Finding an online community for saving, is not only a great way to further your financial education through others’ advice and practices, but can be a fantastic motivational factor as well. Discovering how other people have dealt with financial difficulties, put money saving methods into practice, and learn from one another can motivate you to apply money saving practices to your own life. Not only can their advice and personal experiences save you money, but they can prove that you are not alone when it comes to the difficulties sometimes involved with saving money.

1. Buxr.com

Buxr is a site where you can find a variety of information about the latest deals, participate in contests, as well as join in discussions regarding various ways to save. There is a link on the site’s home page to a good video tour that will guide you through using the website as well its various features.

2. LifeTuner.org

Lifetuner could be the perfect spot for you to find motivation to save. To quote their ‘About Us’ section, “Lifetuner is not just a site, but a way to get individuals talking about money, to seek advice and gain confidence in managing your finances.” They offer expert advice about money basics as well as maintaining a community discussion forum and Lifetuner blog.

3. MySavings.com

MySavings is geared toward finding great deals, coupons, free samples and other savings. Take a look at their community forum by entering as a guest (you don’t have to sign up to do so) to get a feel for what topics are being discussing.

4. AARP.org

The AARP might not pop into mind right away when considering websites that offer an online saving community. The site’s community group forums however, have a number of money saving topics that you can read about and discuss.

5. MoneySavingExpert.com

Read web and news releases, watch videos, visit discussion forums, or participate in weekly polls on the MoneySavingExpert and get regular email updates on the latest special offers and coupons. This site is geared toward those who are looking to save in the UK.

6. HotCouponWorld.com

You can chat, visit forums or blogs, or just discover what’s new with coupons in HotCouponWorld’s coupon database. This site proclaims itself, “The Internet’s Largest Grocery Community”. You can sign up for the site’s newsletter to stay up to date on money saving techniques and deal alerts. If you’re looking for a spot devoted to groceries and coupons, then this might be the site for you.

7. SlickDeals.net

As a member of Slickdeals.net, you can take part in the ‘Hot Deals’, ‘Freebies’, ‘Deal Talk’, or ‘Coupons’ forums, amongst others, or just visit the ‘Lounge’ and participate in general discussions with fellow site members. Among the site’s many tools and resources, SlickDeals.net allows you to search for contests and sweepstakes, compare prices, read product reviews, and get store ratings.

8. FatWallet.com

FatWallet offers a number of forum topics ranging from ‘Hot Deals’ and ‘Deal Discussion’ to ‘Technology’ and ‘Travel’. If you are looking for a site that may be able to help you save on a variety of different product and service categories, this could be the site for which you’ve been searching.

9. SavingAdvice.com

Read finance articles, participate in the site’s ‘Personal Finance Forums’ or visit the SavingAdvice blog as a possible way to help motivate yourself to save. There are a number of blog categories offering advice and information on a variety of money saving topics.

Tom writes about managing money at Money Compare where consumers can compare online savings accounts in order to get the highest interest rate and therefore increase their ROI.

My news years resolutions just fade away into no-where land, however I lowered my spending habbits in 2009 and now intend to do better in 2010. This a new years resolution that I think I can keep it.

In 2009 I paid off about 15,000.00 worth of debt, not including the home mortgage so I am very pleased with myself. What I did is I kept chipping away at it all every week…Even if I could only pay a small amount, I would still do it. Trust me, it really does all add up in the end. I was shocked when I added up the amount I had managed to pay in one year. By the way one of these was a credit card that was costing me at least $75 on month in interest alone. So now I have less bills to pay now too….

My problem was that I had too many things to pay off which created too many bills for me to pay every month. This year I have eliminated at least 3 monthly bills that were strangling me. And the thing is…now that I have achieved this, I want more… I do not want to give anyone my money by paying late fees, unecessary bank fees, and interest fees…Why should they have my money.

So my 2010 new years resolution is to cut down on spending money a bit more and save more money in order to pay more bills…
I am actually good at not spending money but its my family that wear me down.

The hardest part for me is that I have two children that expect everything. In this day and age they have not done without anything and unfortunately they are not grateful for this either. So along with the wanting, spending, expecting, their attitude is terrible.

