I know that a lot of people are vowing to live more frugally in 2009. And while cutting back on your shopping and spending can help you keep those frugal resolutions, the truth is that you’ve still got to buy stuff from time to time in order to keep your family fed, clothed and sheltered. The key, though, is to be smart about how you spend your money, and that’s why I like to look for bargains all year long.

For example, this week’s Staples’ advertising circular is filled with dollar deals. You’ll recall how during the summer I stocked up on back-to-school supplies for 13 cents when Staple’s was running its penny sale. Well, this time around I noticed that there were a number of items that the store had for $1 that I could never get for one cent. And that’s why tomorrow I’ll be heading out to my local Staples to stock up on highlighters and dry-erase markers–two items my kids always need for going back to school and which, I believe, are worth a $2 investment now, even though it’s January.

Other savings tricks to keep in mind include:

* Use gift cards whenever possible

Like many years in the past, our family received a large number of gift cards as holiday gifts. Because we have a gift card wallet and always have our gift cards at the ready, we were able to put them to good use when we hit the stores after Christmas. Thanks to those gift cards we were able to buy hundreds of dollars in clothing and electronics without spending a dime of our own money. If you’re still putting off putting together a gift card wallet, maybe you should make making a gift card wallet one a New Year’s resolution so you can take full advantage of your gift cards before they start losing some of their value.

* Wait for deals when shopping online

One of the gift cards I’d received this year was to the Gap, my favorite store for clothing basics. (I’ve got on three articles of Gap clothing as I write this post.) A few days after Christmas I got an email from Gap saying that many items were on sale, and the email included a coupon code that I could use to save an additional 25% when checking out. Well, that meant that this would be the perfect time to take out my Gap gift card and see how much I could get with the $50 on it. Turns out, quite a bit, since I’d waited to use it when the deals were too good to pass up. Had I not received that email with the coupon offer, I would have done a Google search using the terms “Gap” and “coupon” to see if I could uncover any hidden deals that I could use to my spending advantage. If you’ve never tried that trick when shopping online, I would recommend that you give it a go and see how things turn out.

* Hold out for free shipping

Speaking of searching for deals when shopping online, I know that many shoppers wait to spend their hard-earned dollars online when they can get free shipping with their purchase. In fact, according to this cool website I just found out about, called FreeShipping.org, here is how shipping charges affect online shoppers’ behavior:

• 78% of online customers said prohibitive costs of shipping discouraged them from online purchases. (Source: E-tailing Group, 2008)
• 75% of people prefer to shop with online retailers that offer free shipping, compared to 61% in 2007. (Source: Forrester Research, 2008)
• 43% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts because of unexpectedly high shipping charges. (Source: Paypal, comScore, 2008)
• Nearly 60% of respondents said free shipping was a “very important” factor in their decision to shop online. (Source: BIGresearch Survey)
• 61 of the largest 100 online retailers offered free shipping as of the week of Monday, Nov. 10, 2008. (Source: Internet Retailer)
• 60% of respondents indicated that free shipping was a reason they were more likely to shop online. (Source: Harris Interactive Survey, 2008)
• 90% of respondents said free shipping offers would entice them to spend more online. (Source: The Conference Board Survey, 2008)
• 72% of consumers said that if an e-commerce site eliminated free shipping, they would use another e-commerce site that did offer free shipping. (Source: comScore Survey, 2008)

If it isn’t obvious on the website where you’re shopping that you can get free shipping, I would recommend toggling over to FreeShipping.org’s website. There you’ll find an alphabetical listing of stores so you can search for yourself for free shipping offers. Or you can use the search window to uncover free shipping information. The site even includes coupon deals good for discounted shipping if free shipping isn’t available.

* Kick the bottled water habit once and for all

Giving up bottled water is a win-win. It saves you money–an MSN articles says Americans spend $15 billion a year on bottled water. That’s hardly a drop in the bucks. And it cuts down on plastic bottles ending up in landfills. Sadly, though most people know to place plastic water bottles in recycling bins, only about 20 percent of plastic bottles actually get recycled. The other 80 percent end up in trash heaps.

In fact, you’ll recall last fall that I asked readers of this blog to sign up for the Brita Filter for Good Challenge as part of a contest that Brita was running during Season 6 of “The Biggest Loser.” (Yeah, Season 7 starts on Tuesday.) Well, at about the same time in December that we found out that Michelle was the biggest loser, I found out that this blog was one of the winners of the contest. And because of that I received a Brita 8-cup Filter Pitcher to give away to my readers as a thank you for participating in the contest.

Do you want to win this free Brita pitcher? In order to put your name in the running for this pitcher, please post a comment below with your email spelled out–john dot doe at gmail dot com–and I’ll do a random drawing at the end of the week for one lucky winner who will be on his/her way towards kicking the bottled water habit–and saving money, too–by getting a new Brita pitcher.