If, like me, you find yourself coming up empty more often than not during your early morning closet search for something that will make you feel cute, or your kids are growing like weeds and you can’t keep up with their need for new shoes every month, read on.

Leading the trend of “frugal’s the new black,” clothing swap parties are hot. Suzanne Agasi, Founder and DIrector of Clothing Swap, Inc. gets a lot of publicity for hosting pampering spa-like clothing swaps in major cities. But what’s a woman anywhere else to do  when she needs new clothes and is on a tight budget? Send out an email to all of her like-minded friends and fellow moms and have a clothing swap of her own!

There’s no better feeling than enjoying a shopping spree with friends, without spending a penny! In my local online mom’s group, we have a biannual kids clothing and gear swap. I really get into this, boxing up about a hundred pieces of gently worn items, I leave it with one of the coordinators, and on the appointed day (marked in a big red marker on my calendar) I’m one of the first in the door of a fellow member’s house that’s been transformed into a shopping center. It’s total mayhem, but with my credit for 100 items, I power shop for the coming year. Once I’m done, I catch up with the other women over a coffee and bagel.

For my own very picky fashion sense, I get together with a group of like-minded friends for a little potluck party a couple of times a year. Whoever is hosting sends out an email invite, setting an evening where we all bring a snack or beverage and as many items of “nice” clothing as we’d like to trade. Not the dowdy stuff, but the skinny jeans we honestly haven’t been able to wear for a year and the blouse that’s bursting at the buttons that we may have a hard time parting with; but we’re more willing because we know they’ll be appreciated by friends. What results is not only a fun (and funny, when everybody’s fighting over those great designer jeans) night out with a bunch of friends, it’s a major wardrobe overhaul for all of us.

Organize it any way you like – my friends and I just put pants in a pile, sweaters in another, shoes in another, and one person is assigned to hold up one piece at a time, describe it with help from the woman who brought it, and whoever wants it  raises her hand. If more than two people want the same item and they can’t hash it out, or if it comes down to it, each one tries  it on, and the group votes for who it works better for. Even when that happens, it’s important that the vibe is friendly and fun, not competitive.

For both of these events, the leftover clothes are donated to a local charity. So nothing is wasted, nothing is spent, and everybody’s happy.

I also recently found out about an online swap site called swapstyle.com, where all swaps are free. There are really nice things on there too, from all over the world (I found a beautiful shift dress from Australia!). You simply search for what you want, and when you see an item you like, you email the person who posted it, and if they like any of your posted itms that are within the same value range, the two of you make a swap. If she’s not interested in any of the stuff you’ve posted but you just have to have that dress, or those boots, most swappers offer an option to buy as well (a reasonable second hand price, normally).

So if you’re feeling frumpy as the new season approaches, don’t let it get you down. Instead, throw a party and invite a bunch of well dressed friends, or jump online and check out what the world has to offer for free!

Think coupons are confusing, overwhelming, not worth it, or just don’t know where to begin? All of the above? That was me, and I’ve read a lot about coupons! It wasn’t until I was invited to a Be Centsable coupon party/workshop last week and got a real soup to nuts education that I realized how simple it is to use coupons effectively for unbelievable savings.

This was not a seminar for well seasoned diehards looking for obscure sources. Our educator, Amy D’Agrosa—a 27 year old single woman with a full time job and a need to save—was both practical and passionate about couponing, calling it an empowering tool at every woman’s disposal to take back financial control in an economy where so much is out of our hands. And the evening was not only fun (hors d’oeuvres and wine were served, and stories swapped) it was seriously eye opening. None of us had any idea how accessible such huge savings were– that with just a little bit of know how, it’s possible to walk out of a store with money in your pocket and a bag of groceries. I don’t even have a stash of excellent coupons, but my first time shopping, I saved $24 at CVS! Now that I’ve started culling coupons and plotting out this week’s sales in the circulars, I have a feeling this week’s will be the cheapest grocery bill in my household ever.

If you’re not already saving near 60 percent on pharmaceuticals and 40 percent on groceries, consider attending one of these workshops. They’re available all over the country, and even online. Borrowing on the concept of home parties, you pay $25 (for a single person or a couple), and what you get is an education that pays — in the form of an evening jam-packed with valuable money-saving skills as well as an online membership to the becentsable blog, which lists weekly grocery and pharmacy deals all over the country, tips and tricks for savings, printable coupons, an outline of the lesson you learned at your meeting, reader comments and tips and more money saving resources. Amy insisted that we’d make our $25 back in the first couple of shopping trips, and I can already attest that it’s true. Go to BeCentsable.net to sign up or find out more information.

