It’s a good time of year to be in the market for cookware because many stores discount it at the holidays. But they often push huge sets with pieces you’ll never use.

Here are some tips on saving money when choosing pots and pans.

Go for quality. Buying top brands will serve you well in the long run, says cookbook author Jorj Morgan, whose favorites are All-Clad, Calphalon and Le Creuset.

As well as its composition — cast iron, copper, polished stainless steel, scratch-resistant anodized aluminum or another material — consider how the cookware will be used. Aluminum is good for high heat. Stainless steel with a nonstick surface is great for a cook just starting out; just know that some finishes wear through fast. Plain cast-iron cookware, seasoned to create a nonstick surface, is excellent for eggs, while the weight and finish of enameled cast iron make it perfect for braising and stew — and just about everything else.

There are helpful comparison charts at www.williams-sonoma.com/shop/cookware/cookware-compare/ and yourcookwarehelper.com.

Know what’s essential. Decide which pieces are must-haves, like frying pans and a stockpot, and beware that some sets don’t include them.

“For less money, you can customize your preferences,” says Morgan. “Shopping sale items and knowing what pans fit your cooking style is a better choice.”

Read reviews. A good place to start your research is Amazon.com.

“Even if I’m not buying a piece of cookware from Amazon.com, I’ll still go there and read product reviews,” says Amy Sherman, who writes the blog Cooking with Amy, at cookingwithamy.blogspot.com. If lots of people complain about the same feature or product, that’s worth considering when making your purchase, she adds.

Also check other sites, especially www.consumersearch.com, for reviews and recommendations. And ask friends who cook a lot what they use and like best.

Shop around. The timing couldn’t be better to purchase cookware at department stores, such as Macy’s, or lower-price retailers like Kmart, Target and closeout retailer Tuesday Morning, says Simply Recipes blogger Elise Bauer ( simplyrecipes.com ).

“You can mix and match and get some good deals,” Bauer says.

One of her favorite brands is Tools of the Trade, available at Macy’s.

Also try your local restaurant supply store (most cities have at least one, though they generally don’t advertise to consumers; check online or in the yellow pages) for deals on the workhorse equipment that eateries use.

Remember the warehouses. If you’re fixated on buying a set, head to a warehouse store like BJ’s Wholesale Club or Costco Wholesale, says Hugh Rushing, executive vice president of the Cookware Manufacturers Association.

And don’t skip over store-brand cookware, he said, because it’s often made by reputable manufacturers.

“If you’re willing to pay between $150 and $200, you can really get a nice set of cookware that should last you between five and 10 years before it begins to deteriorate,” Rushing says.

A Tramontina 12-piece aluminum set is listed for $129.99 at BJ’s online, and a 14-piece heavy-duty anodized set from Costco’s Kirkland brand goes for $179.99 online.

First Direct increased its balance transfer fees from 2.5% to 2.9% this month, following M&S Money’s increase from 2% to 2.5% at the start of October.

First Direct Gold, available to new customers only, offers one of the best interest-free periods for purchases at 12 months, and one of the best balance transfer rates at 5.9% for five years — popular with shoppers who also want to switch a balance from a more expensive card.

Egg recently rebranded its cashback card to the Egg Money World Mastercard and now charges £1 a month.

The changes come as Price Waterhouse Coopers, the accountant, said last week that credit cards will increasingly have to levy monthly fees and raise rates to offset bad debts. Research by Defaqto, the banking analyst, found that 7.4% of cards available to new customers charged a monthly fee. In November 2006, it was just 4.2% of the market.

Here we offer five tips to get the most from credit cards this Christmas:

1 USE SEPARATE CARDS One of the main gripes with credit cards is that they pay off the cheapest debt first, so if you have a 0% balance transfer deal but spending is charged at 9%, your payments will go towards paying off the 0% debt first. Only Nationwide and Saga have a positive order of payments.

Others have changed rates so the consumer is potentially worse off. Clydesdale Bank, for example, has recently changed its 0% offer on balance transfers from six months to 12, while its 0% rate for purchases was reduced from six months to three.

David Black of Defaqto suggests customers who want to use a balance transfer service and benefit from 0% on purchases should consider two cards — one for the transferred balance and the other for purchases.

