As you read this, you’re likely sitting at a computer with internet access, or perhaps a mobile device of some time. You have a little slice of free time, so you’re seeking out some thoughts on money management or on life.

Instead, why not use this lazy hour to do something at your desk that can directly put money in your pocket? Here are nine great suggestions for doing just that.

Find a better primary bank – and sign up
I’m often shocked to find that most people seem to be very unhappy with their primary bank. They’re charged unnecessary fees, don’t earn much interest, and are greatly inconvenienced by the customer service or the ATM network. These factors are not only an annoyance – they cost you real money that adds up to large sums over time.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There are many banks out there with great customer service, large fee-free ATM networks, no ridiculous fees to simply maintain a checking account, and offer interest on even basic checking accounts. I use ING Direct’s Electric Orange checking, for example, after having abandoned checking and savings accounts with a particular large national bank, and that switch has saved me $50 a month per month in the years since the switch.

Shop around for a new bank. There are a lot of options besides ING – look at HSBC Direct, Everbank, FNBO Direct, and E-Trade are all good banks that have strong customer service, keep the fees from draining your money, and offer interest on the checking. Don’t base your decision solely on interest rates, though, as those vary quite a bit over time – instead, do some Google searching to find reviews on all the banks and keep a careful eye out for customer service comments.

Many banks allow you to sign up for both checking and savings services online, so if you decide to go the full nine yards, you can actually begin the process of transitioning to a new bank right at your computer.

Set up an automatic savings plan
While it’s a great idea to have a full-service bank for your primary checking, for many people, it’s good to have a savings account set aside for emergency funds or other specific savings goals. While I typically use a savings account at my primary bank for my emergency fund (because it’s easier to access), I usually hunt primarily for the best rate when I’m saving for a specific goal (like an appliance replacement).

One good place to do just that is with SmartyPig. Not only do they offer a strong interest rate if you set up an automatic savings plan with them, they also toss in discounts from specific retailers if you meet your savings goal. So, if you need to replace a washing machine in the next several months, set that up as a goal with SmartyPig, earn a good interest rate as you save, and get a discount on the item itself when you reach the goal. I’m currently using SmartyPig to save up for a replacement television by socking away just a few bucks a week.

Another great way to find a high-interest savings account purely for setting some cash aside is Bankrate.com’s savings account yield rate listing. It allows you to see the highest rates available nationwide for savings accounts – and since customer service and ATM access and other factors aren’t as much of a concern with a simple savings account, it can be a good idea to simply seek out the highest rate (though that can change over time – you should compare rates again every once in a while).

Read your grocery store’s flyer and prepare a meal plan and shopping list
It’s so easy to set up a meal plan and make a shopping list, yet many people skip it and head to the grocery store cold. Just a few minutes of prep work can save you quite a bit of money and also make your shopping trip shorter – and there’s no easier place to do it than right in front of your computer.

Visit the website of your grocery store of choice and download their weekly flyer. Browse through the flyer and identify a few interesting items that are on sale, and use those items as the backbones of the meals for your upcoming week – make a list of the meals, in fact. If you need help, use a recipe database like RecipeSource to fill in the blanks. Then, from that list of meals, make a grocery list that includes all of the items you need. You can create both the meal plan and the grocery list on your computer’s text editor or at Google Docs.

When you’re satisfied, print off the list and head to the grocery store. Shopping by grocery list is not only faster than wandering the aisles, it’s also cheaper – your eyes are on the list and scanning the shelves for specific items, which means you’re much less likely to be tempted by impulse buys. That saves you time and money in the store.

Do some strong research for an upcoming major purchase
Whenever you make a significant purchase – and I view significant as being anything over $20 or so – you owe it to yourself to do a bit of research into that purchase, whether it’s merely to make sure you’re buying exactly what you want or making sure you’re getting the right price. Doing this, though, can be a bit time consuming. Here are a few tips to get you started.

ConsumerReports.org is worth it (for me). I use Consumer Reports as the starting point of many of my major purchases (and an awful lot of my minor purchases, too). I use their data as the starting point for purchases and as a good indicator of the relative quality of a given item compared to the competition. You can sign up for the service for just $2.16 a month.

Hit Twitter Search and Technorati for specific comments from real users. Both of these tools reveal what real people are saying about specific items and companies.

Send some emails. Contact your friends and see if they have any recommendations on specific items and item categories.

Sign up for a swapping service
I enjoy watching movies and I especially enjoy reading books. Sure, I can use the library for these things, but I have to remember to return them and I can’t make my own markings on the books if I want to. I prefer to have a copy of my own to hold onto if I find long-term value in it, but I also like to have the flexibility to get rid of the item if I don’t want to keep it over the long haul.

