We’re about to go on one of our big outlet shopping trips, and a recent Wallet Pop article on outlet store pitfalls reminded me to keep my wits about me when I hit the stores. This way I don’t drop more cash than I’d intended. Also, I figured it was a good time to revisit this topic, something I haven’t done since 2008.

With that in mind, should you have an outlet shopping trip planned in the near future, here are my 5 tips to save the most when outlet shopping.

1. Choose outlet stores in tax-free states
   While Kittery and Freeport (home to the original L.L. Bean store) have reputations for being great places to outlet shop, Maine is a state that taxes clothing. So should you find a great deal at one of Maine’s many outlets, keep in mind that you’ll have to add five percent, the sales-tax rate, to your purchase. On the other hand New Hampshire does not tax clothing so, in essence, shopping at the outlets in North Conway, for example, will save you five percent over similar shopping in nearby Maine. Similarly, neither New Jersey nor Pennsylvania tax clothing, meaning that when you buy clothes at the outlets at Liberty Village in Flemington or down near Atlantic City, in New Jersey, or near Peddler’s Village or Lancaster in Pennsylvania, you’ll avoid paying each state’s sales tax, which are seven percent and six percent, respectively.
2. Buy when you find a bargain, not just because you’re at an outlet
   I think that too often you can fall into this mentality that because you’re shopping at an outlet, you are automatically getting a great bargain. This is not always true. While outlets may have at one time been the place that retailers sent their overstocks from the clearance rack, these days many retailers make original clothes that are destined for outlet racks only. Of course, there are still stores where their outlets are, in fact, their outlets.
3. Shop with a plan in mind
   Just the other day we talked with our daughters about making a shopping list for our outlet trip. We told them to go through their wardrobes and first identify any articles of clothing that they did not wear this past school year or did not want to wear when school is back in session. We wanted them to pull those out so we could donate them and so they would have a better sense of just how much clothing they actually own. From there we asked them to make a list of “must haves” for the fall season. This will help us to keep our outlet shopping targeted once we do get to the stores.
4. Make sure you purchase rings up right
   Many outlet stores have significantly marked down merchandise, which you may see on the price tag but which may not ring up at the register. Be sure that before you leave the store, you review your purchase–comparing receipt with price tag–so that if you need to make a price adjustment, you’re still there. While these kinds of mistakes can happen at any retail location, the aforementioned WalletPop story seems to insinuated that this problem is much more prevalent at outlet locations.
5. Be thoughtful with your return options
   If you buy something at an out-of-state outlet shop, make sure you can return it at a store near you. I know that Gap Outlet returns are only accepted at those stores–not regular mall locations–so if, like the 18 million visitors who shop at the Franklin Mills mall outside Philadelphia, you pick something up at the Gap outlet there, be sure you won’t have to return it, especially if you don’t live near another Gap outlet.

Have you discovered additional ways to save when you go outlet shopping? If so, post a comment to let us know.

I did an extensive interview with the founder of BeFrugal.com about the history behind Suddenly Frugal–the blog and the book. As I was reading over the transcript of the interview (errors and all), it highlighted five things that you may not know about me or topics related to my book. Here they are:

1. The one thing that has angered so many people who have read my book is the fact that I’m reusing water from my dehumidifier in creative ways. They call it cheap and unreasonable and they think that I should get a well if I don’t want to pay for water (or something like that). Well, that isn’t actually described in the interview but I allude to it when I talk about how one paragraph of my 250-page book is what stands out in people’s mind.
2. I talk really fast.
3. I do a lot of volunteer work in my community (and would be really rich if I got paid for all the time I give to these good causes).
4. I am addicted to coffee (but won’t pay to satisfy my addiction).
5. I, like, say “like” as much as my teenagers do. Like, how did that happen?

Let me know what you think of the interview.

Recently, we spent a long weekend at the beach. While I left my hotel confirmation number at home, I didn’t forget my frugal ways. Here are some of the tricks we used to save about $100 a day on our vacation.

