People seem to love these top 10 lists, so here goes:

10 (More) Money Savers That You Will Actually Do:

1. Eating Fast-Food? Skip the “value-size” option for you combo. This saves between .39 and .59 per meal, per individual. Family of 4? That’s between 1.60 and 2.40 a meal. This adds up. Plus, you eat less food, gain less weight, and feel better.

2. Buy and Try Generic Foods. Shop at Kroger? Their generic “pop-tarts”, ketchup, sodas, bread, etc. taste just fine. Typical savings: 25 to 50 percent off of name-brands.

3. Buy pool supplies at the very end of summer. We have one of those 4 foot by 16 feet plastic pools for our kids, and the filters run about 8 bucks for a twin pack. At the end of summer, we find them for 2 / 3 bucks or less. Same goes for pool chemicals.

4. Want a cheap, fast growing, leafy plant for you back porch? Plant cucumbers! We planted 6 cucumber seeds in 2 old pots on our back porch, and now they are growing really nice and big. They look great, we can eat the cucumbers, and they are super easy to maintain.

5. My daughter goes to gymnastics three times a week, after school. She likes to have a snack before class. If we were to stop at a convenience store, we would spend at least 2 bucks on a coke and some chips /candy. Stock up on these items at the grocery store. Box of “nerds” candy at the convenience store? .59 Four boxes of “nerds” candy at grocery store? 1.00. Plan ahead, even for the little things.

6. Kids want to rent a movie? How about showing them their home videos of when they were babies? My daughter LOVES to watch herself when she was 2 or 3. She just dies laughing whenever she sees herself. (Be sure that the kids cannot destroy your original copies. I made a “best-of” DVD for my daughter.)

7. Buy dark tennis shoes, instead of white. Seriously, I have a pair of black New Balance shoes that I purchased TWO years ago, and they still look very, very nice. White shoes get dirty easy, stain easy, and are difficult to clean. Go with the darker shoe colors.

8. Need to print a web-page or a document? If the quality of the print doesn’t really matter, print the document in “draft” mode. I use paypal a lot to ship packages, and I print all of my shipping labels using “draft” mode. They look just fine, I save ink, I save money. Plus, they print faster!!!

9. Gas prices are high. Duh! Be sure to schedule your trips to town so that you can do multiple things in one trip. Dry cleaning, getting gas, grocery shopping, etc. Maximize each trip. Every single dollar helps!!!

10. Teach your kids about money! The more they know about money NOW, the less you have to worry about supporting them in the future!!! Bless your kids by giving them some limited responsibilities, and reward them financial for their hard work.

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Lots and lots going on:

TWO brand new episodes of the No Credit Needed Podcast are up and ready for your listening pleasure. One regular episode, one review episode.

MAJOR updates over at the No Credit Needed Network. New members, lots of debt going bye-bye, new weight-loss charts. Check it out.

Coming tomorrow: Another new top 10 list!!!

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The following chart represents my goal of putting 20,000 dollars, per year, into savings and retirement, over the next 10 years.

As you can see, I will distribute the 20,000 dollars throughout various types of retirement accounts. If the maximum contribution for a Roth IRA is increased, I will shift more money into my Roths, and put less into my 403b. My wife has a pension plan at work, and 5 percent of her salary is automatically withdrawn each month. 20,000 dollars represents “roughly” 1/3 of my take-home pay.

Additional Notes:

I will maintain the 1800 dollars in my TradeKing account, using it to learn about trading, investing, etc.
I will refrain from using credit.
I will also, after completing my initial 20,000 dollar emergency fund, increase our amounts of Term Life Insurance.

As you can see, I like to keep things simple.

As for additional savings, I will have “budgeted” savings for car replacement, furniture replacement, etc. etc. These items will be saved for in our monthly budget, and will be above and beyond our regular “savings” account. I will keep these funds in either our ING Direct account or our checking account, depending on when/if I need to access them.

