Weve all heard about certain ways to cut your grocery bill like avoiding the grocery store when youre hungry, using coupons on double coupons day, and buying only the items on your list. These are all good tips and we should keep using them. However, Ive found a few pointers that might help you save even more on your grocery bill.
The first thing you need to do after youve made your grocery list is to try to figure the total cost of your grocery bill. Make sure youve got everything on the list that youll need because after youve made an educated guess youre going to go to your purse or wallet, take out the cash and leave the rest behind. Believe me, this will definitely cut back on the unnecessary extras because you wont have the credit cards to fall back on. And if youre like me, youd rather be hung upside down by your toe nails than be found short at the check out.
Dont be afraid to look on the day-old bread rack or in the "about to expire" section of the meat department. You have to be careful, but youll probably be able to tell whether the item is good. Just make sure to use it right away, dont let it sit in your refrigerator for a week. Who knows, it just might "meat" your expectations and save you money in the process!
Another thing to think about is the time of day, time of week and even time of month that you are shopping. Ive found that early in the morning and in the middle of the week is when the grocery stores are less busy and youll be able to get more efficient shopping done. Be careful not to go on the first day or two of the month. Some stores have been known to raise prices because that is the time that social security and welfare checks go out.
Buy in bulk when it makes sense. If youre shopping at Costco or Sams Club you still need to comparison shop. Ive found that some of the items are just as inexpensive at our local grocery store and there have been times when Costcos or Sams Club prices where higher. So most of the time it makes sense for me to get most of our groceries at my local store because we live two hours away from Sams Club
Look high and low for savings, literally. The grocery stores purposely place the higher-priced name brand items at eye level. The lower priced generic and store brands are usually higher and lower than the brand name items. Remember that the generic brand or store brand isnt always the less expensive. Some stores Ive been to list the cost per ounce, or per item trash bags so be sure to compare these prices when shopping.
Last but not least, if youve got kids at home try to find another mom to trade shopping times with. Its a lot easier to shop without kids, you wont be tempted to buy extras just to keep them quiet and youll have more time to comparison shop. Your chances of having an enjoyable shopping experience will go up as well as their chances for survival!

About The Author

Shannon Jarvies is a work at home mom with five beautiful children and a wonderful husband. Visit her Debt Management Website for debt consolidation, budgeting help and money saving tips and ideas. And join her Money Management Discussion Group

http://consolidationdebtfree.com

shannon@consolidationdebtfree.com

There is still time to shop and save this holiday season, you can shop online or offline and actually get back what youve spent on gifts at ClubMom!
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Have you ever wondered how a restaurant can get a dish of pasta to your table in about four minutes when you know it takes ten minutes just to cook the pasta Does the water on their stoves boil at a higher temperature than the water on yours Do they know a trick that you dont As a matter of fact, they do.
They parboil, or partially pre-cook their pasta; so when an order comes in to the kitchen, a cook can turn out a dish of perfectly al dente pasta in a minute or two. Pre-cooking is a worthwhile technique for home cooks, because it enables them to pull together a great sit-down meal in practically no time, no matter how busy their day may have been.
Its also a great method to use when you plan to serve pasta for a crowd. I once catered a party for fifty, where I had a "pasta bar." With the assistance of one helper, and two propane burners, I served fifty portions of freshly cooked pasta al dente without holding anyone up in the buffet line.
To parboil pasta at home, bring a large pot of salted water at least six quarts to the boil. Add one pound of pasta and stir until the pasta wilts in the case of spaghetti or linguine and becomes submerged. When the water returns to a full, rolling boil, cook the pasta for exactly two minutes, then drain, shock in ice water, and drain again. Note: Strand pasta like spaghetti or linguine will be brittle, so handle them with care.
Place the pasta in a container large enough to hold it, then add enough olive oil to just coat each strand. Cover and refrigerate until needed. Parboiled pasta will keep, refrigerated, for four to six hours.
Note: Coating pasta with olive oil flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says, "Never coat pasta with olive oil. The sauce wont adhere to the pasta." Well, conventional wisdom aside, sauce sticks to parboiled pasta like glue. What else can I say
When its time to cook dinner, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil, add the pasta Youll note that the pasta has softened over the time youve had it refrigerated. This is perfectly fine., cook for one or two minutes, then drain in a colander. Be sure to taste after a minute or so. The pasta cooks quickly. Serve as you would any pasta that you had cooked for eight to ten minutes.
Again, this is a great, worthwhile technique to use at home, because you can parboil the pasta at a time of day when youre not juggling three or four other tasks, like preparing a sauce, or a salad. And when its time to prepare the rest of dinner, youll feel more confident in the outcome, because you can focus more of your attention on the other parts of the meal.
Try this technique once, and you could be hooked. You may not be serving fifty or sixty people per night, but youll be cooking just like a chef in a neighborhood Italian restaurant.

