Economizer

Julia Scott of Bargain Babe says a tough economy doesn't necessarily mean you can't eat out.

"Look for coupons in the mail or on the restaurant website," says Scott. "And two words - happy hour. Portions are huge. Split an appetizer and entree instead of two full meals."

To hear more of Scott's tips, check out the video below.

You might have been invited to one recently or seen clothing swap events on social media websites. They're definitely a growing trend among fashionistas on a budget, but what are they and how do they work?

Put simply, it's an event where participants exchange clothing they don't wear anymore (because of fit or style) for items they will actually wear.

Swaps are a great way to get rid of clothing that's just taking up valuable wardrobe space, it gives you an opportunity to get new-to-you-clothing without spending any money and it's a fun way to be green.

You can organize a public swap or start small and host a smaller swap with your friends.

David Letterman has an incredibly popular segment on his show called Top 10.

While not always shocking, it's always at least a perfectly surprising piece of comedy. Usually beautifully outrageous, too.

The Canada Revenue Agency, not to be outdone, has come out with its own Top 10 list. It's not as funny as anything David Letterman might produce. But what it lacks in humour, it more than makes up for in its usefulness.

So, without much further ado, and with a special drum roll, here are the Top 10 (LEGAL) ways to keep more money in your pocket while sending less money to the government coffers.

Many cities in Canada have placed their bets on casinos to help drive economic activity and stimulate development. With the economy continuing to sputter along, many places are looking to felt covered tables and one-armed bandits as saviours. Once thought of as 'Toronto The Good', Ontario's capital is the latest municipality thinking of going Vegas, but is the glitz and glamour all it's made out to be? Let's take a look at how a casino can help or hinder a city.

Tax Revenue
Gambling in Canada is big business. Last year, all legalized gambling contributed $13.7 billion in net revenue to governments. Casinos contributed 34% of that total. While this certainly sounds great, some research shows that governments that build casinos don't always spread their new wealth as expected. Instead of building roads and schools, for example, there is evidence that governments use gambling revenue on other priorities like debt reduction, which don't have the same immediate impacts on the people living in the shadow of the casino.

Another year another federal budget. This is Canadian political theatre so, of course, we mostly just tune it out. At best, Canadians tend to shrug when the federal budget is announced. At worst they ignore it all together. This year though there are a few things in the budget you should take note of because they're going to impact you.

Old Age Security
This year's budget might determine when you retire. The Old Age Security (OAS) program currently pays benefits of $540 a month to qualifying Canadians age 65 and older. Beginning in 2023 though, only Canadians over the age of 67 will be able to start collecting their cheques. This means everybody who is currently under the age of 54. Many Canadians rely on a combination of company pension payments, RRSP savings, Canadian Pension Plan payments and OAS payments to get by in retirement so delaying when you can access one of these can have a pretty big impact. Everybody keeps telling me that 40 is the new 30 so I guess 67 is the new 65.

This is called bargain hunting at its finest: price-conscious consumers enter a store, look at the wares it offers, take out their smartphone and proceed to check out prices for the same goods elsewhere, looking for better deals. And if they find better deals, they proceed to buy them online, without even leaving the store where they had been checking them out in the first place.

Retailers are shocked: how could they throw such shameless people (in their view) out without hurting their own reputation? And how could they check on what better prices the would-be shoppers see online so they could adjust?

Retailers fear that the only footfall they may see in future will be from people checking out products in person before buying online from rivals.

This time of year we're all about saving money and putting it somewhere where it can grow thanks to compound interest.

The questiion is, where can you find the extra money to put in savings? Yes, we all know about taking your lunch to work and not ordering the big, expensive coffees but there are other things you can do to save a few loonies here and there.

There are a few sacred things to women - and her beauty arsenal is one of them.

No matter if you're a lady who likes to spend hours with her powders, perfumes and glosses or a girl who happy to slap on sunscreen as her only face paint, we all have our indulgences when it comes to personal care products.

According to a recent article in BusinessInsider.com, women are happily still spending on one of their favourite luxuries: cosmetics. In fact, at the end of 2010, $36.5 billion was happily thrown down to make girls more pretty.

So if we're all dedicated to the regular purchases of lipstick, blush and mascara, how do we save money?

It was hard to do, but in the same week I started researching this hypermiling thing, gas prices spiked to almost $1.30 a litre. It was also the week I got my first real speeding ticket. I took all of it as a sign from the Fates that I should probably slow down a little.

I'm not a speed demon by any stretch, but I do tend to go most places while travelling about 10km over the limit. I am sensitive about using my brakes unnecessarily (to save gas yes, but more to save my brakes), and I've always known that better driving can = better fuel economy. Still, this particular experiment astonished me. In one round trip, by following a few really simple rules, I managed to save almost $30 in gas.

"Hyper-what?"

It was a Tuesday morning and I'd just read that gas prices were going up again this spring. My stomach was curled up in a tight little ball, and I'd just written to a friend that I wasn't sure what we were going to do about the fairly regular road trips we take across the province and back, each month.

I had to Google hypermiling to find out what she was talking about. It turns out there are whole clubs full of people across the continent who play games with themselves, their vehicles, and sometimes each other, in order to wring the very best fuel economy they can out of their cars.

Now, I've always known that smarter driving can mean better bang for your buck in the fuel economy department, but I had absolutely NO idea just how much could be saved by following a few simple rules. I was skeptical, but I tried them, and I was floored: On my very first tank of gas trying this, I think I saved almost $30.