I hope I’ve managed to put together a helpful book that will bring a lot of value to people.  My premise was that normal travel guides were kind of useless for Las Vegas.  They just go out of date so quickly.  I worked in Vegas for years and saw just how fast things changed.

Not just tearing down and building new casinos, but inside the casinos too.  One day there’s a restaurant and seemingly the next, it’s a poker room.  If you bought a typical travel guide just a year ago, it’s out of date.  Now you need to buy another?  Screw that.

I’ve tried to explain how to use the resources on the internet to not only get the best Las Vegas deals, but to figure out where to eat and what to see and do.  It’s full of advice, recommendations and tips & tricks.  All stuff I learned traveling there for work for almost 15 years.  Hopefully people will find it helpful.

Anyway, you can find Las Vegas – Cheap and Easy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and soon on iBooks, Sony and Diesel.  If you’re headed to Vegas, check it out.  Can’t go wrong for $6.99.  You can get months of my hard work for the cost of a value meal.  Now that’s frugal!

Face Rock in Bandon Oregon

I’ve read a couple of things over the last few weeks about retirement being a disappointment.  I guess I can see that.  You were a big shot at your job and now you just aren’t making a difference anymore.  Stuff like that.  I think another reason is that they just got off the roller coaster and have a little adrenaline deficiency.

I know what I was working, Fridays were awesome!  End of the week and two whole days to myself.  But by Sunday morning, I was already dreading work and Mondays were horrible.  The emotional roller coaster.  Holidays brought more euphoria, followed by even greater dread.  Vacations were the same way.

Highs and lows constantly.  Great excitement one day, depression the next.  I worked a four 10-hour day schedule for a while and I noticed that the peaks and valleys flattened a little.  Mondays weren’t so bad with only four days of work ahead of me.  Weekends were still exciting, but without the pressure.  I had three days off to enjoy myself.

Retirement took that to a whole new level.  Gone were the peaks and valleys of workdays and weekends.  Everyday was a weekend.  No reason to get euphoric or depressed.  Just a nice, steady pace.  Slow and easy.  But there is a bit of a let down.

While the lows may be gone, so are the highs.  I think a lot of people experience that and feel a let down.  Where did the euphoria go.  Where is the sharp contrast between excitement and dread.  Life just got boring.  No more rush.  Nothing to look forward to every weekday.

Me and the Wife at Bubba's Love Shack in Murrels Inlet, SC.

It takes a little change in mindset to get used to the merry-go-round of retirement.  You can ride a merry-go-round all day.  It’s pleasurable, but not overly so.  A roller coaster is a rush.  But you can’t ride it all day.  Pretty soon that rush gets old.  Why do you think so many people start talking about retirement after a couple of decades of riding the career roller coaster.

This doesn’t mean that retirement can’t bring excitement.  It surely doesn’t mean that you won’t have bad times.  But they aren’t artificial.  When you plan that trip to Europe or get to spend a month helping out with the new grandbaby, it is genuinely exciting.  Not like just another weekend becomes the focus of your entire being because you won’t have to go into work.

The highs and lows in retirement are flattened somewhat.   Work is a little like having a bi-polar disorder.  Retirement is like the cure.  No more euphoric highs followed by the inevitable crash.  But it takes a change in attitude and willingness to enjoy things as they are.  Taking time to smell the flowers, so to speak.

You need to learn to take pleasure in the little things.  You need to slow down.  Rather than constant intense happiness, you need to expect a steady feeling of contentment.  The best part is that contented feeling will endure.  It won’t lead to a deep trough of dread and despair.  Life will go up and down, but less dramatically.

If you can make that transition,  you’ll likely not feel any let down.  You may have looked at those retirees sitting on the porch and thought it looked boring, but did you notice the contented smile?  They were just enjoying the day and wondered what had you in such a hurry.  They weren’t on a weekend high like you, they were just enjoying life.   Slow and easy retirement.