1. BYOB. That would stand for “bring your own breakfast.” We were able to do that because the hotel where we stayed offered a kitchenette with a full-size refrigerator. Not only did we stock it with a gallon of milk (brought frozen from home), boxes of cereal and the fixings for my morning cup of Joe, but also it was packed with watermelon, bread for sandwiches and much more. Breakfast in the restaurant downstairs would have put our family of our back $30. Instead, we ate for free in our room. Later in the evening we pooled funds with some of the other families that we were traveling with and bought food for a cookout. For $10 a person we ate like kings. Had we gone to a restaurant and had as much food as we did at our home-grown fiesta–appetizers, dinner, wine, dessert–we would have spent at least double that per person.
   SAVINGS: $70
2. Be smart about how you buy your souvenirs. Jen A. Miller, author of The Jersey Shore, Atlantic City through Cape May: Great Destinations suggests hitting up the local CVS or Walgreens for souvenirs. They’ll still “say” the place you’re visiting but just not at the same price–cheaper! Since my daughters wanted custom sweatshirts that the shops along the beach boardwalk offered, drugstore shopping wasn’t an option. However, we discovered that the farther down the boardwalk we walked, the cheaper the prices got. So a sweatshirt that would have cost us $50 in the first shop we visited ended up setting us back only $30 by getting it in a boardwalk shop about a half mile farther down the strip.
   SAVINGS: $20
3. Carpool, park and walk whenever possible. The night we visited the boardwalk mentioned above, we could have parked in a lot right next to the shops. But that would have cost $20 per car. Instead, we found street parking a few blocks away and pumped the meter full of enough quarters (or about $4) to buy us four hours of fun on the boardwalk. Then we walked the eight blocks or so to the boardwalk.
   SAVINGS: $16
4. Travel on an off-season weekend. Though we were at the beach on Father’s Day weekend, that still wasn’t considered to be high season. Had we traveled just a week later, our room would have cost $90 more a night. So when you’re looking to get away, investigate which weeks hotels consider to be “off season” and book for then. You may save as much per night as we did.
   SAVINGS: $90

Let me know some of your tips for saving cash when you go away.

Scratched or cracked CDs or DVDs that won’t play music, a video game or a movie are as good as garbage. Or are they? Before you toss these suckers in the trash, consider reusing them these four ways. You might just save yourself some cash in the process:

1. Cup coasters. They’ll protect your table and save you from having to buy new coasters when you get a new piece of furniture.
2. Bird deflector. I was reading an article on how to prevent birds from flying into your home’s windows, and one of the suggestions was to hang CDs in the window. Supposedly the moving, reflective nature of the discs will deter the birds from continuing their flight path into your windows.
3. Table centerpiece. If you having a party and need to note table numbers, use an old CD and a Sharpie marker to get your message across.
4. Christmas decorations. I’ve hung many an old CD on our Christmas tree, because the underside of the disc casts a pretty prism when the light hits it just so.

Let me know if you have additional and creative ways that you reuse these kinds of discs.

I’ll admit that we’ve never been much of a so-called Hallmark family when it comes to national holidays–buying cards and making a big fuss when it’s Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t celebrate or give each other gifts; we just like to do that celebrating and gifting on a more subdued level, and that usually translates into recognizing the day without spending a lot of money.

Maybe you’re like our family or maybe this year you’re just looking to find some affordable Father’s Day gift ideas. If so, you’re in luck, because here are my 4 ideas for frugal Father’s Day gifts.

1. Take Dad out for a free meal. Many restaurants this year will be running Father’s Day freebies (I’ll be doing a roundup in this Friday’s Freebie Friday post), including Denny’s and Tasti D Lite. Both will give dad free dessert.
2. Do his chores for him. I know that many men take pleasure in doing certain chores around the house–something to do with control and whatnot. But I also know that some men just abhor certain chores–for my husband, it’s vacuuming the pool or loading the dishwasher. So on Father’s Day I plan to surprise him by having the kids and me take those chores off his hands.
3. Give him something for his desk at work. OK, raise your hand if you still have this year’s school photos sitting in the envelope in which they came home with your kids’ portraits in them. I know that I do, and another gift idea for my husband–or even one of the grandfathers–would be to frame this school pictures so they can display them on their desk at work or a desk at home. I mean, what good are they doing sitting in an envelope? If you’re low on frames, check the clearance aisles of local stores. You might even be able to snag some marked-down 2010 frames from graduation (minus the mortarboard and diploma images) that you could use.
4. Get him something practical. Forget the tie–does Dad need new underwear? New work socks? Is he trying to pack lunches to save money but doesn’t have an insulated bag? What about things he might need for his volunteer work or hobbies? My husband, for example, just signed on to be the head coach of our daughter’s travel soccer team. A great (and practical) gift would be a “coaches’ kit” of necessities (clipboard, bug spray, sunblock, hat, bandages, stop watch, rain poncho) that he’ll need on the sidelines.

