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Earlier this morning Mike brought up the "staycation," an increasingly popular concept with gas and airline prices near all-time heights. Here are 7 tips for how to make your staycation both frugal and fun.

1. Lock up your electronics

Gather up computers, cell phones, and other electronic distractions that could keep you in your daily grind. The whole point of a vacation is to give your brain and body a refreshing change from daily life. Give your computer to your neighbor for the week and don't let him give it back to you during that time, even if you beg. If you must keep your cell phone on, set predetermined times when cell phone use is allowed (30 minutes in the afternoon for example).

2. Hire some help

Hire a cleaning service to take care of your home during your staycation. You'll feel more relaxed and the extra cost will be minimal compared to what you’ll be saving.

3. Plan activities

Plan a hike for the afternoon, then cooking s'mores in the backyard (or fireplace) and games in the evening. Set a strict schedule and stick to it. Depending on if you're looking for an active or more chill "getaway," schedule your book-reading/pool/lounging time accordingly.

4. Document your trip

Just like on a normal vacation, you'll want to remember your "staycation" through photos or videos. Plus, you'll definitely want to get a picture of your family piled in the tent in the backyard!

5. Explore your town

When tourists visit your city, where do they go? Take a day or two of your staycation and devote it to discovering or revisiting some of the top destinations in your area. Sure, you may feel like a tourist… but that's the point!

6. Order in

Forget cooking, you're on vacation! Have your meals delivered during your staycation so you won't need to worry about cooking. Or, hire an aspiring cook as found via craigslist or a local university for the week. Give them a budget and have them handle your meals as well as shopping.

7. Act the part

A true staycation means you don't pick up your cell phone. Don't check your work email or make "just one call". Sleep in. Don't set an alarm. Splurge on sorbet or ice cream. Go for a bike ride. Read a book for fun. Sunbathe.

The biggest key to a successful staycation is convincing your brain that you are really on vacation. Follow these tips and you're on your way to a frugal and fun vacation!

Largely attributable to rising gas prices, and the perceived cost of travel as a result, many families are forgoing traditional vacations and are opting for something closer to home, the staycation. The results are more than just the enjoyment of taking in the local sights, but also lower costs and a renewed appreciation for where you live.

You might not think of your hometown as a tourist destination, but an outsider would probably find many exciting things to do when passing through. A visit to your local Chamber of Commerce (yes, even your little town has one) should give you plenty of ideas of what there is to do. If you need other ideas, think back to where schools take their field trips. You’ll probably appreciate many of the same destinations, perhaps more than you did as a child.

We often take “local” to mean boring, but that is certainly not the case. More exotic locations may sound more impressive at your next dinner party, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t have a good time at local attractions. There was so much to do near my wife’s hometown that we actually stayed at a hotel and truly were tourists in her own town. By thinking of our time there as a vacation, which it was, we finally had the time to see all of the things we had always meant to see, but never seemed to have the time to do. Entertaining visitors is another way to see the local sights. By finding ways to entertain them with local attractions, you will remind yourself of the many things to do.

Most of my favorite memories were formed locally, surrounded by family and friends. It’s no wonder that the investment of my time towards rediscovering local points of interest would be any different. The best part about finding things to do locally is that it’s so easy to do them again and again. Far off locations are great, and should probably be visited as well, but for the budget-conscious and world traveler alike, taking a staycation can be just as rewarding.

I recently sorted all of my expenses by size to get a better understanding of which items were costing me the most. Looking at spending from this new perspective is insightful and beneficial. What follows is my thought process and analysis of my top expenses to illustrate how this method is used. Your expenses will surely be different, but the method may help you as well.

I stopped my list after my top 6 expenses. After that, the dollar amount of other categories fell off sharply. My actual largest expense, taxes, was not included in my analysis. Taxes are important, and clearly a burden, but I accept taxes as a by-product of earning money and have somewhat less control over their reduction.

My top 6 expenses were mortgage principal, groceries, childcare, charity, mortgage interest, and property taxes/insurance. My largest expense, mortgage principal, is actually a stealth savings category because mortgage payments that go towards principal directly increase the equity in my home. So reducing that expense is of little concern.

Groceries come next and there are certainly things I can do to save here. I’ve already implemented many of the cost savings activities that I’ve advocated here on the Lending Club blog, such as shopping sales, following a list, buying in bulk, etc., but there’s still more I could do. Making one large shopping trip instead of many smaller ones should help to lower my costs by reducing unnecessary impulse buys. Knowing that groceries are my largest true expense provides further motivation to reduce things even further.

Childcare is an expense that we’ve already considered in great detail to weigh the pros and cons. We’ve already limited the number of days that we use it and though it’s one of our larger expenses, it is still quite inexpensive by our calculations.

We’re committed to donating a certain amount to charity on a yearly basis. So while this expense could be eliminated entirely, it is right on target with our planned commitment and we have no intention of reducing it.

The amount of mortgage interest we pay is a function of the cost of our home. To reduce this expense, we’re already significantly overpaying our mortgage each month. I’m happy with the progress being made here.

Property taxes and insurance are also a function of the cost of our home. I’ve met with my insurance agent to ensure that we have sufficient coverage and shopped around to make sure that I’m getting a fair rate. Otherwise, there’s not much I could do to reduce this cost further.

Obviously all expenses are within our budgeted amounts, but this exercise helped me to focus on those areas that could stand for improvement. In my case, I only found a few areas to cut further. By looking at your top expenses, you will see where your actions can have the largest effect. Cutting a few percentage points off of a large expense will do more good than depriving yourself of your daily latté or whatever other small vice you may have.

Which of your largest expenses could you trim or eliminate?

Recessions and downturns have people nervous. But rather than bemoan the economy and long for change, getting proactive about spending habits could help you get a leg up on the financial swoon. Here are eight tips on doing just that.

1. Share the cost.

What are friends for, if not price proration?

If you do find yourself in need of making a big purchase this summer, it might pay to consider sharing the price tag with a friend or two. For instance, why not turn that BBQ into a timeshare? Need a new four-wheeler? Your friend would be happy to split the cost and negotiate visitation rights. Being creative with bigger purchases could make the dent in your wallet much more manageable.

Big purchases aren't the only ways that can benefit from this strategy, though. Do you think Costco expects you to finish that vat of peanut butter by yourself? Of course not! Going "halvsies" with a neighbor on bulk items makes a lot of sense, too.

2. Eat in.

Cooking at home is hard work. There is the grocery buying, the kitchen prep, the cooking itself, and the remembering to turn the stove off. How does Paula Dean make it look so easy?

For a little effort, though, the payoff will be noticeable. Eating out certainly makes life easier, but it also makes life more expensive. With the price of an average meal at a restaurant, consumers could eat three or four meals at home. Plus, they could do so in a much healthier way.

Cooking at home is one of the first tricks you should try when hunting down deals. With a few simple ingredients, you can have a cheap meal that will fill you up at dinner and give you leftovers for lunch the next few days.

3. Buy generic.

The popular phrase among yuppies and tree huggers used to be "Buy organic," but with the state of the economy the way it is, spendthrifts and tightwads would be better off buying "generic."

At the grocery store, pick up fake Oreos rather than the real thing.
At the electronics shop, treat yourself to a bulky no-name music player and not the expensive iPod or Zune.

At the dentist, get the knock-off whitening strips rather than the fancy-shmancy Crest product.

The difference between brand name and generic product is often marginal at best, meaning that you can save yourself a good amount of money without sacrificing much in the way of quality.

4. Shop online.

There's no sense wasting gas, wasting energy, and wasting a Saturday afternoon on a Kanye West CD when you can find it for a similar price (or a cheaper price) from the comfort of your living room.

Online shopping is an appreciated alternative in tough economic times. Driving anywhere is a chore that most consumers would avoid if they could, so nixing the mall trip for electronic window shopping is definitely the way to go. Plus, shopping online could end up saving you money on the products you are looking for. Rather than having one or two real-life stores to shop at, the Internet gives you a bevy of options, making it easier to find the lowest price. The time, expenses, and effort you save by shopping online are well worth the cost of shipping and handling.

