Here are FIVE of my favorite posts from the past week. Each week I will be highlighting some of my favorites. I have many blogs in my reader, as I have many friends with all different types of “niches” or “non-niches”. I will post serious stories, fun stories, pictures, recipes, etc. They will most likely be in a random order.

I did not do Spotlight Saturday last week because I was out of town. I hope y’all forgive me as I had absolutely no time to read blogs. My reader has over a 1,000 blog posts to read right now.

1. Tales from the Sippy Cup: Yeah, my toddler Skypes-doesn’t everyone’s?

Shari rocks.  I finally met her recently in person. She’s dragging me over to her house soon so I can help coordinate paint colors. Anyway, Skype is awesome. I can’t say enough good things about Skype.  I used to use GChat and Facebook Messaging for chatting with my friends. I use Skype chat now. LOVE IT!

2.  The Happy Housewife-How to Win Swag Bucks

I’ve heard about Swag Bucks and never knew what they were. This is a great post explaining how to win them. Can you believe she bought a new iMac with her winnings? How awesome is that.

3.  Infarrantly Creative-Shirred Summer Dress

What a great re-fashion of a skirt found at The Salvation Army. She is so creative. I wish I knew how to sew.

4.  Riding with Jessica-WiseStamp-E-Mail Signature Tool

Jessica shows how this Firefox Add-On can great a personalized signature for your gmail account.

5.  Aura-Joon: Love Our Earth Week-Backyard Farming

Great photographs and a great idea. Now I just wish my backyard was a little bigger. But then again, our yippy dogs would probably chew on the vegetables.

I still haven’t recovered from BlogHer. I have clothes all over my bedroom, the garage floor, and the bathroom. My computer is on the kitchen table, surrounded by business cards, and notes. I’m trying to visit all the new sites that I’ve discovered. I will get to you all by the end of the weekend, I promise.

My best friend, Stacey, offered to write a guest post for me. One of these days, I will write my own stories about being on a budget, saving money, etc. Stacey has cut her electric bill drastically. It’s so low, it’s scary. And we live in Southern California.

I’m adding a wonderful photograph I took of Stacey, Angry Toddler, and her daughter, Stella. Stacey was “parenting” via her iPhone.

From Stacey:

I’ve been budgeting a lot since I decided to open my own business about 2 years ago. It’s hard to go from a decent salary to no salary at all. My husband suggested we just try a little to save on energy. It started small by just replacing our incandescent light bulbs as they burned out with Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL’s). I loathe the way the spirally ones look in recessed cans. We have recessed lights throughout our house, but they have CFL’s with the traditional glass casing around them so they look “normal”. I bought a whole bunch of dimmable and regular CFL’s at Costco. Go here for a funny story about me changing a light bulb. They aren’t much more than regular recessed lights. I think the non-dimmable lights were $14 and the dimmable are $18. I would say that about 75% of our lights are CFL’s now and it’s made a difference in the electric bill.

The other thing that has helped our electric bill is only doing laundry with cold water and during off peak hours. You can look at your electric provider’s website to get a list of their off peak hours. I do all our laundry (between 5 and 8 loads a week) on Sunday. When I started doing this my electric bill went from $170/month range to the $130/month. I liked that so I tried to see what else I could do.

I started turning off some excess junk not being used. You know that little red light on your DVD player that’s on while you are NOT using it? It eats up power. So we started small by just turning off the power to the TV, amplifier, DVD and cable box, as well as completely shutting down the computers and monitors every night. The next bill was $100. Hmmm, me likely..so then I started turning everything that was not necessary bill, our bill was $64.

Here is the list of what we do:

*Unplug everything in kitchen when not in use (coffee pot, margarita maker , toaster, kitchen aid mixer)
*Every night we turn off the power button on the, cable box and amplifier. I don’t need the glow of the power button. I have suggested putting a surge protector on there but I’m afraid all the stuff on my DVR will disappear and I still need to watch like 14 episodes of Heros.
*Turn off ceiling fans and lights when we leave the room.
*Turn OFF your computer and monitor every night (off, not power save mode)
*Unplug the laptop cord from the wall. It does not need to charge all night.
*Unplug your phone/camera chargers when you aren’t using them.

