Recently I realized that we did not have our money in the best savings account at our bank.  It turns out that we could have been earning a whole lot more interest than we were.  When I found out I immediately switched our accounts. I realized this when we switched over to online trading a few weeks ago.

If you’re not sure if your savings accounts are getting the most interest possible then you really ought to check out other banks. Or maybe start investing to increase your cash flow. Try investing in stock trading and bonds, or even get an IRA account. If that doesn’t work for you just dump your cash in an account that will return a little money back, every little bit counts and it all adds up.

As most of you know, and feeling, the world’s economy is in the worst shape it’s been in since the great depression in the 1930’s. The only thing going up right now is bullion, you know, gold. Lately just as things seem to be getting better something happens for the worst. It seems like every day you hear that more and more people are losing their jobs.

I read that the America unemployed is at it’s highest it’s ever been. Right now the national unemployment is still over 10 percent. And many of these people have no where to turn to pay their bills. Most are using their credit cards, selling their gold bullion and gold coins to help get by until they find work. This people are going to be taking on so much debt their going to file for chapter 11 before things get better. Just because the stock markets are up, as well as gold doen’t mean things are ok. We need jobs, and fast!

I am sure many of you will be doing some if not all your online shopping these days.  And you already know that you need to be careful when you are shopping online.  Here are a few more tips that I received today via email that I think are worth posting:

Here are some tips you can use to avoid becoming a victim of cyber fraud:

Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) e-mail.
Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited e-mail.
Be cautious of e-mail claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses.
Only open attachments from known senders.
Avoid filling out forms in e-mail messages that ask for personal information.
Always compare the link in the e-mail to the link that you are actually directed to.
Log on to the official website, instead of “linking” to it from an unsolicited e-mail.
Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the e-mail to verify if the e-mail is genuine.

And if you’re buy stuff for your business like a ipad, make sure you get a good warranty . That goes for anything you buy, make sure you have a warranty, one you can understand. To many stores out there today have changed their terms on products that are being returned.

Enjoy your shopping but be careful!

Do you have some credit card debt that you need to pay off? Here are a few tips to help you along the way:

1. Pay more than the minimum monthly payment. If you only pay the minimum you will end up paying two or three times more than the item cost you to begin with, or even more. Interest rates make it hard to get ahead if you only make the minimum payment.
2. Do not create any new debt. If you can’t pay cash, don’t buy the item.
3. Track your spending- do this for at least a month. Once you write down where every penny is going you might be surprised to see how much money you’re spending that you could be using towards paying off your debt.
4. Call your credit card companies and try to negotiate a lower interest rate.
5. See if you can transfer the balances off of the higher interest cards to your lower interest rate cards.
6. Figure out which credit card has the highest interest rate and pay as much as possible towards that balance. Once that is paid off start paying down the next highest interest rate.

I am really excited about doing some shopping this year for Christmas.  Shopping for all of our extended family members as well as a toddler and a teenager should prove to be interesting.  I am ready to get started looking for the best prices in my Black Friday ads. I will also be doing more online shopping this year. I will be also only buying from sites that offer free shipping. I am so thankful for the Internet for this reason- it really saved me a lot of money last year at Christmas time.  I bought quite a few gifts online and was able to save quite a bit of money by doing that.  I plan to look for the best buys that I can find again this year using sites like buy.com.

I recommend that you get started now looking for the best prices that you can find.  It’s a lot easier to shop around when you have a lot of time- so hurry up and get started!

The Internet can be a great tool to save some money.  One thing that I use it for is to find coupons for my purchases.  I very rarely make an online purchase without a coupon code.  I love to use sites that offer great products at a great price.

Since I have kids I am always using the Kids and Baby sections of sites, and looking for the the deals. Everytime school time comes around I look at a lot sites for deals on clothes, shoes, and just about everything else.

If you’re looking to save some money be sure to search for online coupons before all of your online purchases. And don’t buy anything until you searched for a code or coupon, there out there, you just need to look.

If you own a home then you know you need to have insurance on your home. All banks these days won’t even give you a loan on your home until you have a insurance provider lined up. You have to protect your home as well as your valuables that are inside your home. But with all of the choices out there how can you possibly know the best home insurance you could have? I would recommend that you contact your car insurance provider, or check out the site insurancespecialists.com. In most case you can get a discount on other services they may offer. Also, use the internet to find more rates and discounts. Not only can you find discounts on home and auto insurance offline, you can find great insurance quotes online. You just need to do your research and a simple search to find what you’re looking for. The great rates are out there, just go looking for them.

Times are hard financially right now for many, many people. At one time people were able to put away part of their paycheck every week into a savings account, not anymore. At this point I read the people are running to those payday sites looking to get payday advances on there checks. In some states this service is banned because people were getting taking for a ride. I think for the most part this a choice, you take the loan out or you don’t. But the reason for some of these states banning the service is because the interest rate was getting out of control. If you do the break down on these loans it comes out to like 400%. So these payday company’s were told to show all fees and break downs on the loans. And people still go and take them out, not for me.

If you own a business then I am sure you have felt the pinch of our economy.  I know most of has felt the effects in one way or another.  But if you are a small business owner it is probably especially hard on you.  What can you do to make sure your business survives?  I don’t have any special tricks for you or the answer to that question.  But I can offer a couple of tips based on what I have read.

One is get a website. Every business needs a website whether for information use or process orders. And once you do get online find a great directory submission software package to get your business found online. Just having a site isn’t going to help, you need to be found. Let me know of any other tips or tricks to help small businesses in this rough economy.

Need to save some money? With the rising costs all around us most of us are looking for ways to save some extra cash. Here are a few things you can do this summer to reduce your electric bill.

1. Set your air conditioner to 78° while you are at home.
2. Run a portable fan which will make the room about 4° cooler.
3. Only run your dishwasher when it is full.
4. Stop your dishwasher before the dry cycle and let the dishes air dry.
5. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water (not hot) and use cold water for your rinse cycle.
6. Hang your clothes outside to dry instead of using the dryer. (Unless you have allergies, like me, then you do not want to do that.)
7. If you use your dryer- make sure you run it full, use the moisture sensing setting so that it doesn’t run longer than necessary and clean your lint filter.
8. Turn off or unplug your electronic items when you are not using them. If you can’t turn your computer off, at least turn the monitor off when not in use.
9. Replace your old incandescent light bulbs.
10. Keep your refrigerator or freezer full.

And one thing we like to do is eat outside on our electric grill. It sure beats turning on the stove, which costs us more than we ever thought. By using our grill our electric bill went down. I’m going to be cooking out more even during the winter.