Money Saving Strategies by Erica Hale

Talk can be cheap
Use Skype (www.skype.com), free-to-download software that allows you to make telephone calls over the Internet. For $3/mo. you can make unlimited calls to United States and Canada. This could cut down on your cell phone bill big time, and possibly eliminate the need for a landline. You can even set up Skype so that when you use it to make calls, your cell phone number shows up on the caller ID of the person you are calling.
If you have an iPhone, you can use Skype’s iPhone app, which allows you to make cheap Skype calls from your cell. How cool is that?
Dump the contract
Save money on your cell phone bill. Boost Mobile has a $50/mo. plan with unlimited talk, text, web, and sms. No contracts, no roaming charges, no surprise big bills (you pay as you go). Check it out at: www.boostmobile.com. If you’re currently locked into a cell phone contract, this may be something you’ll have to wait on. When you’re ready to make the switch, this company could save you a bundle.
If you’re stuck in a contract you don’t want, you can always sell the remainder of your contract. There are sites like Cellswapper.com and Celltradeusa.com that you can do this on.
You can also sell the remainder of your contract on Craigslist.com. Before you do this, make sure you call your carrier and ask if there are any fees to transfer a contract into someone else’s name.
Buy used
Speaking of cell phones, you can often get a much better deal by purchasing a phone on your own. There are many stores that sell used cell phones. Not only that, but you can sell your old phone to the used cell phone store, and make some quick cash – or get credit towards a trade-in.
Technology is your friend
Harness the power of the internet to eliminate the need for expensive cable:
• Hulu – www.hulu.com All you have to do is set up and online account, and you can watch TV for free. Go on there to check for your favorite shows.
• YouTube.com Screening Room – http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom?feature=pyv
The YouTube Screening Room has tons of full-length movies – for free! YouTube updates the site with more movies every 2 weeks. Now you never need to spend another dime on movie channels, Netflix, or Blockbuster.
YouTube is also adding premium content on a pay per viewage basis, which will most likely be cheaper than paying for your cable.
• iTunes – http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ – Great resource for lots of free content. iTunes has an enormous selection of free podcasts, about anything in the world you are interested in. They have both video and audio podcasts that you can listen to. All you have to do is download iTunes to your computer, which is free, and then go to the iTunes store and download the podcasts you would like to listen to or watch. You can then watch or listen to the podcasts on your computer or on your mp3 player.
Also, many network television shows offer a free downloadable podcast of the show on iTunes.
iTunes U, also on iTunes, features free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more, that you can enjoy on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC. Explore over 100,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world.
You can sit in on classes from Duke, Stanford, Yale, and many other top notch institutions, for free.
Show me the money – Use technology always know where your money is:
www.Mint.com immediately pulls in your balances, purchases, stock trades, etc. to give you a complete picture of your finances. Mint connects securely with more than 7,000 US financial institutions, saving you hours of tedious data entry.
Mint updates all of your account information automatically. So you always have the most current information available.
With Mint you can set budgets for each kind of spending each month, and have a visual reminder of your budget. It will also alert you when you go over your budget.
It will also track your investments, so you can get a quick minute-by-minute update of your net worth.
Mint will also instantly show you your APR and what you’ve been paying in interest and fees – a great motivation to get the debt paid off!
Make the kids and dog worried they’re going on Craigslist
Craigslist.com offers a variety of ways for you to save money in all kinds of different ways. First of all, there’s a FREE section, where you can find items that people in your area are literally giving away for free. Next, there’s a wanted section. So if there is something that you need, but you can’t find it, or can’t find it for the price you want, you can post an ad in the WANTED section on Craigslist.com.
There’s another site called Freecycle.com, and this site has tons and tons of items listed, for, that’s right – FREE. Now that’s a price you can’t beat.