The holiday shopping season is almost here!  With Black Friday just around the corner, you can use these tips to help you stay out of debt while buying gifts for all your friends and family this year.

Set a budget: Obviously if you have credit card debt now, you don’t want to elevate those numbers. Remember, your credit score depends more now than ever on how high your balances are. Start by setting a holiday spending number you will not exceed and make cash your first priority in paying for those gifts and other goods.

If you haven’t started shopping yet, do some Christmas budgeting and determine how much money you can realistically set aside and stay as close to that number as you can. Commit to avoiding ANY unplanned purchase above a certain threshold, such as $25.

Revamp your gift policy: Does everyone on your gift list over the age of 21 really need a present? The answer is as individual as your family and friends. But, if you think it might be welcome, make a suggestion for a gift drawing, a budget limit, or a moratorium on gifts for adults or some other alternative where you trade off gifts for quality time.

For instance, you might agree to take each other out to dinner during the New Year or find some other fun way to spend time together. You could help a friend or family member with a household project that could save them money. And in the end, children seem to enjoy their holiday gifts the most, so focus on buying presents for them.

Go debit: Debit cards with a bankcard logo are typically welcome at most stores where credit cards are accepted. This way, you pay cash without carrying cash. If you don’t have such a card, you can probably get one from your bank to replace your traditional ATM card, but remember to tell them to limit your buying power to the cash balance in your account. Also, review your bank’s debit card theft policies in case your card is lost or stolen.

Browse online, and then compare at local stores: Whether you plan to shop online is a separate issue, but browsing online can be a very good idea. “Shop-bot” price comparison websites can help you determine general price ranges for gifts you need that are sold online.

Once you have those ranges, get on the phone and determine whether you can buy the same items more affordably at retailers close to home – save gas whenever possible.

Don’t forget the coupons: Coupons aren’t just in newspapers or direct mail anymore. If you know particular stores where you’ll shop, get on their e-mail lists – you’ll start getting coupons and news of specials on a regular basis. Also, sign up at manufacturers’ websites for coupons or discount codes for shopping online.

Don’t forget taxes & shipping when shopping online: Online prices might look like a great deal until you realize you may be spending another 20 percent of the gift’s price to send it to your house or the recipient.  Here are some tips on how you can save money on shipping.

Also, read product descriptions very carefully to make sure what you’re buying contains all the features of the item that you could buy at the store. At the same time, if there is a legal opportunity to avoid paying sales tax, watch for that.

Allocate spending for charity: You can either make charity a separate item in your annual budget or part of your holiday budget, but if there are specific charities you want to support by yearend, it’s a good idea to decide on those amounts before the holiday shopping season gets underway.

This way, you’ll support the organizations you wish to without going outside your budget. Also, don’t forget to check with your employer to see if they’ll match your contribution and consider gifts of appreciated stocks rather than cash if it fits your charitable goals and tax situation.

Give yourself the gift of financial analysis: If you’re trying to get your finances in order, you could buy yourself an hour of time with a financial advisor. This meeting could extend beyond your holiday spending goals to setting targets for saving, investing, extinguishing debt, and setting financial goals for the future.

These holiday shopping tips were produced in association with the Financial Planning Association (FPA), the leadership and advocacy organization connecting those who provide, support and benefit from professional financial planning.

This week I recommend you check out PT Money, written by Phil Taylor (PT). His blog focuses on his own experiences managing money and he has help from his super frugal wife, too!

I first ran across Phil when he was part of the FNBO Direct Pay Yourself First money challenge, here’s his video entry where you can see him rapping about money:

I like Phil’s site because he shares specific and real financial information from his own experiences, I really enjoyed reading about his family’s travels to Ireland.  One thing Phil’s site is well know for is his popular collection of 52 ways to make extra money which he’s recently expanded on in a new eBook, 52 Ways to Make Extra Money.

About PT

Phil and his wife have recently welcomed a daughter into their family.

In addition to his own blog, PT’s writing appears on a number of other financial sites around the web, including MSN Smart Money Blog and The Wall Street Journal online.  You can also learn more about Phil in this interview with My Two Dollars.