So, why am I trashing a song by a dead Beatle?  Well I saw this article about a woman in Germany who gave up money back in the 90′s.  Hasn’t spent a cent since.  She barters and trades and sleeps on people’s couches.  She likes it, apparently.  Why not?  She’s living off the generosity of others.  Someone made a movie about her and they used that John Lennon lyric to market the video.  Ironic, eh?  Someone making money-making a film about a woman who has given up money.

It all sounds wonderful and I almost wrote a post about the woman.   I mean, talk about frugality!  Then I watched the video.  She lives in Germany where social programs abound.  She travels because people offer her free tickets and places to stay because she is kind of famous.  Then the woman goes on and on about how the system doesn’t work and everyone knows it.

Huh?  The system is the reason that woman can do what she does.  If she wasn’t getting people who work for money buying her way through life, she couldn’t do what she was doing.  Sure she could probably live without using money, bartering for the basics, but who pays when she gets sick?  Who pays when she gets too old to live on her own?  I’m guessing the German tax payers do.

She travels and has a great time by relying on others to pay the bill.  She lives this great life at the expense of the system she says in broken.  She may not use money, but she is far from financially independent.  The system she eschews is allowing millions to work, earn money and become financially independent.  Free from toil, free from bosses and supervisors and free to do what they want when they want.

Oh yeah, that’s horrible.  But not only do millions of us become financially independent at some point during out lives, we support millions of others like that grandma from Germany.  People that occupy Wall Street and complain everything isn’t handed to them on a silver platter.  Sure this system isn’t perfect, but it has created more wealth and prosperity for more people than at any point in human history.

There is no utopia.  There will never be a world without possessions or money.  Mainly because the people who want such a thing don’t understand that if no one works, innovates, dreams and takes risks, no one will have anything.  They want to take, but their utopia means there will be no one to take it from.  I celebrate our system.  It ain’t perfect, but it has allowed me and millions, heck tens or even hundreds of millions, to become financially independent and experience true, unadulterated freedom.  I’ll take that over some utopian version of serfdom any day.

I'm going to Disneyland! Yes, yes, that's California Adventure, but you get the idea!

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  This is up today, New Year’s, because I will be in Disneyland the first week of the year.  After I get back I will be posting weekly, most weeks anyway.  Maybe more often now and then.

This post is about taking stock.  It’s something we should all do once in a while.  You might call it something different and it may take different forms, but essentially its just an assessment of your life.  Where you’re going, where you’ve been and what you’ve come to enjoy and what you no longer do.  Think of it as a kind of spring cleaning.

This seems to be a popular time of year to do this kind of thing.  I’m not big on resolutions, but lots of folks commit to this or that as the new year approaches.  I find those forced changes fade pretty quickly.  There is nothing magical about January 1st that makes people stick to stuff they don’t really want to do.

On the other hand, this is a time of change.  Winter is upon us and has been for a while and with the holidays behind us, we begin to look forward to the year ahead and spring.  That has an effect on me and I tend to begin making plans this time of year.  I don’t always follow through on all of them, but I do it anyway.

One this I need to do is work on my budget.  I spent too much money last year.  A lot of it was due to my father-in-laws illness and passing.  His estate was a mess and we had to pay for a lot of stuff he should have taken care of.  We were also surprised at the amount of money we spend on our kids.  Damn, they are expensive!  With some better planning we should be able to absorb the costs over time and save ourselves some grief.

With the settlement of the estate early in 2012 we should be able to pay off some bills and pay off some additional debt.  My wife got a nice raise that starts today and that will help too.  I’m also making a little money writing and hope that increases.  I wouldn’t call it a job.  It’s more like I can’t believe I get paid to do it!

During the holidays we had some family issues.  Not immediate family, as in wife and kids, but siblings parents and nephews.  It got ugly and made us rethink who we want in our lives and who we don’t.  It’s a subject we’ve thought a lot about even before this.  Life is too short to spend with people that treat you poorly.  We will do a lot more thinking as the year progresses. I kind of liken it to cleaning out the dingy corners of your home where things gather.  Once in a while you just have to clear the debris.

