Some of us forget that wallets are not filing cabinets and stuff them to the breaking point. Although it isn’t unusual to carry around a bulky wallet, it definitely isn’t a good thing. There are many benefits to carrying a smaller and slimmer wallet. These benefits can help you feel more comfortable, look better, and even save you time. Read on to learn about how a slimmer wallet can improve your life.

More Comfortable
When you have a slim wallet, sitting down on hard surfaces isn’t as uncomfortable as with a fat wallet. Your butt will be on more equal footing and you won’t have to deal with a pressure point on one of your cheeks. A rubber band is one of the cheapest and most slimming wallet options. Sitting on a short, rubber banded stack of cards will be much more comfortable than an inch thick wallet.

Easier To Find What You Need
If you keep just the bare essentials in your wallet, you won’t be fumbling around trying to find your credit card or identification when you get to the cashier. This will help you save some time when you’re in a hurry to get on your way. It’s also so much less of a hassle when you only have what you need in your wallet.

Less Clutter
Do you have all sorts of things in your wallet that you hardly ever use or even look at? If so, do a little cleaning and get rid of what you don’t use. If you have a frequent eater card for a particular restaurant you go to every once in a while, keep the card in your car or workplace instead of carrying it around with you wherever you go. It doesn’t make much sense to carry these around all the time when you’ll be using them very infrequently. It’s not uncommon for people to never fulfill the free sandwich, coffee, pizza etc. requirement to ever use the card in the first place, making it an even bigger waste to carry them around.

A Slimmer Wallet Looks Better In Your Pants
Have you ever met a girl attracted to men with large wallets protruding from their back pockets? Probably not. The simple fact is that big wallets make you look a bit silly. Especially if your wallet is more than an inch thick and you wear well fitting pants. Just imagine it the other way around. Would you find it especially attractive if a girl wore some tight jeans and had a big fat wallet in her back pocket?

Less Wear On Your Clothing
This is another one related to looks. When you carry a big heavy wallet in your pants pocket, eventually it’ll make a groove in your pants. This groove is not very easily fixed and could result in buying new pants. To avoid this costly solution, it’s best to just use a slimmer wallet to begin with. To further reduce the possibility of creating a groove in your back pocket, stick your wallet in your front pocket instead. This will also reduce the possibility of your wallet being stolen.

Less Risk If Stolen
If you have fewer things in your wallet, you won’t be in as much trouble as if you had many things in your wallet. If someone makes off with your wallet, you have to notify your bank and credit card provider as soon as possible. If you only carry one credit card and one bank card, you won’t have to spend too much time making phone calls.

Having a slim wallet is helpful to reduce the trouble of getting your wallet stolen, but it will also reduce the risk of getting it stolen. If your wallet is small enough, it won’t be very noticeable at all in your back pocket. This will make it less of a target for would be pick pockets. If thieves don’t know where your wallet is, they’ll have a much harder time trying to find it.

Less Credit Cards To Keep Track Of
Slimming your wallet doesn’t only mean removing credit cards from your wallet, but canceling them too. If you don’t have full balances on your credit cards, you should try to use only one. With fewer accounts, you’ll have far fewer things to keep track of which is a big time saver.

I was driving home one day and remembered I had received a Target gift card for Christmas from a family friend. My mind started to fill with the many ways I could spend that money on snacks, drinks, and other frivolous things. I then started thinking about how much money I waste at Target buying things that I really don’t need. It then occurred to me that if I bought a 50$ gift certificate to Target at the beginning of each month and only used that to buy things at Target, I would limit my wasteful spending to 50$. I went home that night and looked into it a bit and learned that I wasn’t the only one that knew about gift card budgeting.

What Are The Benefits Of Gift Card Budgeting?
Gift card budgeting is great because it forces you to spend only a certain amount of money. Other budgeting strategies involve a lot of tedious receipt tracking and self discipline. If you use gift cards to manage your budget, you know just how much money you have in your budget to buy the things you need. Once your gift card is spent, you’re spending is cut and you’ll have to wait. Sure you can cheat and spend more, but at least you’ll know you’re exceeding your budget at the very moment you’re making a purchase. So the first benefit of gift card budgeting is that it helps keep track of your spending much easier.