Phil’s also become quite blog savvy while running his own site and if you’re interested in getting your own blog up and running he can help you out.

Recent Articles

• Save Money on Healthcare
• PocketSmith: A Calendar Based Financial Planner
• Money Experiment: A Week Without Spending

Here are a number of other links from around the personal finance blogosphere!

Investing

• Transfer Fund to Scottrade Brokerage Account Is Easy @ Suns Financial Diary
• Earning Interest and Dividends on Someone Elses Dime @ My Dollar Plan
• U.S. Savings Bond Traps: Time to Cash In @ Good Financial Cents
• 529 Plan Promotion: Couples Get $150 Jumpstart to College Savings @ My Money Blog
• Only Six Months Left To Make Year 2009 Contributions To Roth IRA Or Traditional IRA @ No Credit Needed

Credit Cards

• The End of Universal Default @ Frugal Dad
• Do You Know How Much Interest You Are Paying Each Month? @ Cash Money Life
• New Credit Card Rules, Opting Out of Interest Rate Increases @ The Digerati Life
• Is it Possible to Live Without Credit Cards? @ Five Cent Nickel

Budgeting

• How to Satisfy Your Need for Books and Movies Without Spending a Fortune @ Generation X Finance
• What if You were Required to Share your Finances? @ Lazy Man & Money
• 5 Reasons You Need a Tax Professional @ Moolanomy
• Comparing Prescription Prices To Save Myself A Ton Of Money. @ My Two Dollars
• Don’t Wait Until January to Think About Budgeting @ Being Frugal
• 52 Ways to Make Extra Money! (but only 1 of them here). @ Budgets Are Sexy
• The Dreadful Bill Collector and How to Handle Them @ Million Dollar Journey
• Does Giving Make You Wealthier? @ Free Money Finance
• Ten Tricks for Staying Warm This Winter Without Huge Energy Bills @ The Simple Dollar

Economy

• Here’s the one thing you can absolutely count on in this economy @ Mighty Bargain Hunter
• GMAC Asking for a Third Bailout From Taxpayers @ Consumerism Commentary

Other Finance

• Searching For Your Unclaimed Money & Property @ Bargaineering
• Large Amounts Matter Too @ Get Rich Slowly
• how to keep a customer happy @ Brip Blap
• Should I Pay Off My Mortgage Early @ Money Ning

Open enrollment deadlines are one date you don’t want to miss.  Choosing the best insurance options and benefits at your job is an important part of your personal finances.

Open Enrollment Window

October and November are the time when many companies have open enrollment, a time period during which you can make changes to your benefits for the coming year.  Open enrollment is often the only time during the year you can make changes to your health insurance and flexible spending plans unless you have a qualifying change in status during the year such as a marriage or new baby.

In many cases if you do nothing during the open enrollment period, your insurance coverage and benefits will remain the same as previous year, one common exception are flexible spending plans. Due to federal laws, if you want to continue your health care or dependent day care flex spending contribution, you have to re-enroll each year.

Benefit Changes

Typically when you go through the enrollment process you’ll elect or decline coverage for benefits such as medical, dental, flexible spending accounts, dependent day care, and vision. Take care to add and update your dependent and beneficiary information so that your family members have sufficient coverage.

Open Enrollment Deadlines

Most companies are pretty strict about enforcing their open enrollment deadlines.  Any changes you try and make after the deadline passes will typically be denied.  You can always work with your human resources department to get an exception but it’s much easier to take the time and finish your open enrollment before it becomes a huge hassle or is too late. So stop procrastinating and enroll now if you haven’t already!

Investing was the main topic covered here on Money Smart Life in October with an emphasis on bonds.  We haven’t talked all that much about how bonds fit into an investment portfolio so I decided to take spend a few days covering bonds.

Investing Topics

Victor started out the the basics of investing in bonds and followed it up with a look at some of the common bond market terms.  Then we talked about a few different bond investing strategies and then wrapped it up with a post on bond funds.

The next investing topic was that of annuities and what types of investors are putting money into them.  They’re not for everyone, we look at how fixed annuities and variable annuities work and point you to some resources debating their usefulness in a portfolio.

