I am a firm believer in giving a portion of what you make to some sort of charitable organization. Whether you view that as your local church or some charitable organization is up to you. Many people, myself included, believe that giving is a major part of financial health since it takes your eyes off of just making money and helps you realize what you can do with money. With all this time we spend talking about money we need remember that money is a tool not a prize.

That being said you should be careful about who or what you give your money to. Find a cause you believe in but make sure the people “leading” that cause are taking care of the money they are given. When we donate to a charity outside of our normal giving, my wife and I give to the

Salvation Army. We do so because we believe in their mission and because they are one of the most efficient charities year in and year out. I know this because they are very transparent with their financial accounting and have gained this reputation through years and years of good stewardship.

If you are looking at giving to a charity but are not sure whether they are the best investment for your giving check out give.org and charitynavigator.org. I prefer give.org because they include the financial information from religious organizations in their data, but both are great websites. This is a great way to make sure the money you give is actually going to the cause or causes you believe in.

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The sale of premium mattresses in the U.S. is going through the roof! It seems Americans are sleeping less than they used to and to compensate they are spending a fortune on mattresses. To clarify a premium mattress is one that costs $2500 or more. $2500!!! Now I have searched and searched and found no real scientific evidence that one of these mattresses actually helps you sleep better. My wife and I sleep on a comfortable queen-size pillow top mattress that we bought at one of the warehouse clubs (with box spring) for just over $400. Yes, it was on clearance. Now I am not saying go get a crappy bed but the truth is your body adjusts to what you are sleeping on in about three nights.

There are many factors that can help you get a good nights sleep. The most comprehensive list I found was at

helpguide.org. In their guide they talk about daytime habits, sleep environment, pre-sleep rituals, and give you some tips for getting back to sleep. Overall a great resource.

Now I have a few rules when it comes to buying a mattress.

Rule 1 - Never let a pregnant woman pick out your mattress- This is a tip from my big sister who picked out her mattress when she was pregnant. Now she has to deal with what feels like a giant piece of rock. She and her husband joke about it every time the subject comes up. Also you will probably spend more when a pregnant woman picks the mattress because what are you supposed to do, say no? Whoa you are a braver man than I am.

Rule 2 - Always Shop the Warehouse Clubs First- This may sound crazy but Sams, BJ’s, and Costco actually have some pretty good mattresses. We got ours from BJ’s and it was made by Bassett. It has been great and my wife, a very light sleeper, sleeps on it as soundly as she is able. I can sleep anywhere, anytime, and in almost any position (this includes upside down and kneeling on the floor). So we did not buy a bed to suit my needs, because I have none.

Rule 3 - Always Pay Cash at a Mattress Store- As with any furniture buy there is a lot of flexibility in price. I always pay cash for furniture. In fact I bring in $100 bills and will offer about 2/3 of the price and lay the cash on the piece of furniture in front of the salesperson. This makes the salesperson uncomfortable but they will usually counter offer somewhere in the area of your price.

Rule 4 - Do Not be Afraid to Walk Away- Once again this is a general furniture rule. If the store manager will not come down on the price walk away and find another store that will. If you are vindictive (like me) you can take your new mattress home in a pickup truck after you stop by the first store and show the manager what you got.

So next time you buy a mattress remember that the price does not always translate into sleep.

Following up on my post last week

Filling in Holes, I finally got a chance to call some cemeteries to see if they would give me free dirt to fix my back yard. I called three and all were very polite. The first had another company that took the excess dirt for them. The second and third both had a pile of dirt that I was welcome to take as much as I wanted. At the advising of one of my readers I also called the local school district to see if I could take some dirt from behind their softball field (where they apparently dump all the excess from building projects). Although pleasant on the phone, no one knew who I would have to ask to get permission and as with most bureaucracies I was handed off in circles until I got frustrated and gave up. So the best bet seems to be my original idea of going to the cemeteries. So next time you need some dirt don’t waste your money having someone haul it to you. Just borrow a truck and run to the local cemetery to get it free.

