable. "Don't spend money on anything you can't take with you when you leave," she says. As well as adding color and texture, a rug can define an area such as a dining or sitting room. Big pillows and colorful throws are also portable ways to bring in color.

2. Hang it all
Don't be afraid to put colorful rugs, scarves or art on the walls. Try a Victorian-inspired grouping of photos or mirrors hung from picture hooks and suspended from ribbon in an accent color, Holmes says.

3. Live in a material world
Beautiful fabric can pull a room together. Here are some ways to use it:

Put cloth directly on the walls with decorative nail tacks along the ceiling and baseboards, says Deborah Houseworth, the president of DLH Design Studio in Chevy Chase, Md. Drape or gather the fabric for "a subtle, wavy look," she says. To cover tacks, you can glue decorative trim over them. When it's time to leave, if the walls are white, just use some toothpaste to fill in the tack holes. "(Fabric) adds a little more texture and interest to the wall than paint," Houseworth says.
Drape colorful cloth from a rod suspended at the top of the wall to create a headboard, camouflage an unsightly vent or cover a window with a back-alley view, Houseworth suggests.

4. I screen, you screen
Angled across a corner, a folding screen "adds a lot of drama to a room," says New York interior designer Michael Love, the president of Interior Options. Plus you can use the hidden area to store a vacuum cleaner, ironing board or anything else you might want to disguise.

Indulge your do-it-yourself talents by constructing the screen, or check out home, discount and import stores for less expensive models.

5. Be a divider
Want to break up a combination living-dining room into something more intimate? Use an open bookcase, says Holmes. "It's like putting up a three-quarter-height wall," she says. You can build it yourself or buy it.

To add a more dramatic touch, place a few pieces of colorful glassware on it. "It keeps it open," Holmes says, "and it's a little more interesting than blank space."

6. Reflect on adding mirrors
To expand a small space, Houseworth suggests hanging "lots of large mirrors." Her secret: Go to a framing store and pick out the exact size and style frame you need and ask the framer to put a mirror in the frame. Unlike a ready-made mirror, "you can go contemporary or formal – framing materials are not limited by style," Houseworth says. Want the frame to almost disappear? Paint it the same shade as the wall.

7. Lighten up a room
A variety of low-voltage options in all prices can be plugged into outlets or installed in place of existing fixtures. These include spotlights, dangling lights, can lights and tiny track lights similar to what you might find in a gallery. Best of all, you can take these with you when you leave.

8. Create a built-in look.

If you're good with tools — or a checkbook — build or buy a free-standing bench seat for underneath a window. Flank it with two bookcases to give it that built-in look, Holmes says. You can even paint it to match the walls.

9. Change your hardware
A lot of apartments have generic doorknobs and/or kitchen cabinet pulls that are showing some wear. But that doesn't mean you have to live with them. Instead, pick up something new and interesting at a home or discount store and install it yourself. Save the old hardware in a drawer or closet so you can replace it when you move. And when you leave, take the new stuff with you.

10. It's easy being green
Create a beautiful garden on a patio or deck with large planters or whiskey barrels, says Rebecca Kolls, a master gardener and host of the nationally syndicated TV series "Rebecca's Garden." "Everything can be planted in a pot," she says.

Kolls suggests using whiskey barrels and going with a theme: a salsa garden with tomatoes, cilantro and hot peppers; a vegetable garden with beans and carrots; or even an organic lettuce patch with several leafy varieties.

For climbing plants such as tomatoes and beans, bamboo poles can provide some structure. Kolls advises mixing plants of differing heights and textures to give a professional look. Include tall plants to give shape, shorter plants to fill in and something that spreads to spill out over the sides. Look for colors that complement each other and pack the containers. "You can always take plants out in a month if it's too full," she says.

Hanging pots are ideal for herbs, Kolls says. Just like any other container, look for a combination of plants in complementary colors and different textures and sizes.

And treat yourself to a taste of the tropics. Place a lemon or banana tree on your terrace in a large planting container. When the weather turns cold, give it a sunny spot indoors.

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