Gift card budgeting is also beneficial because it makes you do all of your spending at the beginning of the month. If you’re someone who blindly spends all month and ends up with mountains of bills, you’re going about it the backwards. If you spend your money at the beginning of the month, you’ll be able to better forecast whether or not you’ll have enough money for the rest of the month. It may seem counter intuitive to spend your money first because it’s like loaning your money for a month interest free, but if you buy your gift cards on your credit card, you actually can wait to pay for the gift cards until your credit card bill is due. This leads to the next benefit of gift card budgeting.

The third and final benefit of gift card budgeting is that it allows you to get the same rewards from your credit card if you purchase the gift cards with your credit card. Although credit card rewards are very small in comparison to the money you spend, they do still help.

Who Is Gift Card Budgeting Good For?
Gift card budgeting is good for anyone who wastes a lot of money at certain stores. For me, it was Target. I would go in there meaning to buy only a few things, and come out spending more than I planned to. Maybe you have an addiction to gourmet coffee drinks or fast food burgers. Whatever it may be, using gift cards can help you curb your frivolous spending and stay within your budget.

Some Helpful Tips
If you’re thinking about getting started with gift card budgeting, here are a few quick tips. The first tip is to follow a monthly schedule. Trying to do it on a weekly or bimonthly schedule, you’ll have either too much or too little time ahead of you to plan your spending. Sticking with a monthly schedule will be easier on you and will fall into sync with the rest of your monthly bills. This will make it easier to get onto this budgeting path.

The next tip is to make sure you budget intelligently. Go back and look at your spending in months previous and figure out what would be a realistic spending goal to achieve. At first, you might want to take it a little easier so you can be successful your first month. Starting out with a little success and satisfaction from budgeting your money is the only thing that will keep you going, because otherwise it just feels like work.

The final tip is to use reloadable prepaid cards to spend at multiple places while keeping within a budget. These types of cards are offered by most large credit card companies and don’t even require any credit check because you pay the money before you can use the card. If you shop at many different stores, this would be a good way to lump all of your spending under just one card, and have a few other gift cards specifically for stores you visit very frequently.

Interested in investing in the stock market, but just don’t know how or where to start? It might be easier than you think. In this guide you will learn every step necessary to get started in the stock market. As a word of caution, if you can’t afford to lose any of your money, you should not invest in the stock market. There is no sense in risking money you can’t afford to lose in the first place.

Finding A Broker
A broker is your middleman between you and the stock you buy and sell. To find the right broker, you have to first ask yourself a few questions about how you will invest your money.

Online Vs. Offline?
Are you more comfortable in an online or offline environment? If you’re more tech savvy and don’t need to work with a real human being, you might want to start an account with an online stock broker. The main advantage of having an online broker is independence and price. Because you don’t have to deal with people to make your transactions, the overhead for the brokerage is lower, which translates to lower commission fees. But if you’re someone who would rather have a more standard offline broker, there are still advantages to that too. With an offline broker you can get more advice and guidance in the decisions you make with your money.

How long will you plan to hold a stock?
Decades? Months? Weeks? Minutes? The frequency of transactions you make through your broker should be considered before opening an account with a broker. Some brokers offer a fixed transaction fee for every time you buy or sell a stock. These brokers cater to most individual investors regardless of holding period. Other brokers offer a very low fixed fee for each stock transaction, but charge a monthly fee. These brokers cater to those who make many stock transactions per month. The less fees you pay, the more profit you make (or the less losses you will take).

What is your experience level?
How much do you know about the stock market? Can you do your own research or do you need the assistance of another person. Try calling each of your potential brokers to see what their customer service is like. It is important you find a broker that can help you if you need it.

How much information will you need?
Many brokers offer information tools for their customers. I have found that these tools are mediocre at best compared to some tools that are offered for free online. It is convenient to have access to a lot of information through your broker, but if you can use free resources online, you might find a cheaper broker.

Researching
Feeling lucky is never any reason to invest in the stock market. Thorough and complete research is necessary before making any buying or selling decisions in the stock market.

Indices
To start, familiarize yourself with the major US indices in the stock market: the Dow Jones Industrial, the Nasdaq, and the S & P 500. Each index represents the sum fluctuation of many different stocks in a particular category and can give you a good overall view of where the stock market is moving. One important thing to learn is the size of each index. Most of the time, index price movements are reported in points instead of percentages. If you don’t know how large an index is, you won’t be able to tell if a 100 point increase is a good, bad, or average. But the main reason to familiarize yourself with the major indices is to get an overview on the market. A rising tide lifts all the boats in the harbor.

