Money Saving Tip: Buy Used Tires

It's that dreaded time: your tires are shot and you're looking at shelling out hundreds of dollars to replace them. The problem is, your bank account is hurting and you need to make your dollar stretch a bit further. Enter the used tire market. Believe it or not, many people replace their tires well before they are worn out, leaving a fantastic opportunity for us cheap skates of the world. I actually took this route 9 months ago and am still driving on my same set of tires. Instead of paying close to $200 for a full new set of tires, I ended up paying $35 for a few used ones. Granted, they take a bit more TLC, but they are still running. You will run into air seeping out of your tires a bit quicker than new tires, but keeping a $20 air compressor (which can be bought at the big department stores) is more than adequate to fix this problem. So even with buying a new air compressor, I saved over $100. I understand that this may not be the best option for the long haul, as I will have to buy another used set sooner. However, I don't really know how much longer my car is going to hold up, so it would be a shame to buy a new set of tires for a car that I'm planning to sell in the near future or that may see its last mile soon. So for those of you who need a short term fix, buy used and you could save hundreds!

Money Saving Tip of the Day: Go to the Cheap Seats

It's a Friday night, and you wanna go out with your friends or your sweetheart to the movies. The problem is, nowadays you almost have to get a second mortgage on your house to be able to afford a trip to the theater. The answer? Find the cheap seats in your town! In pretty much every town with more than one theater, there is will be a place that I affectionately refer to as "The Cheap Seats". These are quaint little places that are generally a bit more beat up than the expensive theaters. They also generally show movies about a month after they are released at other theaters. However, at half the price or less as compared to other theaters, I definitely think it's worth the wait (and the less than perfect old school seats). The only trouble with these places is that their marketing budget is much lower than the bigger theaters, so they are much harder to find. There is one trick that I've found works in most situations, however. It takes a bit of work, but if you go to moviefone.com and enter the zip code where you want to see a movie at, it will give you a listing of all the theaters in the area. What differentiates moviefone from sites such as Fandango is that it lists the normal adult ticket price at the top right corner of each theater's listing page. Whereas most theaters are going to say $8-$10, cheap seat theaters will normally have an adult ticket listing of $5 or less. Wah-lah! You've just found yourself an entertaining night at half the price! Now maybe you can afford the overpriced concession stand...

Money Saving Tip of the Day: Get Free Antivirus Software

Why spend hundreds of dollars on software that you could get for free? Honestly, unless you have a business and need to have many computers all scanned at the same time, you should never pay for antivirus software. About.com has a list of the 10 best Free Antivirus Software Programs on the market. Most of them have very few catches, if any. I personally use AVG Anti-Virus Free on my desktop and Panda Cloud on my laptop. Both of them actually work better than the last program I had on both of my computers (which I unfortunately paid for). I would recommend Panda Cloud for anyone who is using a computer that runs a bit slower, and AVG Free for anyone who has a bit of a faster computer. To download either of these programs, along with a list of many other great free antivirus programs, go here.

Money Saving Tip of the Day: Unplug Those Appliances

To save money on electricity, you do the smart thing and turn lights off when you leave rooms, never leave tv's or computers running when you're away, and always try to close the door behind you. You've covered all your bases, right? Wrong. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a whopping 75% of all energy consumed by electrical devices is used when the devices are turned off. WHAAAAAAT???? That's madness! Crazy as it sounds, it is very accurate. Devices such as TV's, computers, Blu Ray Players, cell phone chargers, etc. all continue to pull electricity even when they aren't being used. Don't believe me? Put your hand on your cell phone charger when it's not charging your phone. It's still warm, huh? Boom! Science lesson complete. To combat this, the Department of Energy recommends that you unplug devices whenever they aren't in use. To make this task easier, I recommend that you hook your appliances up to a power switch. By doing this, you can cut off the power too all devices hooked to the strip by flicking one single button. It will save you a lot of time and hassle constantly plugging and unplugging electronics. It may seem like a pain in the butt first, but it will quickly become habit. Terrapass.com states that you can save as much as $87 in a year by buying one power strip and using this method. Just imagine how much you could save if you used this tip in every area of your house? Try it out and you may not have the urge to cry when you see your next energy bill...

