This week I surpassed 1,000 twitter followers and am amazed at the growth potential of this social media giant. Networking with other twitter users who share similar savings goals can be very addicting. I especially enjoy finding out what friends are doing and how they react to the economic news of the day. Be sure to add me as a friend on Twitter or open a free account so we can network together.

Here are some of the posts I enjoyed from other personal finance bloggers:

Passive Family Income wrote Passive Income Opportunities – Think Creatively and asks readers to get creative about finding passive income sources.

Dusty @ Becoming Debt Free wrote 100 Articles On eHow – Why It Is Important To Set Goals. Dusty has a goal of writing 15 ehow articles for passive income during the month of March. Ehow can be a fantastic way to earn passive income through writing.

Mrs. Micah: Finance for a Freelance Life wrote a post called Taxes For Bloggers where she discusses income sources and deductions for bloggers to consider during tax season. This will be a helpful list to print out and reference throughout 2009.

Prime Time Money wrote 529 Plan and College Savings: Should We Contribute?
Some great comments challenge readers to consider saving for retirement before establishing a college savings account for children.

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photo credit: eschipul

Since the age of 3, my daughter can spot a box of Disney princess cereal from across a supermarket. The past few weeks I’ve made it a personal goal to use coupons when possible at my local grocery store. Since my kids are part of the shopping experience and they have an amazing ability for brand recognition, I thought I would put them to work saving us money. We split up the coupons and see who can find the most products. So far it has been a success and we have been able to save money on groceries as a family. The kids just think it’s a game, but we are able to put more money towards our savings account each month. Last month we saved $200 from our family grocery budget and this month we should save an additional $50. Some items like meat I’ve purchased in bulk and put in the freezer for summer bbq’s.

Brand name coupons. Many of the coupons found in our Sunday paper are for brand name items. Our kids look for the brand name items, but we compare the store brand to make sure they are the best value. Some items, like cereal, my kids enjoy the brand name over the store versions. It probably has more to do with the fact that a Disney princess is on the cover though. When it comes to other products like pretzels or meat, they don’t have a clue about brands. This will be a topic of further discussion later about brand recognition and children. It’s very fascinating how they have learned about images and products at such an early age.

A money saving tip: look for coupons while shopping. Sometimes it’s hard to spot in-store coupons, but the kids have gotten really good at find them. Many coupons are on the products themselves and you can peel them off and redeem on the same shopping trip. This is a great way to keep kids busy during a shopping trip and allows them to participate in the shopping experience.

No coupon, no purchase. We have some friends that won’t buy most items if they don’t have a coupon. They simply tell children that they can’t buy gum or candy because they don’t have a coupon. I called a friend this last week to tell him I found a coupon for Mentos gum in the paper. He told me to hush. Kids will start to figure out that you can buy items without a coupon and they might start to catch on around age 5 or 6. You can explain that coupons help save money and that you chose to spend your money on items that are healthy for your bodies. If that doesn’t work, you can tell them that they can start a piggy bank to buy a special treat at the store. When they have save $1 or more, you can revisit the treat discussion again. Also, encouraging them to pick out fruits and fun snacks can help give them healthy alternatives to candy.

Clip coupons as a family. My 5 year-old loves to use scissors and make craft projects. We supervise her use of the scissors and encourage her to cut out the coupons and practice making straight cuts along the lines. She then sorts the coupons by product: bread, vegetable, fruit, household, etc.

Keep your grocery coupon savings. You just saved $20 on your groceries. What will you do with that $20? Do you put it towards paying credit card debt first? Doesn’t sound very glamorous, but do you? If you don’t have credit card debt, are you building up your emergency savings account balance? It can be easy to just let that $20 sit in your checking account waiting for your next opportunity to spend it on something fun.

How do you involve your children in grocery shopping trips?

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photo credit: DDFic

The great frugal debate: high efficiency toilet (HET) vs. good old fashioned red brick. I have a toilet from 1975 in our guest bathroom that I want to replace with a new low flow toilet that uses 1.2 gallons per flush, or gpf to be technical. The 1975 American Standard toilet doesn’t leak, make noise, or look out of date. I hate getting rid of something that works, but it just wasn’t made for a home in a state that’s going through a drought. What are my options? Back in the 70’s or 80’s before low flow toilets, you could place a brick or large rock in your toilet tank that decreased water usage (Thanks Passive Grandpa for reminding me). What in the world would this do? The brick displaces the water level in the tank and your toilet uses less water. So, cost of new Kohler toilet $300 versus red brick $1.50? Actually, the red brick is free as I have several from an old project.

Visiting my county website I found rebate information and called to verify a list of approved HET toilets. The county is currently offering a $175 rebate towards a new Kohler HET bringing the total cost to $125. I received a quote for the installation of the new toilet of $300. The only items needed are a new wax seal and some plastic shims if the ground is not level. Total cost for the wax seal and shims are under $10. $300 vs. $10? Looks like I’m going to install this new Kohler myself.