Ever look at something on the shelf and think, “man, I could really use that but am I getting a good deal?” That question can now be answered as long as the item you are looking at has a bar code. Introducing

Frucall, an online company that offers three ways to compare prices from your mobile phone. You can call the toll free number 1-888-363-7822 and enter the bar code, text message the bar code to 37811 and they will text you back, or you can use your mobile web browser to go to http://frucall.com/m and use the mobile version of their website. This is a great way to make sure you are at least getting a fair price.

Yes it is Cyber Monday. This is the online equivalent of Black Friday. Almost every retailer has something going on today so get out there and find the best deals on Christmas presents (or whatever holiday you celebrate). There are not as many options to find deals on Cyber Monday as there are for Black Friday. The best place I have found is a forum from

Gottadeal.com. There are tons of great links there to some of the best online deals of the season. Have fun but try not to overspend.

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Well I had a reasonably successful Black Friday and yet completely frustrating. Although I had planned to go to five stores ,I only made it to two because neither one was ready for the onslaught of customers. I was in Warner Robins, Ga visiting family for Thanksgiving so I went out on Friday morning at 4AM with my brother-in-law. We went to Circuit City first and he scored a 46 and 32 inch television. This took so long I had to abandon him there and head to Staples. At staples I got a GPS, some PC memory, and a cool pad for my wife’s laptop. By the time I got out of Staples, which opened at 6AM and picked up my brother-in-law at CC it was 8:30 so we went home and played with our new toys and forgot about the smaller items on my hit list. Did anyone take a shot at Black Friday and come out ahead?

Have you ever had an experience with a doctor (good or bad) that you wanted to tell others about? Or have you ever moved to a new area and were at a complete loss for where to find a quality doctor? Both these problems can now be solved at

ratemds.com. This is a great site to tell where the best doctors are in you area rated by people like you and the site allows the consumer to finally get a voice about physicians so that everyone can vote with their feet. It has great search features and the ratings are split into punctuality, helpfulness, and knowledge. No more slow, dumb, unhelpful doctors for me!

I have a 105 pound Dog. She really is a sweet dog, well, except to the unfortunate wild life that wander into our back yard. Unfortunately she likes to dig a hole once in a while. This is not an easy thing to fill in. It seems she doesn’t get tired until the back yard starts to look like a war zone. So I have been trying to figure out a way to get some cheap dirt (preferably free) to fill in these holes. So who digs holes and then has more dirt than the holes can hold? THE CEMETARY!! That’s right, I am going to call the local cemetaries to see if I can get some free dirt. I will let you know how it goes. Does anyone else have a better idea?

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A good friend complained that I have shown him all sorts of ways to spend less money on things he buys regularly but have not shown any ways to make a little extra cash on the side. In response to his whining request I introduce

Cash Duck. I had considered writing about this web site earlier but some major changes took place about a month ago and I wanted to make sure that everything was running properly before I recommended it to anyone. Basically the way Cash Duck works is you go through and perfomr different task (take surveys, sign up for free offers, etc.) and you earn a certan number of feathers (just like points but since the theme of the site is ducks, well you get it). You can cash those feathers in for gift cards or prizes. The prizes change from month to month but the gift cards work like this:

400 feathers = $25 gift card
775 feathers = $50 gift card
1150 feathers = $75 gift card

As you can see the more feathers you cash in at one time the better the deal on the gift card. I counted aproximately 75 different stores from which you could request a gift card. My favorite is Wal-Mart so that I can get gasoline, food, or other needs. This allows me to do a few extra things here and there with my budget. The feathers add up pretty quickly since all the free offers are 10 to 15 feathers and there are always a good number of offers on the site. There are also offers where you can receive hundreds of feathers but they are usualy for limited time trials. Make sure you cancel before the end of the trial period or you will be charged. Also, always use a credit card (NOT A DEBIT CARD) so you can dispute the charges if you cancel in time and the company still charges you. So far this year I have earned a little over $700 from Cash Duck and I have found it pretty easy to get atleast 600 feathers per month without doing the limited time trial offers. You can check out the site and sign up here.

Just a few free samples for you to enjoy

Mystery Shampoo and Conditioner Sample

Biz Laundry Detergent

Huggies Gentle Care Sensitive Baby Wipes

Breathe Right Nasal Strips

The title is not trying any thunder from Lazy Man and Money (this is an awesome blog you should check it out), but emphasize how the adoption of online retailing by the larger box stores is making it easier and easier to not have to go out on Black Friday. Now the best door buster deals are not usually available online, but a lot of the good deals will be. Each retailer is different in how they will be handling online sales so you have to research each one. I do know that Wal-Mart and Best Buy will be offering some of their BF sales online.