What about you? What are some of the ways you plan to make your Father’s Day celebration frugal this year?

Thankfully, my rent-paying days are long over. But for some of you, they may be your current reality. This guest post comes from Chris Thorman, who blogs about landlord software at Software Advice. It’s based on a post he wrote called How to Negotiate Your Rent in 2010 | A 10-Step Guide. Here are his 10 steps to pay less rent.

1. Find out what others are paying. Rent-O-Meter is one of many online resources that will tell tenants if their rent is reasonable based on comparable properties in their city. Web sites such as Craigslist.org and newspaper classifieds are two places that tenants can find specific information about properties in their area. By searching these sites by zip code, a tenant can get a good idea of what the rent is of nearby properties. Neighbors are also a great source of information. They’ll know the insider deals, as well as any concessions the landlord typically gives.
2. Consult the local tenants’ council. Many cities have a local tenants’ association or council that lobbies for tenant rights. They’ll have resources specific to their area, including information about rent increases and even mediation services should a tenant need them. Tenants will also be able to get first hand rental information about certain areas from experts.
3. Know the trends. One of the oldest sources of online information about apartment living, ApartmentRatings.com, has a database of average rental rates for dozens of cities and towns in the United States. It’s called “What The Neighbors Pay.” Tenants can use this online resource to see if rents are falling or rising in their area. If the rent has been falling over the last few years in an area, that may be a good point to bring up during negotiations.
4. Take note of vacancies. As the end of a tenant’s lease nears, they should take note of the number of vacancies in their complex, as well as how long those units have been vacant. If a landlord has trouble filling their current empty units, it’s likely they will have trouble filling a newly empty unit too. A landlord may not care about a $50 a month increase in rent if it risks the possibility of leaving a unit vacant for a month or two.
5. Check local advertising. If a landlord isn’t advertising heavily, or at all, it may mean that they feel confident they can fill their units quickly. On the other hand, if a tenant notices the same Craigslist ad appearing every couple of days, they can assume that the units aren’t being filled fast enough.
6. Choose the right time to renew. Depending on when a tenant’s lease is up, they can take advantage of the natural ebb and flow of the rental market. Most property management companies are busiest in the summer months, while demand for rental properties drops off significantly in the winter. Take early advantage of the summer rush by negotiating a new lease in March or April, if possible.
7. Point out the positives. If a person has been a model tenant, now is the time to mention that. Paying rent on time; having a good credit score; and being a loyal community member are all things a tenant wants to mention during the negotiation process. Landlords know that model tenants can save them money over the long term, even if they aren’t able to increase their rent.
8. Bring the homework. If a landlord’s offer is more than the market rate, a tenant can counter with the information they gathered before the negotiation. Having up to date information about what the market actually looks like, as well information about other rental options nearby, puts a tenant in a strong negotiating position. Also, if a tenant is able to cite rates or concessions other tenants received, there is a possibility a landlord will give them the same deal.
9. Ask for a longer lease. If a landlord won’t meet a tenant’s offer on a 12-month lease, it’s possible the landlord will budge if the tenant is willing to sign a longer lease. A landlord will be motivated by not having to pay for advertising and cleaning up the unit for one more year.
10. Ask for a trade-off. If a landlord absolutely will not back down from their offer, and the tenant wants to remain in that complex, a trade-off may be a good idea. If the landlord can’t meet a tenant’s offer, perhaps the landlord can offer another concession, such as free parking. The important thing in the negotiation is to get something out of the deal, even if it’s not a lower rate.

It’s that time of year, when parents start thinking about end-of-year gifts for teachers and family and friends of graduates wonder what gift can they get without breaking their budget. I’ve put together five “themes” for gifts, as I discussed on my “10! Show” segment earlier this week. Here are the details, with links, of some of the products I discussed.

