Money Tips Network

This post comes from Dawn Jamison at our partner site Zing!

One of the most exciting things about being a new parent is learning about all of the wonderful toys and technologies that exist for kids! The apps and websites my friends have told me about have truly been lifesavers. I don’t know what I would do without having these great resources at my fingertips. Whether I’ve had questions about my daughter’s development or questions about my sick baby, these have come in handy.

Here are four web sites well worth saving to your favorites list.

BabyCenter.com

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some fantastic articles on the benefits of thrift shops, ways to challenge yourself every day, and things financially successful people avoid doing.

Top 5 Articles

20 Amazing Benefits of Thrift Shopping You Probably Never Expected — Did you know that when you thrift shop, you may discover designer products at a fraction of the price? [Lifehack]

Most parties don't require you to sign a contract at the front door.

But all the same: by showing up, you've committed to a contract, albeit a non-verbal one. Your hosts agree to do everything reasonable to ensure your good time, and, basically, you agree to do everything reasonable to not make it blow up in their faces. (See also: 18 Things People With Good Social Skills Never Do)

So take a look at this list and make sure you're not unintentionally committing any party fouls. Your hosts (and your social calendar) will thank you for it.

My family and I just recently returned from a week at the beach.  We had an awesome time – and we even figured out some simple ways to save money while on vacation.

Check online for attraction discounts, coupons, and codes.  Our three kids like putt-putt and the water-park.  A simple online search, and I found coupons for both attractions.  We saved 50% on the putt-putt – and 60% at the water-park!

Side note – By visiting the water-park’s website, we were able to better plan our visit.  We avoided a particularly busy day at the park – and the kids were able to ride the slides without waiting in super-long lines.

One of the most popular articles I’ve ever written for The Simple Dollar is 100 Things to Do During a Money-Free Weekend. In it, I touch upon the idea of a “money-free weekend” – one in which you consciously avoid the active spending of money – and then drop a long list of activities you can take on during such a weekend.

Sarah and I often did “money-free weekends” when we first started our financial recovery and we still do them every once in a while. When we first began, however, we had only a single child at home, a baby, who we could simply take along to many of the more adult-oriented activities that we would do. If you’ll notice, that list is mostly full of stuff that works best for adults.

This article is by staff writer Kristin Wong.

(This is a two-part series. Part I is “Our brains on scarcity: The trap of not having enough.”)

For my last post, I wrote about the book “Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.” To recap, researchers Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir conducted a series of experiments and found that scarcity — whether it’s a lack of time, money or food — drastically changes our behavior. Here’s how:

• It lowers our cognitive capacity. (We perform worse on intelligence tests.)

• It makes us less polite.

Anyone who has experienced humidity before knows just how uncomfortable and stifling it can be, especially within your own home. But beyond the physical discomfort, many people may be unaware of the effects that humid air can have on their homes, as it can lead to the rapid growth of mildew and mold which can cause further risks to your health and well-being.

This is where a dehumidifier can come in handy since its primary job is to reduce the level of humidity in the air to keep your home nice and comfortable. Wise Bread is here to help you choose the best dehumidifier for your home with our top 5 list.

In yesterday’s post on bargains and baselines, I talked about some of the reason we got an Amazon rewards card, even though we had another one.

This prompted a great question from The Wallet Doctor:

I like your strategy on the Amazon card versus your usually 1% cash back card. I’ve thought about going for deals like that, but I’m always a little nervous about having too many cards. Where do you think you need to draw the line on that sort of specialized strategy?

He’s right about not applying for credit cards indiscriminately.  Applying for a bunch of credit cards usually isn’t the best for your credit score.  The average age of your accounts goes down, and the amount of credit you have available (potentially to abuse) goes up.

It's nice to get out of the rat race.

However, once you hit retirement you have to learn to get along with way less "cheese." With less than half of Americans having ever thought about how much money they need for retirement, it is clear that several people are still clueless about retirement. (See also: This Is the Basic Intro to Having a Retirement Fund That Everyone Needs to Read)

If you consider yourself a know-it-all in retirement matters, here is a list of 12 things about retirement that may shock you.