I know a lot of you are probably freaking out by a $64/month bill. Our lowest bill ever was $53.88. I do have kind of a small house, it’s a condo that’s just over 1400 square feet. We have a plasma TV and all the media junk that my husband says has to come with it. We have 2 computers and I think we have a pretty normal lifestyle. My house is only 5 years old, so I’m sure some of the newer building standards helps out.

also..

I was watching this Living With Ed episode where he installed a green switch to eliminate all “phantom power” while you are away. With the flip of one switch you can turn off ALL unnecessary power when you are away from your home. It leaves things like refrigerators, answering machines and alarm clocks on. But, it completely kills the phantom electrical feed to all other unused power sources while you are gone. Apparently, most homes can be outfitted for between $500-$1000 but there are estimates that 45% of power use is actually phantom power.

Now if we could just get the cable company to lower their prices!!!

I started my own little weekly topic last week, “Angry Julie on a Budget”. I’m going to try and offer tips, guest posters, what I’ve learned, and some resources to my readers. This is my second post in this series.

So, Julie wants to be on a budget. I won’t lie and say it will be easy, it is going to suck at first. She will resent the fact that she can’t buy anything she wants. She may hate it. However, she will come to love her budget. I promise, I can see it now Budget Julie Everyday. I like it. You wanna join Angry Julie on her quest to be on a budget? Great, I think I can help.

I too used to be like Angry Julie. However, I am a reformed shopaholic turned frugalista. I went from buying the high end brands to shopping at Goodwill. (don’t turn you nose up. you can get some really great things at Goodwill. Did you know that Target donates everything it doesn’t sell to Goodwill!) I request free samples and use coupons (lots and lots of coupons). I stockpile and shop at yard sales, yep I am the crazy coupon lady.

So, maybe you won’t be as drastic as me, maybe you just need to save a few dollars per month. Maybe you are piling on credit card debt and need a complete lifestlye change. Regardless of what your budgeting goals are, there are a three great ways to start saving money!

1. Get Real with Yourself – You need to get honest with yourself (umm hmm Julie, you have to count every Monster you buy). You can’t know how much you need to save if you don’t know what you’re spending. You need to have your expenses and income accounted for and I mean ALL. You can check out Mint.com- it is an online program that you can use to manage your budget. It will send you alerts and emails telling you how bad you are and that you went over your budget. Nothing like getting remprimanded by a computer program.

2. Cut out the fat in your budget - I am not talking about the ice cream, I am talking about the things you just spend money on because you can. This doesn’t have to be all or nothing. (well unless you can’t pay your bills, then it has to be all). Make a list of the items that you can live without.(Julie can live without the Monsters.) Start by cutting out the easiet thing to give up. Try cutting out one new every other week, until you have cut out the excess spending in your budget. Try to find less expensive alternatives if you cannot cut these things out all together.

3. Save Money on the Things you Have to Buy – You can start with using coupons. Make a list of the top 25 things (outside of produce and meat) that you buy. I guarantee you, unless you have a very specialized diet, you will find that atleast 8-10 things that you can find coupons for. Many coupons can now be found online. Visit Hot Coupon World and check out their coupon database. You type in the food item that you are looking to purchase – if a coupon is available, it will show up there. Start by simply using the database for things you are going to buy. Check out this post for information about general couponing. Also, bookmark this page for the best printable coupons

When you get a comfortable with coupons, match coupons to grocery store sales - Visit BeCentsableand find the grocery stores you shop at. This site provides you with a list of blogs that provide coupon matchups. This list includes grocery stores all over the country, so your store is like to be there. Remember, never buy something because you have a coupon for it.

So I know Julie can do it if I did and you can too. For many more money saving tips and ideas, visit my blog at www.forthemommas.com (yes, that was a pathetic, shameless plug)