So what do I do? I use PaperBackSwap to trade books by mail and SwapADVD to do the same thing with DVDs. It’s easy – just sign up, indicate ten books or DVDs that you’re willing to send to other people, and you receive two credits that you can use to request that books (or DVDs) be sent to you (they cost one credit each). When someone requests one of your books, wrap it up, send it out (it costs about $2), and you’ll get another credit. The end result is that you can swap DVDs and books you don’t want for DVDs and books you do want for about $2 a pop, which is a lot cheaper than buying them.

I’ve been using both services for years and I’ve had nothing but success with them. When I want to watch or read something new, those sites are my first stop – there’s nothing better than clicking a few times and getting the book or movie you want in the mail without paying a cent.

Set up a “deal monitoring” page
A while back, I wrote about a clever trick I use for automatically finding Amazon deals on my Google home page. That’s just the start – you can use the Google homepage to automatically find all sorts of deals you might be interested in using the same FeedSifter + iGoogle trick described in that article.

Follow certain Twitter search terms. Go to Twitter Search, type in the search terms you want, do the search, then note the “Feed for this query” link over on the right. You can put that link into iGoogle and automatically see those results on your iGoogle homepage.

Follow certain deal blogs. You can simply follow the feeds of good deal blogs as well, like MoneySavingMom, or filter their postings using the feed filtering trick I described above.

Keep a list of links to deal sites. Other deal sites like FatWallet do not offer a feed that you can track, so you may want to make a list of these bargain sites and include them on that page.

Doing all of these things enables you to see tons of bargains and deals at one glance when you open your web browser. It takes some time to set up, but once it’s working, you can see tons of deals very quickly any time you want.

Start a “deal” blog
If you want to carry that “deal monitoring” idea a bit further, why not set up a “deal” blog? You can easily start such a blog at Blogger to share the best deals you find with others. Just share the deals that seem to appeal to you the most along with a bit of commentary and you’ve started something that others might want to follow, plus you’re quite likely to discover tons of new deals via comments and people connecting with you. Put up an ad or two and you’ll earn a bit of money in the process.

A blog is a great way to share the things you discover with others, meet new people, and earn a few cents. Combining it with deal tracking is a great way to combine a money-saving hobby with a money-earning one.

Set up a Roth IRA
Many people out there think they should be saving for retirement, but it seems like a huge obstacle. How does one even get started on something like that? The truth is you can actually get started right at your desk. Many investment houses have Roth IRA plans that are easy to sign up for – all you need is a web browser. From there, you can set up a small automatic contribution from your checking account into that Roth IRA. This is exactly how I signed up for my Roth IRA through Vanguard.

The first step is to make sure a Roth IRA is right for you. Are you eligible for a retirement plan through your work and, if so, do they provide matching contributions into that plan? If that’s the case, it’s worth signing up for their plan just to get the match. Is your income under the limits for a Roth IRA? If you earn less than $100K, you’re fine, but if not, you’ll want to check the eligibility rules. Also, are you currently earning significantly more than you expect to bring in in retirement? If so, then the Roth IRA might not help you in terms of taxes – look for a normal IRA for your savings, or see if there is a 401(k) or 403(b) plan available at your place of employment.

Who should you invest with? There are a lot of different investing houses that offer Roth IRAs – do some research yourself and read the opinions of others. I use Vanguard for mine and I couldn’t be happier.

What should you invest in? For most people, a simple “target retirement” index fund is the best choice. It automatically balances your retirement savings for you, keeping you aggressively in stocks when you’re young and moving you to more stable bonds and cash as you grow closer to retirement. Most investment houses offer “target retirement” options.

Once you’ve made up your mind, though, signing up for a Roth IRA is actually quite easy. Just fill out the online forms, set up an automatic deduction from your checking account, and watch your retirement savings begin to build up.

Dig into your community calendar
Bored? Don’t know what to do this weekend? It’s likely that your community has quite a few free events going on this weekend, some of which might be of interest to you. Visit your town’s website – and the websites of towns near yours – and see what’s on the community calendar. Free concerts, free community festivals, cheap meals, and countless other things might be in the offing right under your nose – and it’s well worth a few minutes to find them.

Good luck!

As I mentioned before, I started saving for my children’s college education as early as I possibly could – in mid-2005 for my son and in mid-2007 for my daughter. In each case, I opened up a 529 plan with myself as a beneficiary as soon as we knew the child was coming, then I changed the beneficiary to the child as soon as the child arrived – this allowed me to start saving prenatally.