Here are some of the tips I learned:

* Start culling coupons. The major manufacturers place coupons in most Sunday papers—look for inserts by Red Plum, Smart Source, Procter & Gamble & General Mills.

* Print online coupons. First make sure your grocery store accepts them, and then find a wealth of coupons on Web sites. You have to download software to get them, and then there’s a limit to how many coupons you can print (usually 3). Amy vouched for coupons.com, and I know couponmountain.com.

* Never use a coupon alone. Save it until the item is on sale, so you can get more than the value printed on the front of it. From buy one get one free deals to coupon doubling to clearance and sale items to rebates to combined store and manufacturers coupons, always use your coupon in conjunction with another way to save.

* Use circulars in the Sunday paper to get the sales for the week at your local stores, and pull out the coupons to use with those sale items. Make your shopping list based on as many of those items as possible.

* Don’t be fooled by the picture. Sometimes a coupon will have a photo of a brand’s most expensive line, say Dijon mustard instead of the plain yellow. But usually, you can use that same coupon to buy the cheaper mustard – that isn’t even pictured! Buy the mustard you want, and scan the coupon — more often than not, it will be accepted.

* If it scans, it’s good. If you’re not sure whether a coupon will be accepted, try to scan it, rather than involving the cashier, who may not know. If it’s not accepted but you think it should be, ask to speak with the store’s manager.

* Combine manufacturers and store coupons for one item. The savings could be so good that the store pays you for buying the item, not the other way around (you could actually get a refund if both of the coupons total more than the cost of the item.)

* Use the self-checkout. When you become an expert couponer, you can save so much that it may raise the eyebrows of a cranky clerk—even though it’s completely legal. You can avoid this by scanning the groceries and coupons yourself. If the scanner beeps when you wave the coupon’s bar code over the scanner, it’s accepted by the store. No argument necessary.

* Bring out your coupons at end of a sale, rather than presenting one with each item, again, to avoid raising eyebrows about how much money you’re savings in some cases.

* Be your own advocate. If you’re having trouble with a confused cashier (what? I’m paying you money to buy this item?), it helps to speak with the manager, who has some power. As long as you’re respectful and kind, you’re likely to have success. Remember it’s a negotiation, and more often than not, they’ll work with you.

* Take advantage of rebates. They’re no longer a hassle, now that all you have to do is to go to the store’s online site and punch in some numbers from your receipt. You can make a lot of money this way.

You know the story. You’re the first one in the office. You have big plans to cross major projects off your list. Then you open your email to 35 new messages. Then you open your personal email. Then you check your phone messages. You have to respond to at least a couple of emails. Oh yeah! Coffee, catch up with your workmates, time for the meeting, and it’s suddenly 11:45 and  you’re thinking about lunch. But you don’t feel you deserve it because  you haven’t actually gotten anything done that you were planning to do. Sure, you’ve put out fires, responded to queries, answered messages, but you haven’t moved forward in your own goals for the day. What were they again? No matter, look—another folder on my desk that somebody needs back in an hour. Better tackle it. So it goes, so that some days you never get to your own projects (or  they’re so interrupted that progress is slow). You’re not goofing off — au contraire, you eat at your desk, you work long hours, yet still, you know somehow that not working as efficiently as you could be. But how to manage it  better?

Because I struggle with this, I’m always looking for articles, books, websites—anything  that will tell me how to focus better, be more organized, test myself for ADD, wonder about the state of our multitasking society…

Recently I found an article on time management — “An 18-minute plan for managing your day.” Devised by Peter Bregman, a business, leadership and life consultant, it’s a strategy so simple and easy, that it struck me. I’ve been using it this week and  it’s working really well for me. Mostly, it’s just about accountability. You have scheduled tasks, a clock and check in times, all of which are very good and simple ways for a person with an over-multitasked brain  to refocus and get back to work. I should of thought of that. But I didn’t.