The best card for balance transfers is Virgin Money, which offers 16 months at 0%. However, there is a 2.98% fee and its free purchase period lasts only three months.

For purchases you would be better off with a Tesco Clubcard, which offers 12 months interest-free on purchases.

If you would rather have one card, consider the AA credit card, which offers 0% on balance transfers and purchases until November 2010.

2 USE THE RIGHT CASHBACK CARD One of the best deals is on the American Express Platinum. It offers 5% cashback on all purchases but for only the first three months and up to £100. For the full benefit, you must spend £2,000 in the first three months.

After the first three months, the standard cashback rate is 0.5% on annual spending up to £3,500, then 1% on spending up to £7,500. Anything above this earns 1.25%.

However, Amex is not accepted in many locations, so a good alternative is Barclaycard’s cashback credit card, which pays 1% on the first £2,000 of spending, followed by 0.5% on up to £20,000 each year. The maximum you can get is £110 a year. A spend of £1,000 a month would earn £70.

3 TAKE ADVANTAGE OF REWARDS Many card providers entice customers with loyalty and reward schemes. One of the better ones is Tesco’s Clubcard — especially if you regularly shop at the store.

It offers one point for every £4 spent on the card. It also acts as a Clubcard, so you can pick up another two points for every £1 spent at Tesco.

You can either spend your points on shopping at Tesco, where each point equals 1p, or you can use the points on Tesco.com, where each point is worth 4p on certain deals.

4 USE YOUR OVERDRAFT Though banks have been cutting the level of interest-free authorised overdrafts, there are still some good deals.

Abbey and Barclays will offer 12 months interest-free overdrafts if you open a current account and pay in at least £1,000 a month. Alliance & Leicester also offers this but you need pay in only £500 a month. The level of overdraft you get will depend on your credit score, but typically it is about £2,000, said Defaqto.

5 MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE BEST SCORE Before deciding which card to go for, ensure your credit reference files are as up to date as possible as this will be used to determine what rate you receive or, indeed, whether you will be accepted. You can obtain a copy of your credit file by contacting one of Britain’s three main providers, Experian, Equifax and Call Credit.

That’s to say, you should plan how much money you will spend on the Christmas Holiday and stick with your budget strictly. It is very necessary for you to take your financial situations into consideration, many young men are impulsive consumers, the final result is that most people are in the red. So if you plan to have a very happy Christmas holiday in 2009, from now on, you should make a plan of spending money. For example, you can save 10% of your salary or deposit little money in your piggy bank, little by little; you can save a large sum of money before Christmas.
Second, you’d better write down a Christmas gift list

Simply to say, what’re the gifts you want to buy for your families and friends? You should consider two things clearly:

Firstly, you should write down the gifts’ receivers;

Secondly, consider what the favorite gift he wants to get is. That’s will cost you some time, because you should remember every word he or she said about Christmas from now on and guess what kind of gifts he wants to receive. Oh, god, it’s very hard!

But don’t worry, there is an easy solution to this problem, you can ask him or her directly, “which gift do you want to get on this year’s Christmas?” or something like that, then you don’t need to troubled by this.So just take it easy, because whatever you sent, your friends or families will like it best! Be confident, you can find the best gifts.

There is another way to find the gift list from the internet; many online shops will present a gift list for the customers, so you can search it from the internet using the keywords, like “video game gift list”, “Christmas Shopping gift list”, “Christmas gift list” and so on. Certainly you will find a satisfaction from it!
Third, you should collect the Christmas Presents’ information and then find a best gift

Collecting the Christmas presents’ information from some famous websites, or through the Google, Bing, yahoo to search the keywords to find the delicate online shops, such as, Christmas gifts, Christmas shopping, Christmas discount, Christmas news and so on to find the best information you want. Because most online shops will give a big discount before the Christmas coming, they’ll publish some the latest news. You can not only save a lot of money, but also you can save a lot of time from the online shopping.