What’s a 529 plan? “A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged investment vehicle in the United States designed to encourage saving for the future higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary. It is named after section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code.”

Since my investing goal was a pretty long term one – college is at least fifteen years away for them, even now – I chose an aggressive portfolio for the investing – 90% stock index funds and 10% bonds. I then set up an automatic investment plan – $100 a month for each of them.

Notice the start dates, though – mid-2005 and mid-2007. In each case, my investments for their college education caught the full force of the recent stock market downturn. I’d log on every month or two to check on the investments to find that the balance had gone down, even after the contributions.

If it were simply an investment for my own retirement, I could internalize it with no problem. I can stomach losses for my own future, because I’m secure in my own knowledge that over the long run, the tendency of a diverse stock investment is to go up.

But I would look at the terrible 529 investment return, look at the pictures of my kids on my desk, and I’d feel guilty.

“I’m putting aside money for their future like I should be, but it’s falling through my fingers like sand. Their future is slipping away,” I would think to myself as I looked at the pictures, and I’d be sorely tempted to change that investment around to put the money into something more conservative.

It is incredibly easy to let emotions get in the way of rational choices when you’re a parent. You see your children so full of happiness and love, yet still dependent on you for so much, and you want desperately to ensure that they’re safe and that a bright future awaits them.

But emotional investing is the most dangerous kind of investing. When you invest with your emotions, you try to time the market. You sell late into panics and buy late into rallies. You often undo many of your earlier good choices. And, in the end, you’re left with much less than you would have had otherwise.

Instead, if you’re investing for the long term, you’re far better off removing your emotions from the equation as much as you can. Set up an automatic investment plan, sit back, and wait. Make adjustments only because you’re moving closer to your target date, shifting to more conservative options as the big day arrives (or, even better, invest in a plan that does this automatically for you). Look at the balance if you’d like, but don’t let a few poor balances cause you to make radical changes.

In short, be patient.

I look at those two pictures on that desk and I see two young children who rely on me to make many decisions and choices for them. I invest for them, of course, but I also do things like prepare their meals, help them get dressed, and regulate how much candy they can eat and how many DVDs they should watch. As much as I love them and want to maximize their safety, sometimes the best choice isn’t the one that my heart yearns to make.

I’m proud of my brother Mark.

When I was a little boy, I adored him. He was a great older brother. He was about ten years older than me, yet he was willing to come home from a day of high school and play with me in the sandbox. I have a very vivid memory of being really sick on the school bus when I was in kindergarten or first grade or so. I threw up in a trash can and, in the process, broke my glasses. Mark, who was sitting in the back of the bus with his friends, could have done nothing, but he strode up to the front of the bus, picked me up, gave me a hug, and carried me back to the back of the bus with him and kept me on his lap until we got home.

Mark left home for several years when I got older, living in another part of the country, and when he moved back to our area, it felt much like a different person came back instead of Mark. I didn’t know how to relate to this “new” Mark at all and for years it really bothered me. Of course, now I realize that part of it was me growing older, not just him, but at the time, all I felt was a huge gulf where I didn’t feel one before.

Since then, Mark has made a lot of mistakes in his life. Some were completely of his own choosing, some were forced on him by a very unlucky hand dealt to him by life. He missed out on a great career opportunity and a woman who really loved him and eventually he found himself without a job, unable to support his two children, and trying to cut himself off from his family and everyone that cared about him.

At some point, he hit bottom. I don’t know what exactly transpired in his life or in his heart at that point, but over the last two years, he has picked himself up, dusted himself off, and started trying to make things right. He has built a good relationship with his daughters – and they seem better off than I’ve ever seen them. He’s upgraded his living quarters substantially and has made a beautiful home for his family. In his career, he’s gone from getting his job back on the strictest of probation to being one of the most trusted people in his workplace. He’s also started making better choices with his own health – I can simply see more life in him than I’ve seen in (literally) decades. He’s also done quite a lot to rebuild his relationship with his father, which is something very, very important to both of them.

Mark will most likely never read this blog post. He also likely has very little idea of how I feel about him – in truth, his life is such that it probably never crosses his mind. That doesn’t change the fact that my opinion of him has greatly changed over the last year or two. Not because he’s succeeded at everything he’s tried, but because he’s actually trying – and he’s sincere about it.

What has that changed? Here’s a great example: just last weekend, I was visiting my parents and Mark stopped by with his daughters. At one point, Mark was outside alone with Joe and his daughters and another nephew. Two years ago, this would have alarmed me – I would have immediately went outside to keep an eye on my son. Now? I didn’t worry about it at all.

