With the economy failing and unemployment at its highest in 14 years, people everywhere are looking for ways to make ends meet. To help you through this challenging time, here is a list of twenty-five things you can do to save money today.

Ways to save money

• Use rebates to get steep discounts
• Devote just fifteen minutes a day to frugality
• Find free books
• Quit smoking
• Cut out soda and drink water instead
• Lower your electric bill
• Find ways to stretch your dollar
• Feed yourself for only $15 per week
• Eat a cheap breakfast
• Save some money on grocery shopping
• Save money on gas by knowing where to go
• Create a no-spending day once per week
• Make things last longer
• Batch your lunch preparation: prepare lunch for the entire week

How to find good deals and make some money

• Use deal websites to search for discounts
• Choose some cheap gift ideas
• Pick the cheapest days to shop
• Look for the craziest deal of the day on woot.com
• Sell something on eBay today
• Optimize your cell phone bill

Where to find some resources to help you save money

• Read some good frugality blogs
• Read the frugal tip of the week
• Learn to budget
• Change your mindset: Think 'how can I get this done?', not 'What do I need to buy to get it done?'
• Save $1,000 in 30 days

By following these tips and developing a frugal mindset, you are on your way to a more frugal self!

In most cases I advocate shopping from a list and planning purchases ahead of time. When you get stumped for gift ideas, however, browsing may help you find a great gift in a more efficient manner.

Trying to think of a great gift idea can be difficult. Without seeing any products in front of you, it can be hard to get inspired. At some point, the time it takes to plan a gift outweighs the benefit of doing so. In such a case, a trip to an appropriate store may be worthwhile. Having a general sense of what you would like to buy will get you off to the right start, and seeing the available products may help you to find an appropriate gift.

Even if you decide to browse for a gift idea, we here at Lending Club suggest that you decide ahead of time how much you plan to spend and stick to the amount you have allocated for overall gifts in your budget. Failure to do so may lead to overspending. Of course, you may choose to spend a little more if you find the perfect gift, but setting a spending goal will help to focus your effort.

Normally, discovering new products that you feel you need once you learn of their existence is a bad thing. If you are living fine without it, you most certainly can continue to do so. When you are looking for a gift idea, however, a product that you had never seen before could be the perfect gift. So try to limit browsing when shopping for yourself and use it when you are having trouble coming up with a gift.

Do you usually plan purchases ahead of time or find yourself browsing for ways to spend?

When I mentioned the dangers of a secret safe deposit box in a recent post “Limitations of Safe Deposit Boxes”, I was reminded of a concept that has been gaining popularity and coverage in many personal finance circles. The idea is to write a letter to your spouse containing information that would be useful in the event of your death.

While a letter expressing your feelings or wishes may also be appropriate, the purpose of this letter is simply to convey information about your finances. It should document the activities that you normally perform and list all relevant accounts as well. The letter can be tailored based on your spouse’s involvement in your family finances. Highly involved spouses may not need a reminder of when and how bills are paid, while less involved spouses could benefit from such information.

A full list of all accounts (including account numbers, PINs, customer service telephone numbers, and balances) is a minimum requirement. Much wealth continues to be held in accounts long forgotten. Including access instructions will eliminate the work of having to reset unknown PINs, etc. Keeping account information up to date will ensure its usefulness. Having all of this information in one place will also make the transition much easier. Instead of having to remember each and every account and where to find information about it, the surviving spouse need only find this one document.

One caveat is that such information would be highly valuable to a thief. Extreme care must be taken to secure it. Your spouse should know where it is stored. Disclosing the location to another trusted family member, or the contingent executor of your estate, may be prudent as well. If they know where to find this letter in case of emergency, that may be all they need to know. Storing the document with other valuables may increase its risk of theft. Since a piece of paper, or innocent-looking notebook, wouldn’t appear valuable, it may be possible to store it securely in plain sight.

Estate planning documents are vitally important, but a letter to your future widow could prove to be a useful supplement. It won’t necessarily inform your spouse of anything he or she couldn’t have figured independently, but it will remove the burden of having to do so. Making things easier in difficult times is one of the main points of estate planning in general, and this letter translates nicely to this practice.

Do you store critical information in a central location?

Safe deposit boxes are a wonderful way to store documents and valuables in a secure location, but they do have their limitations. The destruction of the World Trade Center and effects of recent natural disasters show just how vulnerable they can be.

With more and more people moving assets into cash during this economic downturn, experts warn against storing cash in a safe deposit box. A full 25% of respondents to a survey admitted to storing cash or coins in their safe deposit boxes. While homeowner’s insurance policies can – and should – be amended to cover safe deposit box contents, even in those cases cash will not be covered. The safest place to store your cash is most likely in an FDIC-insured bank account.

If you are worried about having access to cash during a natural disaster or similar event, you may consider stockpiling some cash in a fireproof safe in your home. Such a safe is also an excellent place to store documents that may need to be accessed outside of bank hours, such as a passport.

