Top Sites for Savings

Dollar Stretcherwww.stretcher.com

The Dollar Stretcher is a weekly online newsletter that offers a veritable plethora of tips on how to save money. The site’s archives feature a slew of reader-submitted ideas to save money on everything from home and car repairs to food and clothing.

Some tips are extreme — such as one reader’s suggestion to serve a loaf of homemade bread at each meal and not allow second helpings until the bread is gone so that the kids fill up on it and eat less of the more expensive entrée — but others are just common-sense approaches to eliminating debt and making more out of less. One particularly useful tip on the site is how to stop throwing away money in the form of rotten food. One readers shares tips for using everything you buy at the grocery store before it goes bad to eliminate waste.

Crown Financial Ministrieswww.crown.org

Crown Financial Ministries is a Christian-based money-management Web site that provides everything from free budget calculators to software and workbooks for sale.

Crown’s goal is for participants to learn to live by “God’s financial principles in every area of their lives,” according to the Web site. The basic theory seems to be that financially free individuals are able to be better Christian stewards.

Regardless of religion, Crown is an excellent resource for people who don’t understand the principles of budgeting or allocating the finite resource that is money.

And Crown offers various workshops within close proximity of Tracy for people who need more individualized advice and information.

Budget 101www.budget101.com

Budget 101’s slogan is “Digging Yourself Out of Debt When All You Have is a Spoon,” and the site lives up to that name.

There are articles on crafts, do-it-yourself home repairs and how to prepare homemade convenience foods on the cheap.

One site favorite is the recipe section featuring make-your-own mixes for everything from brownies and cornbread to substitutes for Rice-A-Roni, Hamburger Helper and Stove Top Stuffing. Another is gifts in a jar, inexpensive cookie and bread mixes that can be used as part of a holiday gift basket.

Tracy Freecyclehttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/TracyCAFreecycle/

The Freecycle Network is a nonprofit organization focused on keeping good, useable items out of landfills.

Tracy Freecycle is a Yahoo user group, or message board, for local people looking to give away used items that still have life left in them. The only catch is that everything must be free.

Recent items up for grabs through the site include a bread machine that the owner had used about 10 times, baby items, moving supplies and a bed liner for a Jeep Cherokee.

If you’re looking for something special, you can post that as well. Recent requests include a Food Saver, mattresses and railroad ties.

Quick Clicks features fun and interesting Web sites within a particular theme. If you have a favorite Web site you think should be featured, or if you’d like to submit your own list of Quick Clicks, contact Managing Editor Tonya Luiz, tluiz@tracypress.com.