Industries and Sectors
Next, familiarize yourself with each industry and sector in the stock market. Knowing which industries and sectors are in favor can help you make better buying and selling decisions. Again, like with the indices, a rising tide lifts all the boats in the harbor.

Individual Stock Analysis
After learning about the major indices, sectors, and industries, the next step is to learn about actual stocks. The most important thing to know is the relationship between the earnings and the price of a stock. Earnings contribute directly to a stock of a price. The more profitable a company, the more it will be valued. This is perfectly logical, and because it is so logical, there is a ratio that is often mentioned when talking about stocks called the “Price Earnings Ratio” or, more commonly, the “P/E Ratio”. The price earnings ratio is the price of the stock over its earnings. Many believe that the lower the P/E ratio the stock is, the better the stock. I do not believe this because the P/E ratio is a completely relative value. There are two kinds of P/E ratios that are not so often mentioned or discussed but are very important: the “Forward P/E Ratio” and the “Trailing P/E Ratio”. The Forward and Trailing P/E Ratios consider past and future earnings, which can give you a better idea of where a stock is headed. By learning what the forward P/E ratio and the trailing P/E ratio of a stock is, the better you can gauge the value of a stock relative to its past and future earnings.

Further your research by learning about other important ratios and figures of a stock. The “key statistics” page for each stock on Yahoo! Finance does a great job of summarizing the most important ratios and figures of a stock. If you understand what each ratio and figure represents and can easily compare these ratios among several stocks, you’ll be able to research stocks with confidence.

Buying and Selling
Once you have an account, and understand how to research a stock, the next step is to start buying and selling stock to hopefully turn a profit.

Psychology and Discipline
Buy low, sell high, as the old saying goes. This is much easier said than done. In the current internet age we live in, it is far too easy to keep up with the stocks you are holding, or are interested in holding. Minor whipsaws in the stock market can cause unwarranted buying or selling. Being able to master your impulses and discipline yourself is a very important part of investing in the stock market. Many contend mastering the stock market is more an issue of mastering one’s own self than anything else.

Entries And Exits
There are many entry and exit strategies in the stock market. The most basic one involves basic trending movements. When a stock trends upward or downward, its price may move in a channel as seen in the picture below:

Above is a six month chart for nVidia Corp (NVDA). As you can see, it exhibits a clear upward trend between the months November and May. The price moved neatly in a price channel with clear support (green) and resistance points (red).

Buying when the trend forms and selling when the trend breaks would work as a basic entry exit strategy. Of course, now that we can see and examine this chart, it is easy to identify the trend and say: “Oh, if only I bought here and sold there”. Correctly identifying a developing trend is one thing, but having the smarts to act on it is a completely other issue. This goes back to psychology and discipline.

Another thing I should mention. When people mark up charts, there is almost always a heavy bias. Charts can be marked up with all sorts of complicated and often times unnecessary indicators to try to convince people of one thing or another. In the charts above, I try to convince you about the reliability of a trend, when the same chart can be marked up to tell a different story. Always be weary of how stock charts are marked up and manipulated.

Money Management and Risk Control
Money management is asset allocation. Where should you put your money? How much money should you put in each position? How much of whatever stake you have should you risk before selling and moving on. A good risk control strategy limits the amount of risk you have by taking a position. It’s best to set a certain total capital risk percentage for each position you take. For instance, let’s say you want to limit yourself to risking only 1% of your total capital for each position. With this limit, you can put all of your money in a single position and sell if the stock goes down 1%. Or you could put half of your money in a single position and sell if the stock goes down 2%. In both cases, you’re only risking 1% of your total capital. Sound money management and risk control skills are vitally important to protecting your capital. For those of you who like to crunch numbers, this will be easier to learn and apply than for others.

Some General Warnings
As an individual investor, the odds are stacked heavily against you. This is why I urge in the beginning to never invest anything you cannot afford to lose. Start first by investing using a fantasy stock trading game before trying the real thing.

Never believe people who claim guaranteed profits in the stock market. With all of the corruption on Wall Street, it saddens me that there is even more corruption by spammers and scammers who deceive people out of their hard earned money. A product, service, or tip might work once or twice, but nothing can beat thorough research, self discipline, and a sound money management, and risk control strategy.