Maybe my new years resolution isn’t about saving money, but more about knocking that terrible attitude out of my children.

I am sure there are plenty of people out there with the same problem. How can I get them to appreciate what they have around them and stop spending money on things they don’t need.

Just because you’re looking to increase your productivity, doesn’t mean you’re going to have to work harder. There are plenty of ways to cut your work load, increase your output, and not stress yourself out in the process. But sometimes these productivity hacks can be harder to spot than you might imagine. It could be that because you have become so rutted in your daily habits that you have lost some of your ability to see that productivity-enhancing techniques are right in front of you. If that’s the case, here are a few tips that may help you increase your efficiency while not increasing your workload.

1. Find Your Time Niche

There are typically certain parts of the day when we find ourselves most energized and effective at our work. One of the best ways to increase your productivity is to look for the time of day when you are most productive and then utilize that time to tackle the most difficult or time consuming tasks of your day.

2. Beat the Masses

Sometimes it isn’t our work habits or routine that slows us down, but those around us. Our co-workers, while they might be well intentioned, can often be quite distracting and killers of our productivity. Consider coming in early or staying late depending on what works best for your schedule. While it might seem that you are working more initially, by spending an additional quarter to half an hour of intense, uninterrupted time at work, you may be able to cut hours off your week.

3. Call Cover

Incoming calls can be annoying and incredibly distracting when it comes to your productivity. Even a short 30-second long phone call can cut into whatever you were doing and totally pull your mind away from your work. Depending on the reason for the call, it can take time to re-focus upon the task at hand or you may find yourself completely drawn away from your work to handle another situation. When you find yourself in a productivity groove and if your job allows, consider forwarding your calls directly to voicemail until a more opportune time to deal with them presents itself.

4. Ease Your Emails

Often, emails can be just as distracting, if not more so than phone calls. Similar to handling your messages and phone calls, look for slower times during the day to deal with your emails when you aren’t feeling as productive. And if you are in a job that doesn’t call for immediate action regarding emails, consider avoiding those instant alerts informing you of non-essential emails, which can be distracting and diminish your productivity.

5. Efficient and Effective Emails

When you respond to emails, look for ways to limit the amount of time and words you use to communicate on matters of lesser importance. While you don’t want to seem short with people, remember that they don’t need a novel written on matters of relative simplicity. Shortening email responses can increase productivity on both the sender and receiver’s side.

6. Take Work to Meetings

You don’t want to look bad in front of the boss or appear as if you’re not paying attention when you attend meetings, but sometimes taking work along with you can be productive. When you find yourself sitting there before the meeting begins, waiting for a late arrival or taking a 15-minute break halfway through the meeting, you can use these times to get a little work done and increase your productivity.

7. List It

Utilizing lists can be a huge time saver. All the fancy, technological gadgets in the world may not be as useful to helping you stay organized as a few sticky notes or a desktop calendar. These cheap and handy items can be your best friends when it comes to helping you stay organized, productive, and chop away those wasted minutes.

8. Know Your Limits

We all have our limits when it comes to productivity. At the end of the day, do you sometimes find yourself sitting there just staring at your computer? At times like these, it’s good to know when to call it quits. When you push yourself past reasonable limits at work, you may find that even though you are producing, your productivity is actually suffering due to critical errors you make while turning out poor work that may have to be redone.

9. Take a Break

Not working might seem like an odd way to increase productivity, but sometimes your mind needs a chance to recuperate. A short walk to get your blood pumping, a quick snack, even a change of atmosphere can help you refresh yourself when your brain doesn’t seem to be functioning at peak efficiency.

10. Ditch the Distractions

When it comes to distractions, it doesn’t have to be co-workers, emails or your office phone that can lower your productivity. Radios in the office, the internet, cell phones, even a window can take away from your work. Consider removing radios, turning cell phones off, placing user restrictions on the internet, and keeping window shades closed except during breaks. You don’t want a completely sterile environment but work is work and productivity is important.

This is a guest post written by mark Brown who works for an Australian comparison website called Credit Card Compare where you can compare credit cards and find the very best business credit cards and more.