Now for the person who doesn’t want to bother with Black Friday at all there is a fairly new phenomenon called Cyber-Monday. This is the Monday after Thanksgiving when everyone is dragging back into work. Basically a large number of on-line retailers (Amazon, NewEgg, Buy.com, etc.) use this day as the start to the Holiday Season and begin all their big sales that day. The deals for Cyber-Monday are much harder to hunt down than Black Friday deals. Apparently either the online retailers are able to keep their ads from leaking (no paper) or the monkeys who run the message boards feel some loyalty to their online brethren. So far all I have found is a tidbit here and there and two sites,

cybermonday.com and Dealio.com, that are dedicated to providing a list of Cyber-Monday deals but not until the day is actually upon us. Personally I will be doing both looking for good deals on gifts for my family and friends. I hope your shopping experience is grand and that no one gets trampled this year.

Here are a few free items to reduce stress in your life.

No need to worry about smelling bad so I found some

free deodorant

For those that need it here is a free stress ball

And since some cope by eating here is a free Arby’s Milkshake

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O.K. so you have honed your body, and prepared your information for this great day of shopping. Now you need an A+ strategy for attacking the stores on Black Friday. The first step is decide, what is your have got to have number one item? Once you decide on your top pick you will need to know if there are other things on sale at that store that you want to pick up. However many individual items you want to purchase at the alpha store is how many people you need to take with you to that store. In my personal experience Wal-Mart is a lost cause. Why even put yourself in a place where you could get trampled? I would focus on the next tier Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, and other big box stores.

Now that you have determined your alpha target it is time to determine targets Bravo through golf (that’s 2-7 if you have that many). The way I do this is two fold. I list all the items I want to purchase in one column followed by the store that each item is on sale in the second column. I then rate how busy that store will be. If one item is more important than the others it moves to the top of the list and that store will be visited second. If they are all equal value I then determine the likely hood of that item selling out by how busy that store is likely to be. For example: If I were trying to get a great deal on a thumb drive and it was on sale at Circuit City (a high traffic store) I would go there much earlier in the day than if it were on sale at Staples, because people do not as easily think of Staples as a place to get a great deal on Black Friday. To Help you out here is my list rated from 5 to 1 (5-most traffic, 1-least traffic). This of course depends on if you have these store in your area.

5-Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Toys R Us
4-Circuit City, Comp USA, K Mart, HHGregg,
3-All the department stores (Sears, Macy’s, Etc.), Radio Shack
2-Home Depot, Lowes
1-Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Ace Hardware, Pep Boys (yes even Pep Boys is in on the fun)

I have decided to add one more post onto this series so check back tomorrow for my the conclusion.

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On Black Friday there is a miriad of advertising and tempting deals to lure you in every direction. The second key to a successful Black Friday shopping experience is knowing what stores you want to hit. In the old days, before the internet, everyone had to wait until all the ads were released which was usually just a few days before. You can still use these ads but with the internet now available it gives you much more time to prepare your hit sheet. Different sites will have different ads available so your best bet is to look for the stores that are in your area on the different sites and then collect data accordingly. The two sites I like the most are

blackfriday.info and black-friday.net. Both of these sites have pretty good coverage of the major stores and they include the opiton of creating a shopping list by registering with their site. None of the other sites I have gone through have this option. Just in case you are interested the other sites are: blackfriday.dealspl.us, dealtaker.com, gottadeal.com, blackfridayads.com, theblackfriday.com, and bfads.net. All of these are great sites to start forming you list. Tomorrow I will go over my final step of Black Friday preparation — Strategy.

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Black Friday is next week and the hype surrounding it is in full swing. The day got its name for the day when retailers typically make a profit for the year or are “in the black.” As someone who used to work in retail full time I am always amused by the rumblings of what is happening with black friday. The big box stores are always out there threatening to sue people for releasing their Black Friday ads early (especially Wal-Mart), people are going nuts over the next “favorite” toy, and the commission sales people are raking in the dough.

