Money Tips Network

There are no Dixie Cups in my home for political, financial and environmental reasons. I am saving money by using recycled glass jars instead of paper cups.

Here's how it works: After I finish up spaghetti sauce, pickles or whatever, I run the empty container through the dishwasher. Recycled and re-purposed old glass jars become new drinking cups, and I have dozens of them. And that means, I'm saving a small bit of the environment and saving money.

A package of 450 5-ounce cups costs about $22. If each person in my family uses 2 cups a day, here's the math:

People like rules of thumb and quick answers. When a complicated question can be answered by an authority with a simple response, the reaction is likely to be one of two possibilities: a feeling of well-being and satisfaction if the questioner is meeting the requirements, or motivation to improve if the ideal situation is not being met. So if that’s all you need, the answer to that question I’m posing today, a number that represents the ideal savings rate as a percentage of income, let’s go with an answer of ten.

If you can save ten percent of your income throughout your life, you’ll probably be fine; in fact, you’ll be in a better financial position that most of your peers.

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some awesome articles on how to save over $15,000 a year, things to remove from your resume, and avoiding financial scams.

Top 5 Articles

How to Save Money — Over $15,000 a Year — Menu planning and eating what you already have are a couple ways to help you work towards saving $15,000 a year. [Money Circle]

9 Things to Remove From Your Resume Right Now — Remove short-lived jobs and mission statements from your resume. [POPSUGAR Smart Living]

With the future of Social Security and pension plans as unstable as ever, saving for retirement carries a whole new meaning today. In 1950, there were 16.5 people paying into Social Security for every beneficiary. In 2010, that ratio became 2.9 to 1. If this trend continues, depending on how young you are, Social Security may not even exist for you in its current form.

As for pensions, they are simply rare these days. If you do receive this employer-sponsored plan, you would only get up to 25% of your pre-retirement income. Is that enough to retire on?

It’s no longer enough to rely on these types of funding for your retirement. You need to take your retirement in your own hands — intelligently plan, save, and invest your own money to ensure you live comfortably during your post-work years.

Your Personal Retirement Guide

Here are the four basic steps this guide will follow:

The simple maxim of spending less than you earn stands at the heart of personal finance success. If you can consistently do that one thing, you’re going to succeed when it comes to personal finance. I repeat that idea all the time because it’s so true – it’s the core of everything.

People get into financial trouble when they don’t follow that maxim. If you consistently spend more than you earn, you’re going to dip into financial trouble.

The result of this is that the first financial move people have to make when they’re beginning to turn their finances around is to get a grip on their spending.

For some, that’s a really hard pill to swallow, not because they don’t know how to do it, but because they view a reduction in spending as something to be personally ashamed of. They don’t want to feel “poor.” They don’t want to put forth an appearance of being “poor.”

I have been writing about personal finance (as in, my own) for nearly a decade.  In that time, I’ve had some financial success – paying off my consumer debt, purchasing a new home – and some blogging success – mentioned in the New York Times, interviewed on television and on radio – but the truth is: I still buy stuff I do not need.

I also use unnecessary dashes and commas when I write, but that’s a topic for another day.

Convenience Items – I am a sucker for anything that makes life easier.  I tend to spend too much on convenience items – because, you know, they’re convenient.

Tools – I love new tools, used tools, old tools, broken tools, cheap tools, and expensive tools.  My woodworking skills are minimal, at best, but I love hanging in the shop and building stuff.  The problem is – I’ll buy tools, just to own them.  While not a complete waste, I do have to pace myself.

When you spend most of your time either at home or at the office, you probably take your Wi-Fi signal for granted. Then when you travel, suddenly connecting to a Wi-Fi network becomes a privilege. Sometimes you can enjoy it for free; at other times you have to pay high premiums for it. But with a little bit of planning, you can get free or cheap Wi-Fi almost anywhere. Here's how. (See also: 10 Ways to Keep Your Laptop Safe While Traveling)

Maintaining good health can be a difficult task without the right motivation, but fortunately, there are many tools available to help you support a healthy lifestyle. When it comes to exercise, a good fitness tracker can quickly become an invaluable gadget for keeping you informed about your overall health progress, which in turn can further motivate you to push forward.

Fitness trackers are relatively new technology, so you may find it a bit difficult to determine what makes a good fitness tracker. We here at Wise Bread have done the research for you and have compiled our list of the top 5 fitness trackers worth your money.

When it comes to saving money, I should give myself more credit. That's the clear-cut frugal message from more than 50 recycled glass jars in my kitchen. Those containers once held: spaghetti sauce, pickles, olives, mayonnaise and other stuff.

I started saving glass jars because the ocean-front place where I used to live did not have recycling bins. After emptying and washing the jars, I started storing the glass with a plan to find a nearby recycling collection bin. Ha! I did this once or twice, but let me tell you: carting around large bags of glass jars is very hard work.

But in the meantime, I discovered that glass jars have many money-saving uses that are also eco-friendly. Here are a few: