Tis the season to be giving back. With Thanksgiving later this week, now is a perfect time to reflect on the things we have and feel grateful for them. It’s also a time to think about those who are less fortunate and give to charity. We give money to the Northern Illinois Food Bank during the holidays so needy families can enjoy a special meal together, but any charity would welcome a donation!

Note: Charity Navigator is a site you can visit to research your charity of choice to ensure your donation is truly going to a cause and not being wasted. Unfortunately some charities can be scams, so this is a good place to start before opening your wallet.

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This may come as no surprise to anyone else, but I recently learned that the fastest and most cost-effective way to make mashed potatoes is to buy whole potatoes in the can. I store them in the pantry and can whip up a batch of mashed potatoes with no pre-planning. I love that!

All you have to do is heat up the pre-cooked potatoes, drain them, and add butter, milk, and/or sour cream and mash those babies up. Look, the recipe is even on the back of the can!

Canned Whole Potatoes

Sure, it’s cheaper if you buy a bag of potatoes, peel them, and boil them, but who has time for that these days? Even if I use two cans of whole potatoes (which serves at least 4 people) I’m still saving at least a dollar, if not more, versus buying the frozen Steam and Mash potatoes from Ore-Ida. Plus I’m not taking up valuable space in the freezer. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner!

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There are tons of articles out there about how you’ll be happier spending your money on experiences verses material items, and I couldn’t agree more. But… I also see the benefit of buying items that will enhance your experiences. For instance, I own a nice digital SLR camera and a few lenses as well as some other accessories. These were acquired over time and were not cheap. But I love capturing moments and being able to look at them later. I love having a physical (or digital, if you want to be technical) representation of the experiences I’ve enjoyed over the years. There’s just nothing like it in the world and to me that is priceless. Feel free to visit my photography website, Perfect Pixels.

This is why I can completely understand why someone who is barely making ends meet still owns a smartphone. Sure, it may be because their priorities are out of whack, but perhaps it’s because they are a parent, or pet owner, and they use that phone to capture moments with their loved ones. Smartphones these days not only take great photos but video too. Who can resist and all-in-device that can enhance their experiences?

Another example is games. I prefer board games, but this could apply to video games too (assuming you’re playing them with others and not alone). I love discovering and trying new board games. I don’t go overboard by any means, and almost always buy when there’s a sale, but I still end up picking up 1-2 “new” board games a year to add to our collection. As for video games, we try borrowing most games from the library first to try, and if it’s a game we really like and know we would like to play frequently, we’ll buy it once the price drops or there’s a good deal online.

Side note: Half Price Books sells used board games, many of which are in excellent condition. Even though they are technically used, I recently purchased a game where all the pieces were still in their original packaging. You could tell it had never been played. And they carry video games too, not to mention CDs, DVDs, and vinyl records.

I could go on and on but I think you get the message. So while I agree that if you have the choice between a new “toy” and going on a trip, you should choose the trip, that doesn’t mean buying that toy is necessarily a bad thing. I guess it just depends on whether that new toy will enhance your future experiences or not.

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Let’s talk about gift cards.

Acquiring Gift Cards

Where do most of your gift cards come from? For instance, we enjoy going out to eat, but we don’t enjoy the expense, so we utilize our cash back rewards on our credit card (Discover, which we love) to obtain gift cards. We haven’t paid out of pocket to eat at Chiptole, Panera, Red Lobster, or Red Robin in years. The nice thing is you get a bit of a bonus turning the cash back into a gift card. Typically for $45 of your cash back reward you can get a $50 gift card.

We don’t get many gift cards from friends/family, but when we do it tends to be for Target since it’s our favorite store. My mom gets a bit mad at me if I don’t spend the gift card on something non-essential, but I do it anyway and use it to buy groceries. Who cares when it all evens out in the end anyway?

Keeping Track of Your Cards

How do you keep track of which gift cards you have and their balance? Well, if you have a smartphone there’s an app for that called GoWallet. For some retailers it’s able to obtain your balance automagically, but others you might have to manually populate.

Storing Gift Cards

Where do you keep all those gift cards? My wallet is only so big, so I keep the restaurant ones on me while the other cards I have live in a cute little metal card holder at home by my coupons.

Spending Those Card Balances

How do you treat gift cards you receive? Do you spend them right away, hold onto them for awhile, never spend them at all? If you do use them, do you buy something you really want, or just buy anything because hey, free stuff!?!

