You can find that article here - http://www.gasmileageguide.com/gas-savings-blog/basketball-tournament-time-fun-with-your-family/having-fun-with-your-family

The NCAA starts next week but many of the conference tournaments have already started.

Enjoy your day.

So you’re ready to hit the beach for a week or two this Summer. Here are some suggestions on saving you money.

There are a couple of different options when you going to the beach - my favorite is to go with some family members and rent a condo. This has several advantages. One of the biggest advantages is you can split the lodging costs. Condos can be expensive, but if you split the cost with a couple of different families it becomes very affordable. What we like to do is eat at the condo for breakfast / lunch and then eat out during dinner. You can also eat at the condo a few nights. This saves a ton of money on food costs.

You can also save money on attractions. The easiest way to do this is to find some sites related to your vacation destination. From those sites you’ll usually find a bunch of different coupons. A good example is Myrtle Beach. We order a book that has usually two or three hundred coupons in it. They have places along the way in (visitors centers) and they have brochures for attractions (and more coupons).

Another suggestion is to talk to people that have vacationed there before. They may give you some tips and tricks on places to go, stay and ways to save money.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 75 March 6, 2010

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We Continue our series on Will Gardening Save you Money or Not

Last time we talk about should you grow a garden. Today we’ll talk about thinking about what plants to grow, next time we’ll get into the actual work of growing your garden.

There are two seasons of vegetables.

Cool season vegetables (carrots, beets, lettuce, cauliflower, etc.) are planted in early spring and harvested by mid-summer. Warm season vegetables (tomatoes, pepper, eggplant, squash, etc.) are planted after the risk offrost has passed and harvested by early fall.

With cool season vegetables it is possible to grow two or three crops - planting and harvesting of those vegetables.

Below are several other important factors to consider when growing a vegetable garden to save you money.

When you’re thinking about the vegetables you plant you want to select vegetables that can be stored or preserved. Potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can be stored for several months when stored at the appropriate temperature. Other vegetables, like beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets and sweet corn, can be preserved by canning or freezing.

You can find an excellent resource for preserving your crops at the following url http://www.pickyourown.org/allaboutcanning.htm

You also want to select vegetables that you eat regularly and are expensive to buy at the grocery.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Saving Money on your Next Vacation part 2

Probably the cheapest vacation you can take is a trip to your relatives. We actually do this every couple of years, we take a trip to my wife’s aunt. We enjoy their company and they enjoy ours. They have plenty of room. We help them out while we are they, and our daughter has a lot of fun. Here are some things to keep in mind.

1. Staying with someone you don’t like, is no fun with anyone. If you don’t like them, staying a week with them, won’t make you like them anymore.
2. Make sure it’s ok with the people you’re visiting. Make arrangements for the dates and length of time you’re going to stay.
3. For your kids this may be a bummer, after all they aren’t going to get to swim in a hotel or condo pool for a week. In the planning stages make sure to check out some of the area attractions that your kids may like. Every state has beaches, parks, fun things to do. You can even take excursions. A night or two (or three) away from your relatives is fine. We did this one year and went to Chicago specifically to visit the American Girl store and we had a blast.
4. The folks we visit are retired. If the people you’re visiting aren’t make sure that they know it’s ok not to be there.
5. Another way you can use the family visit is by making it a stop between point A and point B.
6. Help the folks out by buying them groceries or helping with chores, after all you are guests.

The most important thing of all is to have fun!

If you didn’t get a chance to read the first article in Saving Money on Vacations - you can just click on that link.

Image via Wikipedia

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Spring is just around the corner no matter how much snow is outside our window, and there is a bit. We’ll be talking on Saturdays in the next few weeks about some ways that you can save money in the spring. One of the first subjects we’ll be looking at today is gardening.

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Will Gardening Save you Money or Not

Everyone is trying to save money, which is one of the reasons that you’re visiting our blog. So the big question is, can you save money growing a garden.

I think if done correctly you can do that, if not it can cost you a fortune. After all there is a book called “the $64 Tomato”, don’t believe me, check out the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/64-Tomato-Fortune-Endured-Existential/dp/1565125576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267044308&sr=8-1

There can be if done incorrectly quite a bit of cost involved in growing a garden. Things like fertilizers, pest control, tools, equipment and more.

So here are some questions to ask you before beginning to think about a garden.

1. Do you like vegetables… if not then unless you do it to get outside then a garden won’t save you money. It may make you friends with your neighborhood.