College Savings

Since many college students were heading off to school last month we took a look at the Coverdell ESA and the 529 college savings plan.  We’re still moving on this one with another post on college savings in a rough economy later this week.

Money Topics

Some of the other personal finance areas we wrote about last month were setting goals to get what you want, paying medical bills, and some job hunting tips.

As I mentiond earlier, in the weeks to come we’re going to cover more in the college savings account arena.  We’re also going to take a look at something not covered much previously, real estate investing.  Hopefully you found something useful here last month, if you want to keep up with the new articles coming out in November you can get free updates.  Thanks for reading!

Last week, we highlighted Jeff Rose over at Good Financial Cents.  This week, we’re highlighting Bible Money Matters written by Pete.  He doesn’t believe that faith and finances should be separate, and so his blog chronicles his thoughts about how his Christian faith affects his finances.

I like Pete’s site not only because the posts are usually informative and educational, but I also like how he relates religion and money.  There are many issues that revolve around money and beliefs, like greed and giving, that I struggle with sometimes so his site is good food for thought on those topics.

About Pete

Pete and his wife Maria have been debt-free (except for their mortgage) for about two years. They vow never to be servant to the lender again by maintaining that debt-free existence.

Recent Links

• Lawmakers Push for Extension of First Time Homebuyers Credit
• Avoid the Pressure to Spend
• What you Need to know About Cash Flow Management

Here are some other posts from around the personal finance web:

Software and Giveaways

10 Free Online Budgeting Applications @ Lazy Man & Money
2010 Quicken Deluxe Giveaway @ Suns Financial Diary

Budgeting

• Personal Budgeting Made Easy With the 60% Solution @ The Digerati Life
• 5 Reasons To Dump Your Strict Budget @ Frugal Dad

Saving Money

• Saving Money on Childcare @ Money Ning
• Ways To Save Money With Google Voice @ My Money Blog
• How To Save Money On Groceries @ No Credit Needed
• Saving Now Gives Us Mad Options Later. @ Budgets Are Sexy

Taxes

• What’s the Difference Between Tax Exemptions and Tax Deductions? @ Five Cent Nickel
• The Early Adopters Tax @ Cash Money Life

Financial Education

• New Graduates Facing Unemployment May Never Reach Income Potential @ Consumerism Commentary
• Pay Yourself First @ Get Rich Slowly
• how to make yourself an expert @ Brip Blap
• Why Don’t Most Financial Planners Plan Finances? @ Million Dollar Journey
• How to Break Bad Money Habits @ Good Financial Cents
• 10 Ways To Increase The Value Of Your Home. @ My Two Dollars
• Four Fiscally-Fit Financial Roadblocks @ Generation X Finance
• When Debt Collectors Violate the FDCPA @ Bargaineering
• The Biggest Barrier to Becoming Rich @ Free Money Finance

Business Finance

• Never Eat Alone: Find Mentors, Find Mentees, Repeat @ The Simple Dollar
• Creating A New Product @ Erica Biz

Kids

• 25 Frugal Halloween Costumes @ Moolanomy
• Does a Bad Economy Equal a Sad Christmas for the Kids? @ Being Frugal
• When is the right age to open a bank account for your kids? @ Mighty Bargain Hunter

Heating & cooling your home isn’t cheap, especially when you add in furnance repair bills like the one we had last weekend.  We came home last Sunday afternoon and found that although our thermostat was turned to 65 and we could hear the furnace blower kick on, there was no hot air coming out of the vents.

Heating System

Our central heat system uses a heat pump to warm the house when the temperature is above a certain level and then a gas furnace kicks in as auxilary heat when the temperature outside gets too cold for the heat pump to keep up.

I opened up the furnace and could see that the gas burners weren’t lighting but didn’t see a pilot light anywhere.  Reading through the owners manual I discovered that some of the newer gas furnaces like ours have an igniter instead of a pilot light and they recommended having a professional diagnose it.