If Mark had asked for help two years ago, I would have been very hesitant to help him. To put it simply, I didn’t believe he was trying to better himself. If he had asked me to borrow $50, I would have simply refused because, quite frankly, I didn’t believe that the money would actually have helped him or his daughters.

Today, if Mark asked me to borrow $50, I would hand him that fifty dollar bill and tell him to pay me back only after everything else is paid off – in other words, a gift.

What’s the difference? I can see that he is trying, and when someone is making a sincere effort, I’m much, much more willing to help – in fact, I often desire to help. I know that I’m not alone in this difference, either.

Two years ago, I would have hesitated to be a character reference for Mark. Now? I’d make the phone call myself to vouch for the person he’s becoming.

So what can be taken away from this story?

Trying and flailing is better than not trying at all. Mark isn’t perfect. He makes little parenting mistakes sometimes, for example. The difference is that he’s there and he’s engaged with his kids, and that’s 90% of the work. He’s trying. He loves his children and it shows when he interacts with them, even if the interaction isn’t perfect – and those kids respond to that love.

People around you recognize your positive efforts. I see Mark perhaps once every two months, yet I’ve seen these changes. They’re as clear to me as night and day. Now, when I talk about Mark with my family and friends, my remarks and feelings are positive, whereas earlier I wouldn’t have said much at all. His positive effort isn’t just changing his own life, it’s changing how other people see him, even though he’s not perfect.

Similarly, people around you are more willing to help if you show a willingness to help yourself. As I said above, I’d be quite willing now to help my brother, whereas two years ago, I would have avoided the opportunity like the plague. This isn’t just true for me – many other people in Mark’s life feel the same. He’s suddenly welcome in places where he wouldn’t have been welcome a few years ago. People say positive things about him instead of negative things. If he needed a helping hand right now, there would be an abundance of hands there instead of just a few.

Furthermore, people who see you trying will often do things you don’t ever see to help you out. You get invitations that you wouldn’t have received before. People speak positively of you as a reference when you’re applying for a job or asking around for help. Some people might even put some of the things you need into your hands without even asking.

These ideas don’t just apply to some specific situation. They’re true for anyone who is trying to produce any positive change in their life. Your effort is seen by others – and in subtle ways, that effort is reflected in how people treat you. You get more support from the people around you and, often, people will do all sorts of subtle things to help you out.

The key thing is to try – and not be ashamed of your efforts. Perhaps today is the day to start trying yourself – and make a real start at something you want in your life.

Good luck.

One Saturday during one of my previous employments, I received an interesting phone call from my supervisor. He informed me that one of my coworkers had took a work laptop home with her and that she was unable to log on to the laptop. When I asked what this had to do with me, I learned that the coworker had claimed that I had somehow “tinkered” with the laptop to prevent other people from logging on. Obviously, my supervisor wasn’t particularly thrilled with this – he knew I had sufficient technical skills to do this and also knew I had been involved in the last week with installing some software on the laptop, so he was at least willing to believe the story.

Of course, I had not done any such thing, but I attempted to make amends. I provided my supervisor with all of the passwords and information that was needed to get onto the laptop and fix any access issues.

By Monday, she still hadn’t been able to get onto the laptop and openly accused me to my face in front of the rest of the team of tampering with her work.

By Tuesday, the problem had been resolved: there were several faulty keys on the keyboard, so her attempts at entering passwords were failing. Once the keyboard was replaced, everything worked like a charm.

At the next meeting, our supervisor opened the floor to her to give a public apology to me, since she had basically insulted my character in front of everyone by implying I was tampering with her work. Her “apology”? “I’m sorry that you feel hurt by my attempts to get the laptop working.”

I was just flummoxed by this. Needless to say, I did not trust her at all after that. My supervisor was also shocked, and he helped to ensure that I wouldn’t have to work with her and, within a few months, she had moved on.

If she had stepped back and issued a sincere apology in that situation, her entire situation would have been different. A heartfelt apology would have left me feeling sympathetic for her struggles with work and gone a long way towards repairing any rifts in the workplace, not just between myself and her, but between herself and everyone else there who thought the accusation was a bit over the top. I might not have fully trusted her, but I wouldn’t have felt the need to avoid her, either.

Instead, she chose the insincere route – and it cost her her job and burnt a lot of bridges, too.

Real apologies consist of three parts.

The Accuracy
An apology that actually works is one that shows that you have real insight into what you did wrong and the effects of that mistake. Doing that well takes some introspection and some willingness to admit that you do have specific faults.

When you realize you’re in a position where you need to apologize, step back for a bit and look at the situation. What exactly did you do wrong? It might be easy to point to a specific thing, but is that actually just one little piece of a larger thing? Figure out both pieces and think about what you really should apologize for. Careful consideration almost always leads to a more meaningful apology.