This year our youngest enters high school.  A little over 4 years from now he will be an adult.  I’m not going to pretend he will be on his own entirely, but it will free us up to make some changes.  My plan is to begin sketching out our future without kids at home.  We know we want to sell the house and buy and RV and see the country.  However, we need to begin figuring out specifics.  Especially how this will work out financially.

We aren’t upside down in our home, but we aren’t sitting on much equity either.  I’m not counting on that changing.  So how are we going to afford an RV and what kind will we end up with?   Research into the cost of living on the road suggests my pension is enough to live and make an RV payment and still have money left over.  If we could work it out so we didn’t have the payment, well, good times!

I’ve been very lax on exercising.  I need to find something I enjoy besides walking.  I was doing calisthenics and enjoyed them, but got bored.  I think changing them up weekly or bi-weekly is the key.  I need to find a way to do that in an orderly fashion.  Between the calisthenics, walking and stretching, I think it’s a good regimen, especially when you throw in fishing and stuff like that.

Other than that I’ve got some projects I need to set aside time for.  I think I might set aside one day a week and dedicate that day to working around the house and other projects.  It won’t burn me out and I won’t just plain forget.  Just because you’re retired doesn’t mean you don’t need to take care of things aroudn the house.

So, that me this year.  Or that’s the plan anyway.  Subject to change, as always.  I look forward to this year.  The last one sucked on many levels.  We’re due for a good one.  Two years ago our house flooded.  Last year Jen’s dad died and we had all the family drama over the last month of the year.  We’re due, but anything I can do to help insure that I’d better do.

I’ve been concentrating on writing and I’ve purposely let it take over my life for the past few weeks.  In January I’m going to let it take it’s proper place again in my life.  Honestly, it was like work for a couple of weeks.  Ick!  Anyway, taking it easy next week, then off to Disneyland with the kids for a week.  I’ll be back online the week of the 8th.  Until then!

This one was suggested as a follow up to the video above.  It’s about slowing down and how beneficial that can be.  From work to eating to sex and even slowing down our kids lives.  Good stuff!

There are so many things to enjoy in this life. Seems a shame not to take the time.

I retired almost a year and a half ago.  I was cruising right along until about this time last year.  My father-in-law took ill and died last spring.  That put a hitch in my retirement journey.  It’s only been in the last couple of months that I feel like I’m back on track.  I’m really enjoying my retirement again, following my passions and I’m generally happy.

I don’t say this to brag, but to make the point that life is full of bumps in the road.  There are so many bad things that happen.  From major events, like loved one’s dying or finding out you need major surgery, to minor mishaps, like a washing machine flooding your house or your truck needed a thousand dollars worth of ball joints.  All of those have happened to me in the last five years, but the way.  Stuff like that can make you wonder if someone isn’t out to get you.

But between those bad times are the good times.  When you feel great and things are going well, too many of us take those times for granted, me included.  We feel like it will last forever, but we know it won’t.  It could be five days or five years, but something bad always gets us.  The world is always trying to devolve into chaos and we spend out lives trying to prevent that.  When things go smoothly and we can relax, we need to take advantage and cherish those times.

Recently, I thought about my old job.  Not like I used to, out of habit, but on purpose.  I spoke with a friend that was on pace to retire three years after me.  He made some choices that changed that.  Not bad choices, just choices, and his life has worked out differently.  While I retired at 43, he might not be able to retire until he is 55 or 60.  His current job is not treating him well and he’s not happy.

We are such insignificant beings in this universe, but we worry so much about things we cannot change. Like how I found a way to weave my photo of the Milky Way into the post?