I find that I treat gift cards almost the same as I do my own money regardless of their source. As a result, I tend to hang onto them for awhile until there’s a purchase I find worthwhile. Case in point – I’ve got $31 of iTunes credit that has been sticking around since who knows when (probably several years ago when one Valentine’s Day my husband gave me a $50 iTunes gift card). I’m super stingy about spending gift card money in general. I view it as my money just the same as if I was spending from my own wallet, so I’m careful about what I buy. As for iTunes in particular, I’ve come to find there are very few apps out there that are worth purchasing when a free alternative works just as well. That being said, I have purchased apps before, and will again, but I’m very particular about it. As for music, I like the quality and price that Amazon offers. Needless to say, I’m willing to bet my iTunes credit will be sticking around for awhile.

If you have tips on how to acquire discounted gift cards, please share!

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Recently I saw a deal for a reduced annual subscription to one of my favorite magazines, ShopSmart, which is issued by Consumer Reports. I always find some great tips in that magazine and truly enjoy reading it. I was tempted to purchase the subscription when I stopped myself. I can read this magazine for free at the library; I don’t need to spend $15 on a subscription for a magazine that takes me less than an hour to read and would quickly find its way to my recycle bin.

I think this is how people get themselves in trouble financially as little purchases over time do add up. Particularly subscriptions which tend to stick around far past their usefulness because it’s so easy to allow the company to keep deducting that amount from your account. This is why as tempting as it is I’ve been able to stop myself from buying a premium subscription to the streaming music services I like to listen to at work. Sure, the semi-frequent commercial interruptions can get a little annoying, but is it really so bad I need to add an unnecessary expense to my budget? I don’t think so.

What subscriptions do you have, and more importantly, are they still adding value to your life or would you be fine without them? It’s worth re-evaluating them to see if you can free up a little money in your budget if you’d like to save more.

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iPhone6

I ordered the new iPhone 6 (which will arrive on my doorstep on Friday) and I don’t feel the least guilty about it even though I feel like I should. I’ve noticed a growing trend on finance-related blogs where the writer has switched to a lower-cost cell phone provider to save money. While I think that’s great, particularly if you’re barely making ends meet and/or are unable to save for retirement, I don’t get the impression that’s always the case. It’s almost more of a game to see how much one can cut their budget. And that’s admirable, for sure, but it’s just not for me because I love my iPhone way too much. I guess you could say for me it’s a priority, and if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you cut back on the things that don’t matter so you can spend on those that do, like my iPhone.

Of course, I would love if my cell phone bill decreased. As it stands now I’m on a grandfathered plan that limits my text messages, but to change to a new plan I’d not only lose my unlimited data (although honestly, I rarely exceed 2GB of data in a given month), but more importantly my bill would increase. I’m trying to keep my costs to a minimum while still enjoying my iPhone. I would seriously consider switching to one of the lower cost providers at some point if some of my concerns were addressed, namely:

Phone Availability
I really really don’t want to switch to a Motorola smartphone, or any Android phone for that matter. I don’t care for the platform. Although if I was forced to make the switch, I think a Samsung Galaxy S would make it bearable for me.

Reliable Signal
I just don’t believe for half the cost of my normal provider I’m going to get just as good signal coverage, particularly because many of the discount providers use the Sprint network and in my area, at least (Chicago burbs), I’ve heard horror stories regarding dropped calls, slow speeds, and whatnot.

That being said, I will be keeping tabs on these other providers and would be willing to switch when my contract is up in two years. A lot can happen in that amount of time. In the meantime, I’ll be looking to sell my iPhone 4S to recoup some of the costs of the new phone.

What things are you willing to splurge on?

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Checkout51

Do you put aside a little time here and there to clip coupons or look for deals online before making a purchase? I try to do it, but I know that for many people working full-time and raising a family it can be tough to find the time. There never seem to be enough hours in the day! This is why I like certain smartphone apps that I don’t have to spend more than five minutes using to be rewarded.

Checkout51
This app awards you money in exchange for showing proof via scanning your receipt that you purchased items they are offering cash back on. I don’t ever look at the app until I’ve returned from a shopping trip, then I pull it up to see if I happened to buy anything they are featuring. If so, I scan my receipt, check off the offers that are included and I’m done. I’ve already built up $4 of credit in just over a month. The only drawback is you need to have amassed $20 before they will transfer the money to your PayPal account.

Groupon
Did you know the smartphone app has coupons that can be used when you’re out shopping? It’s under the Coupons heading and you can pull up the coupon on your phone while in the store and have them scan it. I’ve done this at Michael’s to get a quick 20% off. There are a bunch of stores in there so it pays to pull it up and do a quick search before heading to the checkout.

