I’ve been working on setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog over the last couple of weeks.  It’s been a learning experience and I’m very excited to say “I’ve moved!”

I will no longer be updating this site so please change your bookmarks and feeds to my new home, On A Quest To Be Debt Free.

See you soon!

Here is this week’s list of freebies and free samples, I’ve also included some coupons as a bonus this week!

Barnes & Noble is offering school supplies at 30% off using the code found here.

Free sample of LACTAID® Fast Act Dietary Supplements

Free sample of the Fiber35Diet® bar

Free sample of Dove® pro-age body lotion

Free sample of Sun Crystals® Natural Sweetener

Free IQ test®

Free subscription to American Baby® magazine

Free issue of Cooking Pleasures® magazine

Free issue of Gardening How-To® plus a gift™

Free sample of Tena® male guards

Free sample of Fiber One Honey Clusters® cereal

Free issue of Cooking Pleasures® magazine

Free sample of MURAD® skincare products

Free sample of NicodermCQ® clear

Free sample of Sani Hands® wipes for kids

Free sample of AquaFresh® Extreme Clean toothpaste

GoFreebies.com – Get free stuff in your inbox every morning – Get Freebies and Free Stuff at GoFreebies.com. Tons of links to free stuff – Join now and win a free gift card every day!

photo credit: Stirling

With tighter lending standards and an uncertain economy, it’s possible that someone you know may be living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, 41 percent of workers surveyed by CareerBuilder.com admit that they often or always live paycheck to paycheck—a staggering statistic. With the cost of traditional borrowing on the rise, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility of a friend springing that dreaded question: “Can I borrow some money?”

Although borrowing money is usually done with the best intentions, lending money to friends can leave you without your money and possibly without your relationship. Before agreeing to any loan, try opening the lines of communication to understand their situation. It may be that your friend would be better off working with a reputable budget counseling organization. And sometimes, even though it’s difficult, saying “no” is often the best thing you can do for someone. If you are considering lending money to a friend: Don’t put yourself in a tight spot. Only loan money you can afford to lend, and make sure you’re still allowing extra cash flow for yourself. List all necessary living expenses and make sure those items have been paid prior to agreeing to lend your money. Ensuring that your obligations are met before making a loan will ensure that you don’t end up in a similar situation.

photo credit: Neil Beynon

Put it in writing!

If you choose to lend someone money, treat the loan like you would any other business matter. Discuss the terms of the agreement and put the details in writing. Be sure to list both parties involved, the interest rate, due dates, payment amounts and penalty for late or missed payments. Also, be sure to keep a thorough record of all payments made. Know your place. Do not assume a position of power by expecting special treatment from the borrower. Also, once the money has been lent, don’t try to control how it is spent. Being too authoritative could damage your friendship.

Prepare for the worst!

Make sure you are comfortable with collecting the money owed to you. Document the date and time of any letters or phone calls sent to collect on your loan, and be sure to make note of all the responses to your attempts. Your records may be necessary if you plan to take the matter to court, or if you plan to write the debt off as non-business bad debt on your next tax return. If you still aren’t sure whether or not you should extend a loan, remember this famous quote from Shakespeare: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend.” Also, remember that banks charge interest rates for a reason — lending can be a very risky business.

I haven’t written a post for my series, “A Family Guide to Living on Less” in a while, so I thought it might be time! If you haven’t read the first three posts, check them out here:

1. How Deep is the Hole You’re In?
   
2. Luxuries and Necessities
3. Creating a Budget

photo credit: The coca-Cola company

Most Americans view credit cards as a child sees Santa Claus. The child enjoys the presents without realizing their hidden cost, and today’s adults use the credit cards to provide instant gratification, deliberately ignoring the fact that the purchase isn’t affordable and wil ltake a while to pay back “on time”. The multibillion dollar credit card industry thrives on people’s willingness to pay 18-21% interest on short-term debt.

Your precious credit cards provide tantalizing temptations. Credit card companies don’t give you a shovel to dig your financial hole; they’ll provide a backhoe so you can dig deeper and faster than ever before!

You can take cash advances on your credit cards. Pull out the cash, pay your bills, run the card up to its limit, then start on the next card. Pay the minimum due each month. There are no forms to fill out, no loan approval committees to pass, no definite schedule for repayment.

However, do this for a few months and you’ll end up so far in debt you may never get out. The road to bankruptcy is paved with credit cards. It’s a lot like a playground slide, effortless to go down. Have you ever watched a toddler take his first solo trip down the slide? The shrieks of delight turn to cries of pain when he flies off the bottom and smacks his rear on the playground surface. Use your credit cards in this manner and your fate at the bottom is the same as his. It’s unbelievably painful.

photo credit: American Playground

Save credit cards for emergencies only. Emergencies are like your child needing to be hospitalized before your new medical insurance policy begins or when you have an unexpected car repair that is absolutely necessary. If you use your credit cards indiscriminately, they may not be there when you most need them-they’ll already be at their maximum charge limit.

There are two other reasons why you shouldn’t take cash advances using your credit cards. One is the interest. No other legitimate lender of money is allowed to charge the rates charged by credit card companies. These companies then go further by adding exorbitant late fees onto their outrageous rates if you are even one day late paying your minimum balance. In addition, interest on cash advances applies the moment you take the advance, there’s no grace period here, an it is tacked on immediately everything you have charged that month. You’d have to go to a pawnshop or a loan shark to find a worse deal.