Contents of safe deposit boxes should be inventoried whenever changes are made. Documenting the contents and keeping copies of any important paperwork can make physical losses less painful and thus is a worthwhile investment of your time. Having a spouse or trusted family member listed on the access list could also ease the removal of contents in the event of your death. For that reason, having a secret safe deposit box is generally not advised.

For most cases, a combination of an FDIC-insured bank account, safe deposit box, and fireproof safe will serve all of your security needs. The safe deposit box can play an important role in a security plan but understanding its limitations can reduce the risk of using it inappropriately.

What do you store in your safe deposit box?

Imagine yourself waking up on Christmas morning to a tree full of presents. You anxiously approach the treasure trove in eager anticipation of what goodies await you inside the perfectly wrapped packages. With your family and friends surrounding you, you pick out a beautifully wrapped gift from under the tree and delicately pull off the wrapping paper.

Then you open up the box to find ...

... a macaroni necklace and two coupons for a back massage.

Welcome to Christmas 2008 in a recessed, depressed economy. This holiday season might be unlike any other holiday season you can remember, for money is tight, jobs are scarce, and there is no bailout in sight for that two-page Christmas list your daughter just handed you. And where do people tend to turn when times are tough? I mean, besides the McDonald's Dollar Menu? Homemade gifts, of course!

Nothing says "You shouldn't have" like an itchy knit scarf, yet many Christmas shoppers this holiday season will find knitting and crafting and creating to be a fine alternative to spending money. Homemade gifts are sure to be the rage, as our economy dictates. Per Christmas tradition, there must be gifts to open around the holidays, and if those gifts can't be bought with money, then it looks like they'll have to be made with love.

The crux of the gift-giving issue really does come down to money. Everyone enjoys giving gifts and receiving gifts, so there will be no stopping us from cramming our fake, plastic trees with presents. But whereas in years past when folks were making more money or not foreclosing on their homes, this year the process of gift buying is an exercise in frugality. And homeliness is winning.

Homemade gifts seem like the best solution when it comes to the gift-giving to friends and relatives. Rather than go out and spend hundreds on individual presents for everyone you know, it is far more cost-conscious to bake a batch of cookies and hope they're not stale by the time your friend opens them. Making a gift yourself would cost a fraction of what it does to buy a gift in a store. The quickest and easiest way to save money around the holidays is channeling your inner Martha Stewart, rolling up your sleeves, and making gifts for everyone on your list.

Even better, a homemade gift can mean so much more than a store-bought item. The thought and time and attention put into making a gift by hand cannot be replaced, especially by something that has a Wal-Mart price tag on it, no matter how Rolled Back the price was. Handmade gifts can be cherished much longer than other gifts, and knowing that someone went to the extra effort for you truly makes you feel special.

So it's easy, right? Handmade gifts are the way to go this holiday season.

Well, not so fast.

There is no denying the attractiveness of inexpensive, handmade presents for the gift giver. But there is some debate on whether or not people actually like receiving them.

Don't kill the messenger. Chances are you have been guilty of chuckling quietly to yourself when a family member unwrapped a piece of personalized pottery that looked less like an ashtray and more like a bizarro BatPod. Thank goodness that wasn't you, right? Well, this Christmas, it might be you.

Giving homemade gifts seems like a good idea to many people because they don't have to receive their homemade gifts. Put yourself in someone else's shoes before you go ahead and cross-stitch those coasters. What would it be like to open a fruitcake? How would it feel to be the proud owner of a bejeweled cell phone case? Try faking a smile when you get a Best Friend 4 Life certificate.

Homemade gifts don't sound so hot anymore, right? The value in saving money with DIY goods can quickly be superseded by the damage done by tacky, cheesy, or useless curio. Some people simply don't have the skills to make gifts on their own. Others have bad judgment when it comes to what the rest of the world finds valuable. And for those who are actually good at thinking up creative gift ideas, sometimes they fail to recognize that the person they're trying to please would be much happier with something else ... or nothing at all.

The point is that you have to know where to draw the line with homemade gifts, and you have to know your audience. You can create the most beautifully artistic painting, but it won't have much value to a husband and wife who think SpikeTV's MXC is fine art. Likewise, if you have the perfect person in mind for a homemade bakery item but you can't bake to save your life, all you're going to do is put the gifted in an awkward and uncomfortable situation and maybe give him or her food poisoning.

Homemade gifts don't have to be the only alternative, either. There are lots of different ways to save money on gift purchases. With places like eBay and craigslist, there are options for used or pre-owned merchandise that can be had for very affordable prices. Thinking outside the box can help, too. Subscriptions or sign-ups are creative ways to give a gift that one will appreciate and get to enjoy year-round. Even the traditional stores are going out of their way to make shopping easier on wallets and consciences. Free shipping from online retailers is a good start, and big box stores have all sorts of different deals at this time of year.

There is nothing wrong with homemade gift-giving this holiday season. It is an affordable way to show someone you love them and to give them a gift that can be cherished for a long time.

But for the record, I don't like macaroni necklaces and back rub coupons.