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Stretching YOUR DOLLAR |
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May 2008
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Coming home with a brand-new item can be a great feeling, but so can coming home with something new to you - and saving some money at the same time. Liz Pulliam Weston, the personal finance columnist for MSN Money, came up with a whole list of items she says you're better off buying used. First off - jewelry. One-hundred percent mark-ups are common at retail stores, meaning if you do need to sell a piece of jewelry that you've bought, you'll be lucky to get a third of what you paid for it. One exception to this rule is if you want something custom made. But even then, Pulliam Weston suggests buying something used and having it reset. Another thing she says to never buy new - kids toys. Parents know it's all but impossible to predict which toys will be a hit with your kids, so rather than gamble at full price, try checking out consignment shops and yard sales for bargains. Like working around the house, or in the garden? If so, why pay full price for hand tools? Well-made items with few or no moving parts, like hammers, wrenches, and shovels can last for decades. They're also easy to find at yard sales. Those are only three of Pulliam Weston's Top 10 list of things you should never buy new. You can read the rest of the list right here. Have a tip you want to share? Click below on comment, and leave us your idea there. Coming home with a brand-new item can be a great feeling, but so can coming home with something new to you - and saving some money at the same time. Liz Pulliam Weston, the personal finance columnist for MSN Money, came up with a whole list of items she says you're better off buying used. First off - jewelry. One-hundred percent mark-ups are common at retail stores, meaning if you do need to sell a piece of jewelry that you've bought, you'll be lucky to get a third of what you paid for it. One exception to this rule is if you want something custom made. But even then, Pulliam Weston suggests buying something used and having it reset. Another thing she says to never buy new - kids toys. Parents know it's all but impossible to predict which toys will be a hit with your kids, so rather than gamble at full price, try checking out consignment shops and yard sales for bargains. Like working around the house, or in the garden? If so, why pay full price for hand tools? Well-made items with few or no moving parts, like hammers, wrenches, and shovels can last for decades. They're also easy to find at yard sales. Those are only three of Pulliam Weston's Top 10 list of things you should never buy new. You can read the rest of the list right here. Have a tip you want to share? Click below on comment, and leave us your idea there. With gas prices soaring, spending a little time on the internet before you head out to shop can save you real time - and some real money. These web-friendly shopping tips come from CNN's Gerri Willis, the personal finance editor for CNN Business News. Her first tip is simple. Get online and set up online bill pay. You can even set up automatic payments for recurring bills, like utilities. Not only will that save you from any late payments, you'll also save yourself a 42-cent stamp on every bill you pay online instead of through the mail. The internet also has plenty of places to find coupons and deals before you head out to the grocery store. Coolsavings.com allows you to pick out specific grocery items on its site, then print out the coupon for use in the store. Sign up for thegrocerygame.com and it'll email you weekly lists of the lowest-priced items at grocery stores, plus some coupons. This one will cost you $10 a month after a $1 trial period of 30 days. But you can find deals on more than groceries. You'll also find an end to driving from mall to mall looking for clothes your size that are on sale. Sound good? Then check out shopittome.com. You go to the site and set up a profile indicating the brands you like, your sizes, and how often you'd like to hear about sales. The site then scours the internet to find deals on clothing in your size of the brands you choose, helping you stretch your dollar without ever leaving home. Do you have a stretching your dollar tip you'd like to share? Click below on "comment" and let your fellow readers in on your secret. You don't have to start with a big nest egg to save a whole bunch. Stash a dollar in a jar every time you do something around the house. One reader suggested putting a dollar in a jar every time you do laundry, while others do it every time they curse! You can also save some by taking any refund, rebate or reimbursement check and putting that in a savings account. Also, try cashing in your spare change. Many banks and credit unions will do it for free, or you can spend 30 or so dollars on a coin sorter to wrap up all your change to take to the bank. Here's another way to save - with help. Some institutions, such as Bank of America, will round up any purchase you make and put the extra change in a savings account. Say you buy something that cost $5.25. The program will put it down in your account as $6 dollars and put that 75 cents into savings - savings that can really add up over time. Have a good idea of your own you'd like to share? Look below in our comment section, and share your tip. We may even share it on air with all our other viewers. You don't know where you're going if you don't have a plan, right? PC World magazine has tips on three sites that can help you develop a financial plan and keep track of your cash. Mint.com is the newest of the sites. It's a free service to manage your personal finances. If you choose to provide user ID and password information for your online accounts, it grabs all the transaction data it can, and pops it into a category so you can see what you're spending. You can also have it email or text you if your bank balance gets too low. Quicken Online also keeps track of all your online accounts, but unlike mint, you can make up your own spending categories, and you can manually enter transactions. One note - Quicken Online has no connection or transfer ability to the *desktop quicken program. It costs 3 bucks a month but has no ads. Finally, there's Mvelopes personal. It costs 8 dollars a month, but it does have a few more features. That includes allowing you to make electronic bill payments and a more fully-developed web-based budgeting system. Do you have a tip for "stretching your dollar?" Send us your comment below! You like free stuff? Who doesn't, right? So put your wallet away. The folks at Woman's Day Magazine found a whole bunch of great things for free on the web. Protonic.com gives you a place to go to ask those frustrating computer problems. You will have to register at the site, but once you do, you can fire off your question on anything from hardware to HTML. A volunteer expert will answer it. Get this - the service is free because the site says it just plain likes helping people. Want to learn a foreign language? Check out the BBC's language section for free classes and learning tips. The site belongs to the British Broadcasting Corporation and has lessons in Spanish, German, French and several other languages. Have a Stretching Your Dollar tip you want to share with us? Leave us a comment below with your tip. We may even use it on TV, like the one below from a viewer named Steve. Many brick-and-mortar retailers have price matching policies that extend to prices found on Internet retailer web sites. Just print the best price and what the shipping cost would be and bring it into the store. Many will match that price. Some will even match the price without including the cost of shipping! Thanks Steve - and we look forward to your tips!
No question, Portland is a big book town. We all have our favorite used book stores, but the people over at "Get Rich Slowly" have some other ideas for saving money on books. Like avoid new releases. Sometimes you can find them cheap at Costco or Amazon.com, but generally they sell at a premium. Put them on hold at the library instead. Also, read reviews ahead of time. What use is it spending 25 bucks on a book you don't like? You'll find all kinds of book reviews on the web. And remember, book sellers like Powells.com also put reviews on their websites. Don't want to pay anything for a book? You don't have to. Find the classics online for free and save yourself a trip to the library. Sites like Project Gutenberg put hundreds of classic books on the web. You'll find everything from Shakespeare to Jane Austen to Mark Twain there for the downloading. Happy reading!
Welcome to KGW's newest blog, all about Stretching Your Dollar. This is where we'll share our latest reporting on what you can do to make your money last during the current economic downturn. It's also a place where you can comment on the ideas you see here...and also post your own Dollar-Stretching Strategies. A couple of trends we've reported on recently include folks selling their books for quick cash. Powell's has seen a big uptick in business. We also looked into what consumers can do to turn Gift Cards into instant cash. You might also be interested in Reporter Dave Northfield's story on how to stretch your dollar at the grocery store. Click in this link to see all our KGW reports on Stretching Your Dollar.
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