Is Your Personal Blog Working For or Against You? – A very good point not only for bloggers, but for anyone putting any personal information out there online. Think about what the impact could be on your future and your professional life. Teach your kids this too.

Is It Time to Drop Your Land Line? – If you just have to have your cell phone, maybe the land line should go instead. It doesn’t work for my case, as we have poor cell phone reception here, but it can be great for others.

40 Ways For WAHMs to Give Back This Holiday Season – We are the lucky ones in so many ways. Just think how many people would love to have the opportunities we do. Can you give back?

How to Manage Your Online Business During the Holidays – Great tips for this time of year. Also stuff I’ve been thinking about for when baby comes; an even crazier time.

Mom-powered Alternatives to Big Retailers – You don’t have to give your hard earned money to the big guys. Support your fellow Moms!

My Etsy Highs & Lows so far… – Have you considered selling on Etsy? It’s a great place to get noticed, but there are pitfalls along with the benefits.

The One Sure Fire Way to Fail Miserably in Your Finances – Especially important if your family is facing tight economic times, as so many are.

Meltdown fallout: some parents rethink toy-buying – How tight is money for your family? Some parents would like to see toy ads directed more at parents and less at kids. Personally, I’ve just gotten good at saying “no”. It’s a word kids need to hear anyhow.

This year there are a lot of stores shutting down. That means lots of liquidation sales and great bargains, right?

Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

My mother called me the other evening about a story she’d seen on the news on the liquidation sale at one company going out of business. It seems that they just put higher prices on over the usual prices, so the discount really wasn’t as good as it seemed. The people from the news station easily peeled back the new tags to see the old prices.

In some ways this doesn’t surprise me. I worked for a company once when it was going through a liquidation. I can’t recall offhand if they changed the price tags, perhaps they did. They would have been more subtle about it, as it was as jewelry store and the tags were small. To change the prices they would have had to recall each piece back to the main office and retag. Can’t recall now if that happened or no.

But there’s another common thing that happens, and this I do remember well. More merchandise than the store usually carries is brought in. The liquidators do this because they buy up the inventories of the stores they are liquidating. Anything that doesn’t sell in one liquidation sale can be sent to another.

Obviously, this stuff is easy to mark up.

The best thing you can do before going to a liquidation sale is to check out the prices for the same items as seen online or in other local stores. This can quickly give you a feel for if the price has been raised to make it look like you’re getting a great discount.

Sometimes you are, sometimes you aren’t.

As with any other kind of bargain hunting, it’s up to you to know exactly what is and is not a good deal for you. Don’t get sucked in by the need to shop while there’s still a decent selection. You need to be saving enough to make shopping at a store that won’t be there if there’s a problem with the merchandise worthwhile.

Now I know that today being Black Friday, many people are more focused on spending money than on free activities, but I still want to do this week’s Free Fun Friday Post.

One of the members on my forum is really fond of geocaching, and if you have a GPS unit already, it’s a great way to get your family out and about.

People participate all over the world, hiding geocoins in caches for others to find. They take them along on trips to help them move to a goal, and there’s a degree of competitiveness about being the first to find a new cache.

It sounds to me like it’s a great way to discover new places where you live, as well as the places you go when you travel. I haven’t tried it myself yet, but only because I don’t own a GPS.

Sometimes I just have to laugh at them. I love the geeky toys over at ThinkGeek, but this new Personal Soundtrack Shirt they’re putting into production is too funny. Started out as an April Fools gag, and now they’re really going to make it due to demand.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHM3DK9KR-U]

The holiday shopping will be kicking into high gear very soon. But if your family is like many others, times are tighter than usual. But even if they aren’t, could this be a good time to simplify your Christmas gift giving?

My family has long kept our gift giving pretty simple. My sisters and I draw names to shop for, with definite budgets for everyone. It allows for smaller budgets all around. Even so, we’re looking at simplifying further yet as most of us are facing financial challenges of one sort or another.

Ways to Simplify While Still Giving Great Gifts

Visit Thrift Stores and Consignment Shops

A great gift doesn’t have to be new. It’s amazing sometimes what you can find at thrift and consignment shops. There may be a lot of stuff that is just too worn down to give as a gift, but other times you will find beautiful items to give.

This also allows you to be more creative. You probably aren’t going to find the latest and greatest anything at one of these stores, but you probably will find something you wouldn’t have thought to give otherwise.

Give Experiences

A family day out, tickets to movies or the theater, play time on a miniature golf course. You can make it memorable and avoid the clutter of unneeded stuff.

Agree to Skip the Adults

How often do you get frustrated with buying for the adults in your family because they don’t need anything? Talk it out and consider just giving to the kids instead.

Do Favors

My sisters and I have done things such as painted my mother’s house for her rather than buying gifts. It’s great to be able to help her get something done that was being put off.

Babysitting, painting, massages, house cleaning, organizing… follow your skills.

The beauty of simplifying is that it lets you focus on the real reasons why you are celebrating at this time of year. It’s not all about the gifts. It’s about the meaning your family puts into the holiday season, no matter which holiday you’re celebrating.