On my way home, I remembered, all the bad stuff that happened to me in my last four years.  It made me appreciated what I have.  My friend is looking for a new job that he might like more.  He’d rather be happy in a job he likes and retire when he’s 60 than continue where he is and retire in his early 50′s, and rightly so.  Being happy is important for so many reasons.

I suffered for four years before I could take my pension. I was unhappy, but it made sense.  I made the best out of it and got out and now I’m free.  If it wasn’t for that, I would have tried to leave and find a new path.  Now that I am retired, I have found a new path.  I write.  I’m editing my book and working on some other projects.  I’m doing what I love for the first time in my life and I love it.  I try to remember that everyday and not take these good times for granted.

It took me a while to really settle in to being retired.  I had to overcome some tough times to finally get where I am today.  I think that taught me some lessons, like not taking all this for granted and doing what makes me happy, no matter what that is or what it takes.  I wonder how many people don’t do that, or worse yet, aren’t even working towards being happy one day.  If you’re not happy or working to get happy, it kind of makes one wonder why your even here.  What else is there?

Enjoy it while you got it, no matter your circumstances.  If you have to work until you drop dead, at least work at something you enjoy.  If your retired on a meager fixed income or are disabled, do what you can.  If things are going swimmingly, appreciate it knowing it could all end tomorrow.  Why not?  Is the alternative, being unhappy, sullen and depressed, better?  I don’ think so.

This is the manuscript that's been responsible for keeping me busy of late.

I’m really neglecting this blog lately.  Just been really busy.  High school football, junior high basketball, a golf trip, Mexico last month.  Besides all that I’ve been writing a lot, just not post for my blogs.  I’m making edits on my first book and I’ve been working another project too.  A couple of weeks ago, I spent like 20 hours over the course of two days writing.  My shoulders were sore from hunching over the keyboard.

Now, I’m sure a lot of my working friends that read this are thinking, “Life must be rough,” or something like that.  Some of my retired followers are wondering why I’m not relaxing more.  Honestly, I am enjoying the heck out of writing.  It’s something I wanted to do when I retired, but it took over a year to really feel like a writer.

I don’t look at it as a job (and technically it’s not because I’m not making money…yet).  I do it because I love it and it brings me pleasure.  If I make money, great but that’s not the point.  I found something I’m passionate about and I’m doing it.  Isn’t that what retirement is all about?

A nice Pyramid Lake cutthroat trout I caught last January.

One things I’ve learned is that you can’t do everything.  I’d love to fish more often, maybe golf now and then, engage in some other hobbies, but there are only so many hours in the day.  Life is about choices and that’s true even in retirement.  I making the choice to write my butt off right now.  I’m sure this will wane and I’ll haul out my camera and shoot some time lapse, take my telescope out and work on my Messier list or plan a fishing trip, but for now I like what I’m doing.

What I’m finding is it’s not as hard to stay busy when you’re retired as some people say.  I know some people are so focused on their career they neglect their personal life, but it’s not all that hard to find stuff that is interesting to do.  I saw a time lapse video and decided I wanted to do that.  I’ve always wanted a telescope to do a little amateur stargazing, so I bought one.

Just a random picture of me and my beautiful wife.

Just takes a little imagination and maybe a little time to just rediscover yourself, the real you.  It seems I have a new exciting idea every week.  Somewhere to travel, something to learn or a new activity.  I’ve written a few posts about finding stuff to do, but really its a personal quest.  You need figure out what you like to do, not just do what some blogger says you should do.

I’ve begun to learn that being myself is the easiest way to find stuff to do.  If I’m trying to please others or meet their expectations, I end up not enjoying what I do.  I spent my whole career being someone I didn’t want to be.  I’m through with that.  I’m going to be the person I want to be.  I wish I, and lots of other I know, would have learned that lesson a long time ago.

Stay busy, my friends.

The view from our front porch. It will be hard to give that up one day.