Furnance Repair

I knew it would be more expensive for a weekend call but it was pretty cold so I called up the evening and weekend number and scheduled an emergency repair visit.  It turned out our furnance igniter had gone bad but luckily for us he had a van full of furnace parts and had the one we needed.

The total furnace repair bill was $180. The service call was $120 since it was on a weekend, and the part was $60.

Furnance Maintenance

I questioned the furnace technician as he worked to see what I could do to prevent future $120 weekend service calls.  He said that other than regularly changing our furnance filter there wasn’t much else simple that I could do myself.  He did show me how he cleaned the burner and sensor with some steel wool and just cleaned the dust and dirt out of the furnace cabinet.

He said that although our Carrier furnance was pretty easy to disassemble compared to other brands like Trane, where you need special tools just to take apart the furnace, if I wasn’t familiar with the inner workings of our furnace that my best bet was to get it serviced once a year.

He gave me a sheet with a breakdown of all the things they do in their furnace annual service.  Apparently they take apart the furnace and lubricate all the moving parts and go over the following components:

• Burner
• Heat Anticipator
• Heat Exchanger
• Safety Controls
• Air Filter

As part of the maintenance, they also check:

• Flue for proper drawing
• Temperature rise through furnace
• Fan and limit control
• Proper combustion
• Gas line & manifold pressure
• Pressure regulator
• Blower components

Since I don’t have much spare time, I’ll probably take advantage of their annual tune-up either this winter or next.  Hopefully that will ward off any future emergecy weekend repairs.

How often do you spend a big chunk of money and look back on your purchase weeks, months, or years down the road and congratulate yourself on money well spent?

It seems for me that I usually do the opposite.  Things seem to break before they should or don’t do as good a job as I expected them to.  It’s not often that I reflect on a $100 buying decision and pat myself on the back.  Maybe my expectations are too high, maybe “things just aren’t made the way they used to be”, or maybe some of both.

Best $100 Spent

I’m pleased to say that I do have purchase that was money well spent, one where we definitely got our money’s worth.  About a year ago our neighbors moved and sold us their trampoline for $100.  They even somehow got it over the fence and moved it into our backyard while I was at work one day.  The trampoline was probably only about a year old, so for $100 we got a pretty new trampoline, no assembly or delivery required!

All spring and summer, when I’d get home from work my son and I would head out to the trampoline for some dad and son time.  We shared many stories and laughs while we jumped away the troubles of the day and got some exercise as well.  So over the course of a year we racked up hours of entertainment and exercise all for only $100, best money I’ve spent in a long time.

I’m sad to see the cold weather encroaching on our trampoline time.  This will probably be the last week it’s warm enough for us to get out and jump until next spring.  That’s okay though, it’ll be there in March or April waiting for us to have more fun and keep getting our money’s worth.

What’s the best $100 you’ve ever spent?

Each week I’m going to share with you a personal finance site that I enjoy. I started this a while back with Moolanomy, Gather Little by Little, and Being Frugal but got a little sidetracked when our daughter was born.

Good Financial Cents

This week I recommend checking out Good Financial Cents written by Jeff Rose. He’s one of the financial advisor websites with blogs I highlighted a while back. Jeff’s a certified financial planner at Alliance Investment Planning who shares some of his insights about money on his blog.

I like Jeff’s site not only because he’s a practicing financial professional who knows his stuff but also because I agree with the philosophy that a big part of being successful with your money is simply using common sense. For example, his recent post about why you should keep contributing to your 401(k) even when you feel like you’re throwing away money.

About Jeff

Jeff served 9 years with the U.S. National Guard, during which time he supported Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was during his downtime in Iraq that he earned the Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor designation. Jeff is a certified financial planner and also holds a B.S in Finance and a minor in Accounting from SIU-Carbondale.