Another big piece of the puzzle is a willingness to fix the problems that caused the faux pas – and to clean up any problems that have resulted from it. Identify those problems – and take a stand on your own to fix them. Actions speak far louder than words, after all, and if you show you’re working to fix the mistake, that often means at least as much as the words in your apology.

The Delivery
There are three key points you need to get across when you deliver your apology.

“I did something wrong.” A real apology is an admission of fault. You made a mistake somewhere along the way – if you had not made a mistake, you would not be apologizing. Most of the time, we’re able to see what we did wrong – and a big part of apologizing for that wrong is an ability and willingness to state that wrong in front of someone else. If someone is encouraging you to apologize to someone else, that means you made a mistake, even if you don’t recognize it – and if you don’t, it’s time for some real introspection.

“What I did hurt you – and I recognize that.” Your fault, the one you admitted to, caused pain or difficulty for someone else. You need to recognize that if you want your apology to matter at all. This is the core of the apology – you’re telling that person that you do actually recognize that your mistake has caused them misfortune, and it is their misfortune that is at the center of the discussion, after all.

“What can I do to make amends?” Most of the time, an apology is sufficient for beginning to rebuild trust. Sometimes, however, more may be needed – perhaps you need to speak to someone else to repair a reputation, or maybe you should fix an item that you broke. Reaching out and offering to make these amends (and if you don’t know what they might be, offering to do what it takes) goes a long way towards cementing the sincerity of your apology.

The Sincerity
Most important of all, if you can’t be authentic about any of the above parts, don’t apologize at all. An insincere apology is transparent and does nothing to repair the situation. All it does is further damage your own reputation, not only in terms of the person you’re “apologizing” to, but to anyone else who hears about it.

Another note: a sincere apology never, ever expects an apology in return. An apology in the form of “I apologize, but I expect you to apologize in return” is not an apology – it’s a request for someone to apologize to you. It’s inauthentic, and everyone involved will see right through it – and think far less of you for having done it.

If you feel you should apologize, but you don’t understand why, don’t attempt an apology. Spend some time in reflection on the situation until you really understand why you’re apologizing. Never apologize until you’re ready – doing it beforehand not only fails the person you’re apologizing to, it fails you as well, with potentially devastating consequences.

That old maxim is still true: if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.

A few days ago, I was standing in the checkout line at Target behind a woman who was arguing about the price of two stools that she was purchasing. The lady held an old rain check in her hand that claimed the price per stool was $24.99, but the price on the shelf was $29.99. Thus, the argument was about $10 total. The manager of the store was there, along with an assistant manager, and they had just agreed to give her the price on her rain check, mostly in order to get her on her way and out of the store because, frankly, it had become a bit of a scene.

The woman checking me out just rolled her eyes when I asked her about it. She told me, quite simply, that “it’s not worth ten bucks to me to stand around annoying everyone for twenty minutes.”

While I understood the checkout lady’s frustration, I was much more intrigued by the thought process behind the person buying the stools.

When I first considered it, I thought that I would probably do the same thing as the complainer. I’d likely be willing to argue on behalf of saving $10 at the check out line, even if the manager were called over. $10 is $10, after all.

The more I thought about it, though, the less it made sense to me. This person was quite willing to exchange twenty minutes of her time for ten dollars. That means that she values her time to be worth at most $30 per hour.

I thought about my own family. Would I take $30 to lose an hour’s worth of family time one day? No, I wouldn’t. Would I take $10 to lose 20 minutes worth of family time? No, I wouldn’t. To me, the family time is substantially more valuable than that.

If I stood there in the checkout line and argued for that $10, that’s the exact exchange I would be making. By not arguing, I’d get out of the store twenty minutes earlier, get home twenty minutes earlier, and likely get in a bout of wrestling in the living room with my daughter and a quick game of Memory with my son with that twenty minutes. That’s well worth ten dollars to me..

One might think, “Why not call the manager over and see whether or not it can get resolved quickly?” Those types of situations are often dangerous, because once you begin to invest time in these situations, you begin to convince yourself that you’re obligated to see it through. This is the same reason why people remain on hold for half an hour on a technical support line instead of hanging up and trying a different approach – if they’ve already waited some number of minutes, it would be a waste to hang up now, since the result we want might be right around the corner.

I’ve found, time and time again, that you’re better off avoiding those types of situations entirely. Time spent waiting is time lost (unless you can multitask), so I try to avoid situations where I have to wait, especially for a small reward (like a relatively unimportant chat with a customer service representative or $10 saved on price at a department store).