Ten years ago we moved our family out to the country.  We used to live in Carson City, Nevada, not exactly a sprawling metropolis, but we wanted to get out of our cramped subdivision and live a simpler life.  We bought five acres in Smith Valley, Nevada a few years earlier and we finally were ready to build out dream home.  I designed the house, I was an engineer after all, and it had everything we thought wanted.

Now, a decade later my wife and I can’t wait to move away.  Don’t get me wrong, we love the area and our house, but living way out in the sticks has its disadvantages.  So why am I airing our dirty laundry on a retirement blog?  Because, it seems a lot of people dream of leaving the big city for a small town or some acreage out in the country.  If that’s your thing, good for you, but the grass isn’t always greener.

Our garden out behind the back yard from last summer

Of course, everyone had a different idea of what out in the country or small town means.  To someone from Manhattan, a small town might be Las Vegas and out in the country might mean New Jersey.  For most of us though, a small town is probably under 10,000 people, and out in the country means a drive to basic services of maybe 20 minutes or more.

We live in a valley of 2,000 people.  A big valley with two small towns, but most of the population is spread out with 5 acres of land being the minimum.  There are several ranches that are thousands of acres in size.  There is no grocery store, only two small convenience type stores, one with a gas station.  There are no traffic signals.  The graduating class at the school last year was like 15 kids.

But on the other hand, we do have a K-12 school with most of the stuff bigger schools have.  We have two post offices, though it seems a bit of a waste, the one general store has a deli counter and the other is attached to a Mexican restaurant.  We have two tractor dealers, a small hardware store and recently we got high-speed internet.  We have a really nice Basque style restaurant too.

The same view from our porch after a snow storm last spring.

Lots of small towns and country homes are like ours.  It’s not the lack of amenities that is the problem, it’s the cost or the drive to get to them cheaper.  We drive 40 miles to shop for groceries.  It’s 25 miles to reasonably priced gas or we pay a dollar  more per gallon here.  Other goods like clothes, shoes, electronics, etc., are an hour away.  Costco, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, all an hour away.

Luckily, we have a sheriff sub-station and a large volunteer fire department.  Some places don’t.  We also have trash pickup, but no recycling.  Until recently we didn’t have high-speed internet unless you paid through the nose for satellite.  We have propane delivered, but it pricey and we only have satellite TV.  We have a small medical clinic, but the nearest hospital is 25 minutes away.  The nearest full-service hospital is an hour, or 20 minutes by helicopter.

There is no cable TV, sewer or water.  We have a septic tank and a well.  If the power goes out, so does our water.  We live amongst ranchers and farmer.  They run cattle down our street and leave their field plowed and bare over the winter.  Because there are few buildings or many trees to block the wind, it howls when it blows.  We’re talking 90 mph!  Every couple of years the bare fields and high winds make for what we affectionately call Iraqi sandstorms.  The last one deposited an inch or two of fine sand all over our yard.

I took this shot back in September looking west down out street. That's our closest neighbor and a few years back they had a meth lab. Neat!

Some small towns are right next too a bigger city.  Some country properties are just a few miles from shopping, restaurants, movies, libraries and more, but you’d never know it.  Some aren’t.  We’ve decided that although we love the views, the peace and quiet, the great school and the privacy, we don’t like all the driving, the lack of services and shopping or the giant mortgage.  We also don’t like all the work.  If you opt for a big piece of property, you need to expect a lot of work to keep it in order.

Bottom line, do your homework before you decide to move to small town or to a place in the country.  There is a big upside, but also a downside.  Can you handle all the driving or the higher prices for goods.  Do you need special medical care or are you OK with taking a risk by not having a hospital nearby?  If you like something in particular (Starbucks, movies, fast internet, etc.), do you have access to that?  Can you handle the work it will take, especially if you have a larger piece of land?

Ultimately, it’s up to you, but being ready for the realities of small town or country living can make the transition smoother.  As long as you know what you are getting into and have done all the research, go for it.  For us, we just like the convenience of living in town.  We’re not opposed to living in the country, just a lot closer to a city or town.  This life just isn’t what we thought it would be.  You’re mileage may vary.