Note of thanks for teachers (note from child and/or parent) or a box of notecards as a gift

• Many teachers tell me that the best gift they can receive from a student is a note at the end of the year, letting them know what kind of an affect that teacher has had on the kid’s life. A great way to be frugal when it comes to giving someone a handwritten card is to buy them in bulk, like the Set of 40 Pop Up & Accordion All Occasion Cards that I got from QVC for about $25. (You can never get cards this cheap in a card store. That’s about $.63 per card!)
• If you don’t mind spending a bit more on cards that happen to be handmade, there are the Hope for Women, fair trade notecards made by disadvantaged women in India and El Salvador.
• A terrific way to package your note is to slip it into a reusable bag, like the Envirosax kind. One website sells a five-pack of Envirosax bags for $35. Pull one out for each teacher, at $7 a pop.
• Want to give your favorite teacher a gift of actual notecards or personalized stationery? Check out what photo site Shutterfly has to offer. I found a personalized notepad for $17.99 and personalized notecards about 12 for $2–no, that’s not a typo.

Books make a great gift for teachers and grads

• My Orange Duffel Bag is a book about triumphing over odds from an executive at Franklin Covey company ($24.99). It’s a great inspirational gift for a grad.
• Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef is from two Michigan brothers who take college fare above ramen noodles (about $15).
• In our day and age of electronic gadgets, sometimes an old-fashioned journal is the perfect gift. I showcased journals from Ecosystem, available at Barnes & Noble, and made from 100% post consumer recycled paper. (They retail for $6.95 – $20.95.)
• Parents may want to send their kid off to college with a digital book, so to speak, such as the Sony e-Reader, which holds hundreds of books. It’s about the size of a paper back and as thin as a cellphone. ($199)

Here are some tech gifts with a twist

• If you’ve ever worked with a laptop on your lap, you know how hot they can get. That’s why I was thrilled to learn about the Targus Lap Chill Mat, which cools your laptop. Best of all it’s powered by a USB cord so you don’t have to worry about plugging it in somewhere. ($39.99 available at Best Buy, Staples etc.)
• Surprise an iPhone user with a fun Paul Frank phone skin that features a money in a mortarboard hat. ($34.95 at Apple stores)
• USB engraved silver-plated memory stick (from Things Remembered, engraved $25 to $30)

Go beyond posting photos on Facebook only and give them some photo memories from high school

• Choose frames with 2010 on them to commemorate the graduate’s year.
• To print out photo-shop quality pictures, consider surprising the graduate with a Kodak ESP 7250 All-in-One printer ($199). It has one of the lowest ink replacements costs, at about $20 per ink cartridge. (I pay about $60 for my Lexmark inkjet, a machine and company I have been so unhappy with. Did you know that my scanner can’t actually scan multiple pages to a single file, allowing me to resize each page in the scan? It’s ridiculous. But I digress…)
• Jostens, the people who do high school class rings, has gotten into the photo book business. For $35 they’ll put together a great commemorative book of your photos so you can give this one-of-a-kind collection as a graduation gift.

Send them off with school spirit–gifts of apparel and accessories from their future college

• A great gift for a guy who likes to dress up: school cufflinks and tiebar with the logo of his college on them. Cufflinks.com has these for 170 different schools! (Cufflinks cost $50; tiebar costs $35.)
• Decoration a dorm room with a desk lamp with the school’s name on it.
• Give them attire they can wear that shows off the name of their college.

Finally, for an out of the box graduation gift, there is the Slouch Back inflatable couch. It turns any dorm bed into a couch, with cup holders, and will make your kid the most popular person on his or her dorm floor! ($99)

I was on the “10! Show” on NBC 10 in Philadelphia again on Tuesday. This time I was offering frugal gift ideas for teachers and grads. You can watch the video below. Tomorrow I’ll post the text version of the segment, in case you want more information on the suggestions I made or products I mentioned.

My husband and I have this joke about the $100 Target “tax.” That is, you can never get out of a Target store for under $100–even if you’d just stopped in for a few things. Well, the same can be said for warehouse clubs, but the “tax” can sometimes be a bit steeper. And I’m not just talking the hundreds of dollars you’re likely laying down at the checkout counter. I’m talking about after-the-fact waste that is money down the drain or just unnecessary spending overall.