If you are going to venture out and go for the big prizes on Black Friday you must realize that this is not a fun and games shopping experience. It’s more like a blood sport. There are three areas you will need to take into consideration to be successful at Black Friday shopping and the first is physical preparation.

To prepare physically you will need to go to bed early. Please do not try to hit 7 stores in one day with no sleep. You want to know why someone gets trampled every year? Because they fell asleep near the front of the line. If you are going after one of the door buster deals you will be up by at least 3am, if not earlier, trying to get a spot near the front of the line. This means you will need more than just yourself to be out there. That way someone can hold your spot so you can go to the bathroom, or while one of you goes for food. You will need the same number of people as items you are trying secure. So if there are three specific door buster deals you want from Best Buy then you will need two other friends or family that will go get those items while you go for the most important prize. They will not be there if you try to run around the store picking each one up individually. As per the BF rules everyone from your party must start in line together. That way no one can complain about you not having been there from the beginning. For good measure, if one of you goes out for food offer to get something for the person behind you in line. By extending this act of kindness they are not likely to get upset with you for not having everyone stay put. So, now that you have enough sleep and you have enough bodies you are physically ready for BF and can move on to the second area of preparation… information. Which we will talk about tomorrow.

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I used to live just south of Charlotte, NC (SC has lower taxes). I would commute to the north side of Charlotte for work driving about 30 miles one way. It was at this point in time that I became fascinated with autowrapping. You have probably seen cars that have advertising that completely covers the car. Many of these vehicles are owned by the company that is being advertised, but some of them are just private citizens that are being paid to advertise with their vehicle. My problem was that my cars have always been so old that no one wanted to advertise on them. Now that I have a new enough car I don’t drive far enough to entice an advertiser (plus I live in the country so not enough possible customers either).

Now I am sure some are curious as to why I would want to do this. The reason is they pay you somewhere between $200-$400 per month. That could pay off your car!! It could cover the rising cost of gasoline. I mean that is a significant chunk of change for letting someone advertise on your vehicle. The contracts vary in length but I found two companies that still do this type of advertising. They are

AutoWrapped and Ad-Wraps. There are some others but they want you to pay a membership fee so that seems like a scam. If you live in a heavily populated are this might be a nice source of income for you.

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Here are a few free samples for you to enjoy:

Free sample of

Nestle Crunch Crisp Bar

For the coffee drinkers free samples of Shelbourne falls Coffee and Coffeemate Creamer

Health conscious? Try and Ensure Nutrition Shake

And if you need to take the edge off here’s a sample of Pravda Vodka

Here’s a couple freebies that are great for your kids:

Free ticket for baby’s first circus from Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Free Sesame Street Fire Safety Station Stories & Songs Casse...

For those of you who think your pets are your childrent:

Free online pet training videos and lots of coupons.

$8 off Iams dog food

Ever get that feeling that an offer was too good to be true? I get mail and e-mail all the time where the business or deal seems like it could be legitimate but something just doesn’t smell right. I recently ran across a great site for testing these waters,

RipoffReport.com. This site allows people to post all the scams they have run across. So far there are more than 275,000 reports and the search feature on the site is pretty accurate. Best of all it’s FREE!! So you can take advantage of all this consumer knowledge at no cost. Have a happy weekend. I will be posting a few more freebies on Saturday and Sunday.

Microsoft office is too expensive and the Monopoly that Microsoft has on the development of quality documents is ridiculous. There are reasonable alternatives out there. The most popular is

open office. Open office was developed by Sun Microsystems a direct competitor with Microsoft on large servers and business systems. This software is distributed free of charge and works almost exactly like all of the office suite.

The second alternative is actually web based and called thinkfree.com. I have not used this platform as much as open office but what I have seen is pretty impressive. They provide you with a Gigabyte of online space to store information and their online applications work just as advertised. Once again the service is free, all you do is sign up online.

Both of these applications work with the files that are produced by the Microsoft Office suite so you can send them to anyone and they will be able to open them. For most people this is a great alternative to spending hundreds of dollars on the Microsoft product. They both have support for Word, Power Point, and Excel documents and will work in a way that is familiar to anyone that has used the Microsoft products. So the question now becomes, do you really want to pay for Microsoft’s overpriced product?

