Sun 9 Dec 2007
A great guest post on Get Rich Slowly on The Hidden Costs of Stuff.
More Than Pocket Change Encourages you to Use it Up!
The Dollar Bill Savings Program is all about, well, more than pocket change.
If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.
moneydummy on Why You Need a Budget
10 Ways To Save Money, such as “Don’t spend when you’re drunk” 
Mon 3 Dec 2007
Here are four more tactics you can try when shopping online to go along with the first two. A couple of these new tips are obvious, but a couple of them are a bit less straightforward and less reliable.
1) Walk away from the deal. I am really surprised at how often this works, but I guess that I shouldn’t be. In a real life sales negotiation, when the prospective buyer annouces his intention to walk away from the deal, suddenly a better deal might be presented to him. Quite simply, fill out an order form, and close your browser without submitting the order. Sometimes you’ll get a popup or an email offering you a discount to complete your order. Now if you weren’t expecting this, it can be a subtle form of manipulation that closes the deal…but if you were actively trying to induce a better offer, just smile when it comes…and if it doesn’t come, you’ve lost nothing.
2) Split or cancel an order. Think of how often you buy something, only to receive a discount coupon for your next purchase. If you intentionally split an order into two pieces, you can apply the “future purchase” discount to something that you planned on buying anyway. This seems a bit risky, because if you don’t get a discount coupon, you might have to place two orders and get charged more for shipping. But of course, if you don’t receive a discount coupon for future purchases, simply cancel or amend your original order before it ships and again you’ve lost nothing.
3) Search for the lowest price via competitive bidding sites such as CNET (tech), Pricewatch(tech), MySimon and AddAll (books). Always seek sites where vendors are competing for your order…on Pricewatch in particular, vendors monitor the site and actively try to underbid each other to stay at the top of the list.
4) Search for used items. This one seems fairly obvious, but it is worth a mention. Whenever you’re buying something, check Half.com or the MarketPlace sellers on Amazon.com for better deals on used versions of the things you’re going to buy. This is also a place where small vendors and individuals bid competitively, and they do offer new products alongside the used ones as well.
The bottom line is that all of these tactics are valuable. Just as thinking about how long you’ll need to work to pay for a purchase can be an effective way to curb overspending, thinking about how long you’d need to work to save as much as you just did can provide motivation for you to seek the best prices by all means possible on the things that you need or things that will truly enhance your life.