$$$ Saving tips

Busy weekend for me!

Hope you all enjoyed yours.

First I want to mention something I heard about this weekend.

Priceline, Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity (All owned by the same parent company) are being sued for frauding customers out of "tax" money. Meaning they charged taxes on rooms over the actual rate, and pocketed the difference.

They are now being ordered to pay back all of those funds (further compensation is likely part of the settlement as well, but I am not sure.)

You are eligible if you booked a hotel room from one of those sites between 2001 and June 2008. Here's the link for more info:
http://www.hbsslaw.com/expedia

As a young traveler who has booked many vacations through these sites, I definitely feel we are all deserving of the credit.


What I wanted to get to in this post was tips for saving money throughout the year and how easy it can be.

First of all, I recommend you use the Swagbucks search engine. Swagbucks rewards you just for doing normal searches (as you would on Google or Yahoo). With this, you can get prizes such as paypal deposits, giftcards, etc. You can even get airline points, although they require a lot of swagbucks.

Even still, I estimate I can make between $15-25 a month using the SB search engine. This is between $180-$300 a year-- the cost of a domestic plane ticket!

Here's the link: (You'll help me earn too, so thanks in advance!)
http://swagbucks.com/refer/sixtoerings

I also want to recommend another very helpful blog, moneysavingmethods.com. You'll find that by investing a couple free hours a week, you can really supplement your income; and to me, this is great money to spend on travel and a great use of your free time.
I just want to post a couple examples of how saving can add up:

$50 a month x 6 months = $300 (This is the maximum amount you want to pay for ANY domestic travel airline ticket.)

$50 a month x 12 months = $600 (Airline ticket plus spending money to the city of your choice!)

$100 a month x 6 months = $600

$100 a month x 12 months = $1200 (Now you have enough for an international plane ticket AND spending money, if you budget correctly.)

Easy, right?!

And, if you have good credit, and are able to pay off the full balance of your card most of the time, open a travelers rewards credit card. I'd especially recommend the ones through Priceline or JetBlue. Close your other cards so all of your spending goes on just this card. The miles will add up fast.