1. Drinks. Restaurants overcharge for drinks. They don’t necessarily overcharge on the food so much. But the markup on drinks is enormous. So when it comes to drinks, skip the soda and ask for water. You’re coming there to eat, not to drink, right?
2. Leftovers. Take your leftovers home. Don’t leave food on the plate. It’s going in the garbage. If you can take your food home and eat it for lunch the next day, you’re saving yourself a few bucks on the next meal.
   
3. Coupons. Many restaurants have deals going on. Check out their home page, facebook or twitter page for details. Other restaurants have rewards programs like Red Robin and TGIF, for example. The more you eat there the more free food you get later.
4. Tips. It’s rude to leave a bad tip when you had good service, but there’s no need to over-tip. Think about it, do you tip the nurses at the hospital or the teachers at school? If not, then why would you over-tip the waitress at the restaurant?
5. Appetizers / Dessert. It’s not healthy to have big meals. It’s better to have a larger amount of smaller meals throughout the day. So order an entree but don’t order appetizers and/or dessert.
6. Share. Most restaurants give you huge servings, loaded with calories, carbs and sodium. It’s usually enough for two. So order one entree and share it.
7. Gift Cards. Usually around December many restaurants will offer bonus gift cards if you purchase one. For example, buy a “$20 gift card and we’ll give you a $5 gift card free”. If there’s a restaurant you visit frequently it might be a good idea to buy some gift cards for yourself to get the bonus ones.

Online shopping is as popular as ever. Americans now spend billions of dollars every year on online purchases. One of the ways you can save money when shopping online is by buying items when they are on sale. But you can save money when you’re shopping online in other ways. Here are several tips to help you make the most out of your online purchases.

Think It Through

When you’re shopping online, it can be easy to make impulse purchases. Retailers make the process seamless. With just a few clicks of your mouse you can add an item to your cart and check out in no time. Don’t fall for their trap though. Before you buy anything online, think about it first. Do you really need this item? Can you find it cheaper elsewhere? Sleep on this decision because you might not want it as bad tomorrow.

Comparison Shop

You can always find something cheaper online. Before you buy anything, make sure to comparison shop first. Here are some of the leading comparison shopping sites: pricegrabber.com, nextag.com, shopzilla.com, bizrate.com and pricewatch.com. You can also use Google.com and click on the Shopping tab.

Use A Coupon Code

When you’re going to a store at the mall you’re probably not going to use a coupon. But when you are shopping online you should always use a coupon code, every single time. There are promo codes available for just about any online store. Some codes will give you 15% off while others will give you free shipping. Buy something on sale and use a coupon code to save even more. You can find coupon codes at the following websites: retailmenot.com, couponcabin.com, couponchief.com and ebates.com.

Use A Gift Card

Another interesting way of saving money when shopping online is to use a gift card. Let me explain. Every holiday season people get gift cards to stores they do not shop at. These people can sell their $50 gift card online and get a check for $40. You can then buy their discounted $50 gift card for $45 or even less. You can buy discounted gift cards at these sites: plasticjungle.com, giftcardgranny.com, cardpool.com and giftcardcabin.com. If you don’t want to buy a gift card then make your purchase with a rewards credit card to get something more out of your purchase.

This article was brought to you by Net Voucher Codes. Voucher codes are scattered all over the web on numerous sites, but Net Voucher Codes brings them all together for you in one place. There are 100′s of retailers on the site, all conveniently categorized for you to help you quickly locate a suitable discount voucher code.

The average American family plans to spend $2,000 this year on home energy, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, with almost half of that going toward heating and cooling the home. With an uncertain economy it’s more important than ever to find ways to save money on your home heating bill. While buying a new energy efficient system is a great idea, there are other less costly ways of heating your home up for less. Here now are the 8 ways to lower your home heating bill.

1. Turn The Thermostat Down

The first tip is the most obvious one, lower your thermostat by a few degrees. The purpose of a heater in your home is to keep you from shivering in the cold winter months. The purpose of a heater isn’t to transform winter into summer. Try to make the temperature inside your home livable, rather than comfortable. If you are still too cold, wear a sweater or a jacket. At night, put on an extra blanket to stay warm.