For example, if your children want to buy a Nintendo DS Lite, you can search the keywords, “Nintendo DS Lite” “DS lite”, then pick up the best price from the front three pages’ online shops. There are a lot of video game online shops, such as, www. wiilovemario.com, www.ishopvideogame.com and www.gameyeeeah.com, and so on, they’re all reliable and trustable, fast delivery and best after-sale service! Everyone is very care about the service and the products. You can have a try!
Fourthly, you’d better shop early to make sure get the gifts before Christmas

After so many preparations, ACTION NOW! From November, every store will give a discount! So if you want your families or friends to receive your gifts before Christmas and have a big surprise, “WOW, GREAT, I LIKE IT! “. You should shop early and order ahead of time. You should take the delivery time and some emergent conditions into consideration; the best way is to order before Christmas. So take action now!
Fourth, don’t consume on impulsive at Christmas

Before Christmas, there will be a lot of discount information on the internet, and many stores are 50% OFF and so on. For example, ishopvideogame and gameyeeeah are also provide some discount, coupon, return points, activities for every customer.

At first, you should register some newsletters to get the latest discount or coupon code information directly. Secondly, pay much attention to the Christmas online shops’ news and blogs. Thirdly, search the keywords on the Google search engine, such as, “r4i 55% OFF”, “r4i sdhc 40% OFF”, “DS Lite discount”. In general, through the Google search engine to search “ the keywords + OFF/ discount/ coupon code” and so on. Then you will find the compatible information you wanted.

Actually, many famous brands will be in discount, so at that time, you come across the bags and clothes you like very much, please calm down and think for a while, “ is this thing I NEEDED?” If need, buy it now; if not, please appreciate it (or you can try it on, it doesn’t matter! No one will blame you!) and turn around elegantly to buy the best and most needed gifts and things!

The Santa Claus hopes everybody have a wonderful Christmas, ishopvideogame hopes the five tips to save money on Christmas Shopping will help you a lot!

Look, I would have asked Lacker if the Fed will tighten policy in my lifetime. He wouldn’t even commit to 2010.

Meanwhile, Lacker never once mentioned the dollar, which continues its decline virtually on a daily basis. Nor did he mention record gold prices. Nor did he mention rising commodity prices, including oil. Even the Treasury bond-market TIPS inflation spread has moved from zero to 220 basis points this year.

Lacker instead seems to be focused exclusively on GDP. But GDP is a lagging indicator. Lacker and Fed policymakers should be focusing on forward-looking leading indicators, like inflation-sensitive market prices.

Unfortunately, all of this sounds eerily familiar to the Fed’s big mistake seven years ago — the one that unleashed an inflationary bubble that eventually destroyed the economy.

Here’s something worth considering: What happens if the economy recovers faster and sooner than the Fed thinks? What happens if the unemployment rate comes down faster and sooner than the Fed thinks? If the Fed suddenly turns the spigot off because the economy is more V-shaped — raising rates and withdrawing cash — the stock market may very well get walloped.

Or what if the dollar- and gold-market vigilantes force the Fed to take action? Bernanke & Co. cannot ignore the currency- and gold-market rebellion forever.

What’s the bottom line here? If you use the wrong model of inflation as your guide, you’re going to get the wrong results.

Skincare-News.com’s latest article, “10 Penny-Pinching Ways to Pamper Yourself,” offers budget-friendly tips for luxury beauty treatments at home.

http://skincare-news.com/a-6578-10_PennyPinching_Ways_to_Pamper_Yourself.aspx

1. Do an at-home pedicure. Heading to the salon occasionally for a pedicure won’t deplete a woman’s bank account. But going regularly can add up, especially if she lives in a place where competition is scarce and big prices reign. At $50 a pedi, staying home can save a bundle.

2. Treat tired tootsies. A woman’s feet are one of the hardest working areas of her body. Fortunately, she can repair and rejuvenate fatigued feet in a flash. For a daily—or at least weekly—treat, she can try an easy three-step process: soak, scrub and hydrate. The only necessities are a tub of warm water, some salts, an exfoliating scrub and a rich cream.

3. Hydrate hands. A woman’s hands also take a beating every day. For a quick pick-me-up, she can apply a thick cream to hands and give each finger and both palms a mini-massage. If hands are particularly parched, apply Vaseline and then seal the moisture with plastic wrap and a pair of gloves.