So what would I do in this situation, then? I’d probably request the price change from the cashier, but if the cashier wouldn’t/couldn’t make the change and had to involve more staff, I’d probably tell the cashier not to bother. Then, as I left, I’d put a big mental negative mark against that store’s customer service – just like I would against any service that would ask me to wait a long time for a small benefit.

In other words, thinking the situation out a little bit brings me to a different conclusion about such situations than my snap response would have been.

Now, I don’t believe this is necessarily the right response for everyone. If I were single, for example, I’d likely be willing to protest to get that $10 in exchange for my twenty minutes. If I were a very high wage earner or an entrepreneur with a successful business, I might not find it worth my time even if I were single. Others might believe deeply in the principle of the point and wouldn’t want to “give” Target their $10 in a situation like this.

It really comes down to a handful of factors that are more defined by individual personality than by any hard facts.

Is your free time worth $30 an hour? For some people, it will be. For others, it won’t be.

How about you? Where do you stand on a situation like this? Would you wait around for the price checking and the manager’s decision to save $10, or would you leave? Why?

Baseball has been a big part of my life since my earliest days. In fact, several of my earliest memories revolve around watching baseball with my family (I remember the Cubs in the playoffs in 1984 and watching the World Series with my ailing grandfather in 1985) and I remember playing catch quite often with my father and brothers and cousins when I was young.

For me, the start of a new baseball season is almost magical. Everything starts fresh, and I start off the season with a near-obsession with the game. I listen to games on the radio each day, follow it day in and day out, and even manage a pair of fantasy baseball teams.

Baseball is my sign that spring has truly arrived.

Who Cares About Where the Stock Market Is Headed? The point of steady, automatic investing over the long haul is that you don’t have to worry too much about where the stock market is headed, especially in the short term. (@ wisebread)

Where’s the Fun in Personal Finance? The real problem with the concept of fun is that everyone has different things that they identify as being “fun.” Here’s an example – I have lots of fun reading, but I know many people who find it dreadful. On the other hand, I find amusement parks dreadful, but many people find them to be a lot of fun. What’s fun for you may or may not be fun for me, and vice versa. It’s all about individual perspectives. (@ get rich slowly)

How to Give to Charity When You Don’t Have Money to Spare A little giving is better than no giving at all. (@ dumb little man)

Can You Afford a Baby? I think it’s impossible to answer this question without having one. Different people react very differently to having children. For me, for example, having children was the impetus to turning around my financial life. For others, children drag them straight into debt. (@ prime time money)

4 Habits for Saving Money on Routine Family Medical Care Excellent advice for those with limited health care. (@ frugal dad)

Getting Out of Debt Builds Character Any time you face down an adverse situation and conquer it, you become a stronger person. A debt load isn’t any different. (@ mrs. micah)

I spend hours each day at one of my two computers – either my desktop Mac (a Mac Mini – the most cost-effective type of Mac) or my Linux laptop. As a result, finding a core set of software to use for the things that I do every day is vital. Also important to me is that this software is cross-platform – I’d like to be able to run many of the same things on my Mac and on my laptop. I’m also pretty frugal, so I like to look for free software options.

After a lot of searching and a ton of trials of different pieces of software, I’ve found nine pieces of free software (both open-source and otherwise) that I use every day on both my Mac and for Linux – and all of these are available for Windows as well. With only a few little exceptions, these software packages are the only ones I use during a given day. I will also say that in many cases, I have donated to the creators of the software – my belief is that you should support what you actually use, and I certainly do use these pieces of software.

Let’s dig in!

Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

My web browser is my primary tool, and Firefox is unquestionably the best option available to me for cross-platform use. It’s stable, fast, and runs every web application and web site that I need without a bit of worry. (Yes, I’m aware that Opera is an excellent browser as well – I just haven’t felt a compelling reason to switch.)

If you’re still using Internet Explorer, I beg you – give Firefox a try. Fewer security issues, fewer popups, and fewer hassles all around.

Key web applications I use through Firefox include Instapaper (a nifty way to save things I want to read later), Evernote (keeping notes; see below), Remember the Milk (checklists), Gmail (email), and GCal (calendars). I keep these sites on the bookmark bar on both my Mac and on my laptop, so the tools I need are available in both places

Evernote
http://www.evernote.com/

I use Evernote for pretty much all my text editing, not only on my Mac and my laptop, but on my iPod Touch as well and also on my parents’ Windows PC. Evernote is basically just a tool to keep notes synchronized across computers. You create a new note, save it, and then you can see it (and edit it) on any other computer with a web browser. Even better, notes can be little pieces of text, web clippings, voice recordings, or pictures. My notes are a mix of post ideas, things to think about, post drafts, and tons of other things – I literally have hundreds of notes at any given moment.