If you could use some help juggling, here it is:

Step 1 (5 minutes) Set a plan for the day before you even turn on your computer. Write a list of the most important tasks to accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling  productive and successful. Then schedule those tasks into time slots, putting the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. He says that the act of setting a date and time for a task has proven (in studies) to make people 80% more likely to actually do it.

Step 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set an alarm to go off every hour. When it does, take a deep breath, stretch, look at your list, and see if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage the day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

Step 3: (5 minutes) Review. At the end of  the day, shut off your computer and review your progress. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

His method is about the power of rituals, because of their predictibility. If you choose to focus deliberately and keep reminding yourself over and over of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s that simple.

Does anybody out there in the blogosphere have a method that works to keep them on track, organizationally, as well as on-time?

Why is it that grown up rites of passage always seem to be connected to spending lots of money? Buying a house, going to school, having a child. Recently I took another big grown up step. My husband and I bought a new car. Not new, but newer than I ever saw us owning. You see, I’m used to being that grown child/woman who drives the laughably old car with the disintegrating upholstery. I never had a car with less than 100,000 miles on it before. I always said I’d never buy 1) a big gas guzzling car, and 2) a car I couldn’t pay for with cash. But I also lived in embarrassment, especially in the past few months when it took five or more tries to start our 1991 Volvo station wagon.

When, on our way to a wedding this summer, my son Miles tugged on the ceiling that hung down by his car seat, dislodging an avalanche of fine brown foam onto myself, my husband and our two kids all dressed in our wedding finery, I cried. When later that night the jalopy died in the rain on the side of I-95, I laughed, and knew we couldn’t hold out any longer. It was time to grow up.

I always wondered why, no matter where we drove, a rich or poor neighborhood, we always had the oldest car in sight. Always. Were we the last people in the world who believed in owning a car outright?  Did everyone else in the world buy into having to keep up with the Jones’ and keeping very new cars? Or was it just that, once we began researching cars in earnest, and I put my foot down about buying another post-100k mileage car, it became clear that if we wanted anything reliable at all, we needed a loan. They’re just that expensive.  

We ended up with a 2004 Toyota Highlander (it topped the consumer charts for reliability), which is kind of like a large station wagon with 4WD. Who am I kidding – it’s officially a midsize SUV. When I started pushing for it, Pete kept saying, “No way! Do you want to be that person in the huge car, out there polluting the roads?” He can get a little dramatic…  It’s not the worst mileage, but it’s no hybrid. I went with my comfort-level instinct on this one, though. For once I just wanted a car that would fit us with all of our stuff (babies come with extra stuff), would be super comfortable and reliable. Needless to say, I won that argument. We found a good deal by buying from an individual instead of a dealership, and made up for the risk by being annoyingly scrupulous buyers (the poor guy!), inspecting the maintenance records and learning a lot in the process. When our mechanic gave us the thumbs up, we signed the loan and drove away with debt-filled glee!

Speaking of debt, with our credit card debt still at astronomical levels, was it a good financial move to add more to it? In this case, I have to say yes.  Juggling debt, driving a car you can’t really afford — it’s part of the American condition,  If you’re lucky. I wish it weren’t so, but it seems that to be a grown up, yes, you have to take on these expenses. But you also need to learn how to manage them. Okay, so I have a lot more to learn. Now excuse me while I get back to trying to rejigger our budget.

Do you also finance a car, or do your own yours outright?  Do you think it’s worth the price of being burdened with debt to have the luxury of our nice cars, or should we be driving older cars? How do you balance the need for things that bust our budget — like cars — with your budget?

My family really struggles with keeping on budget. I would have a pretty good idea of where we’re at, but my husband’s taking out money too and we never find the time to sit down and track every expense and reconcile everything.  The truth is, despite our talk about making these financial meetings happen, we seem to have an unspoken agreement to avoid dealing with the messiness of money .

I know, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. But by the time we’ve gotten the kids in bed and cleaned up the kitchen, it’s about 10pm. At that point, since we’ve been up since about 6am, we usually agree that tonight, we have to sleep (or change the cat litter and put out the recycling or fold the laundry or watch a movie– some need that’s more pressing at that moment). The result of not paying close attention to our spending? We end up buying random things we haven’t budgeted for — a pizza, lunch out, a soda here and there, some plants at home depot, a great deal at a tag sale. Too many of those things and we end up going into overdraft (which is a credit card) and adding to our  debt more than I’d like to admit.