The second reason you should avoid taking cash advances on your credit cards is in the event you have to declare bankruptcy. Most states exempt from bankruptcy protection any credit card debts incurred in the six months before your bankruptcy filing. You may even be charged with bankruptcy fraud, especially if you’ve run up big debts and purchased items considered to be luxuries.

photo credit: For Cash Advance

Credit card usage is too easy. It’s much too tempting to use them to maintain your old lifestyle, keep up appearances, or purchase the expensive goodies you miss so much. These things can “slip in” while you are convincing yourself that you are only paying for the necessities.

Dig deep into yourself, locate the common sense, maturity, and self-discipline you know you have. Put the credit cards aside and really work at solving your financial difficulties without using them. You may very well need a loan, but any loan at conventional rates is better than the interest rates on credit cards!

The next post in my series, “A Family Guide to Living on Less” will be “Not by Bread Alone: Cutting Back on Discretionary Spending”.

photo credit: Wise Bread

Lynn Truong of Wise Bread has a great article posted specifically focusing on finance blogs written by women. I am honored to say that this site was featured on the list. Head on over to see if your favorite personal finance blog is on the list. If not, you can add the link here.

To help women bloggers network with each other, we are starting a series of discussions in our Bloggers Forum focusing on female personal finance bloggers and special blogging challenges faced by women.  We are also inviting top women bloggers to stop by and share their secrets.  Our very first guest will be the fabulous SVB from The Digerati Life. She’ll be answering your blogging and personal finance questions in our forums from 8/11 to 8/17.

What a great way to support other female personal finance bloggers!  Go check out the full article here.

I thought it might be fun to share the top 10 posts here at To Be Debt Free from the month of July. 

photo credit: PC Magazine

Here we go:

1. CVS Extra Care Bucks
2. How Deep is the Hole You’re In?
3. CashCrate Review
4. 24 Ways to Save Around the House
5. CVS Extra Care Bucks Update
6. Personal Finance Networks
7. Free Samples Round Up #2
8. CVS Update #2
9. 10 Ways to Save at the Grocery Store
10. Super Freebie Friday

photo credit: istock photo

The value of recyclables is driven by market demand. As consumers, we must choose products with recycled content and packaged in recycled materials, so that the materials we recycle are put to use, and markets are sustained. These products can typically be made with recycled content:

Packaging: Boxes for foods such as cereal, crackers and cake mix. Bottles containing liquid laundry detergent, dishwashing liquids, shampoos and household cleaners.

Paper products: Facial tissue, toilet paper, napkins, paper towels, greeting cards, writing paper and corrugated cardboard shipping boxes.

Plastic products: Coat hangers, desk accessories, storage organizers, patio furniture, playground equipment and toys.

Automotive: Re-refined motor oil, retread tires, rebuilt/remanufactured parts and used cars.

Garden Supplies: Hoses, planters and mulch.

Clothing and accessories: Tennis shoes and hiking boots. Clothing fabric made of recycled plastic bottles.

Home maintenance: Carpeting, door mats, roofing, wallboard, paint, insulation, gutters and down spouts, siding and flooring.

Office supplies: Copier and printer papers, notepads, remanufactured toner cartridges, bulletin boards, rulers, scissors, pencils and refurbished office furniture.
Every ton of recycled paper saves 17 forty foot Douglas Fir trees.

Paper takes up as much as 50% of all landfill space.

Up to 90% of recycled glass can be reused to make new glass items, such as bottles and jars.

Every glass bottle recycled saves enough energy for a 100 watt light bulb to be lit for 4 hours.

Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire commercial airline fleet every six months.

Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run your TV for 3 hours.

Thirty-six recycled bottles can make one square yard of carpet.

130 billion beverage containers are sent to US landfills each year.

Recycling a 1-gallon plastic milk jug will save enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for 11 hours.

It’s the weekend and my family is heading out of town to go camping. I thought it would be fun to make this edition a collection of articles focused on camping since we go every weekend. I’ve also posted several articles of frugal camping trips here on my blog.

photo credit: Down the Lane

Here is the list of camping articles from around the blogosphere!

• 5 Ways To Save Money When Camping at Rather-Be-Shopping.com — Camp for less.
• into the wild…without spending a lot of money at brip blap-This post originally appeared on American Consumer News as a guest post.
• Ways to save money while camping in an RV at helium by April Updike-great article for me since we just purchased a travel trailer!
• Five Ways to Save on Your Summer Vacation-Outdoors , on the Cheap and close to home-great ideas on how to have a great camping trip with your family without spending a lot of money. *Plus* a bonus s’mores recipe, this one sounds yummy!
• Camping Recipes from Backpacker Magazine-these sound so good, I don’t know where to start!
• Camping-The Frugal and Adventurous Holiday-an entire website dedicated to frugal camping. It doesn’t get much better than this.

That’s my roundup for this Saturday! Go out and enjoy summer!

photo credit: Gina Bianchini

I just wanted to take a moment to thank the following sites for referring the most traffic to my blog!

1. You Need a Budget-Carnival of Personal Finance #163
2. Frugal Dad Forums
3. Frugal Hacks-Blog Roll
4. Festival of Frugality
5. Snowflake Revolution
6. Debt Fighter
7. Student Scrooge-Festival of Frugality
8. Thrifty Florida Mama
9. PF Buzz
10. Suddenly Frugal

Thanks again for making July a great month here at To Be Debt Free!

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