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" Think you&amp;#039;ve found all the money you can by squeezing every last cent out of your budget? Tired of sacrificing your caffeine fix for that extra $30 a month? Well, Happy New Year: There is more money to be found, withoutdeprivation. Here, four smart moves to make your bank account richer. 1. STOP THROWING AWAY RECEIPTS I made a dash to the drugstore recently to buy a pack of gum. With my receipt, I was handed an insanely long piece of paper: a coupon to use when I next shopped at the store. These rewards are now given out at thousands of stores, which use records of your purchases to provide you with targeted coupons for products you&amp;#039;re more likely to buy (Big Brother-ish, I know, but nearly inescapable in a world of electronic registers and UPC codes). Even if you leave the coupons at home when shopping, you may still be able to save. Retailers like ShopRite offer YourBucks \u2014 savings vouchers sent to your mobile phone. And don&amp;#039;t forget to pair up coupons: At Rite Aid recently, I saved over $10 on a $40 total by using loyalty points plus a coupon from my previous visit. That adds up to some serious money! \u2022 YOU SAVE $20/MONTH $240 A YEAR 2. DON&amp;#039;T PAY BILLS VIA REGULAR MAIL You&amp;#039;ll save a lot more than just postage. Cell phone providers, banks, and other businesses give discounts on either interest rates or fees if you pay your bills automatically online. AT&amp;amp;amp;T gives you a $10 reward card if you sign up for autopay. Student-loan lenders like Sallie Mae also give a lower rate to qualifying borrowers who sign up for automatic bill-pay. Say you&amp;#039;ve borrowed $30,000 at 7% and get a .25% discount; you&amp;#039;ll save about $50 this year and $580 over the life of the loan. Car insurance discounts for autopay abound. Allstate lowers premiums 2% if you sign up, plus 10% more if you get statements via e-mail. If your family pays $190 a month for coverage, that&amp;#039;s $274 saved per year. And autopay helps you avoid late fees of up to $29 a pop. Tip: Set payments to go out a few days after your paycheck comes, so you&amp;#039;re never in overdraft. \u2022 YOU SAVE $30.25/MONTH $363 A YEAR 3. STOP PAYING FOR LONG-DISTANCE PHONE CALLS Remember the days of the surprise $36 call? (Or maybe that was just me, chatting with my Finnish boyfriend in college.) Those days of huge phone bills are gone, and \u2014 even better \u2014 via your smartphone or computer, free phone and video calls are the new normal. Granted, you have to pay for phone service or a Web connection, but long distance shouldn&amp;#039;t cost a cent. Sign up for free Web-based calls with a service like Skype (skype.com). Calls from one Skype account to another are free (you can also video chat, if you like; it&amp;#039;s easy to stick with voice only, though, if you can&amp;#039;t always be bothered to look camera-ready). Just create a username and password (as you do with e-mail) and add the Skype user you want to talk to. And if you&amp;#039;re calling someone who doesn&amp;#039;t have a Skype account, international rates are 2.3\u00A2 a minute or even lower if you sign up for a subscription to the service ($2.99 a month to call any phone in the United States or Canada; $13.99 a month for unlimited global service). With Google Voice, U.S./Canada calls (and voice mail!) are free, and international calls range from 2\u00A2 to 15\u00A2 a minute, depending on location. That means big savings over most local phone services&amp;#039; and cell carriers&amp;#039; charges. \u2022 YOU SAVE $40/MONTH $480 A YEAR Next:   4. DON&amp;#039;T PAY FOR IDENTITY-THEFT PROTECTION ID theft truly can be one of the most devastating things to happen to your financial life. But you don&amp;#039;t need to pay someone else to protect you; there&amp;#039;s plenty you can do yourself. For example, when I looked into testing out an ID-protection service for around $15 a month, I found the reports included information I&amp;#039;d already gotten\u2014for free!\u2014because I check my credit card and banking statements online weekly. It&amp;#039;s a good thing I do: I recently found an unauthorized $2.99 charge from a gaming company on my credit card statement and alerted my card provider to have it removed. It turns out some thieves will initially run small charges on stolen card numbers to &amp;quot;test&amp;quot; your alertness.  Also, review a copy of each of your three credit reports (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) for free once a year at annualcreditreport.com. Scour them for any new credit requests you don&amp;#039;t recognize; this could indicate that someone is trying to use your Social Security number to get, say, a credit card or loan.  And know that, for free, you can put a fraud alert on your credit\u2014or maybe even freeze your credit if you are a victim of identity theft. Find out more at the site of the Federal Trade Commission, ftc.gov/idtheft. \u2022 YOU SAVE $15/MONTH $180 A YEAR&amp;amp;gt; 3 MORE SMART SAVINGS TIPS Get your money back! Why pay for beauty products you don&amp;#039;t use? Rite Aid and CVS offer 100% guarantees; return any opened or unopened beauty or hair product with the receipt, and get back every single cent. Snag a gift card on sale After the holidays, people who receive gift cards they can&amp;#039;t easily shop with or just don&amp;#039;t like often sell them at a deep discount (versus face value). Go to sites like plasticjungle.com and giftcardgranny.com. Pay less for gas I&amp;#039;ve seen prices from 6\u00A2 to 20\u00A2 more per gallon if you pay with plastic, so only fill &amp;#039;er up when you have cash on hand. And use the GasBuddy app (Andriod, iOS) to find the lowest price nearby. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/money/advice/a19377/save-money-this-year/>