The one reliable system we use is to put our bills on autopilot. I’ve set up most of my bills to be paid by my bank automatically, so that at least when we’re losing track of our spending,I’m not putting our credit rating at risk. I also have a budget I created on excel, which I print it out  so I can put a check in next to each bill that I have to pay. When I’m being good, it helps to ensure that I’m paying everything on time, but it doesn’t track small spending, which I think is what I need to really start reining it in. I’ve used quickenonline.com,  a free money management system that connects to the information from my bank account and predicts upcoming expenses based on my experience. That’s pretty good, but it can get a little confusing as sometimes it seems to repeat bills and I have to fix it.  I understand that mint.com, another free money management system, is very good, but I t think  a paper budget might work better for us, since I don’t know if I’ll sign in online every day.

I know we can live within our budget on paper. But we need to implement a system that will help us in the real world. Do you struggle with spending less than you earn? What system works best to keep your spending in line?

I posted earlier about getting rid of cable to cut costs. I can’t tell you the amount of jaw dropping this move inspired. “How are you handling it?” just about everyone asks. TV is such an ingrained part of our comfort zone that most of us really can’t imagine life without it. It’s been great for my quality of life to not have it, actually. And now that I’m about to get it again I hope I really will keep up the gardening and the reading and the family game nights. 

Now that all TV is digital, you don’t need to pay for cable to get reception. If you have a digital TV (or a converter box for an analog TV) all you need is a digital antenna. At antennaweb.org you can find out what  stations you’ll get and what kind of antenna you need to pick up a strong enough signal by simply punching in your address. The site assesses your home’s distance from the broadcast source to provide accurate information. According to the site, I’ll get about 20 channels with a certain level of antenna. The website also offers resources antennas, which run between $40 and $150, and resources to find a professional installer. They also offer a package of a pro consultant plus antenna plus installation for about  $350.

Or, instead of spending your hard-earned cash, you can invest about $15 on materials like one reader here did (go Colleen!), and build your own antenna in a Saturday morning. She says it took her 20 minutes and she gets “dozens” of stations, including the major and minor networks.  That’s my grand plan (I promise to report back soon)! Here’s a link for detailed instructions.

current.org/ptv/ptv0821make.pdf

Sure, I feel good about having cut the cord from our family’s TV addiction, but I am part of the 21st century after all; if I can have some TV for no cost, I’ll take it.

I am really disorganized. I try to stay on top of it all, but am sadly deficient. My excuses are plenty: my job is more demanding since the recession got in full swing, time is scarce after fulfilling the needs of my two kids, the overgrown yard and garden are waiting to be tended to, the mail and the bills pile up for months, the failing car needs to be brought to the mechanic, I need to research new used cars and agonize over how to pay for one, my son needs to go to the doctor again for his mystery ear trouble, I make meals on the fly every night because I haven’t yet mastered proper meal planning, I’m frazzled and resentful from the lack of personal time, and my head is spinning from the multitasking.

Sometimes I think that I have undiagnosed ADD, since I always struggle with juggling so many things at once. Is my attention span too short to finish one thing before starting another? Or is the New York Times article I read a couple of years back right – that it’s not me, it’s the fact that our society makes us multitask too much. Studies have shown that nothing gets done when you’re trying to do many things at once.

So I end up taking the finger in the dam approach. I address the most urgent things first, and I never get the time to get on top of my many lists — a notebook here, a day planner there, a new PDA trying to combine everything…

Here is the tiny bit I have under control: Have a place to put your coats, the mail, your bag, your shoes, when you walk in the house. We pretty much have that much under control. But I need more help than that. I need an overhaul.

I’m not giving up though. I’m still on a quest for the right system. 

Please share your tips for a busy woman to regain control over her unwieldy world, including the best online resources or blogs you’ve found. And if any of you suffer from severe disorganization, share your story too!

I apologize that I haven’t posted lately.  I’ve been away on vacation. After a couple of years of staycations, everyone in my family was excited to go away for a change. Since we couldn’t actually afford a vacation, we did what people used to do — joined our extended family on theirs.

We’ve become close to my aunt and uncle in-law over the past four years, because their daughter went to college near our home. Every time they came to visit her, they would sleep on our couch. In that time, their daughter became my daughter Allie’s favorite babysitter. The way we helped each other out gave us a whole new branch of family we hadn’t known that well before, and we started spending every thanksgiving with their whole brood.

