I have a good relationship with a little children’s consignment shop down the street—a great source for kids’ clothes/toys.

My all-time favorite sources are Craigs’ List and Freecycle (freecycle is an online group—find one in your local area—which allows people to post items available or items wanted/needed).

I keep a running list of items wanted/needed and then I just watch for things to come up. Here’s an example of what’s on my list right now.

Girl’s play shoes, women’s size 7
Girl’s t-shirts size 4T and 5T
Rubber rain boots (both kids)
Canning equipment
Dutch oven or similar large heavy, lidded-pan
Bread pans
Legal paper (I often see this come up via Craigs’ List and Freecycle)
Quilting Fabric
Piano music

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

An ear infection here, a broken tooth there, and routine prescriptions are a truly massive part of our monthly budget.

Here are my tips for reining in your medical costs.
1. HAVE Insurance. Find a way. Consider groups that you could join that would allow you to access medical insurance, but just because you have medical insurance doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask your provider if a cash price would be lower than your actual deductible. Investigate this possibility. I was surprised to receive a bill for insurance for my $80 co-pay for an outer-ear infection (a scratch on my ear that needed an antibiotic to heal). The cash price for the visit since it was just 3 minutes would have been $30. I said a bad word.

2. Understand your policy. Completely. Deductibles, co-pay, in-network and out. Use in-network when you can. Here’s a great resource for the National Endowment for Financial Education.

3. Use a health savings account or cafeteria plan if it’s available to you. These can save a bundle and be used to pay for all kinds of things!

4 Rx Tips are their own little post I think but I can sum it up below:

a: get a discount card. AAA has a great one, Rite-Aid and Walmart and Target all have cards/programs, but don’t give up on a quality pharmacist who’s going to check your meds vs your allergies and contradictions.
b. Use generics when you can.
c. Ask your doc for samples if you’re starting a new medication, esp for long term use. I had a doc give me antibiotic samples recently, which was wonderful, as it turned out I was allergic. I’m sure glad I didn’t buy a month’s supply!
d. There are many prescription assistance programs, including the Partnership for Prescription Assistance which you may be able to turn to depending on your condition.

5. Dental care: if you don’t have dental insurance, you should still get your cleanings–this little expense may save you a lot in expensive repairs later. You can do this at a dental school, but pack your patience. I have had this done once (in college) and got my teeth cleaned just before graduation for $15. What a steal! It took two hours though, and the hygienist in training used a purple dye, which she cleaned off. Simple enough, but as sweet as this lady was, she was extraordinarily clumsy, and dropped the dye–on my nose. The purple dye was guest of honor at graduation, but my teeth continue to serve me well and I’ve still never had a cavity.

6. Perfect time for a segue–preventative care will save you a bundle. When you have insurance, its usually covered. Get those annual exams, the tests, mammograms, paps, and shots. You need them and early detection will save you a fortune and provide peace of mind.

7. When was the last time you had an eye exam? I recently found this great source for Rx Glasses. I always have three pairs, which costs a pretty penny–so next time, I’m giving this site a try: http://www.clearlylenz.com/ They advertise a full set of glasses for $36, but you do need to have your Rx information.

8. If possible, use a nurse hot line, emergency appt at your regular doc or a urgent care center before opting for emergency room care. Deductibles are very high in the ER, and waits can be very long.

9. Eat out less, drink less alcohol, quit smoking and walk more. Your bottom line (and your bottom) will thank you.

10. If you can’t pay, and medical bills are threatening to push you into bankruptcy –first try negotiating with your provider for a write-off or a lower rate. I’ve working on a review over at ProsperLending Review of a company called “IOUSOS“, which facilitates negotiation and collection of medical debts between patients and providers. The National Endowment for Financial Literacy also offers a manual about managing medical debt here.

Bonus item: Don’t forget to save reciepts on all medical costs for tax time. Some are deductible! (Ask your tax-preparer for more info).

I found Gazelle, which will PAY ME for the gadgets, and also, they’ll manage the shipping, and even send me a box. (So I do NOTHING, Literally).

Oh, and I get $53 (varies depending on the make/model of your equipment. Give it a try–the link is below.

Get Cash For Your Gadgets at gazelle.com!

You just put one tablespoon Borax and one tablespoon baking soda in the detergent compartment. For “add rinse agent” put in white vinegar.

Similarly, you can “stretch” your existing dishwasher detergent with the 1/2 borax, 1/2 soda mixture if you really like something about your detergent.

Let me know what you think if you try this out. I haven’t yet, but will be trying it as soon as I run out of my Cascade.

One tip that Mr. Ramsey offers that I find especially interesting is that to know if you’re saving enough, you need to take the amount you have saved in your nest egg (savings/retirement) and multiply it by .08.

If you can live off the resulting figure, then you’re saving enough. If not, you’d better step it up (after paying off your debts of course).

I was surprised. I consider our savings rather paltry, but we actually *could* live off the results. Granted, we’d cut the cable and be living on rice and beans, but we would only have to cut our household expenses by another $300, which wouldn’t be hard.