4. Do nails at home. If a woman prefers polished nails, but her budget doesn’t, she can create a professional-looking manicure at home. Here’s a fast fix: spruce up nail shape with an emery board, apply cuticle oil, push back cuticles, rinse hands and finish off with clear polish.

5. Enjoy a facial, without frittering away funds. Facials can help rejuvenate skin and address a variety of complexion concerns. Spas typically offer a wide array of facials, starting at many price points. To find the best deal, browse newspapers and Web sites. Look at sites for local salons or general Web sites like SpaFinder. Also, give beauty school a try, where students are well-trained, supervised and treatments are cheap.

6. No funds to spare? Start a piggy bank. To save up for that coveted spa treat, try putting a dollar a day into a jar. Whether the goal is a facial, manicure, pedicure or mini-massage, a woman can treat herself after just a month of saving.

7. Create an at-home retreat on the cheap. It’s easy and cost-effective to create a peaceful sanctuary at home. Grab some scented candles and bubble bath (lavender gives off a relaxing aroma) or a pack of Dead Sea Salts. For some, bubble bath products may be irritating, particularly if a woman has eczema or sensitive skin. Instead, pour whole milk into the bath to gently exfoliate the skin and provide hydration.

8. Take to the cupboard. The kitchen is filled with fantastic ways for a woman to pamper herself from head to toe. Many beauty magazines, websites and blogs offer easy recipes for natural beauty treatments using ingredients like fresh fruit and essential oils.

9. Invite girlfriends for a spa day. There’s nothing more fun and relaxing than kicking back with friends and recreating a spa atmosphere together. Consider asking friends to bring their favorite candles, calming CDs, homemade spa recipes or a skincare product from their own collection they wouldn’t mind sharing.

10. Skip the salon for hair color. Unless a woman would like to go from brunette to platinum blond — in which case seeing a stylist is best — dyeing her own hair is relatively simple and can save hundreds of dollars in just six months! Be sure to enlist a friend to help get to those hard-to-reach spots.

Skincare-News.com covers all skincare and beauty topics from head to toe. Check out these latest articles:

Spa Day: It’s a Guy Thing (Really!)
http://www.skincare-news.com/a-5933-Spa_Day_Its_a_Guy_Thing_Really_.aspx

According to a report by the Associated Skin Care Professionals, nearly one-third of U.S. spa visitors are male. From pool tables to cold brew, spas and salons now reflect a man’s world, offering head-to-toe treatments to make men look and feel better. Now men can experience the same spa rewards that women have been enjoying for years. From stress relief and skin care to body overhaul and relationships, there are a multitude of benefits to a man making the time for a massage, wax or facial. Discover more benefits and tips in this guy’s guide to pampering.

A Guide to Facials
http://www.skincare-news.com/a-5894-A_Guide_to_Facials.aspx

For most people, facials are an occasional splurge. However, men and women might find that a regular facial helps rejuvenate the complexion. Facials pamper a person’s skin and provide an opportunity for a one-on-one with a skincare specialist, who can help assess an individual’s skin condition and particular skincare needs. Benefits of a facial include eliminating dead skin and deep-cleaning pores, balancing skin tone, hydrating dry skin and tightening the face for a brighter, more refreshed appearance. Before venturing out to the spa, find out tips for choosing a facialist, types of facials and what to expect before and after a treatment.

Comparing Professional and At-Home Treatments
http://www.skincare-news.com/a-5781-Comparing_Professional_and_AtHome_Treatments_.aspx

To cut costs, many women opt for at-home skincare treatments over professional ones. Chemical peels, microdermabrasion and facials are commonplace at salons, medical spas or dermatologist offices. But many of these treatments are now bottled up for at-home use. Glycolic acid peels, which exfoliate, improve hyperpigmentation and minimize lines, are available in lower concentration over-the-counter and can be used once or twice a month. Microdermabrasion exfoliates and improves acne, but at-home kits are unable to get deep into the skin like professional treatments. Learn the difference between professional and at-home treatments with this comparative guide.