We’re staying for the time being.  As long as our boys are in school, we want to keep them here.  It’s a good place to raise kids.  When they are grown and out of the house, we plan to full-time RV for spell, and how we look forward to that day, and then when we lose the wanderlust we’ll find a place near to or in a reasonably sized town.  We really like Reno, about an hour and a half away.  Now, if we can only sell our house for what we still owe on it when the time comes.  But that’s another post.

I'm liking this new habit of finding pretty girls to illustrate my posts. I kind of feel like Bob Barker.

I am by no means extremely frugal.  I’m anything but, in fact.  I like spending money.  Doesn’t mean I don’t watch my spending, try to spend my money on stuff that has value to me and always look for the best deal.  Just means that frugality doesn’t come naturally to me.  I gotta work at it.

On the other hand, in some ways I am very frugal.  Some are conscious decisions, other just habits I’ve developed.  In any case, these ideas can save you a lot of money without really sacrificing much at all.  In fact, a lot of these things are free.  Not almost free, not next to free.  Free!  I call it stealth frugality.  You don’t really have to do much at all, but you can save serious money.  So, here’s another goofy list for those of you looking to carve few more penny’s out of your budget.

• Fast Food – Not the food itself, although dollar and value menus are pretty cheap, but the free and cheap stuff they give away.  We always grab extra napkins and put them in our vehicles to use instead of buying Kleenex or for spills or quick cleanups.  Condiments are also usually free and great to keep in your car or even at home.  Did you know you can add all kinds of different stuff to the meals they offer and still get the discount?  Instead of fries get an order of jalapeno poppers or instead of a soda get a milk shake.  How about ordering a small drink and just keep getting refills instead of buying the large?  Same amount of soda, less money but this only works if you dine in.
• 

  This is just funny...and frugal!

  Food – Making your own food is so much cheaper than eating prepackaged meals or eating out.  One of my favorites is the famous beer can chicken on the grill, which I serve with some frozen veggies or potatoes.  I then throw the carcass, which still has a lot of meat on it in a pot and make some stock.  Some cheap veggies and some noodles, rice or barley makes a big pot of chicken soup.  For maybe ten bucks, or less, I can feed the family for three or four nights.  If you don’t have to feed two teenagers, slice off the breast meat first for sandwiches before making the soup.  This is only one example of how you can save money on food by actually cooking.  If you’re retired, you have no excuse not to.