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I love teachers. Well mostly because my wife is one. Teachers deserve a lot of credit for the work that they do. For this reason I present

Tech Trekers freebie section for teachers. This site has not been updated for a while but in clicking around I found that almost all of the links work. Overall a great site for teachers and home school parents.

Do you ever get tired of the constant barrage of credit card offers? I know I do. I just learned about a website that can help. It is called [url=https://www.optoutprescreen.com/]optoutpreescreen.com[url]. The site is pretty simple and gives you the pros and cons of receiving unsolicited offers for credit and insurance. You can opt out of these offers for five years right from the website or you can use snail mail and opt out forever. Doesn’t seem like a bad idea for people who no longer want 6 tons of junk mail a week.

This particular tip has saved me hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Target is the second largest retailer in the world. They are priced slightly higher than Wal-Mart but have managed to grab the public perception that they offer higher quality products. What most people do not know is that they are the king of clearance. The way the clearance at Target works on regular items is that once an item is marked clearance it will usually be marked down 30%. After two weeks it will go to 50% off. And then it will finally be marked down to 75% off. I have used these clearance deals to purchase bikes, linens, shampoo, electronics, etc. Most of them at 75% off the regular price. Now seasonal (holiday items) go through this clearance cycle much faster, meaning days instead of weeks, and the seasonal items go up to 90% off. You will see the clearance items marked with a small red tag. You always have to scan the bar codes because the prices will update before the employees will remark the items.

The mar down schedule for Target goes like this:

Monday–kids clothing, infants dept. and electronics (maybe food also)

Tuesday–women’s clothing (maybe food also)

Wednesday–men’s clothing,garden, health and beauty

Thursday–lingerie, shoes, house wares, sporting goods, luggage, toys

Friday–cosmetics, hardware, auto, domestics, home improvement and jewelry

Be aware not all stores follow this schedule. It is more like a guideline. Just to give you a few recent examples of clearance items small appliances just went on 75% clearance less than a week ago. I saw a KitchenAid K45SS Classic 250-Watt 4-1/2-Quart Stand Mixer which retails on Amazon.com for $170.00, but it was on clearance at Target for $60. A four slice toaster that is regularly $70 was $16.24. This is a great way to save money on everyday needs as well as some big ticket items.

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The Washington Post released a story yesterday that KB Stores will be closing 156 stores at locations across the country. They only listed the six stores in the DC area that will be closing and the message boards also listed the Milpitas store in the bay area of California. All these store are scheduled to close by Jan. 8. This may be a great way to get some last second deals for Christmas. If you don’t know if there is a store near you they have a

store locater on their website.

Here are a few freebies I found that help you take care of yourself:

Shampoo and Conditioner from

Vive Pro

Skin care from Garnier Nutritioniste

If you need to quit smoking I found a 20 piece sample of Nicorette Gum

And a free weeks supply of DanActive, a probiotic dairy drink from Dannon

It is the Friday after Halloween so it is time to buy your decorations for next year. Most general retailers carry Halloween supplies but once Halloween is over these items become an albatross around their neck because they are taking up space for Christmas items. Thus, Halloween supplies go on Clearance fast. I was in Wal-Mart yesterday and all the Halloweens stuff was 50% off. This amount will increase over the weekend. Target will eventually cut all seasonal (aka holiday) items up to 90% off.

Since I mentioned Christmas. Wal-Mart has decided to hold a secret sale. This means they are releasing some of their Black Friday Deals early. The three major items they have slashed prices on are a 50″ plasma tv, an HD dvd player, and a laptop. There are a couple more deals you can check them all out

here. I do not recommend the HD DVD player. I will be talking about why in a post next week. Keep checking in this weekend for some more freebies!

Ever look at something on the shelf and think, “man, I could really use that but am I getting a good deal?” That question can now be answered as long as the item you are looking at has a bar code. Introducing

Frucall, an online company that offers three ways to compare prices from your mobile phone. You can call the toll free number 1-888-363-7822 and enter the bar code, text message the bar code to 37811 and they will text you back, or you can use your mobile web browser to go to http://frucall.com/m and use the mobile version of their website. This is a great way to make sure you are at least getting a fair price.