So why do I list this as a separate application? On Macs and Windows PCs, you can download a separate piece of software that allows you to do the same thing much more cleanly and offline, so that I can continue to edit notes and add new ones if the internet is out. When I’m on my Mac, I use the desktop client – when I’m on my laptop or any other computer, I use the website.

iTunes and Juice
http://www.apple.com/itunes/ and http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Listening to music isn’t that big of a deal – I have a pile of mp3s on both computers, but I often listen to radio stations via the web browser. My big concern is podcasts (for those unfamiliar, podcasts are basically short “talk radio”-style programs you can listen to whenever you want) – I listen to a number of podcasts and I like to be able to access them anywhere.

On my Mac (and on Windows, too), I use iTunes for this. It’s incredibly easy to just browse the podcasts available on iTunes, pick the ones you want, and iTunes will just download them for you so you can listen to them as you please. On Linux, I use Juice for much the same effect, though it’s a bit more difficult. I usually find interesting podcasts on my Mac, then subscribe to them later using Juice. This lets me listen to the podcasts I enjoy wherever I am.

Skype
http://www.skype.com/

I use Skype for both voice chatting (i.e., telephone calls) and video conferences with friends and family on both my Mac and my laptop. You can do this for free to other Skype users or make unlimited calls to phone numbers in the US and Canada (plus an hour’s worth of international calls) for just $2.95 a month. Videoconferencing works like a charm with Skype, which has been essential for some of my work-related opportunities, plus it’s fun to talk to family using it so they can see the kids and so on. It costs nothing if you do this with other Skype users – talk about a good deal!

I waxed ecstatic about Skype in the past – while it hasn’t replaced our phone service as of yet, I use it much more than our normal phone service at this point.

Tweetdeck
http://www.tweetdeck.com/

I’m a Twitter addict. I don’t tweet that much myself, but I follow a small handful of people and love to dive into random conversations on topics that interest me. You can do Twitter via their website, but I often find it cumbersome to do this kind of thing, plus it’s easy to get massively overloaded with people who update too much.

So, I’ve been trying out Twitter clients that help with those problems, and the best one I’ve found (by far) is Tweetdeck. The big feature is “grouping” – I can define my own groups of people on Twitter and just pay attention to that group, like “Personal Friends” or “Interesting Thinkers” or “Fellow Money Bloggers.” This lets me follow certain sets of people closely without getting flooded with minutiae too much. I can also easily search Twitter for topics of interest, browse through conversations on those topics, and dig into conversations to my heart’s content. Yep, I’m a Twitter addict – and Tweetdeck makes it very easy to do what I like.

OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/

Quite often, I need to edit and share documents with friends. I also use spreadsheets to keep track of my money, plus I use presentation software as I begin to engage in speaking opportunities. For most people, this means ponying up for Microsoft Office, but OpenOffice does all that for free – and it works almost identically on my Mac and on Linux (and on my parents’ PC).

OpenOffice includes document creation, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, basic drawing tools, and lots of other little bits – and it doesn’t cost a penny.

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I’ve been experimenting with podcast recording for a while now, trying to figure out what I want to do and how I want to do it. At times, I’ve recorded at my desk and on my laptop using a USB microphone. In both cases, I’ve found that Audacity does everything I need to do – I can edit pieces together, add music snippets, move pieces around, record from the mic, and it all just works.

I tried using GarageBand on my Mac, but it often felt like using an elephant gun when a peashooter would do the trick. Other solutions I tried crashed or had stability issues. Audacity just does the trick whether I’m at home or on the road.

Freemind
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

What is Freemind? Freemind is basically a workspace where you can jot down little pieces of ideas, connect them together, and organize them really easily. I use this whenever I’m trying to figure out how to organize my ideas for a complex post. Where it is really shining right now, though (and I’m using it a lot lately), is for putting together the basic framework for my next book. I can just take little ideas (keywords or phrases) and move them around in groupings and connections however I wish.

Freemind makes all of this easy. If you’re trying to put together a complex idea, it can be truly invaluable. Better yet, it works on tons of different platforms – I use it on both of my machines and I’ve used it on PCs in the past. If you do creative work or are dealing with a large project, give it a shot.

BOINC
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

BOINC? BOINC doesn’t really do anything, but it runs more than any other program on both of my computers. To put it simply, BOINC takes your unused computer cycles and contributes them to large research projects, like SETI@home or protein folding. For example, when I’m working, I’m usually not using much of my computer’s processing power – text editing doesn’t really eat up the processor, you know. So I keep BOINC running, and it uses those wasted resources and puts them toward a good cause. It’s a way to be charitable with something you would otherwise completely waste. I run it constantly on my Mac and (when I think of it) on my laptop when it’s plugged into a wall socket.