2. Stop The Air Leaks

You spend good money every month heating your house up during the cold winter months. But the small gaps around your doors and windows are letting the heat out and the cold air in. Plug these leaks up and you can save big on your home heating bill. To find the leaks, hold up a feather near drafty areas. But don’t just concentrate on the doors and windows, look at recessed lighting and electrical outlets too.

3. Heating Up Water

The less warm water you waste the more money you will save on your home heating bill. So a good start is to see what you can do in the home to use less water. The first place to look is the shower. You can take colder showers, you can take shorter showers, but what will really make a difference is installing a low flow shower head. You can buy one for about 20 bucks and rake in the savings for years to come. To further save on your heating (and water) bills, limit your use of warm water when washing dishes, washing your hands or brushing your teeth.

4. Use The Sun

During the day, open up your sun-facing blinds or curtains to let the suns’ bright rays in. Let the sun naturally heat up your home so your heater doesn’t have to do all the work. Close the drapes at night to keep the warmth in through the night.

5. Service Your Furnace

If you want your furnace to treat you right you will need to treat it right. Have your furnace inspected every year or so to ensure that it’s running efficiently. A properly maintained unit running at peak efficiency can save you 5-10% on your heating bill.

6. Heating Ducts

If there are ducts in rooms that you don’t need to heat, close them. There’s no point in heating up rooms that are not used. Force all that warm air inside the rooms that matter. You will also want to ensure that there is nothing obstructing the air flow from the ducts, such as furniture.

7. Ceiling Fan

You typically think of ceiling fans as something you use when it’s already warm and you want to cool down a room. But you can also use a ceiling fan to warm up a room too. Heat rises, so the air around the height of the ceiling fan is warmer than where you’re sitting. So turn on the ceiling fan at the lowest level for a bit and allow it to circulate the warm air around your room. The way you can save money is by lowering the thermostat by a couple of degrees and turning your ceiling fan on.

8. The Fireplace

If you want to warm up your house yet you don’t want to turn on the heater, use your fireplace instead. But the fireplace can be your enemy by allowing warm air to escape. So keep your fireplace damper closed when it’s not in use.

This article was brought to you by Moneysupermarket.com the UK’s leading price comparison website. With moneysupermarket you can get the best deals on electricity suppliers all year round.

It’s no secret that college has become an increasingly expensive way to get an education these days. With private school costs rising faster than inflation and with public schools hiking rates to compensate for debt-ridden state governments, the price of college tuition have reached new heights in recent years. Unless you are wealthy enough to cover six-figure costs or disadvantaged and qualified enough to receive large amounts of aid, it’s almost a certainty that you will graduate from school in considerable debt. Unfortunately, you may find yourself in even greater debt if you forgo a college degree in today’s job market. It’s a catch-22.

The burden posed by college is one that should not be overlooked by any young couple that is planning to have children. Even if you don’t plan on paying for your child’s college costs someday, it is still important that you help them save and that you take steps to plan your finances for the purpose of maximizing future financial aid. After all, even if the payment burden does fall on your son or daughter, the resources of the full family will be taken into consideration when most aid decisions are made.

Believe it or not, there is no better time to lay the groundwork for these plans before a child is even born. If you and your partner are at the point of having kids and want to prepare for their educational future, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Reduce Your Long-Term Assessed Net Worth

Colleges will usually consider a family’s total net worth when determining whether to provide financial aid. This net worth may include trusts, real estate investments, and the value of a small business. But it usually will not include money that has been invested in a dedicated retirement account. It will also consider a home that is fully owned far more heavily than one for which the family simply has a mortgage. On this note, even before your children are born, you can increase your likelihood of receiving aid by taking out a long-term mortgage and by investing consistently in retirement accounts.

Open a Dedicated College Savings Account

In many respects, saving for college should be approached similarly as saving for retirement. Both college and retirement reflect looming yet distant periods of time for which substantial resources are required. In this sense, you can reduce the burden of tuition substantially by regularly contributing money towards a college savings account, just as one would do with a retirement account. This process can begin even before a child is born so that it has as many years as possible to grow and to amass interest.

Keep Your Kids Close in Age

Planning to stagger the births of your children is certainly easier said than done, and many parents have personal reasons for wanting their kids to be more separated in age. But, from a college cost perspective, having multiple children in school at the same time can translate into considerable financial aid rewards for any overlapping period. Even having kids three years apart can insure one year of overlap during college – and one year of a more generous financial aid plan.

