personal finance in a coupon blog

There are inventions that are life transforming: the wheel, the electric light, the telephone, the airplane, the internet. There are inventions that make life easier and better: iPods, laptops, microwave popcorn. And then there are inventions that are not so much proof of human ingenuity as they are evidence that given time, access to power tools and a dream, man can indeed build a better mousetrap.

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The following are a few products that might not be life transforming, but are certainly good for a chuckle or two:

It's football season and women across America not only have to contend with their significant others turning into slack-jawed zombies in front of the TV, but they have to deal with them being glued to the computer as well as the Bill Belichick wannabes pore over their "rosters," making trades and benching players.

Fantasy football has become one of the biggest crazes in football over the last decade, extending the pigskin obsession well beyond Sundays and Monday nights. WalletPop's Aaron Crowe recently posted about how to play without leaving a fantasy football widow.

For those of you unfamiliar with how fantasy football works, you draft whichever players you want and depending on how they perform during the actual game, your fantasy team accumulates points. If you score more points than your opponent(s) that week, you win. If you've never tried playing, you're probably wondering how people become so caught up given some leagues cost as much as $10,000 to join.

Here are some of the top reasons why fantasy football is such a huge craze:

At first glance, "Cleansing Oil" sounds like an oxymoron. How can an oil clean your skin? Won't it leave it greasier than when you started?

Not so with DHC Deep Cleansing Oil, which melted my makeup and left my skin baby soft and super fresh.

For this week's Featured Store we here at Savings.com would like to kick up our heels in joy and thanks to the ever-fabulous FootSmart. Through bunions and backaches, in fitness and in stealth, the footloose and frolicsome employees at FootSmart have been in the business of saving our soles since 1989.

Amen!

If you missed out on cashing in on that clunker in your driveway, now is your chance to cash in on that clunker in your kitchen. The question is, will the program be ultimately worthwhile for our environment and your wallet?

While some travelers simply can't live without their yearly beach vacation, others can't wait for an autumn getaway to the mountains or ski chalet rental in winter! As summer winds down, travel discounts are just getting started. Individuals or families looking to travel this fall have a great array of choice destinations to choose from.

Below are five of the most popular adventures for autumn travelers.

Yesterday I blogged about saving with coupons and talked about the different kind of deals (site-wide, category and product) and discounts (percent off, dollar off and free shipping). Today I'm going to explain which deals save you the most money and why--as well as how to find them.

So of the three types of deals, which kinds work the best?

It's 3:00 in the afternoon and you're sitting behind your computer at work with a slight tension headache mounting and tight, sore shoulders screaming for release. Who hasn't felt this way sitting in the same position for long periods of time? You've hit the late afternoon wall.

What do you do?

If weekly chiropractic sessions or massages aren't in your budget, there are many good habits to adopt to alleviate that knot between your shoulders.

Here are some suggestions:

The health care debate isn't the only thing in the news these days. In a recent radio address, President Obama talking about retirement savings and how people can best prepare for the future. The Obama plan has two pretty significant proposals that will help people save who might be avoiding the issue.

In the Obama proposal, employees will be able to add unused sick days and vacation days into a retirement account--something that's normally lost if remained unused. Another proposal is to allow people to deposit their tax refund into savings bonds. This is a kind of forced savings proposal because you can't borrow off a savings bond for five years without a penalty, meaning those savings will be locked tight from people who don't have the willpower.

Now that tried and true investments are not as solid as they used to be, and people lost a significant amount of value in 401(k)s and other investments, retirees need to look into other areas. What it comes down to is that good old-fashioned saving is more important than ever.

Here are some of the basic steps you should take and how the new national initiatives should help people struggling to save.

Happy Monday, fellow couponeers! Here at Savings.com we are gearing up for a new week of--well, savings--and we are pleased as pie (as we always are) to roll out the red carpet of discounts with this weeks Top 10 Deals.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee, wipe the sleep from your eyes and maybe stretch a little because this week's Top 10 are sure to have you jumping for joy!

Since our website has thousands of different coupons and discounts people are always asking: "How can I save the most money?" "What types of coupons work the best?"

So here are some suggestions to help you save the most while using the coupons and deals at Savings.com.

In honor of Sara's post on school bands, I decided to post a collection of blog posts that dealt with the topic of school or...uh, bands. Or music. How does this have anything to do with finance? Patience, grasshopper, patience!

We may be stretching it a bit here, but here's this week's round-up of band geek inspired finance stories: