Eight Sure-Fire Ways to Sock Away $100

All it takes is five minutes to look at the ones that come with the Sunday paper, in the daily mail and any others that you happen across.

Cut out only those for the products that you already use and will purchase again and don't bother with any others. It only takes $2 each week in coupon savings to save more than $100 a year. When you think of all the coupons that go beyond groceries (pizza, oil change, haircut, etc.) it should be easy to save much more than this with little time or effort.

5. Start Haggling

While most people don't take the time to do it, virtually all the services you currently pay for are negotiable, including your cable TV, gym membership, phone bill and Internet service. While asking for a better deal may not work with all of these all of the time, you will get a discount a lot more times than you probably imagine.

All it takes is a 10-minute call to each service. If you can negotiate a $10 a month discount on each, that comes to $480 a year in savings for a few phone calls. It will probably end up being a lot more.

6. Get a Lower Credit Card Rate

While you're on the phone, be sure to make a call to your credit card company if you currently carry a balance on your credit card.

Many people don't realize that all it takes to lower your credit card interest rate in many cases is a simple phone call asking. A 2002 study found that over half the people who had good credit and called their credit card company to get a better interest rate were able to do so with the average person reducing the rate by one-third.

If you have a $5000 balance at 21% interest and were able to knock that down to 14%, you would save $350 a year. The 15-minute call will also knock years off the time it would take to pay the debt off.

7. Sell Stuff

You have a lot more stuff stored in your house than you will ever need or use.

A quick check of your closets, basement, garage and other nooks and crannies should produce boxes of stuff that you own, but no longer have any use for.

Instead of keeping them in perpetual storage, sell it all. You can do it online through sites like eBay(EBAY Quote) or Craigslist, or have a garage sale and get rid of it all at once.

The basic guideline: If you haven't used something for the last year, you will probably never use it again.

Selling all this will keep your house less cluttered and will also bring in well over $100 in most cases.

8. Refinance Your Home

With interest rates at the lowest level in years, it's time to see if refinancing your home loan (or any outstanding loan you have) is worthwhile.

Knocking off a point can save thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the loan.

Even if you have a nonconforming loan -- or jumbo loan -- which made it difficult to refinance in the past, this soon may no longer be the case.

As part of the economic stimulus package that President Bush says he will sign into law this week, conforming loans that are backed by the Federal Housing Administration will increase to a $729,750 limit from $417,000.

Since nonconforming loans usually carry a higher interest rate, this will allow some with jumbo loans to refinance into a conforming loan.

While the difference in interest rates vary, a conforming loan can be a full percentage point less expensive since it is backed by the government.

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