Here are 3 ways I’ve lost money at my local warehouse club:

1. Bought a multi-pack of something that expired before I could use it all up. Just tonight we were having pasta with dinner, and as I was sprinkling on the warehouse-brand parmesan cheese, I happened to glance at the expiration date. It was from nine months ago! This past weekend I had a similar experience with a half-full bottle of vitamins that I’d also bought in a multi-pack but then I noticed that the vitamins had expired back in 2009. Now, I realize I’m not going to die taking past-their-prime vitamins, but I know I’m likely not getting their full benefits. So next time around I’m buying a small bottle of vitamins that I know I can use up before they go “bad.”
2. Purchased super-size packages of food my family probably doesn’t need around the house anyway. So I was making chocolate chip cookies and needed the chocolate chips. I could have gotten away with a 16-ounce bag at the local supermarket but the five-pound bag at the warehouse club was only marginally more expensive. And I got so much more that way. But did I really need five pounds of chocolate chips in my house? About as much as I needed a hole in my head.
3. Decided to get single-serving packages of some foods because they were convenient. Now we all know that paying the money for someone else to make those single-serving snack packs is a waste of money. But sometimes that’s the only way you can buy certain kinds of food at the warehouse club. So if you want those ice cream sandwiches or graham crackers, that’s your only choice. (Of course I also have the choice to walk out the door empty handed but that’s harder to do than you might expect.)

All of that said there are two items that are likely to be a big savings for you at the warehouse club–milk and eggs. So if you only need those two things and you live near a warehouse club, you can stock up on them there guilt free.

What about you? Do you find warehouse clubs to be your frugal downfall?

I am just so sick about this whole oil spill thing that I want to do something about how we heat the water in our house–and our house in general. Currently, we have an oil boiler/furnace that heats our water and a baseboard heating system.  And it is all oil-dependent.

Getting our last “budget” oil bill for the season today helped push me over the edge, especially after I’d figured out that we’d spent about $7,000 in oil last year. Since we don’t have gas on our dead-end, dirt road, that’s not an option for us to consider. And I don’t think that electric heating/water heater would be much better either.

I know that installing a solar system isn’t cheap and I don’t really have the cash on hand right now to make the change, but if I’m already spending four figures annually (broken up into 10 “convenient” payments, as my oil company calls it) to heat my house and water, I imagine that a one-time payment to get a solar system going would hurt, for a little bit, but then pay off in the end.

So I did a little research and found out a few things–even if in the process I couldn’t find out anything:

• My state, Pennsylvania, isn’t very solar friendly. Whereas there are tons of resources for our neighbors across the Delaware River (i.e. folks in New Jersey) if they want to install a solar system, it’s the proverbial needle in the haystack trying to figure out how to go from an oil-based system to a solar system here in the Keystone State.
• We’ve already done a ton of proactive things to make our house more energy efficient. We keep our heat in the mid 60s during the winter and the a/c in the low to mid 70s during the summer. When we completed our recent renovation, we paid a bit more upfront for the super energy-efficient Andersen windows and the good insulation, too. (This helped us to get the maximum $1,500 in tax credits on our 2009 tax return.) We also upgraded to energy-efficient appliances in the kitchen–dishwasher and refrigerator.
• It’s possible that our energy-sucking culprit is our water heater, which went on the fritz in January. The “rod” that is submerged in the tank to regulate the temperature corroded beyond repair so we are no longer able to keep the water in there at a set temperature. I’m thinking that this is where all that oil money is going–burning through the hot water. (According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 25% of a home’s energy expenditures come from heating water. And if we’re not heating our water very efficiently, this could explain why we’ve been paying so much for home heating oil.)
• If we decide to purchase a new water heater, it seems that residential-quality water heaters do not qualify for the energy-efficient tax credits. That stinks. We would have to somehow upgrade to a commercial-quality water heater but I don’t know if the extra money we would have to spend would be worth the amount of one-time tax credits we could get.

If you have any advice, suggestions or anecdotes with regards to this topic, please post a comment.