BOINC keeps track of your progress and lets you see your contributions to whatever projects you choose (I usually contribute to SETI@home). It’s kind of fun to look at the data I’ve helped to analyze and realize that I’m helping a large scientific project go forward – and it only costs me a few pennies in electricity.

One final note… one free application I used almost constantly for Windows was Digsby. It allowed me to keep track of updates on every instant messaging service I use, most of the social networking websites (like Facebook and Twitter), and emails, too. Unfortunately, it’s not yet available for Mac and Linux, so I’m still waiting… but for all you Windows users, this one’s great.

Rick writes in:

You talk all the time about buying fresh foods, but they’re always more expensive than the canned versions and other foods I buy. What am I missing?

Much of the time, Rick is right. If you just walk into a grocery store, pick a fresh vegetable at random, and compare it to the canned version, the canned version is usually cheaper.

So why buy fresh? Fresh produce and meats taste better, have no preservatives, and are more nutritionally powerful as well. Plus, if you use some careful, clever tactics, you don’t have to pay a lot of money above the cost of canned produce. Here’s how.

Use the flyer
If you’re buying fresh, the store flyer is your best friend. I do much of my grocery shopping at Fareway and, before a trip, I parse the flyer carefully.

What do I look for? I usually start by identifying what fresh produce is on sale that week. Then, I take those items and figure out a meal plan based around them. For example, this week green onions are on sale there, so I would seek out two or three recipes that utilize green onions – scrambled eggs for breakfast one day, a meatloaf another day, and maybe some sort of stir fry on a third day. This way, I can buy lots of green onions on sale and actually have a plan for using those onions.

Most stores tend to have several produce items on sale each week, so you can just pick three or four that seem interesting to you, then plan two or three meals using these items. There’s no easier way to get inexpensive fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet.

Know what’s in season locally
Another great way to find good prices on fresh produce is to figure out what’s in season in your area. If a particular fruit or vegetable is in season locally, it’s often on sale (and very, very fresh) at your local grocery store because there’s an abundance of it available.

You can get started by utilizing this helpful list at Sustainable Table that identifies what’s in season in each state during each month.

Leverage the farmers’ markets
Become a regular attendee at your local farmers’ market. There are several good reasons for this: you can regularly find good bargains there, you can build relationships with some vendors and thus get choice produce, the produce available there is very fresh (and thus tasty and very healthy), and there’s a wealth of information to be had, too. Don’t go with a shopping list – just take a cloth bag, some cash, and a sense of adventure.

Here are several tips for getting bargains at a farmers’ market.

Talk to your friends that garden
Quite often, even people who have small gardens have a surplus of produce when the peak of their harvest rolls around. My father, for example, often harvests fifty pounds of tomatoes a day during the peak of the tomato harvest.

If you have a friend that gardens, quite often you can make great trades for some of that excess produce, or perhaps buy it at a very nice rate. One way to help is to offer to tend their garden for them while they’re on vacation in the summer – if there’s anything that will need to be picked while they’re gone, they’ll often give some or all of it to you for the service of keeping things tended.

… or start your own garden
You can do simple things like growing a tomato plant in a pot in your home, starting a window sill garden, or even tilling up a small patch in the back yard.

A tiny garden, just consisting of a few plants, doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, just a bit of healthy outdoor activity once a week or so. Plus, when the vegetables come in, you can have ultra fresh produce. Trust me, there are few things better than picking vegetables out of the garden and immediately using them in dishes – a pasta sauce made out of tomatoes that were in the garden a half-hour earlier is sublime.

Look for bulk savings
Quite often, you can buy bulk amounts of fresh produce for substantially cheaper (per unit) than individual items. Look around and see what’s available.

One option is to split that large produce purchase with a friend or a neighbor. If you’re both buying carrots, for example, why not buy a large bundle for a cheaper per-unit price and split it? It can be very advantageous to coordinate on occasion.

Another option is to buy produce with some long-term storage potential for yourself, like potatoes, turnips, or carrots. These items can often be stored in the cupboard for long periods without going bad, which means you’re not forced to use them over and over again.

If all else fails, choose frozen vegetables over canned ones
If you still find that there’s a significant “produce premium” for you and decide to buy prepackaged vegetables or fruits, seriously consider buying frozen vegetables and fruits instead of canned ones. Frozen fruits and vegetables are substantially more nutrition-rich than their canned cousins and the prices per ounce are usually very comparable.

Good luck!