Do you buy things to make yourself feel happy? Do you base your personality on the things you buy? Do you spend more money than you make? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, you might be a mindless consumer. It’s not at all uncommon to be a mindless consumer, but being one can lead to bad spending habits, bad eating habits, and debt. Here are some ways that can help stop you from being a mindless consumer.

Be Wary Of Buying Holidays
Can you think of a time during the year when you’re encouraged and even expected to buy more than usual? If you are thinking of Christmas, Valentines Day, Mothers’ day, or Fathers’ day, you are absolutely correct. These holidays have become highly commercialized and are losing more meaning and significance every year.

To avoid spending too much during these holidays and to celebrate them more mindfully, try to limit the number and extravagance of the gifts you buy. The best way to do this is to spend more of your time and less of your money on gifts. You can do this by writing more heartfelt cards, selecting more meaningful gifts, and spending time with the people you are giving gifts to. Doing these things will help put less significance on spending money and more significance on friends, family, and loved ones. The effect will benefit your emotional well being, your relationship, and your finances.

Reduce Media Consumption
While you read the paper, listen to the radio, watch TV, and surf the internet, you’re exposing yourself to thousands and thousands of advertisements. Most of the products and services advertised are not completely necessary and can even be harmful. Think of all the advertisements you see chips, soft drinks, fast food, and other products that promote an unhealthy lifestyle. These advertisements can make these products seem more enticing which can lead to an unhealthy diet and weight gain.

So how can you deal with this problem? The answer is to simply reduce the amount of media you consume. The most effective way to do this is to start doing something more productive with your free time. One thing you can do is to take on a part time job at a clothing store to make some extra money and to expand your wardrobe. You can also volunteer at a nursing home to make new friends and to give back to the community. Another thing you can do is to go to the gym and get in shape. Any one of these activities can help you live a healthier, and less consumer centered lifestyle.

Identify Problem Areas
The best way to stop being a mindless consumer is to identify your problem areas. Ask yourself the following questions to help identify your problem areas. What makes you spend your money? Do you have difficulty controlling your impulses? Does spending money makes you feel better?

If you know where your spending habits come from, you’ll be better able to take control of them. Analyze your credit card and checking account statements to see how you spend your money each month. Consider creating a budget to help you spend within your means.

Don’t Follow The Spending Habits Of Your Friends And Family
If your friends and family have bad spending habits, it is likely you do too. If this is the case, there are many things you can do to get on the right track. You can start by learning basic personal finance principles and how to use your money more wisely. After you have the knowledge to improve, all it takes is a little initiative and action on your part.

Take Pride In Your Savings And Investments
Saving and investing your money is beneficial for many reasons. Having savings gives you the freedom to do more and buy more without having to wait for your next paycheck. This can be especially helpful if you encounter unexpected emergencies in your life.

Having investments gives you the opportunity to grow your wealth exponentially over time. This is important because most of the things you spend your money will decrease in value over time. By having both savings and investments in your financial portfolio, you’ll be putting your money to better use than by mindlessly spending it on the latest and greatest consumer products.

Reject The Need To Display Wealth Or An Appearance Of Wealth
Doing things like driving new cars, living in fancy houses, and wearing expensive clothing can all make you look wealthy and successful, but can leave you with mountains of debt. To avoid getting into this problem yourself, learn to take satisfaction from your wealth without having to show it off. Enjoy the benefits of saving and investing your money instead of wasting it on expensive and short lived status symbols like new cars, name brand clothing, and gourmet foods. And if you really must show off your wealth, do so in a financially savvy way. Avoid taking out loans, or racking up credit card debt for these items. Status symbols are more meaningful and satisfying to own if they were purchased within your means.

If you work in a modern office, chances are you use email quite frequently to communicate with other people. While email can be a blessing, it can also be quite burdensome. It is very easy to get distracted and bogged down whenever you receive an email, which can lower your productivity and waste time. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to avoid getting bogged down by email at work. Here are a few tips.

Use The Phone If It’s Quicker
Email is certainly a more technologically advanced mode of communication, but it still can be less efficient than making a simple phone call. It can take up to a half hour to write a long email, and it can take even longer to get a response. Instead of spending so much time writing and waiting, make a phone call to help you speed through your tasks without getting bogged down. Also, using the phone more will reduce your dependence on email, which will mean a cleaner and less cluttered inbox.