You could make up to £200 dressing up as a Christmas character. Santas and elves are in demand from early November to entertain children and adults at parties, department stores, shopping centres and nightclubs. Santas can be any age – young, skateboarding ones can be in demand for corporate events and nightclubs. Elves tend to be young women with experience in entertaining kids. There are ads in The Stage for these jobs already, or you can apply through an agency such as Star Now .

2 Be a seasonal postie

Being a part-time postman can be a great way to earn extra cash, assuming there’s no all-out strike. Royal Mail usually takes on about 20,000 staff in November and December to help cope with the increased volume of mail.

Mail sorters can expect up to £7 per hour, while experienced drivers can make up to £18 an hour. Go to Royalmail.com and click on jobs, then find the Christmas work section.

There is also money to be made delivering catalogues and brochures. Often this can be done in your own time. Check out websites such as Gumtree to find delivery jobs in your area. Do watch out for companies that ask for cash deposits upfront, as they’re likely to be scams.

3 Do some shop work

Working in retail is a great way to make a bit on the side at Christmas. A lot of high street stores, particularly department stores, need an extra helping hand to deal with the seasonal rush. Chains such as Marks & Spencer, Next and Debenhams are advertising work for Christmas and New Year. Get an application form instore. You’ll be paid higher rates if you work bank holidays, and you’re also likely get a staff discount, so you can save on your Christmas spending.

4 Make hampers to sell

The likes of Harrods and Fortnum & Mason do a roaring trade in hampers. Have a look to get an idea of what to put in yours. Making a hamper can cost very little and the goodies inside can be bought in bulk or made at home. Sell (at car boot sales or open markets) at as high a price as you like.

What you put in is up to you. You could have themed hampers (chocolate, or “tea for two”, for example), or create hampers from (nicely wrapped) homemade foods. Very effective hampers can be made from a cheap basket and low-priced toiletries from pound shops, if wrapped in cellophane and colourful ribbon.

5 Do bar work

Pubs and bars regularly take on extra staff over holiday periods and particularly at Christmas and New Year. If you’re willing to work on Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, you can expect double the usual hourly rate. Apply now as these jobs tend to go pretty quickly.

Pacing can be a surprisingly complicated thing to accomplish and I’m surprised that I haven’t seen a pacing tool integrated into an SEM management platform yet…it would seem to be a no-brainer. This world-wide economic recession has made all marketers, including SEM pros, more savvy. Our paid search accounts are more optimized than ever before and there’s very little fat to trim or ad groups to pause. If the search volume on our terms drastically fall, we may not have the option to simply unpause under-performing keywords or ad groups [without justification] to make up the difference.

Some of the issues that affect pacing include:

Usual Spikes and Dips

Search is a pull medium. Inventory is not guaranteed nor is it easy to accurately predict. First of all, there are seasonality shifts in any business (”prom dress” starts to spike in February and dies in June). Of course, over time, the product or service may natural phase out or become out of fashion – ever wonder what the volume on “sony walkman” is? If you or your competitors run any other large advertising campaigns, online or offline, seasonality may spike your traffic. There’s also unique variables to every paid search account.

For example, we have an entertainment client that sells tickets to their shows. We’ve learned over time just what the search volume curve looks like and we know it spikes three weeks before opening night and dies almost ten days afterward. It’s almost like clockwork, and we’ve been able to master budget allocation on this account over time.

Unusual Spikes and Dips

Michael Jackson’s recent passing comes to mind as a perfect example. Google received so many queries that they thought it was an attack on the system. Can you imagine if you were selling something Michael Jackson related that day and didn’t have budget caps on your account and suddenly wasted your entire quarter’s marketing budget in twelve hours? Or imagine if you had very tight budgets and didn’t take advantage of that opportunity to sell to real fans?

In a personal example, I was working on the paid search account of a Fortune 500 company a few years ago that was involved in a criminal investigation. Overnight, their branded term traffic spiked exponentially with “[company] scandal” and [company] problem”. We immediately had to add more negative terms to their campaigns to avoid that traffic. These crazy spikes and dips happen all of the time.

Enormous Campaigns

Hundreds of thousands of keywords, three or more engines, hundreds of campaigns, thousands of ad groups…that’s a lot to keep track of. Especially if there are promo campaigns flighting in and out, new product groups entering the picture, etc. It’s just a lot of moving pieces and it can sometimes be difficult to handle.