Recent Articles

• Company is Going Bankrupt, What About My Pension?
• What is a Life Insurance trust?
• Don’t Forget These Last Minute Tax Breaks for 2009

Here are a number of other posts from around the personal finance web:

Career

• Learn About Your Benefits During Open Enrollment @ Generation X Finance
• Salary Negotiation – How to Win @ Five Cent Nickel
• how to avoid work while on vacation @ Brip Blap
• When One Partner Is Self-Employed @ The Simple Dollar
• How Networking in Your Office Can Help Your Career @ Free Money Finance
• Best Places To Start A Business. @ My Two Dollars
• Five Steps to Six Figures in Seven Years @ Get Rich Slowly

Investing

• Ten Things to Do With $1,000 Right Now @ Consumerism Commentary
• Lending Club Credit Rating and Collection Process @ Suns Financial Diary

Retirement

• Get 401(k) Rollover Checks Mailed Directly to IRA @ Bargaineering
• Solo 401k Versus SEP-IRA @ My Dollar Plan

Taxes

• How Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) Works @ Million Dollar Journey

Household & Family

• Don’t Let the Children Dictate Your Finances! @ Frugal Dad
• Should parents or students borrow to pay for college? @ Good Financial Cents
• Fall Cleaning For You and Your Financials! @ Moolanomy
• Saving Money on Your Household Bills @ Money Ning
• When is the right age to open a bank account for your kids? @ Mighty Bargain Hunter
• Haggle To Lower Your Direct TV Satellite Bill @ My Money Blog

Mortgage

• Home Equity Loan vs. Home Equity Line of Credit @ Budgets Are Sexy
• Loan Modification Companies vs The Fair Housing Authority @ The Digerati Life

Other

• How A Silly Little Experiment Helped Me Get Out Of Debt @ No Credit Needed
• How Do All Those Idiots Make So Much Money? @ Erica Biz
• What Should I do About Increased Credit Card Interest Rates? @ Cash Money Life
• Are You Prepared for the Worst? @ Being Frugal
• Price-Placebo Effect: Are You a Victim, Too? @ Lazy Man & Money

Thanks to the following sites for highlighting Money Smart Life articles:

• All Financial Matters
• Military Finance Network
• Funny About Money

When you look around at all the things you own, what story does it tell about the kind of spender you are? Are you a smart, calculated spender that parts with your money only when necessary or do you tend to spend more freely and frivolously?

When I bought myself a green hooded Columbia Sportswear winter jacket over ten years ago I didn’t realize it would come to symoblize the kind of spender that I would become.

As a broke college freshmen combing through the bargain racks in the mall I almost choked on my gum when I found the deal on the coat. I almost felt like I was stealing the jacket it was so heavily discounted. Turns out the coat was a great purchase, it’s kept me warm through many cold winter days over the years.

As I walked into my 10 year college reunion dinner this weekend I realized I was wearing that same winter coat, the one I’d used throughout my college career. Reflecting on why I was the only one sporting a vintage 1990’s jacket I was reminded that I’m a rather miserly spender. I didn’t mention my observation to my wife because she I’m sure would have been embarrased and sworn then and there to buy me a new coat.

Of course you don’t have to keep the same coat for over 10 years to think of yourself as a smart spender. Everyone’s priorities are different, you may feel more strongly about your wardrobe than I do and update it more frequently. But look at the overall trend of your spending to see how you spend money. If you spend freely and often in all areas of your life then you have the potential to save yourself thousands of dollars a year simply by taking the time to think over each purchase for a few seconds and ask yourself whether you’re being a smart spender

For me, my green coat represents the approach of minimalist spending; I try and spend money only when I have to. That approach doesn’t work for everyone but I’ve done a decent job mastering the skill.

What approach do you take to spending? How much money could you save each year if you put a little more thought and discipline into your spending?

TradeKing $50 bonus for new accounts starts today & runs through the end of the month.  The online stock brokerage is running this promotion for new customers that open an account in the month of October.  No TradeKing promo code is necessary, you’ll get your $50 bonus after you make your first trade.

You can read more about the online broker in this TradeKing review.  Kiplinger picked them as the best in customer service in 2008, beating brokerages such as E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, and Charles Schwab.

There was a similar TradeKing promotion in the fall of 2008 and  just like last year this bonus isn’t avaible directly through their site.  To earn the $50 bonus, you have to go to this page to sign up.  The promotion runs through the end of the month, in order to get the bonus you must open a new account and make a trade.  Click Here to Try