Thanks for visiting our Money Saving Tips page! I suppose a person visiting us here might be in one of two situations. Either you are spending more than you'd like to each month, or you have plenty of money due to your disciplined consideration of your financial situation and you are looking for further ways to retain even more of your money. In other words, you are either in control of your money or you want to be, and soon! In an effort to point you in the right direction, we present an article on Money Saving Tips, below. But first, we'll talk a little about discipline in general. Then we'll provide some links to other relevant web sites and links to pertinent books for your further edification. Quite often as we go through our days, we find ourselves in a situation where we want to achieve two competing goals. We want something that will make us happy in some way right now. But often, getting that thing will cause us to slip backwards on our path to some long-range goal that we've decided will make us happy when we attain it in the future. I want that Double Whopper because it tastes soooo good! (I know I should lose weight for my health, but I WILL start watching what I eat tomorrow.) Hey! There's that new DVD that everyone's been talking about. (I told myself, no more spending time entertaining myself until I get all the things on my "To Do" list crossed off, but I'm TIRED!) At some point, we become aware of the concept of "delayed gratification". If I put off doing something right now that I'd like to do, and save up my resources, then in the future I can do something that will give me much greater satisfaction. Often you get a double reward in the future because you not only refrain from eating the junk food or wasting your time on a pastime, you also save the money that these trivial pleasures would have cost. Why is it important to save money today for the future? Because money taken from current income or savings always costs less than money borrowed. Prove it to yourself by looking at your next credit card bill or car loan statement. Related Links: You can read a good college level paper on delayed gratification Here. Here's information about the biochemical basis for the effectiveness of delayed gratification. Here's a fun-to-read article about what delayed gratification is and when we stopped valuing it as a society. Here's a link to UK's only Money Saving Expert. This site has information for UK residents but there is material here for everyone. The Frugal Times provides Tips for Saving Money in the Real World. Here's one of their articles on Money Saving Tips. The Clark Howard radio show and web site has some consumer advocacy information as well as money saving information. For more information on money saving and management, we recommend the following books:
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke	The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke is financial expert Suze Orman's answer to a generation's cry for help. They're called "Generation Debt" and "Generation Broke" by the media - people in their twenties and thirties who graduate college with a mountain of student loan debt and are stuck with one of the weakest job markets in recent history. The goals of their parents' generation - buy a house, support a family, send kids to college, retire in style - seem absurdly, depressingly out of reach. Over the course of ten chapters that can be consulted methodically, step-by-step or on a strictly need-to-know basis, Suze takes the reader past broke to a secure place where they'll never have to worry about revisiting broke again. And she begins the journey with a bit of overwhelmingly good news (yes, there really is good news): Young people have the greatest asset of all on their side -- time.
Get Clark Smart: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Rich from America's Money-Saving Expert	What are the 3 secrets to building long-term wealth? What are the 5 things that no one thinks of before buying a home? How can you save up to 40% on the car of your dreams? How can you get long distance telephone service for almost nothing? Clark Howard answers all these questions and many more in Get Clark Smart. With practical tips and on-line resources, Howard helps readers to get rich by saving money in unexpected places and investing those savings creatively. Howard has a passion for saving money and a zealot's enthusiasm for sharing everything he's learned. His strategies for getting rich by saving wisely will turn readers into financial wizards. Clark Howard is the host of The Clark Howard Show, a radio talk show syndicated on more than 150 stations around the country.
Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them: Lessons From the New Science of Behavioral Economics	Why do so many otherwise smart people make foolish financial choices? Why do shoppers overspend when using credit cards rather than cash? What do our habits of tipping or buying lottery tickets indicate about our relationship with money? In this fascinating investigation of the ways we spend, invest, save, borrow, and waste money, Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich reveal the psychological causes - the patterns of thinking and decision making - of irrational behavior. Most important, they focus on the decisions we make every day and, using entertaining examples, provide invaluable tips on avoiding the financial faux pas that can cost thousands of dollars each year.
Michael Finney's Consumer Confidential: The Money-Saving Secrets They Don't Want You to Know	Being a good consumer is not only about money, says Michael Finney, it's also about awareness and fairness. Good consumers are concerned about what is fair, for others as well as themselves. Backed by 25 years of experience in the field, Finney shows how to balance these factors, while he dives into the details of educated consuming. Here is clear, authoritative advice on how to get a luxury hotel room for the price of a roadside motel; how to negotiate effectively; what to look for in an insurance policy; where to get the best deals on consumer electronics, technology, and cars; what to know about savings and investing; how to write an effective complaint letter; and much more. This easy-to-read guide through the maze of consumer affairs includes dozens of firsthand stories about the author and the consumers he has helped over the years.