Technology Flaws

One of the common SEM rookie questions about AdWords is, “Why did my campaign go over budget yesterday?” Well, as we know, daily campaign budget caps are about as firm as a wet paper plate. Google’s policy is that it won’t spend more than 30 times your daily budget in 30 days. So, if you go over $20 your first day, you may see your account spend $20 less the next day to even that out; so, even Google has trouble staying within budgets. They have so many ads running that it would be virtually impossible to stop one account on a dime. That being said, Google won’t charge you anything over your account budget, but that doesn’t help you if you have multiple campaigns starting and stopping in one account.

Fees

Not only do you have agency fees, but there are third party costs as well. Your bid management platform may be 2-5% of your media spend and critical competitive tools such as AdGooroo, Compete, SpyFu, etc. have their own subscription fees. You have to keep track of all of those things and make sure you back them out of your media spend. Years ago, at another agency, I remember there was an account where the team spent the budget for six months until they realized the agency fees hadn’t been taken out — they basically had given the client a half year of free work because of this mistake.

The scrutiny level for pacing varies with each account. Sometimes you’re pacing daily, but usually weekly is fine. Most accounts have an even spread of the budget over the length of the campaign so it’s a simple thing to compare what percentage of the account you’ve spent versus what percentage of account has passed in time. At the beginning of the campaign, it’s usually okay to be as much as 20% over or under, but any more than that and you should try to make up the difference as quickly as you can and then pace back to normal levels.

Pacing really becomes more serious as the end of an account nears. I direct my team to try to be just about done by the last week and only leave what they know they can spend for the last seven days (basically 30% or so of the current daily average). This way, they can put on daily budget caps because they know the engines will have no problem spending the remainder.

Underpacing is usually harder to fix efficiently than overpacing. When you’re overpacing, there’s immediately an opportunity for you to optimize out of the poorest performing ads, keywords, and ad groups. This usually leads to a better account. However, when you’re underpacing, that means you’re going to have to open up the account which could lead to lower overall performance. There have been many times where I’ve had to go back to a client and tell them that we can’t spend their money efficiently at the budget goal that has been set. I don’t like to do that, but you serve your clients better by telling them then truth than by just flipping the switch on high-volume general terms that don’t necessarily help meet their objectives.

Tips if you’re underpacing

• Increase bids
• Increase budget
• Use Content (and/or Placement in AdWords)
• Use more Broad Match to create a “wider net”
• Wider geotargeting, dayparting, etc
• Expand your keywords. How about topics similar to yours but not specific to you? For example, if you’re selling surfing gear, what about bidding on “Hawaii Travel” or “Beach Vacations”?
• Raise your CTRs on your ads to get the most clicks from the available impressions (see above on raising CTRS)
• Use other engines such as Ask
• Take out negative words (when it makes sense to do so)
• More general ads vs. specific but don’t kill your quality scores by doing so

Tips if you’re overpacing

• Decrease bids
• Decrease budget
• Get off the Content Network (usually has a lower ROI than Search)
• Don’t use Broad Match
• Tighter targeting. Find the highest performing geo- and day- parting segments and move budget away from the rest
• Use more negative terms to filter your ad triggering

¶Be sure there is a market for your product or service. Conduct market research to determine if you have a product or service that people want to buy at a rate that can propel you to $1 million in revenue.

¶Have a big vision for your business. Clearly define why you are in business, what problem your product or service solves for your customers and share that vision with customers and employees.

¶Enlist help. You cannot do it alone. Delegate responsibilities to others. Clarify what you are best at and then surround yourself with a team (advisers, employees, vendors) whose members are the best at what they do.

¶Take control of your numbers. Learn to love them, and you will make better decisions and more money. As part of that, set financial goals.

¶Failure is not final. Don’t beat yourself up. Learn from your mistakes. Put systems in place to deliver good service to your customers consistently. Systems will also help save time and money.

Can’t find what you want at your local Goodwill store? Shop online at ShopGoodwill.com where items are auctioned off eBay style. Lots of jewelry, electronics and collectibles — the high-end stuff you can’t often find at the brick and mortar stores.