About The Author

Skip Lombardi is the author of two cookbooks: "La Cucina dei Poveri: Recipes from my Sicilian Grandparents," and "Almost Italian: Recipes from Americas Little Italys." He has been a Broadway musician, high-school math teacher, software engineer, and a fledgeling blogger. But he has never let any of those pursuits get in the way of his passion for cooking and eating. Visit his Web site to learn more about his cookbooks. http://www.skiplombardi.com or mailto:info@skiplombardi.com.

Many business owners and online marketing experts focus their efforts on search engine optimisation and ensuring high search engine placement for a website. Although search engines should play a crucial part in any online marketing campaign they are but one element to that equation.
Although they are unlikely to send as much traffic to your website as search engines, directories are an essential online resource that need to be considered when developing your online marketing plan.
Directories differ from search engines in a few ways though the most important ones are as follows:

Directories usually have some form of human involvement in the editorial process
Because of the above there is a quality check in place
Because of the above fewer sites will get listed
Because of the above the quality of traffic from them will be higher

Surfers use directories differently to search engines. With a search engine a user would normally just enter in a phrase and hope for the best. With a directory the user is encouraged to drill down to the relevant area and select the appropriate category from a list.
This means that visitor who comes to your website from a directory is far more likely to convert into a customer as they will already have a greater understanding of the products and services you provide. Whereas those coming from search engines may simply have matched your website to three of four words in a phrase.
Directories are often categorised on a regional basis or by industry sector which means that visitors finding your website via a directory are more likely to be relevant potential customers and therefore will be easier to convert into clients.
So - dont rule out attracting traffic using directories as part of your online marketing campaign. It is an essential element in the over all online marketing mix.
Mike Cheney
www.magnet4web.com

About The Author
You can get free access to lots more of my articles plus a FREE Special Report "How To Turn Your Website Into A Customer Magnet" worth a value of

Do you like the arthritis pain relief you get from over-the-counter anti-inflammatory pills like ibuprofen But do they

Heres an easy way to backup your web sites files and database worth thousands of dollars, no doubt that costs $0 to learn and perform. It only takes seven easy steps.
You dont need to know a lot about how to use Unix or how to use databases like mySQL. The only real tool you need is a telnet client. Also, you need to know a few commands which Ill show you now. You could even write the commands Im about to give you on a cheatsheet.
STEP 1: CONNECT & GET IN THE RIGHT FOLDER
The web host youre trying to back up needs to allow shell access most do these days.
If you have a Windows computer, download a program called "PuTTY" which you can use to login in your web hosts shell. Search for "putty ssh" on Google or get it here: http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe
Open up PuTTY and at the top type in your hostname your web site address without the http or www, just "yourname.com". Your web host either uses SSH or telnet, first try logging in using SSH and if it wont connect try it using Telnet. Click the "Open" button at the bottom to connect.
When it connects you will be asked for your accounts username, and after you enter that, it will ask for your password. If these both take, youll see a command prompt of sorts. What you have to do is browse to the document root, depending on your host its usually a folder like "public_html" or "wwwroot".
If the wwwroot or public_html folder has more folders inside of it, in the form of yourdomain.com, dont browse into them yet, just stay in the folder youre in.
Browsing in the Unix command prompt is just like DOS, to view a folder type "dir" or "ls", and to go into a certain folder type "cd foldername". If you messed up you can type "cd .." to move up one level.
STEP 2: BACK-UP THE DATABASE
The first step if youre backing up a site is to dump your mySQL database. To do this obviously you need the mySQL username and password you want to back up. If your mySQL username is "myuser" and the mySQL password is "mypassword", youd type:
mysqldump -umyuser -pmypassword -A > dump.sql
mysqldump is the program we run to dump the database into a file, then we type "-u" followed by the username no spaces and "-p" followed by the password also no spaces. The uppercase "-A" tells the program we want to dump every database this user has access to. It MUST be an uppercase A.
The ">" afterwards says we want to put this programs output into a file otherwise it would show up on the screen and "dump.sql" is the name of the file were going to dump to.
This may take a while depending on the size of your database. Be patient. Once you have a command prompt again, its done.
STEP 3: BACK-UP YOUR FILES
Now you can put everything into one big file, which you can easily move over to the new host in one go, instead of one at a time. Unix doesnt let you create Zip files, but you can create a TAR Tape Archive which just rolls a bunch of files together without any sort of compression.
To create your TAR archive, type:
tar -cvf dump.tar *
The "-c" tells the program to create a new TAR archive, the "v" following right after says to be verbose, in other words, give us the name of every file thats being added to the archive. "f: means were saving this to a file, as opposed to showing it on the screen youd just see junk.
"dump.tar" is the name of the file we want to save into, and the "*" means we want to put everything into this TAR archive -- files, folders, everything.
You may get some sort of warning about not adding dump.tar to the archive, thats no big deal because we dont want this file to add itself.
Your files are backed up. At this point its time to move things over to the next host. Theres a way we can do this without you having to download the whole thing, and re-upload it.
STEP 4: ARRANGE YOUR FILE FOR PICKUP
Remember how I said when you were in "wwwroot" or "public_html" not to browse into the folder containing a domain name Well now its time to move that dump over into one of them so it can be picked up.
If one of your folders is, say, yourdomain.com, type:
mv dump.tar yourdomain.com
This moves "dump.tar" into the folder "yourdomain.com".
STEP 5: MOVE THE NEW FILE OVER
Login to your new host. Browse to its "wwwroot" or "public_html" folder.
Most hosts include a program called "wget" which works sort of like a browser in that you give it a URL to pick-up that it loads. Only this browser also saves the file you want to load.
If your old host was at yourdomain.com, youd just type:
wget http://www.yourdomain.com/dump.tar
This will load that URL and save it as "dump.tar". Youll probably see some sort of progress indicator as it goes.
STEP 6: DECOMPRESSING THE FILE
Once you have the file, you use that same TAR program to decompress it. Type:
tar -xvf test.tar
The "v" and "f" are still there, but instead of "c" create we use "x" extract. This will unpack each file and let us know which one its working on.
STEP 7: RESTORING THE MYSQL DATABASE
Before you can put the mySQL dump back into the database, you have to go into this new web hosts control panel and create blank databases with the same names as you had before.
You also have to create a mySQL user and make sure that user has access to all those databases youve created.
Once thats done find the dump.sql that was unpacked with all of the other files.
Instead of using the program "mysqldump" to dump the files, we use the program "mysql" which lets us put commands into the database. Thats basically what a dump is, a file full of commands that, when run, will recreate the old database exactly.
This time we dont type in the database name right away. To get into mySQL from the command prompt, type:
mysql -umyuser -pmypassword
Where "myuser" and "mypassword" are your mySQL username and password. Once youre in youll get kind of a weird looking prompt. All you have to do at this point is type:
source dump.sql
This says, open up the file dump.sql, read through it and do whatever it says to do in that file. You will see a bunch of lines telling you a command has been entered 0 Rows Affected, 1 Rows Affected, something like that.
If everything goes smoothly, type "quit" and you will be back in the shell.
Youve just moved one site or a bunch of sites over from one host to another in about 5 minutes.