Don’t Constantly Check Your Email
If you find yourself checking your email every five minutes, you definitely need to keep a tighter focus on your other tasks. Email can be a huge distraction, but only if you let it distract you. Instead of refreshing your inbox constantly, keep it closed and check it less frequently. If you’re worried about missing an important email, keep your urgent contact Information In your email signature. This tip will help significantly reduce the amount of time you waste on email.

Set Up Email Templates
If you get asked the same questions over and over through email, instead of wasting your time writing responses to each one, make a template for the questions you are asked most commonly. This can help save you lots of time and help those who need answers get them much more quickly.

Don’t Submit Your Work Email Address To Newsletters
If you get interesting non-work related emails in your inbox, the chances of getting distracted will increase dramatically. Learn to guard your inbox at work and use your personal email address for things that aren’t related to work. This can help keep your inbox clean and less filled with distracting emails.

Sort Your Email In Different Folders
Keeping your email in separate folders may take more time up front, but will make it easier for you to go back and find important emails in the future. Also, the more you practice sorting your email, the quicker you will get at it. Eventually you’ll be able to sort your email in a flash and have a well organized email archive for future reference.

Stay On Top Of Things
If your inbox is overflowing with messages, you have a problem. If on the other hand, you stay on top of things and manage your email well, you’ll be less bogged down by it. Get in the habit of responding to email messages quickly and sorting them away for future reference. If you procrastinate and let messages pile up, you’ll have a much more difficult time cleaning things out later. Clutter breeds clutter, so it’s best to do away with it entirely by diligently staying on top of your email.

Turn Off Your New Message Alert
Keeping your inbox’s new message alert on is a surefire way to keep yourself distracted during the day. Each time you get a new message alert, it’s pretty normal to stop what you’re doing and go check what you just received. This can cause a disruption in your work rhythm and make it difficult to get back into the groove of things. Also, when you get alerted each time you receive a new email, it will make it harder to respond right then and there. Instead, you should keep new email alerts off so you can tackle all of your email at once when you’re ready for it.

Use Filters To Eliminate Spam
Fortunately, gambling, porn, and pharmaceutical spam usually is a rarity in the corporate world, but there are still other types of spam that slip through the cracks and make it into your inbox. This spam comes in the form of automatic email notifications from software used by your company. Sometimes these notifications can be helpful while other times they are completely useless. If you get this type of spam, instead of just rolling your eyes when you get it, set up a filter and forget about it.

If you’re spending significantly more money than you make, you’re doing something wrong. This is where budgeting comes into play. When you budget your money, you are better able to reduce frivolous spending, control where your money goes, and save for the future. The benefits of creating a budget will have a huge positive effect on your finance. If you’ve never budgeted before, or are interested in improving your existing budget, this article is for you.

Step 1: Get Into The Right Mindset
The first step to creating a budget is getting into the right mindset. If you haven’t been good with your money in the past, it might be very discouraging to start creating a budget. Why? Because budgeting makes you face the mistakes you’ve made in the past, and that isn’t always easy. But when you own up to these mistakes and learn from them, you will feel a deep sense of satisfaction afterwards. Plus, you’ll be more financially fit and will worry less about your financial situation. Keeping focused on the benefits of budgeting is the right mindset to be in when getting started.

Step 2: Analyze Past Spending
To analyze your spending, it is best to track how much you spend on a monthly basis. If you spend most of your money using a credit card, tracking where your money goes will be a lot easier. Just grab a statement for whatever month you are analyzing. If you spend most of your money using cash, start recording all of your spending in a notebook or on your computer. Once you have a month’s worth of spending data, put it into a spreadsheet and start grouping your spending into different categories (Food/drink, entertainment, car, house, misc, etc.). Dividing your spending into different categories will allow you to see where your money is being spent.

Look at each category and take note of any spending that isn’t completely necessary. Maybe you went out to eat three times in one day or maybe you splurged on an expensive toy. Add up all of the money you spent in this way and subtract if from the total amount of spending. This will give you a rough estimate of the bare minimum spending you will be doing in a given month. Compare this figure to your monthly salary, and the difference will give you a rough estimate on how much you can afford to spend in a given month. It’s pretty simple math. Once you figure out how much money you can spend beyond the necessities, you can move onto the next step.