What they say in the Total Money Makeover is true–the closer you get, the easier it becomes. We now are on the last of our “snowballs” (only one remaining debt to pay off), and it’s disappearing quickly because every extra resource can be dedicated there.

We haven’t followed one of the guidelines–we haven’t stopped saving. We’re still saving for retirement and for planned major expenses (one daughter’s adoption finalization, etc). If we’d stopped this, we could speed up the process even more.

If you’re just starting your Total Money Makeover, or considering starting the program, don’t loose heart. It goes so much faster than you’d expect. Good luck!

This is part 10 of a 30 part series on financial literacy for the month of April, Financial Literacy Month.

Motley Fool provides excellent communities and message boards, and some affordable financial literacy classes (at least they have, I’m not sure if they’re still available).

I learned about Mint.com from Motley Fool.

They also have excellent tax-planning resources!

The site is free with a free membership but there’s a premium membership as well. I’ve never explored this, as I’ve found everything I’ve needed in their free pages.

My only word of caution is “beware the ads.” Their advertising borders on oppressive. It also frequently has a doomsday or get-rich-quick tone that I tire of. There is email “why the oil boom is coming SOON” and the site is covered with ads. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the content from the ads.

They also have so many Fool-branded affiliate relationships that I can’t always tell what all they’re endorsing, or what is going to get me to sign up for some fund or stock newsletter. I find myself only reading the first 1/2 of all their pages and never the sidebars because of the advertisements.

That said, the message boards are excellent resources, as are their tip articles like “60 seconds to get out of debt.”

If you’re new to personal finance or trying to learn something new–check them out, but beware the ads–here there by dragons.

Here’s a brief list of what we’ve done so far, and where it’s getting us. Remember, my layoff was December 7th, and today is April 2nd.

• Called all lenders and negotiated lower interest rates. Followed up by shredding all credit cards. Value: Priceless!
• Learned to cost-cut around the house: home-made laundry detergent. Saves $7/mo.
• Budget and track all expenses with Mint.com.
• Renegotiated and repriced insurance, dropped the gap coverage on our paid-off/high-mileage cars. Saves $4/mo.
• Used the library more. Estimated savings $20/mo
• Developed passive income streams (adding advertising on this web site and others, as well as Lending Club interest). Earns $1.10/mo.
• Rolled-over my fee-intensive 401K into a more affordable IRA Savings TBD
• Found tax advantages to starting my mobile-notary and freelance writing business.
• “Re bundled” our cable-TV package to the same service and same company at a lower introductory price. Saves $25/mo.
• Received our tax refund and paid off an adoption loan ($150/mo, a credit card $100/mo and a student loan $110/mo). We have just one credit card left. Saves $360/mo in debt payments.
• Refinanced our 30-year fixed mortgage, and rolled in our home equity loan ($329/mo). We put both into a 15-year fixed mortgage and will be paying just $89 more than we were paying on our old mortgage payment. (We used Smarthippo.com to find a better rate). Saves $240 per month and 15 years off the life of our mortgage.
• Testing out some meat-free recipes for dinner. Last night the kids loved eggplant parmesan (they thought it was pizza!). Saves $24/mo.
• Renegotiated cell-phone plan (due to new business). Saves $100/mo.
• The layoff reduced our household’s commuting cost. Saves $200/mo in fuel.

  These tricks save us $981.10 per month, but we’ve noticed that now that all expenses are tracked, our household expenses have been reduced by about $1300 per month.

Here’s a few things that we’re not doing.

• Working more than 45-50 hours per week.
• Missing out on time with our kids.
• Cutting our daughter’s preschool (we may do this to ‘snowball’ an extra $660 per month, but she’s having so much fun, we’re having her stay for now).
• Clipping coupons.
• Stuffing envelopes or participating in “get rich quick schemes” and “pyramid sales.”

This is great news for folks like myself who are both self-employed and fans of P2P lending.

If you want to start an account for the 2008 tax year, you need to be enrolled and have funded your account by April 15th. The account goes by “real postal mail” not electronically, so hop to your research right away.

You can read more at the article I posted to Prosper Lending Review, where I’m a guest writer.

Our house won’t be underwater, and we’ll still have plenty of equity. Also, we’ll be building equity like crazy, with more than half of our monthly payment landing in equity–not interest.

One surprise in this process was that so many of the companies we talked to wouldn’t recommend their mortgage accelerator program–because it was administered by another company and you had to pay a fee to enroll, essentialy the other company works like a payday lender and loans the mortgage the difference between the two payments. We searched out the right accelerator program with the same zeal that we searched out interest rates.

Another interesting surprise was that because of our recent debt-busting efforts (two credit cards and two vehicles and an adoption loan paid off) we were able to qualify for our refinance based ONLY on my husabnd’s income. This we’re told was because of our excellent credit scores and our low debt-to-income ratio. The mortgage consultant said adding the verification process of my self-employment income wouldn’t get us a lower rate as we already qualified for the lowest available rate. Saves us a lot of headache, and provides a lot of peace of mind.