STEAL OF A DEAL

Golden Corral, Pete’s and Fazoli’s deals

Every Tuesday, kids 12 and younger eat for $1.99 at Golden Corral.

Pete’s Restaurant, 4223 Tuscarawas St. W., is celebrating its five year anniversary by rolling back the price of the breakfast special to the opening day price of $3.29, and reducing dinner specials by a buck on Monday through Thursday.

Fazoli’s, 3929 Everhard Rd. NW, offers 99 cent kids meals every Tuesday.

BEAT THE RUSH

Black Friday Web sites are up, running

You don’t have to wait until your Wish Book arrives in the mail to plan your shopping on the day after Thanksgiving.

Black Friday Web sites are up and running, and bloggers are abuzz. Black Friday sites post ads, sales circulars and catalogs before they are mailed. You’ll also find lists of predicted Black Friday prices for popular gift items.

Ads are already posted for Sears, Toys R Us, Farm & Fleet, Half-Priced Books and WalMart. Check out www.blackfriday.info or www.theblackfriday.com or

blackfriday.gottadeal.com.

Reuse, recycle that pumpkin

Have a pumpkin that didn’t get carved into a jack-o-lantern? Hollow out the pumpkin, drop a potted mum inside. Lean the pumpkin “lid” up against the side. Presto— Autumnal centerpiece.

QUOTABLE

“Let’s dispense with the idea that saying no to spending on certain things means you’re cheap. If you decide that spending $2.50 on Cokes when you eat out isn’t worth it — and you’d rather save the $15 each week for a movie — that’s not cheap. That’s using frugality to drive conscious spending.”

Ramit Sethi in his book, “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”

FROM THE FRUGALTARIAN

Use cake mix to make cookies

Quick, easy, cheap cookies can be made from cake mix. This trick is especially good for those who don’t bake much and might not have all the ingredients needed to bake from scratch.

I usually buy cake mix when it’s on sale for about a dollar and use a 25- or 35-cent coupon. I get 40-45 cookies per box, so if I add in the cost of eggs and oil, that comes to less than 5 cents per cookie.

Recipes abound on the Internet. One of the simplest calls for 1 box of cake mix, 2 eggs, and 1/2 cup oil. Mix, drop onto parchment paper lined baking sheets, bake for 9-13 minutes at 350 degrees.

I tried to make a Snickerdoodle from yellow cake mix, rolling dough in cinnamon sugar before baking. It didn’t taste much like a Snickerdoodle, but it made a great cookie.

But, according to the Jefferson County Extension office, there are a few easy ways for people to save money and energy this winter.

“People everywhere are feeling a crunch economically this year, and that’s getting harder,” said Scott Timm, community and economic development specialist at the Jefferson County extension office. “If there’s things you can do at little or no cost to save you money, you should definitely do them.”

Check the windows and doors is an easy way to keep cold air out of the house, Timm said.

Removing air conditioning units from the windows will also help prevent leaking air in the winter.

Installing a programmable thermostat, costing about $50, can save residents 10 percent on their monthly heating bill. Timm recommends setting the indoor temperature at 70 degrees when residents are at home and awake, and about 62 degrees when asleep or away.

“Just take time this weekend, walk around your house, tighten things up, do some winterization and save some money,” he said.

Getting the furnace checked and changing dirty air filters will cut costs. Also, check the water heater, making sure the tank is set under 130 degrees. If the water heater is more than 5 years old, Timm suggests wrapping it with a thermal blanket. This will help it lose less heat.

ISU extension offices have a Kill-a-Watt meter that residents can borrow to calculate how much old appliances are costing. A long-term goal could be to replace old appliances with energy-efficient ones, Timm said. Many of the energy-efficient appliances have rebates or tax credits available.

Timm also said residents should have an energy audit performed on their home this winter. A local utilities company will do a basic audit for free or a modest fee.

“This weekend and this week is a time to get around your house and do some work before it gets too cold,” Timm said. “The longer you wait, the more money you’re wasting.”

Pat Shaver can be reached at (641) 683-5360 or by e-mail at p.shaver@ottumwacourier.com.