Hopefully these tips can help expectant parents start preparing for what may seem an incredibly distant event. While college savings should certainly not take priority at this point in time, having a long-term plan can help insure that your children don’t have to take out online loans or cash advances further down the road.

Many of us who are in debt and on tight budgets likely made a basic resolution for the coming year: we resolved to save money and reduce the size of our budgets. This is naturally easier said than done. Certainly, we can go shopping less frequently, eat out less often, and avoid taking any lavish vacations. All of these more frivolous expenses add up quickly and can be easy, with some self-resolve, to minimize and avoid.

But what about those more routine costs? Specifically, how can we reduce our core expenses in the coming year? Doing so can be more difficult and less rewarding on a per-item level, but lowering our core costs – such as food, utilities, rent, and transportation – can translate into substantial savings in the long run.

When looking to lower core expenses, your food budget is a great place to start. The easy first step is to reduce the frequency with which you purchase food at a restaurant or fast food location. Eliminating restaurant meals altogether can translate into considerable savings, but most people are unable to stick to a sacrifice that absolute. Instead, give yourself a monthly restaurant budget or limit your meals out to one night a week (ie, you only eat at a restaurant on Sunday night, if at all).

Once restaurant costs have been minimized, it’s now time to turn your attention to the money you spend at the grocery store. Many people spend frivolously at the supermarket, buying items that they do not need or perhaps won’t even use. To insure that your purchases equal your needs, the best approach is to plan out all your meals for a one or two week period beforehand. While doing so can seem onerous, especially at first, having a set list of meals with allow you to buy at the store exactly what you need – and nothing more.

The content of your meals can also make a difference. If you eat a lot of meat products, for example, your grocery costs will likely be higher than someone who gets their protein from beans and nuts. Other foods with lower costs and high nutritional values are rice, grains, eggs, and pasta. Focusing your meals on these products can save you a good deal of money in the long run.

Finally, you can also save money by buying nonperishable items in bulk. Instead of buying smaller containers of products such as olive oil or sugar, you buy larger containers at lower per-unit rates. These containers can then be stored in a pantry or basement for future use. You don’t need a self storage facility filled with nonperishable goods like many extreme couponers, but certain high-use items in your household are certainly worth buying in large sizes and then storing. As with all these other tips, doing so may not translate into immediate and substantial savings, but it will certainly reduce your food costs in the long run.

Every day we live our lives chasing the almighty dollar. Every day we work hard to make money and we strive to have more of it. It is this endless pursuit of money that I want to write about today.

I want to ask you a question, would you be happier if you had more money? In order to answer this question, one must ask what happiness is. In my opinion, true happiness comes from love – and as the Beatles said, money can’t buy you love.

Think about presents given to you on your previous birthdays. Do you value the expensive presents more than the cheaper yet thoughtful ones? Think about your memories. Do you value the memories of your luxurious getaway more than the memories of spending quality time with your family? Happiness is free.

I will admit that it is true that those living in poverty would indeed be happier with more money. After all, not having money to pay the basic needs of life is stressful. So you could see how having enough money to put food on the table and a roof over your families’ head would bring about a certain level of happiness.

But once your needs are met, having more money will not significantly increase your happiness level. Studies have also shown that happiness levels in third world countries are similar to happiness levels in America, the world’s last superpower.

But what if you were filthy rich, wouldn’t that make you happy? Not necessarily. Some people have tons of money and they focus on stockpiling it into their savings account. Why? Perhaps because they’ve already spent money before and it didn’t increase their happiness level. So instead they focus on the things that bring real happiness into their lives.

It is not true that the more money you make the happier you’ll be. There is never a certain dollar amount that will make someone happy. Those who chase money and make big money will forever lead their lives chasing even more money, as if there was a certain amount that would make them happy.

But don’t you have less worries the more money you have? You could get a maid, a personal assistant, a cook and more. But that won’t decrease your problems. It’s just like the song says “mo’ money mo’ problems”. When you have a lot of money, you tend to have more things to worry about, not less. When you’ve got money you deal with people like financial managers who manage your investments in stocks or real estate. You deal with making sure you dot the i’s and cross the t’s in your tax return. You also deal with friends / family hitting you up for money. You deal with people wanting to rob you or take advantage of you. You also tend to lose friends due to jealousy.