2. Do you have a place to grow your garden. It is possible to grow things in buckets, but that tends to be more expensive. A good site to check out if you’re interested in that can be found here.

http://www.gardenguides.com/90584-vegetable-gardens-buckets.html

3. Are you physically able to take care of a garden. In order to get the most from your garden you’ll need to be able to do things like hoe, water, plant, harvest your garden. Especially during the hot summer these tasks can be tough even on a healthy person.

4. If you live in a rural area, where you can get produce in the summer cheap, then again it will be tough to save money with your own garden.

5. One thing is you will be spending quite a bit of time in your garden, what you’ll want to think about before you get started is how much is your time worth.

Still sound good to you - next week we’ll talk about some vegetable growing basics, and send you to some websites for additional information.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Found this from one of the governments websites - 66 ways to save money.

You can check it out here - http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/money/66ways/ - you can view it online or check out the pdf version.

Have a wonderful Friday.

During the next few Tuesdays we’re going to be talking about some ways to save money on your vacation. The first thing we would like to do is to talk some about the different types of vacations that you may be going. We’ll expand things over the next few weeks, today we’ll just mention them briefly.

1. Going to Grandma’s house - this is a trip to your relatives. Among the vacations it is probably the least expensive.

2. A trip to the beach.

3. A series of mini - vacations (like to national / state parks near your area). This is usually within your home state.

4. A road trip - visiting several places in different states).

5. A trip to an amusement park (Like Disney World / Disney Land).

We’ll give each of those a post of it’s own, we’ll also talk about some ways that you can save money on travel, hotel and other expenses.

Save Money on Doing your Taxes

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Before you work on your taxes, you want to make absolutely sure that you take advantage of a slew of tax credits this year. You can find the most comprehensive list (we could find) here - http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/irs-tax-return/5519.html

Links you can Use

Thinking about your summer vacation and flying - this article will give you some tips on being the frugal flyer.

http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/click-it-and-ticket-booking-a-flight-the-frugal-way/

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Saving Money on Your Tax Preparation

I did a few calls around our area and if you go to one of the big guys (you know the one’s I’m talking about) - you can have your taxes done (even the simple one’s) for from $100 - $500. Why in the world would you pay that much when you could do it yourself…. for FREE.

First be aware that there are many places where you can get free tax help and free filing.

If you make less than 49k / year then you can get free Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. In order to get this free assistance you need to make sure that -

• You, your spouse and any dependents must be U.S. Citizens, Resident Aliens or
have a valid Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)
• Returns will only be prepared for taxpayers with a total income of $49,000 or
less
• If filing a Married Filing Joint return, you and your spouse must be present
• If filing a Married Filing Separately return and your or your spouse live in a
Community Property state, we CANNOT prepare your return
• Social Security Number (SSN) information presented must match the SSN on
all Wage & Income statements (i.e. Form W-2, Form 1098, Form 1099, etc.)
• If your SSN information does not match your Wage & Income statements, you
will need to contact the issuer to correct those statements
• Verified ITIN taxpayers are exempt from this requirement

You can find out a location near your area by calling the following phone number -

To locate the nearest VITA site, call 1-800-829-1040

If you’re over 60 then AARP can help - check out this link.

https://locator.aarp.org/vmis/sites/tax_aide_locator.jsp

Less than 57k and want to do your taxes online then you can check out this url from the IRS - http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html?portlet=6

No MATTER what your income you can file free online (without any ‘assistance’) by going to the following url.

https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/FFA/Gateway.htm

IF you do decide to go with one of the big guys PLEASE DO NOT get a loan or advance payment, because you are just flushing your money down the drain.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Changes for people under 21.

-They will have a hard time building their credit history. If they don’t have any income them an ‘adult’ will have to get involved.
- Credit card companies will have a tougher time marketing on college campuses.

Changes in payments -

-If you have several different interest rates on your cards, your payment is more than the minimum payment, then that portion over the minimum will be applied to the highest interest rate balance.

Here’s a simple example -

You have a balance on your credit card of $100.

$50 has an interest rate of 10%
$50 has an interest rate of 20%

Your minimum payment is $10 and you pay $20.

The first $10 goes to the 10% balance - the second $10 to the 20% balance.

- Generally you should have longer to make your payments after the bill comes.

- if you make a late payment, the penalty is not as stiff as it once was.

Getting a credit card will be tougher as new rules go into effect, including proof of income.

There are a ton of ways the credit card companies have gotten around some of these things that were supposed to help consumers.

= interest rates have gone up for almost all cards
= minimum payments have gone up
= credit limits have gone done
= a myriad of various fees

Enjoy your Tuesday.

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