Suze Orman on Oprah

Financial expert, Suze Orman, states that women must start making better use of their own money - for themselves. They must stop undervaluing themselves and ‘take themselves off the sales rack’.

Okay, that works for me. According to the Post Chronicle, you can catch Suze Orman give Oprah a few financial tips like not maxing out the credit card, saving tips and planning for retirement on January 8th.

There’s an interesting post and discussion going on over at Seattlepi which was also picked up by Brian Reed, aka Rebeldad, regarding the effect the threadbare economy may have on family life in 2009.

When times are fine and money is rolling in, it’s easy enough to fork out on the latest electronic pet or membership of this month’s hottest activity club, pay for childcare, pay for anything, in fact, that will soak up a little of the kid’s free time and leave the parents free to … To what? Make more money? Have sex?  Watch a movie?

Who knows - anything except spend time with the kids, I guess.

Now, though, when every expenditure is going to have to be carefully considered, money spent on kids sports activities, childcare or expensive toys is hard to justify. Fair enough, if Johnny loves his tennis, money will often be scraped together even if it means sacrifices elsewhere. But what if Jane goes along to hockey camp twice a week but really hates the game and you are only sending her there because she has to do something.

Perhaps the whole lean economy deal will result in increased communication between parents and kids; more time spent playing, talking, walking and being together than we were able to squeeze in while we were all frantically trying to keep up with the pushy consumerism that has been shoved down our throats over the last ten years.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure so they say and that has never been more true than right now when spending on luxury items is becoming harder to justify. But how do you find one man’s trash to turn it into your own treasure in the first place? There is always eBay of course, where bargains can still be had (witness last year’s UK bride, Heather Saint, who picked up her antique silk and lace bridal gown for a piddling 5p from eBay UK), but cheap or not you must still expect to pay something at eBay.

What about if I told you there was a place online where you could find things for FREE? On the day I stumbled across freebootr.com, a website that appears to be run by a mad pirate, I found items as diverse as a box spring double bed, a handcarved wooden rocking chair, a Sundance Spa, set of classical music CD’s for babies and a Persian rug.

Freebootr works according to location so you type in your postcode or city and you can scroll through or search listings specific to that area. You can see why it would be worth it to some people to advertise large bulky items for free rather than have to pay to dispose of them but it is also nice that so many are getting into freebootr because they enjoy the thought of other people getting pleasure out of what would have otherwise ended up as landfill.

So whether you are looking for furniture, clothes, toys, garden equipment, kitchenware or any other kind of booty, save some money and look it up on freebootr.com first. Don’t forget you can list your own unwanted items there and have the pleasure of seeing your own trash being turned into someone else’s treasure.

he current financial crisis is upon us. It is going to be a tough year or two and that’s a fact. Many people have already felt the blow as banks go under and mortgages are clawed back, companies turn to the wall and jobs are lost. There is no getting away from the fact that 2009 is going to cause upheaval and, at least in the short term, the effects are not going to be pretty.

The newspapers are full of fat cat bankers and their golden handshakes, the greed and power lust that dragged us innocents here to this shaky spot but are we not at all to blame? Did you overspend on any luxury item or items in the past few years that impacted on your credit exposure? Were those items necessary? Could you have managed with a smaller, more efficient car? Did the expensive overseas holiday fill a gaping hole in your life or on your return did you find yourself as dissatisfied and restless as before?

The last decade has been one of over-indulgence. Setting sights on a desired item and saving like a maniac towards its purchase seems to be a thing of the past. Today we splash out on things NOW and perhaps appreciate them less and for shorter times. Instead of working towards a goal, carefully planning our route to success and each step towards its fulfillment, we rush out madly waving our credit cards and boot the ball into our own net at the same time.

The festive  season is upon us and we are all stoney broke. No-one wants to turn up at a party with a bottle of plonk that could strip the paint off the family car so what to do?

Wel,l check out this brilliant list of good wines for $15 or less. Given the overall quality of the wines I am rather jealous of the writer that was charged with this research and who obviously collapsed in a giggly heap after a job well done.

Penny saving doesn’t get much better than FREE and this tasty site is set up to let you find out where you can feed hungry little rug-rats for free or at least at significant discounts. In tough times when every penny is by necessity a prisoner, sites like this make eating out with your children more of an an option.

Listing restaurants by city and/or zip code the search engine even lets you narrow down selections by day of the week and will soon include a food type option. Kids Meal Deals is the place to go before choosing the venue for your next family outing.

(Kids Meal Deals are currently on a recruitment drive and so are encouraging sign-ups to their monthly  newsletter by entering new subscribers into a monthly draw to win an ipod Shuffle.)