Step 3: Set Limits
Knowing how much money you can spend outside of the necessities will give you your spending limit. Take this spending limit and start setting limits on how much money you can afford to spend in each category. You may find that you have a lot less money to spend than you may have thought. You will likely have to make sacrifices and changes to your spending habits to live within your limits.

Step 4: Track Your Progress
After you set a budget, keep a close eye on your spending to make sure you can stay within your spending limits. If you step outside of your limits, find out why and try to make an improvement over the next month. After going through this process for several months, your spending and saving habits will get into better shape. It does take a bit of effort, but creating a budget is one of the first steps to financial success.

Visiting a local garage sale is a great way to spend a summer afternoon and save money. If you have any garage sales in your area, you should definitely go out of your way to check them out. People are very willing to part with whatever they’re selling which can lead to deals you won’t find anywhere else. If you’re convinced that garage sales are right for you, here are a few helpful tips to maximize your savings and shopping efficiency.

1. Visit Nicer Neighborhoods
When you go garage sale shopping, try to visit nicer neighborhoods first. The reason for this is because nicer neighborhoods will generally have better quality items at potentially lower prices. Households in nicer neighborhoods also can afford to part with their used goods for bargain prices. For these two reasons, going garage sale shopping in nicer neighborhoods is a great way to find deals.

2. Prepare To Pay With Cash For Everything
Going to a garage sale with nothing but a credit card will get you no where. Before visiting a garage sale, prepare some cash to pay for anything you buy. It’s best to bring too much money than too little. If you have too much, you can just put the excess cash back into your bank account. If you have too little, you might miss out a great bargain.

3. Just Because It’s Used Doesn’t Mean You’re Getting A Deal
Before you buy something at a garage sale, remember that just because it’s used doesn’t mean you’re getting a deal. A lot of garage sale shoppers will blindly snap things up just because they think they’re getting a good deal. Before going garage sale shopping, have an idea of what you’re looking for and what you’re willing to pay. If you encounter something that you’d like to do some quick price research on, it never hurts to call a friend who knows more than you about a particular product. If you have internet access on your phone, you can also do a quick search online.

4. Map Out Your Garage Sale Route
Some neighborhoods arrange events where many households sell their used goods over a single weekend. This is a great way to visit many garage sales at once without wasting time and gas. To maximize the potential bargains you encounter, be prepared to navigate all of the garage sales as efficiently as possible.

5. Always Negotiate
Negotiation goes hand and hand with garage sales. A lot of times, families that have garage sales simply want to get rid of their junk; the money is just a bonus. Keeping this in mind will help you remain steady while negotiating. Like any negotiating process, it does help to point out defects in the what you’re interested in to knock a few dollars off the price. It’s also important to be respectful and to remember that negotiation is a form of cooperation. Work with the seller to reach a fair agreement for both of you.

6. Avoid Certain Items
Whenever you buy used, there are always a few things you should steer clear of. Some items might be unsafe while others might be completely obsolete. If you avoid the following items, you should be in the clear.

• Child car seats
• Helmets
• Things you can’t try out on the spot
• Certain electronics
• Anything that you don’t know the fair price of
• Underwear

7. Visit The Same Garage Sale Twice
Visiting the same garage sale twice will allow you to pick up great bargains twice. If you visit a particular garage sale early, you can pick up any items you’re interested in before anyone else. Before leaving the garage sale for the first time, ask the seller when the last day will be and visit again on that day. When you visit on the last day of a garage sale, you’ll be able to negotiate much more successfully than if you visit earlier. The reason for this is that at the end of a garage sale, the seller will be much more willing to part with their goods than any previous day. The more they get rid of on the last day, the less they have to clean up.

8. Assume All Sales Are Final
Before making any purchases, assume that all sales are final. Garage sales are very informal and because cash is used for every transaction there won’t be any receipts. Although some sellers might record each transaction, don’t depend on it. Instead, think each of your decisions through and only buy what you are absolutely sure you won’t want to bring back.

There are many free websites online today that can help you find bargains and save money. A lot of these sites are run by companies, passionate deal hunters, or both. If you’re looking to find the best prices online, or connect with other deal hunting fanatics, these sites are for you. These seven sites were selected from hundreds of similar sites and are either the best of their kind, or offer a unique or special service.

1. Fat Wallet ( fatwallet.com )
If you should know about any one deal site, you should know about Fat Wallet. The reason why Fat Wallet is better than most other deal sites is because of its community. The Fat Wallet forum is populated by over 500,000 of the most savvy and passionate deal hunters around. You won’t find a community of that size and quality very easily online. So check out the Fat Wallet forum’s hot deal section and browse around. Fat Wallet also has a coupon / cash back section which has some deals, but the forum is really where all of the best deals are.

2. Deals Plus ( dealspl.us )
Deals Plus is another great community driven money saving site that has an unusual but memorable domain name. Each of the deals on Deals Plus are submitted by its users. The interesting thing about Deals Plus is that it has a lot of features similar to a social network. You can add friends to your profile, send messages to other users, and comment on different products with other members. These features can’t be found on many deal sites, making Deals Plus a unique social network for deal hunters. The good news though is that you don’t have to be an active participant in the social networking aspect of the site to take advantage of the deals. All of the deals on Deals Plus are accessible to anyone that visits the site.

3. Deal News ( dealnews.com )
Deal News’ main strength is the sheer volume of deals posted on their site. There are many sites like Deal News, but none come close to Deal News in terms of size. Each day, Deal News posts hundreds of deals to their site which you can keep track of by subscribing to their RSS feed or newsletter. Deal news also has a forum, but it isn’t quite as large or active as other deal sites. Again, the main benefit of Deal News is the large number of deals they post every day.

4. Woot ( woot.com )
Woot is an online store with a business model different than most. It only sells one product per day at a reduced price. Each day, a new product is offered until it is sold out. Some days, Woot sells mystery bags for $5 dollars a piece which can contain just about anything. Woot also has two subsites: Woot Wine ( wine.woot.com ) and Woot Shirt ( shirt.woot.com ).

5. Slick Deals ( slickdeals.net )
Slick Deals is a site very similar to Fat Wallet, where there is a large emphasis on the community forums. The forum on Slick Deals has over 300,000 members and over 11,000,000 posts. The forum is very actively updated with hot deals, freebie deals, coupon deals, and contests by some of the internet’s most passionate deal hunters. One advantage of the Slick Deals forum over the Fat Wallet forum is that each Slick Deals thread is categorized, making deal browsing a lot easier.

6. Mint ( mint.com )
Mint is a free financial tracking service that can help beginners and personal finance geeks handle their finances more easily. After signing up for a Mint account, you can add the checking, credit, investing, and savings accounts you want to keep track of. Mint allows you to see where your money goes in real time and makes budgeting a breeze. Mint also makes use of simple graphs and charts to make it easier for you to visualize where your money goes. Some of Mint’s newer features include local spending comparisons where you can compare your spending habits to others in your area. It’s a wonder they offer this service for free and is certainly something to check out.

7. Dealighted ( dealighted.com )
Dealighted is a website that aggregates the best deals from many different deal sites. Dealighted also allows users to submit deals, which increases the number of deals on their site. The reason why Dealighted is a useful site is because it puts the best deals in one place so you don’t have to scrounge around on multiple sites.

Saving money isn’t the most fun thing in the world. It’s so much easier to spend your money and to satisfy your whims. But the truth is, saving money is an important part of insuring your financial future. If you struggle with saving money, here are five simple tips to become a more disciplined saver.

1. Put Your Money Into A Separate Savings Account
The first way to become a more disciplined saver is to put your savings into a separate account. If you save your money in a checking account, you may want to consider putting it into a separate savings account instead. Putting your money is a separate savings account will help grow your savings with interest, and make it harder for you to spend it. These two advantages can help you become a more disciplined saver and help boost your savings in a big way.

2. Budget Your Money
Setting a budget and sticking to it is one of the best ways to become a more disciplined saver. By budgeting your money, it’s becomes easier to set saving goals and to know when you’re spending too much money. Without a budget, it’s like you spend and save blindly and without a plan. Having a budget puts you on a plan that will help you be a more disciplined saver.

3. Learn The Value Of Compound Interest And Investment Returns
If you are currently struggling with credit card debt, you probably understand how powerfully interest can work against you. Now imagine if interest was working for you instead of against you. When you have interest working in your favor, you have returns that build on your past returns, which will grow your wealth exponentially. Knowing the benefit of having savings and investments will help make it easier to be a disciplined saver.