About The Author
Article by Robert Plank
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1. Pay off high-cost debt. The best investment most borrowers can make is to pay off consumer debt with double-digit interest rates. For example, if you have a $3,000 credit card balance at 19.8%, and you pay the required minimum balance of 2% of the balance or $15, whichever is greater, it will take 39 years to pay off the loan. And you will pay more than $10,000 in interest charges.
2. Buy a home and pay off the mortgage before you retire. The largest asset of most middle-income families is their home equity. Once these families have made their last mortgage payment, they have far lower housing expenses. They also have an asset that can be borrowed on in emergencies or converted into cash through sale of the home.
3. Participate in a work-related retirement program. Many employees turn down free money from their employer by not signing up for a work-related retirement program such as a 401k plan. If they did participate, with a dollar-for-dollar match they would likely receive an annual yield of greater than 100% on their investment.
4. Outside of work, save monthly through an automatic transfer from checking to savings. These savings will provide funds for emergencies, home purchase, school tuition, or even retirement. Almost all banking institutions will, on request, automatically transfer funds monthly from your checking account to a savings account, U.S. Savings Bond, or stock mutual fund. What you dont see, you will probably not miss.
5. Calculate your risk and return. If you earn 4% interest, your money will double in less than 15 years; at 7% it will double in about 10 years and at 10% it will double in 7%. Use Asset Allocation to reduce your overall risk.

About The Author
Cindy S. Morus www.phelps-creek.com is a Certified Financial Recovery Counselor specializing in showing women and their families how to achieve financial well-being and peace of mind. She is also a Certified Credit Report Reviewer and Get Clients NOW!