5. Coordinate your errands.

Saving on gas is getting more and more important, especially for money-conscious consumers, and one of the biggest hits on the gas tank is putzing around town doing errands. While errands themselves are not optional, criss-crossing the city from one stop to another certainly is.

Plan ahead when you leave the house. You can cut down on gas if you make your trip as efficient as possible. Instead of going willy-nilly from one store to the next, hit them all in order and synchronize locations based on what you need and when you need it. There is no sense in going to the grocery store five nights a week. Go once, and stop by the bank on your way.

6. Stay-cation.

Going on vacation is fun... if you're rich. Otherwise, a trip to the coast is a daunting money pit of high gas prices and expensive hotel rooms. Not to mention the souvenir whale sippies.

Why not stay at home instead? More and more people are taking this route with the increased prices of travel, and they often end up having just as much fun at home as they would have out on the road. There are usually plenty of activities in your hometown that you have always thought about trying but never had the time. Rather than going away to some place new, you might as well do the activities you're always talking about doing.

Buy a kiddie pool for the backyard instead of driving to the beach. Spend time in a park and pass on the weekend at Yellowstone. Rent "Apocalypto" instead of taking that trip to Central America. There are a number of ways to have fun and relax around town, and they'll be cheaper than doing the same in a different city.

7. Go vampire hunting

Everyone knows to turn off the lights when you leave a room, but not everyone is aware that their electricity is still being sloughed off by unfettered "vampire" devices. These electronics get their name from the way they suck energy at night when no one else is looking. One of the biggest culprits is television sets, which almost always remain warmed up so that there is little wait when you want the TV turned on. Where is Van Helsing when you need him?

A good way to protect against this secret siphoning is to hook up all the delinquent devices to a power strip. This way, you can simply flip a switch at night and save yourself some extra dough on your electric bill.

8. DIY

Do-it-yourself (DIY) projects are a fun, rewarding way to save money. Even if you aren't an expert on a given topic, there are plenty of ways to research and learn how to do a commendable job. Besides, the effort you put in will be much cheaper than hiring a professional to do the same.

DIY could mean something as complicated as rewiring the microwave to receive FM stations or something as simple as mowing your own lawn. If your expenses are tight, doing a project yourself could potentially save big bucks, and you'll end up doing a fine DIY job on your budget at the same time.

What are you doing to fight back in tough times?

Let’s be real. Thinking about bank accounts while actively involved in school is something that very few college students do on a regular basis. So what happens is that most of them end up overdrawing their accounts – not just once, but many times.

Most students that are new to banking are not informed about how banks work, especially how a bank can charge fees (around $30, but this varies) each time they make a purchase without sufficient money in their accounts to cover it. If you walk to the local gas station and buy three items (Coke for $2, chips for $3 and gum for $2), and you only have $1.50 in your account, this shopping trip might end up costing you $97 and not the $7 you initially wanted to spend. The extra $90 is from three overdraft fees that the bank assessed before covering the $7 you charged.

The one rule that will save you thousands while you are attending college is this: Open a checking account that has no fees and no ability to overdraw the account. This last point is crucial. You want to have the guarantee that if there are no funds in your account, the bank will deny the transaction and not charge you any fees for doing so.

There are at least two such banks you can look into: ING Direct’s “Electric Orange” checking account and Schwab Checking. Both of these accounts have no monthly or usage fees and no overdraft fees. With the Schwab account, you’ll have to ask them to turn off the overdraft protection. These are just two examples, and there might be others out there worth looking into.

A friend recently confessed that almost every month he “had more month than money” and constantly overdrew his account. He showed me his bank statements from the last six months and we counted 17 overdraft fees. His bank charged $27 per overdraft, which meant he paid $459 to the bank in fees in the last six months. I recommended that he switch banks as soon as possible.

There are options available if you find yourself in this same situation, and paying for overdraft fees should no longer be tolerated. With the money you save, you can start an investment account or pay down any credit card debt you may be carrying.