If my uncle in-law wasn’t retired, they probably wouldn’t have stayed on our couch for those four years. If they didn’t know how financially strapped we are, they wouldn’t have invited us to join them on their vacation either. A positive byproduct of money strain is that it actually makes families rely on each other, and in doing that, it brings people—who in better times might have been more distant— together.

Okay — not every relative is going to be able to invite you to a lake house. But the point is this. As we were leaving the rental house, I saw in the guest book that Allie had written, “The best vacation I ever had!” True, it was much more than we could give her. But when I asked her what she liked best about the vacation in the car on the way home, she said, “the fact that we spent a whole week with our family.” I was surprised she hadn’t picked the beach, or the lake, or the fact that I let her drink soda a couple of times, but then I remembered that I felt the same way as a kid. The best thing about the holidays for me wasn’t  the presents. It was having a day where I was part of a larger extended family.

My friend is about to have her second baby, and some friends and I threw her a little shower the other night. I say little, because with the second baby, people have mixed feelings about showers, since the mom already has most of what she needs from the first time around. So this party was meant to not only celebrate the new baby, but to pamper the mama as well, who’s about to do plenty of pampering, but won’t get any for quite some time.

The toughest part of organizing was coming up with the gift. After a friend suggested a gift certificate to the mama-to-be’s favorite spa, we had to solicit donations (there was a lot of back and forth involved, because of different budgets). When it came to picking up the gift certificate from the salon though, my friend completely freaked. Understandably, she didn’t want to put a pricey charge on her card and then be stood up by a couple of people who “forgot” to give her the money on the night of the event. I had total faith in the people coming, but she was the one putting her credit on the line, and she just couldn’t afford to charge more than she could pay back. But there was no way around that risk.

I write this because literally the day of the shower (and too late to do anything about it) I was preparing a holiday story, and discovered an online service tailor made for this situation. Edivvy.com lets a group go in on a gift without the hassle and financial stress of doing the transaction in person. It works this way — one person picks the gift (or several) from a list of  major retailers (there are just thirty, but they’re good — Amazon, Apple, REI, Sur la Table, Macy’s the Guitar Center, Target…) , then chooses a nicely designed invite to a list of “invitees,” who each pledge the amount that they want, and sign a virtual card. When the goal is reached, the gift and card are sent directly to the recipient.The organizer can email and nudge people, but her financial well-being isn’t on the line. If for some reason the goal isn’t reached, the recipient still receives a visa gift card and a card letting her know who contributed. No more worrying about whether you’ll get reimbursed or the hassle of shlepping to the store.  By the way, my friend did make her goal, but only after I remembered the next day that I forgot to pay her, and sent her a check!

Where I live, you’re a neglectful parent if you don’t take your toddler to “Music Together.” It’s a class meant to introduce  toddlers to the joys of music and movement. Parents and their kids sit in a circle singing song, banging on instruments and dancing around. When my daughter, Allie, was 1 1/2, we signed her up, and my husband and I happily spent our Saturday mornings sharing this experience with her.

But now that I’m totally in over my head with a mortgage, second child and FT job, I don’t have the luxury to give my 17 month old son, Miles, those classes. I feel bad about it, but as a more seasoned parent, I also suspect that he might be just fine if he gets a good dose of music and interaction at home.

Allie isn’t the most physical child, she’s definitely the artistic type. But she’s an excellent swimmer. And it’s very telling. I happen to love swimming more than anything. Frolicking in the ocean even if I just get there once or twice a year, diving under the waves, swimming way out… the only way Allie could share that with me when she was 3 years old was to join me. “I want to go with you!” she would say. “Well then you have to be willing to dive under the waves when you see them coming. You have to learn to swim.”

It’s telling that she became a great swimmer for all of her six years. Because I realize it’s really about the time I spent with her. My willingness to take her with me and the enthusiasm I showed, and the special bond we’ve shared whenever we swim together.  I think that meant so much to her that it translated into her real physical aptitude and love for the same experience.

So when I think about Miles, our 17 month old son, I know that whether or not I pay for the experience, he needs the same thing. That focused attention, interaction and to share in joyful play with us. Playing songs, playing ball, and yes, bringing him in the ocean too. I don’t think any paid class will give him a better advantage in life.