Money Saving Tip of the Day: Check out The Krazy Coupon Lady

I was talking to a buddy of mine a while back, catching up on family and such. A little while into the convo, he told me that one of his sisters was actually making money to shop for groceries. I asked if she was a secret shopper, and he said he wasn't really sure how he did it, but that he was pretty sure she wasn't a secret shopper. Being the Cheap Scot that I am, this obviously piqued my interest. I later found out through his sister's blog that she had learned her awesome new skill via all of the great information on The Krazy Coupon Lady website. I have checked out the site a bit, and it really is a cheapskate's heaven. It lists the top coupons from retail giants such as Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS Pharmacy, and many more. The Krazy Coupon Lady takes it further than your average, everyday coupon website though. The publisher of the site has an awesome tutorial on how to go from a "coupon virgin" (as the site affectionately calls us) to a Krazy Coupon Lady in 10 days. The link to this tutorial can be found here. The site also has many great tips on how to save tons of money on groceries each week. The Krazy Coupon Lady has been featured on the TLC show, "Extreme Couponing", which my buddy swears is totally a cool show (I won't name names to protect his recently questionable manliness), proving that it is has a lot of valuable information. It is a free service and definitely worth a bit of perusing. Check it out here

Money Saving Tip of the Day: Skip the Shopping Cart

If you're anything like me, you have a nasty habit of buying things at the store that you don't need. You see something that looks delicious or is bright and shiny and you decide to throw it into your cart. Why do we do this? Well, we are hard-wired by evolution to do so. Just as with eating, our caveman roots cause us to consume as much as possible. This hereditary habit comes from a time when we weren't so lucky to have unlimited food and other goods available to us via stores, so our ancestors would hunt and gather as much as was possible for them. They didn't know if they'd have another chance at it, so they would consume everything in site. We still have this problem nagging us today. Even though we don't need many items at the store, this impulse kicks in and tells us to buy as much as possible. Wanna know an easy trick to overcome thousands of years of human habit? Skip the shopping cart. Just think about it: the less space you have to carry stuff, the less you'll buy. Instead, opt for a basket. Or even better yet, only buy what you can carry in your hands. Now I understand that this trick may not work if you're buying groceries for a lot of hungry mouths, but it does work for those buying just for themselves or those buying just a few items. Try it out a few times. I guarantee you will save a lot of money by avoiding impulse buys.

Money Making Tip of the Day: Sell Blood Plasma

If you can't stand needles, read no further. If you can indeed stand having the sharp little buggers be stabbed into you, read on. One of the fastest and easiest ways I have ever made money is by donating blood plasma. What's that, you ask? Plasma is part of your blood that can be separated out via a centrifuge. It is mostly made of water but also has proteins and other scientific stuff that you probably don't really care about. It is used to treat a myriad of diseases, including hemophilia. Now that the PSA on donating blood plasma is over, let's get onto the good part: how to make money off of selling your blood plasma. There are donation facilities all over the country. You can easily find locations online. After you've found one, call in and set up an appointment. At your first appointment, you will be screened via way too many health questions and a blood test. After this process (which can take 45 minutes), you will go into the donation room. There, they will let you lay down on a reasonably comfortable chair. Shortly thereafter, a phlebotomist will put a pretty good-sized needle into a vein in your arm. A machine next to you will then start up and start sucking your blood out. After it has gotten a decent amount, it will spin your blood in a centrifuge, separating out the plasma. After that, the machine will push what's left of your blood back into your blood stream and start the cycle all over again. The whole process will take around an hour. During this time, you can read or do pretty much any other sedentary activity that you'd like. After it's over, you will be given a pin number and can withdraw money from an atm using your special pin. You should expect at least $40 each time you donate. Many places will give you as much as $75 for your second visit because they can't use your first donation unless you give a second donation. You can usually donate twice each week, which is much different than donating straight blood. So there ya have it. You can make about $100 extra dollars each week for 2 hours of sitting around. It's basically free money for those of you that aren't IB Positive (IB Positive I'm not letting them stick a needle in me...). One last thing: Make sure to drink lots of water and eat healthy food before you go in. Dehydration and high lipid levels (from eating fatty foods) will make the process take much longer.