• Software – I had no idea how much free software you can get until I bought my current computer.  We’re not talking junky freeware here, but professional quality stuff.  Everything from Open Office (Microsoft Office) to Stellarium (awesome astronomy software) to Gimp (Photoshop) is out the and more.  Try a place called SourceForge and browse or just go to Google and search.  This isn’t pirated or illegal.  It’s just free and could save you thousands!!
• Books – Unless you just have to read big name authors, there is plenty of free and inexpensive reading material out there.  You probably need an e-reader to access most of it, but with the free Kindle app that runs on everything from your home computer to your smart phone most people have an e-reader even if they don’t know it.  Apple also offers iBooks on its devices for free.  Not only can you read many classics for free, many authors who can’t catch a break in the horribly selective publishing industry choose to self publish and either give their work away for free or only charge a buck or three.
• Internet – You’d be amazed how many places you can get the internet for free.  If you use it a lot, this might not be for you, but it works.  We don’t have an iPhone or a 3G plan on my iPad, so when we travel we get creative.  Lots of motels offer free wireless internet.  Many restaurants, coffee houses and the like do too.  Public libraries usually offer free internet too, as well as computers if you don’t have one, and we’ve found a lot of them don’t turn it off when they close.  You can sit out in the parking lot and find a place to eat, download a map, whatever.
• Libraries – And speaking of libraries, most public libraries offer so much more than books.  As mentioned above, many have free internet and computer terminals.  Many also loan books on CD, movies and music.  Some now offer e-books for loan.  Some offer printing and copying, conference rooms and educational programs.  Where I live, every library is linked and books can be borrowed even if you local library doesn’t carry it.   They just ship to you you’re local library and then ship it back when you are done.  Neat!
• World Wide Web – Nobody calls it that anymore, but that’s the fun part of the internet and it is full of free stuff.  This blog is hosted at WordPress for free!  I can read all kinds of news, blogs, etc., listen to radio shows, communicate with friends, list stuff for sale, participate in forums, play games, watch movies and TV shows, and so much more all for the cost of my monthly internet connection.  I pay $40 for internet and almost $100 for DirecTV, but all they give me is TV.  The internet offers so much more, including some of the stuff I get on my satellite.
• Craigslist – Sure you can list stuff for free on Craigslist and it works really well for most stuff.  We sold my father-in-law’s old pickup in less than 10 minutes!  But did you know that each city on Craigslist has a Free Stuff section.  People just give stuff away.  Not junk either.  Just now I looked and found free firewood, several queen size beds, furniture, a kitten and a goldfish and it’s tank.  Whether you’re looking for something in particular or just curious what you might pick up for free, its worth a look.
• Costco – Have a Costco membership?  Then you can eat basically free.  In most Costco stores they set up kiosks and give away free samples of their food.  Yesterday I had pizza, a cracker with cream cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, some veggie chips, tortilla chips, and calamari.  I barely sampled half the stuff they offered.  You don’t even have to buy anything.  I’m sure other stores do the same thing, but maybe not as well as Costco.  The Costco membership is probably worth it too as they have some really fantastic deals and a great return policy.
• Loyalty Clubs – Speaking of memberships, many, many stores offer loyalty clubs that offer discounts.  Maybe it’s coupons in your e-mail or points you earn on purchases.  These don’t cost anything and can save you a lot of money if you already frequent these places.  I wouldn’t buy something for five percent more than I could somewhere else just to get one percent back, but if you’re buying there anyway, why not get a discount or something back?
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  Yes! I am liking this new habit. Use coupons!!

  Coupons – Speaking of coupons, these are wondrous little things.  They are like free money.  If you can buy something and get a discount, why not do it.  I find grocery coupons are kind of a hassle, but I always check my local stores websites for things I might be buying anyway.  As always, buying something you don’t need just because it’s on sale isn’t being frugal.  You can also look online for discount codes to use when shopping on the internet.  In any case, finding a coupon or discount code for something you want to buy is like free money!

• Sales – Everyone has sales from time to time.  Some are just gimmicks designed to get you into the store so you can buy something else at full price, but many are genuine.    Many products like electronics, tires, clothing, and more go on sale periodically and if you’re willing to wait you can save lots of cash.  You can even ask employees and often they know when things will go on sale and will tell you.  Sometimes you can save real money.  I’ve seen clothes at twenty-five to fifty percent off.  Electronics often have deep discounts at certain times of the year.  Lots of placed don’t discount their products, but offer free shipping.  Same thing, more or less.
• Consumer Electronics – When speaking about electronics, sales aren’t the only way to save money.  Waiting for a new technology to become mainstream can save you hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.  Remember when LCD TV’s were thousands of dollars?  Now you can pick up a 42 inch LCD for a few hundred bucks.  I bought my iPad when the iPad 2 came out.  It’s a top of the line version that went for over $800.  I got it for less than $500.  Once the iPhone 4 came out, the price on the still fantastic iPhone 3G dropped hundreds of dollars.  Not being an early adopter can save you big, big money.

So that’s it.  Well, not IT because there are probably many, many more ways to save money without really looking like you’re saving money.  I’ve used every one of these at one time of another and many are just a part of my life.  And why not?  If you can save money and not have to give up much of anything or just plain get free money or stuff why wouldn’t you?