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Clearly, our lives are changing. Information moves about us, unseen, like the force behind the wind, invading our homes, our lives, our ear drums, our beings. The universe, vast as it is, seems smaller, perceivable, knowable, understandable. One click away and a man can find an answer, a cure, a miracle, an horror, a lie, a mystery, or, just another click. This is the strangeness in which we live, and breath, and find our way. There are not fewer questions, but there are more answers. Cut, Paste, Google It. My Space, Itunes, Web 2.0, Wiki, CSS, Blog, Vlog, Page Rank, MMORPG… This is more than the information super-highway. This is the information town, city, byway, railroad, passenger plain, turbo-jet, airport, causeway, bus-terminal, and sea port… all rolled into one… Information grid-lock, overload, and ecstasy.

If you want to know “it”; You can! And, you can know everyone and everything and everywhere that “it” knows. You can save it, download it, bookmark it, Digg it, blogroll it, blog it, podcast it, forward it, or simply… ignore it. One search, one yahoo, one google… and there it is in all its… glory? horror? sadness? simple-ness? goodness? beauty? helpfulness? frustration? And then, one more click, and it’s gone? still there? forgotten? lost? remembered? used?
So much information, so very little time!!! So much time, so very little information!!!

Read it, study it, make notes about it, categorize it, think about it, ignore it, fret about it, get over it… and then… what? Moving around in the vastness of this information, do we get lost? do we get better? do we gain knowledge? do we grow weaker? do we get stronger? do we get more frustrated? less?

What do we do with all of this information!?!?! It is so… gloriously horrible… What do we do with it… what do we do… what do we do? WHAT do we do? What do WE do? What do we DO?

Were we designed to have so “much”? Is this the height of our evolution as a species, or have we devolved from a… simpler.. harder.. more difficult.. more real.. time? Is this progress or regression?

Are we better off or more burdened. Is this plethora of information a blessing or a curse?

Simple question: What do you do with all of this information?
Difficult question: What do you do with all of this information?

Information, without application, is merely knowledge. Information, coupled with application, is wisdom.

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My wife and I sat down to do our May budget.

Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: So, how much do you need for kids’ clothes this month…
Her: Oh, about 100 bucks…
Me: Cool. What about groceries/food?
Her: Maybe 500/600 dollars…
Me: Sounds about right. Let’s see, that’s 150 for electricity, 65 for cable, 100 for phones…
Her: Oh yeah, I’ll need a few extra dollars for next weekend…
Me: Say…50 bucks? And I’ll need about 50 for golf this Saturday, is that cool?
Her: Sounds great…
Etc. Etc. Etc.

We talked through each bill, each situation, each event…

Notice what we never, ever had to talk about? DEBT!!! Credit Cards!!! Auto Loans!!!

Why? Because, we are debt free, and when you are debt free, your conversations about money take on a brand new TONE. Why? Because, you are talking about how you are going to spend, save, and give away your money, NOT how much you are going to give to the finance company, the credit company, or the bank.

In other words, you plan for your FUTURE, instead of paying for your PAST!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, there is nothing like looking at your paycheck and realizing that you can do “whatever” you want to do with the money. Spend some? Check. Save some? Check. Give some? Check. Freedom, baby, freedom.

If it feels this awesome JUST to be debt free, I can only imagine how awesome it will feel to have a fully funded emergency fund, 15 percent going to retirement, and college savings stashed away for our two kids. It’s gonna be SWEET. And, it’s only a few (months, years) away!!! Yes! This “planning for your future and telling your money what to do” is awesome! You really should try it. Are you up to you eyeballs in debt? Do you just love your rewards mastercard b/c it “makes” you money each month? Do you fantasize about that new car a zero percent? Wake up, my friend!!! If you spend just ONE DAY debt free, I don’t think you’ll ever want to borrow money again. I dare you to try. I dare you to try to get debt free, stay debt free, and live debt free. I double-dog dare you. Stop making the bankers, finance people, and credit card companies rich. You deserve to prosper.

Make a plan, stick to the plan, use the plan, work the plan, live the plan, enjoy the plan…

And then sit back and watch “Twenty-Four” with your wife with a smile on you face because the two of you don’t fight about money any more. This stuff rules.

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