Do you have a red brick in your toilet? How many bricks would it take to use 1.2 gpf for my current 1975 American Standard Toilet? I only have room for one and I’m still using over 2 gpf. So, technically the red brick would not match the water conservation of the new Kohler HET. But, the red brick is free and I would be using less water compared to the original 1975 American Standard.

Brick or HET toilet? Let’s say my current toilet uses 2 gpf and we use it 20 times a day. 40 gallons with brick vs. 24 gallons with Kohler HET. My current water usage rate per gallon is .0054. The HET toilet would save me 480 gallons a month or $2.60. With the Kohler rebate, it would take 4 years to recover the $125 cost of the new HET toilet.

Water drought. We are currently at 60% of normal rain and our water district has sent notice to customers that a new fee schedule may be adopted to encourage water rationing. What does this mean for our water bill? We don’t know. The rates may not go up this year, but they could in 2010. The Roi for the HET toilet could be more like 2-3 years.

The environment. Even if it doesn’t make financial sense to purchase a new HET toilet now, what about the impact on the environment? Using an additional 480 gallons a month can be considered wasteful.

So, what would you do? Red brick or new Kohler HET toilet?

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photo credit: °Florian

Rolling coins with your kids is a great way to deposit loose change into your savings account and it can be an opportunity to teach kids about managing money. Take the time to involve your children in this simple process and discuss what money represents and how it can be used to build savings. If you are looking for a great rainy day project, you can bring out a coin jar and get the entire family working together for a common savings goal. Many families have “vacation jars”, “pizza jars”, “clothes jar”, or even an “new furnace jar” for long term savings goals. Next time you have some loose change, get a jar and start a savings fund with your family. Once the coins are spilling over the jar, roll the coins and deposit them at your local bank branch.

Some reasons rolling coins can be valuable for yourself and your family:

1. Saving the 10% fee that Coinstar charges is another huge incentive. I made the mistake once of using a Coinstar at Safeway and the machine stopped working. I estimated I had deposited over $50 in coins and Safeway wanted me to prove that amount. How do I prove that the machine ate my coins? I had to deal with 2 managers before I was finally given credit.

2. Teach your kids to sort and count. Help your children sort the coins based on color and shape and educate them on the different coin values.

3. Treasure hunt. Finding Canadian Pennies or old silver coins can be exciting. Find a silver nickel or dime and you can take your kids to the local coin shop to find out the value.

4. Compound interest. Deposit those coins in your local bank and educate your children on the power of compound interest. Those coins aren’t earning anything when they are stuck in a jar. Deposit them in the bank and your money starts working for you. Compound interest is a source of passive income.

5. Saving money. Use this time you are rolling coins with your family as an opportunity to talk about saving money. Why do you need to save these coins and what can you purchase with them? Get your children involved in the savings process and start a family “savings jar” that will be for a common goal. Maybe you want to save for a family vacation or start a college 529 savings account for you kids.

Have you started a savings jar with your family?

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It was my first job out of college and I was handing out crisp $5 bills for customers who waited in line for 10 minutes or longer. What’s the catch? You had to be a customer and request the $5 payment. Working as a bank teller after college was one of the most interesting jobs I’ve had in personal finance as I got to deal face to face with customers. The bank had a policy to offer customers who waited in line over 10 minutes a crisp $5 bill for the inconvenience. The best part, it took me about 5 minutes to do the transaction and more customers were lining up for the free $5. It always seemed that payday and 5pm on Friday was the day we needed extra $5 bills in our cage.

Did every bank customer ask for the free $5 bill that waited over 10 minutes? Nope. The bank had proper signage that clearly stated the 10 minute policy that was in front of the line ropes. Do I think some customers would never ask for the free $5? Yes.

Do you feel comfortable asking for your free $5 bill? Maybe it’s not your local bank branch, but it might be a cell phone company or your cable provider. Do you call up and ask for a refund if you have lousy cable reception? I’ve written several posts about my experience with AT&T Uverse service. I finally received a refund for several months of service after complaining about the audio issues.

What is the opportunity cost if you decide not to ask for your $5? In the case of waiting in line, your time and money. You are losing time you could be working or spending quality time with your family. If you didn’t ask for the $5, you’re also missing out on compound interest in your savings account. Yes, $5 seems like a small amount, but it will add up quickly if you look for other opportunities. Did you use a coupon at your supermarket only to find that the cash register did not give you proper credit? Not speaking up could not only cost you the price of the coupon, but could also cost dozens or hundreds of other customers the same fate. Ask to speak to a manger and get the transaction fixed.

Teach your children to look for $5 bills. You’ve probably figured out already that it’s not about finding opportunities to earn $5 as it’s about making sure you keep your $5. If you notice the cashier shorted you $5 or that the coupon wasn’t process correctly, your children will notice your frustrated. If you don’t say something, what will your children do when faced with a similar situation. Maybe you had a recent $5 situation and you told your kids that it was no big deal. What happens if they are faced with a $50 or $500 error? In the AT&T cable example, my bill was lowered by $250.

Do you have a story when you asked for your $5 bill?

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