So what’s the final word, does money buy happiness? My answer is this: Money can only buy you temporary happiness. It can buy you that gadget you’ve been wanting. Money can also put you in a position to create great memories, such as traveling to visit a relative. But in the end, it’s not the money itself that buys you happiness. The things that bring you real happiness will always be free.

Should you pay off your credit card now or wait until you’ve saved up more money? This is a question many people face. Perhaps unemployment and other poor financial circumstances may have caused you to accrue credit card debt. But now you’re back on your feet with a new job and a little bit of disposable income. But yet you still have that pesky credit card balance which isn’t going anywhere. Do you pay off your debt now or wait until you have even more money? Let me break down the three different options available to you:

Pay It Now

You can choose to pay off your debt now so you stop wasting money on interest. Each month that you make credit card payments you’re basically flushing money down the toilet paying the high interest rates. Over the course of years we may be talking in the ballpark of thousands of dollars you’ve spent just on interest alone.

If you pay your credit card off now, you may not be prepared for either an emergency or an unexpected expense. So while you will have less coin in your pocket now, in the long run you’ll have more from what you’ll save by not paying interest charges.

Make Monthly Payments

In this option, you only make your monthly payments and you put the rest in your emergency savings account. By doing this, you won’t be ruining your credit score since you won’t have delinquencies nor any late fees. Your bank account will also grow quickly since you’re not tackling your debt, but delaying repayment of it.

After all, what’s to stop the universe from forcing you to need an expensive root canal the day after you spend all your money paying off your credit card? Yes, you’re paying interest but you can look at this interest as a kind of monthly insurance you pay to be able to keep money in a checking or savings account.

Split The Difference

Make a big payment (perhaps half of your total balance). This will drastically lower your monthly payment minimum while leaving yourself some financial wiggle room in the case of an emergency. This is probably the most practical option while you build your emergency savings account up. This way, you’re still making monthly payments (which helps to improve your credit score) but you aren’t broke and you’ve greatly reduced how much money you’ll spend on interest rates.

Dealing with credit card debt is a tricky issue but take comfort in knowing that millions of Americans are struggling with the same problem. In fact, dealing with debt is one of the most commonly refrained concerns in our nation. No matter what approach you take to reducing your debt or managing it, be sure you have considered your options from multiple angles to properly analyze the pros and cons of each situation.

To help get you out of credit card debt you’ll need to save more money. You can do that by automatically transferring money from your checking account to your savings account once you get paid every two weeks. You can also do things like curbing your entertainment expenses and impulse purchases. Another way of saving money is by getting a lower car insurance quote, cutting off your cable tv service and switching your cell phone plan.

While tax time isn’t until April 15th 2012 but there are several actions you can take over the next several days that will either reduce what you pay Uncle Sam or increase your tax return come April. Here are some end of the year tax savings tips to do before you ring in the new year.

End Of The Year Bonus

Are you expecting an end of the year bonus? Well you’ll have to pay taxes on that bonus. If you don’t want your taxes to be too high this year, ask your employer defer the payment until the first of January. Sure, you’ll still have to pay taxes on that income, but not until April 2013. So put the money in an interest-bearing account and collect the interest for well over a year, rather than just a few months.

Mortgage Interest

If you have a mortgage you already know you can deduct the interest you paid to the lender during the year. And if you’re like most people you pay your mortgage some time between the 1st and the 15th of each month. Well instead of paying January 4th, for example, make a payment December 31st. If you do, the interest you paid on that payment will be added to your 2011 1098 form that your lender sends you every year. Thus, you’ll have 13 payments in the year instead of 12. Doing this will decrease your tax liability if you itemize.

Donations

If you’re feeling a bit generous this time of year consider making a donation to your favorite charity. Any amount you give is considered a tax deduction. You won’t technically save money on this one, but it will decrease your tax bill come April 2012. Another good related tip is to make your donation in the form of an appreciated stock you have. You won’t pay taxes on the appreciation, yet you will be able to deduct the full amount as a charitable contribution on  your tax return.

Tax Credits

Some tax credits are expiring in 2011. Others will be phased out in coming years. Tax credits for making energy efficient home improvements will be phased out this year, for example. So if you had, are having, or are thinking of making those types of improvements, pay for them before the year is over to take advantage of the government subsidy.