4. Track All Of The Money You Spend
The more you track how much money you spend, the better you’ll be able to identify your problem areas. Maybe you buy gourmet coffee every morning but just don’t realize how much it really costs on a monthly basis. Those small purchases can really add up, and if you’re not aware of this, you can end up spending a lot more money than you intend to. So keep track of where your money goes and figure out where you’re wasting your money and stop it.

5. Adopt New Spending Habits
Think about the friends and family you are closest to. Chances are, your spending habits are very similar to theirs. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how well your friends and family members spend and save their money. If you have bad spending habits like those closest to you, learn to be more responsible with your money and take an active role in changing the way you spend your money.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are three of our inalienable rights as stated in the US Declaration of Independence. This article will focus on the pursuit of happiness and its relationship to money. Balancing your money and happiness isn’t always an easy task. If you spend too little, you can miss out on many life experiences, but if you spend too much, you can easily fall deeply into debt. This is why it’s so important to strike a balance between your money and happiness. Here are a few tips to help you out.

1. Don’t Be Too Frugal
Frugality is generally a good thing, but if it’s overdone, it can do more harm than good. If you live too frugally, you might miss out on opportunities to live your life to the fullest. To avoid this mistake, evaluate your financial situation and determine whether you’re being too frugal.

If you’re not spending enough money on yourself and your own enjoyment, you might want to change your habits. Instead of putting all of your money into untouchable savings, you may want to start a vacation, or rainy day fund. This will help you continue your healthy saving habits, while putting some of your money into your own enjoyment.

2. Find Out What Gives You The Most Happiness Per Dollar
Using the metric of happiness per dollar can help you save money and pursue what makes you happiest. Determining the happiness per dollar of your favorite activities can also help you track your hobby related spending. If you don’t track and budget your spending, you can easily squander away a lot of your money.

To determine what yields the highest happiness per dollar, start off by firing up your favorite spreadsheet program. List all of the activities and hobbies you enjoy and rate how much relative happiness they each give you on a 1 to 10 scale (10 being the most). In another column, write down the annual costs related to each particular activity and hobby. In the third column, put the two values into a happiness per dollar ratio. The next step is to sort the results by happiness per dollar.

The information won’t be perfect. Even if, say, cars bring in a 10 on your happiness scale, it may have a low happiness per dollar ratio because of the high costs of car ownership and maintenance. Although there may be some abnormalities in your results, putting together a spreadsheet like this can put things into perspective and set you on your way to having a more satisfying life while spending less.

3. Don’t Fall Into The Debt Trap
Falling deeply into dept can be one of the costliest mistakes you could ever make. Because of the way interest works, debt can snowball very quickly and can become virtually impossible to pay off. Being financially trapped by debt can make it very difficult to enjoy the activities and hobbies that bring you the most satisfaction. They say the best things in life are free, but not having money is certainly no walk in the park.

To avoid falling into the debt trap, practice frugality, and spend within your means. This can take a lot of discipline but can benefit you tremendously in the future. By keeping your personal debt under control, you’ll have more time and money to enjoy your life.

4. Volunteer And Donate To Charity
One of the most satisfying things you can do is to give your time and money to a worthy cause. Volunteering and donating can have many positive effects on both you and your community. If you’ve never volunteered or given to a charity, it’s never too late to start. You can search online for local non-profit organizations to give your time and money to. One particularly helpful website for connecting volunteers to non-profits is VolunteerMatch.org.

One important side effect of giving your time and money to others is that money will have less of a hold on you. If you live frugally and pinch all of your pennies, you can easily become a miser. Being able to share what you have may not have immediate monetary benefits, but will help you keep your life more balanced.

5. Turn A Passion Into A Second Job Or Business
Everyone has at least one thing they’re very passionate about. Typically if you’re passionate about something, you probably have a high level of expertise in the area which can lead to a second job or successful business. This can help you spend more time doing what you love while making some extra money on the side.

If you do have a particular passion you’d like to turn into a second job or business, the first thing to do is to see what’s out there. If there are many businesses in the area you’re interested in, it might be a better idea to find employment instead of starting your own business. A crowded market is never easy to break into, but if your passion lies in a small niche, you might have what it takes to start and run a successful business.