Do you know you can go on a 7-day cruise for half the price
Or visit Europe for 15 days for only $2,000 per person including airfare, hotels, car rental and meals
If you follow these steps, you can save more up to 50% in travel expenses.
1. Travel during low season.
Choosing to go on vacation during low season, will save you a great deal of money on airfare, hotels, cruises, car rental and more.
The best dates to travel are between:
February - May
September - the week before Thanksgiving
December 1 - 15
For example, a 7-day cruise in the Caribbean can cost around $1,000 during summer and winter but it can cost $495 in November.
A ticket to Europe can cost between $800-$1,200 during high season but you can buy it at $395 roundtrip during low season.
2. Hotels
The same applies to hotel rates.
When it comes to hotels, you should look for 3-star hotels that will offer most amenities you need at a lower price than 4 or more star hotels. You should keep in mind, that 3-star hotels are smaller, but you can find very good hotels for a great price.
Keep in mind that hotels that are very near local attractions will be more expensive than hotels located 2 or 3 blocks away.
3. Attractions and Places to Visit
Make a list of the places and attractions you want to visit and do some research. Find out about the schedules, locations, special events, etc. Youll find out that there are certain dates during the year that they will have discounts and even free admission.
4. Restaurants
Dont visit tourist-oriented restaurants.
Instead, ask locals to recommend family-owned or small restaurants. Not only will you pay less but the food, quality and service will be much better.
Two years ago, I visited Monaco, France and we went to a small restaurant on a side street and we only paid $100 for 4 people for appetizers, great pasta, drinks and dessert including tip. Not a bad price considering that Monaco is very expensive.
5. Metro vs. Taxi
In most places, there is a metro or train system which will be a lot cheaper than traveling by taxi. All you need to do is get a map and trace the route youre going to visit and find out the train or metro numbers you need to get on to.
By planning your vacation in advance, choosing the best dates to travel low season, doing research about places and attractions to visit, going to local restaurants versus tourist-oriented ones, and using the metro or train system instead of taxis, will save you a great deal of money and allow you to go on vacation at least twice a year.

About The Author

Maria Estarellas is the webmaster for http://meg2.citymaker.com. The Complete Website For The Whole Family
meg2@bspr.com

Whether youre looking for insurance quotes for auto, life, travel or health you can find some great rates on the internet. Insurance quotes coverage can provide peace of mind and also financial coverage in the event that something untoward happens.
Originally health insurance in the United States took the form of a voluntary program. Such programs date from about 1850, when health insurance was provided chiefly by cooperative mutual benefit and fraternal beneficiary associations. Insurance quotes can now be obtained online from the internet.
Insurance quotes for life insurance, originally conceived to protect a mans family when his death left them without income, has developed into a variety of policy plans. In a

Do you want to save money, anxiety for your kitty, and unnecessary trips to your vet Would you like to know if your cat is developing crystals in her urine that could lead to a feline UTI
Its easy to do with this check-at-home method.
If your kitty has been previously diagnosed with a feline UTI, theres a chance it could re-occur. Since its impossible to see the crystals in your cats urine that are caused by a UTI, you dont know kittys hurting again until the UTI is fairly well advanced. And then how do you tell
Poor kitty probably stops using the cat litter box - again.
Well, theres an easy method to check kittys urine at home, with a minimum of fuss. You can check as often as you like, and its easy to see the test results - you dont need any training.
Heres how:
First off, youll need either non-absorbent litter available from your vet or clean acquarium gravel thats available at any local pet store.
Next, youll need urine pH test strips, which you can read about, and order at: http://www.cat-urine-odor-advisor.com/crystals-in-cat-urine-pH-kit.html.
Then, set up kitty in a room of her own with food, water, a clean litter box scrubbed clean, not just litter-dumped-out clean with the non-absorbent litter or acquarium gravel. You might also add some of her favorite toys, a kitty DVD, see them here at: http://www.cat-urine-odor-advisor.com/cat-litter-box-problem.html, or just turn on a radio tuned to a classical music station, with the volume set low.
This testing is even easier when you know the approximate times of the day or night your cat uses the litter box. You may need to observe your cat for a few days to figure this out. Scout usually goes around 4:30 AM, or 5:00 PM. Theres probably other times, but these are the two most convenient times for me to grab a fresh sample from her.
Give kitty time to give you a sample in the box. Check often, to make sure you get fresh cat urine.
Why
Fresh cat urine will give you the most accurate pH reading. The older the urine, the higher the pH reading will be...youll think kitty has a problem, when she may not.
Dip the urine pH test strip into kittys urine, and GENTLY shake the excess off, over the cat litter box. Hold the wet end up, and compare it to the chart that comes with the urine pH test strip kit.
A normal reading is 6.4 - 6.6. If its any lower or higher, please contact your vet as soon as possible for more information.
I test my cat Scout monthly. Since Ive begun using this method, I no longer have to guess if the changes in her diet and lifestyle are working to prevent future UTI occurences. I know for certain, based on the urine sample test reading.
What could be easier You:

Can test kitty at home, at your leisure, and hers.
Dont have to schedule a vet visit.
Can easily read the test results quickly.
Will know if an appointment with kittys vet is necessary or not.

Remember, this testing will tell you that a recurring UTI is possible - its NOT definitive. For confirmation, you will need to take your cat the vet.
Good luck, and happy testing!

About The Author

Nancy E. Wigal
www.cat-urine-odor-advisor.com
nancy@cat-urine-odor-advisor.com

Nancy has successfully eliminated cat urine odor from her home, and kept the kitty that caused it.
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