Shopkick
This app awards you points for checking into stores and scanning products. The points can then be used to get gift cards. I typically get 35 points (and on some special days more) just for pulling up the app when I walk into my SuperTarget (where I shop weekly) and more points if I feel like scanning stuff (which often I don’t). There are other stores in the app like Walmart, Macys, etc. Right now I’ve got enough points to get $10 worth of Target gift cards for spending very little of my time using the app. I will say, though, that it is very particular with certain stores and it’s best to temporarily turn on bluetooth so it can pick up your location. I have to be at a certain point within the store before it realizes I’m there (so there’s no cheating trying to check in as you drive by).

Obviously none of these things are going to make you rich, but these little amounts DO add up over time and why spend more than you have to on everyday items and groceries when you can use those savings on something fun?

Other Ways to Save

If you have more time on your hands, I recommend checking out the following sites as well:

Free Stuff Finder
Not every deal posted here is free, but I follow the new posts via my feed reader to see what’s on sale and if it’s something I need or have been wanting to buy anyway, I consider that a win-win!

Totally Target
If you’re a Target addict like myself, this site is a must visit! I’m always learning about different deals and match-ups that has me getting the stuff I need at a discount, or sometimes even free!

Walmart Savings Catcher
I have to give props to my blogging friend, Kay, over at A Pair of Bartlett’s for making me aware of this one. Basically you enter your Walmart receipt (it has to be less than seven days old) at the site and within 72 hours you will find out whether anything you purchased at Walmart was cheaper elsewhere. If so, they give you back the difference on a gift card. I can’t comment on how beneficial this one is yet since I haven’t heard back from the receipt I entered yesterday, nor do I shop at Walmart a ton, but it definitely has potential especially if you’re buying groceries there.

Feel free to share your favorite apps and sites that help you save money! I’m always looking for more ways to save.

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get-organized

Getting, and staying, organized matters because it makes your life so much easier and reduces stress.

In Your Job

Being organized is the reason why I can work three days a week at a job that was meant to be full-time. I keep everything in order so I spend a minimal amount of time just trying to refresh my memory about an issue or locating where an invoice might be (I work in finance). My best friends, besides Outlook’s calendar and tasks, is Excel and Word.

When starting my most recent job I started putting together all the notes I was taking into a Word document. This is now my main reference document for all the tasks I perform on an on-going basis. I also have a reference document in Excel that I use daily which contains vendor #s, GLs, etc. so I don’t have to be constantly looking up the information in our finance system. This cuts down on a lot of wasted time.

Even if you don’t work in finance, I think you’d find Excel and Word can help you with your job. You could use Excel to track clients and their contact information, track a project’s progress, or track time spent on tasks if that’s something you need (or want) to do. For processes and procedures, Word works well as you can organize your document into sections and have Word build an automatic table of contents which makes it easy to skip to the section you need no matter how long the document is (mine is currently 59 pages and continues to grow as I add to it frequently).

The best part is that not only does documenting what you do, and how you do it, help you be more efficient, it also keeps you consistent. This helps your coworkers in case they need to cover for you temporarily when you’re out of the office. It also helps your boss understand what you do (since they can’t possibly know everything when managing a group of people). In addition, when you decide to move on, your document can be passed along to your replacement which makes it easier to train them, whether that be you, if they are in place before you leave, or your boss/coworkers. It’s truly a win-win!

At Home

Staying organized at home allows you to spend your precious free-time with family, friends, pets, or even by yourself relaxing instead of wasting it looking for paperwork, your wallet, keys, etc. I’ve talked before about the different apps I use like Evernote, Dropbox, and Alarmed to keep myself on track.

Items in your home should have a home of their own, even your wallet and keys. There’s a bin by the door where we both put our keys when we get home. As a result, we never have to run around the house looking for our keys when we leave the house. I also keep my coupons in one spot so I can grab them on the way out. Pretty much everything in the kitchen is kept in the same spot all the time so there’s no wasted time trying to find something. Even my so-called junk drawer is organized!

Our laundry is organized in the respect that we have three laundry baskets – one for darks, one for lights, and one for dress clothes. On the darks bin I’ve clipped a laundry bag where I put booties and socks. That way they don’t get lost when they are washed and dried together. I’ve yet to misplace a sock mate doing this!

I’m sure getting your stuff organized can seem daunting to many people, but the end result is so worth it! The sense of satisfaction you feel when everything is put away neatly and easily found later is amazing. The trick is to make it easy to put stuff back where it belongs so you keep doing it.

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