I’ve mentioned National Consumer Panel in the past but I wanted to let you know they are accepting applicants again! Go HERE to see if you qualify.

If you are accepted as a panel member you will be sent a small hand-held scanner. When you return from a shopping trip you will scan all the bar codes of everything you purchased. Once a week, you’ll transmit this information to Nielsen. The perk is that you’ll earn points which can be redeemed for a variety of items from the Nielsen Gift Catalog.

I’ve heard good things from people who have stuck with the program but keep in mind that this type of thing isn’t for everyone. If scanning items isn’t up your alley, they also offer surveys you can take to earn points.

If you missed my original post about the National Consumer Panel you can read it HERE.

Good Luck!

In case you missed this before, I wanted to let you know that Synovate is looking for panelists again! If you’re looking for a way to make money from home this may be a good fit for you. Synovate is a legitimate survey company that is currently open for applicants right now. You won’t get rich doing surveys from home but it is a good way to earn a few extra dollars and participate in product test panels.

I don’t normally publish money making opportunities unless I have personally scoped them out. Synovate is a reputable company and one of the top survey sites available. I haven’t signed up with Synovate myself but I’ve heard lots of good things about them from readers and other bloggers.

They typically only open the panel for a few hours at the beginning of the month. So you may want to jump on this opportunity before they close the panel.

Other money making ideas: Toluna Opinion Panel and My Survey are both accepting new panelists.

Good Luck!

You may remember over the summer I posted about the Savings.com #SavingsPledge and how they hoped to save America $1 Billion. In case you missed it, you can read all about it and it’s not too late to make your own pledge!

For this pledge, I teamed with Savings.com and the other 2011 Deal Pros and shared my goal of saving $100 per week or more. My goal was to save as much money as I could thus summer and fall. We built a new house and I wanted to be able to bring enough cash to the “closing table” so that our mortgage would be identical or less than the mortgage in our old house.

Right now I’m at Save Up 2011, the conference for Savings.com Deal Pros. They asked us to share today our “Savings Story” and really it’s perfect timing. We close on our new house Monday. So I know exactly how much our mortgage will be. And, drum roll please…..It’s within $50 of our old mortgage. Of course mortgage rates plummeting last week did help my cause some, but we’ll ignore that and I’ll pat myself on the back for all my hard work this summer.

Whether you have a big savings goal or a tiny one, it’s always exciting when you reach the end and see how close you came to meeting your goal. In my case, I didn’t quite make it. However, even at $50 over my goal, we are still $175 less per month than my husband’s original projections. So I’m pretty proud of myself and know that it will help our family immensely to not spend an additional $175 each month on our mortgage.

Savings.com has some neat things planned for the Deal Pros at this year’s conference and they are hoping to involve everyone in all the incredible things happening. Here’s how you can participate too.

• Check out more Savings Stories from the 2011 Deal Pros. One of them might just inspire you to take the next step.

• RSVP for the Live Streaming Save Up Event Today and you’ll be eligible to win an iPad 2!

• Learn all kinds of fabulous tips in the Live Streaming Save Up Event beginning at 2:15CT this afternoon

•     Grocery Coupon Class
•     Live Q&A with the Deal Pros. Ask questions via Twitter using #SU11
•     Live Saving Stories

Come join us today! I’d love to see you there.

In case you missed this before, I wanted to let you know that Synovate is looking for panelists again! If you’re looking for a way to make money from home this may be a good fit for you. Synovate is a legitimate survey company that is currently open for applicants right now. You won’t get rich doing surveys from home but it is a good way to earn a few extra dollars and participate in product test panels.

I don’t normally publish money making opportunities unless I have personally scoped them out. Synovate is a reputable company and one of the top survey sites available. I haven’t signed up with Synovate myself but I’ve heard lots of good things about them from readers and other bloggers.

They typically only open the panel for a few hours at the beginning of the month. So you may want to jump on this opportunity before they close the panel.

Other money making ideas: Toluna Opinion Panel and My Survey are both accepting new panelists.

Good Luck!

In case you missed this before, I wanted to let you know that Synovate is looking for panelists again! If you’re looking for a way to make money from home this may be a good fit for you. Synovate is a legitimate survey company that is currently open for applicants right now. You won’t get rich doing surveys from home but it is a good way to earn a few extra dollars and participate in product test panels.

I don’t normally publish money making opportunities unless I have personally scoped them out. Synovate is a reputable company and one of the top survey sites available. I haven’t signed up with Synovate myself but I’ve heard lots of good things about them from readers and other bloggers.

They typically only open the panel for a few hours at the beginning of the month. So you may want to jump on this opportunity before they close the panel.

Other money making ideas: Toluna Opinion Panel and My Survey are both accepting new panelists.

Good Luck!

I know many of you get excited about the survey company offers I post on occasion. I’ve mentioned Toluna Opinions in the past but I wanted to let you know that they are accepting new applications.

Toluna is a survey only company which pays $1-$5 per survey. You need to take a pre screening survey when you sign up so they can send you only qualified leads. Toluna has a minimum cash out value of $20 and they will mail you a cheek when you reach $20. I know a few people with very tight budgets who have built a nice rainy day fund solely from their survey revenue. You won’t get rich doing surveys but it is a nice way to make a few extra dollars per month.

I personally have not used Toluna but I checked in with a few other bloggers and friends who have and they all had positive feedback. The main suggestion I heard was to set up a separate email address for survey accounts. Then your personal emails don’t get mixed in and you won’t miss anything.

Have you used Toluna before? What’s your experience with them?

I’ve been talking about the Savings.com Savings Pledge over the past few weeks, where I teamed up with Savings.com and the other Deal Pros to help America save $1 Billion. In case you missed the scoop on the $1 Billion Savings Pledge, you can read all about it and get pledging yourself.

Today I thought I’d take a minute to go over some ideas to set smart financial goals. If you have ever taken a business class, you’ve learned about setting goals that follow the SMART acronym. This method isn’t just for business moguls, you can (and should) apply it to your personal goals to help you be more successful.

So, take your Savings.com Savings Pledge goal and see how your plan measures up against the SMART method? I told you last week my goal was to save enough money to make our new house mortgage the same as our old house mortgage by increasing our downpayment.

Specific
I’d say my goal is very specific. I need to have X number of dollars set aside by mid-November for our downpayment at closing time.

Measurable
Since there is a specific dollar amount, it’s easy to see how far I have come and how much further I need to go.

Attainable
Yes. There is a definite end to the goal and that number can be reached. If I go for one of the other ‘A’s, it is also agreed upon. My husband and I discussed and agreed to focus on this together.

Realistic
This is where I run into some trouble I think. Based on how much we save each month and how far it is to the goal, it may not be realistic. I would need to save more than $100 per week in addition to our current savings in order to achieve this goal.

Timely
My goal is time based. Even though the time frame may be unrealistic, there is a time element to the goal.

Remember, if you haven’t taken the Savings.com Savings Pledge yet, it’s not too late to start. Help save America $1 billion dollars and use those savings to further your own financial goals!

Happy Saving!

I know many of you get excited about the survey offers I post on occassion. I just wanted to let you know that Synovate and Toluna Opinons are still accepting applicants. Also, My Survey is another “survey only” company that recently began accepting new panelists again.

I know earning money at home offers are tougher to come by these days. You won’t get rich doing surveys but it is a nice way to make a few extra dollars per month. With gas prices on the rise, this might be a way to help your budget a tad. Or use your survey income to build a rainy day fund.

If you do participate in the survey offers, be sure to set up a separate email address for survey accounts. Then your personal emails don’t get mixed in and you won’t miss anything.

Good Luck!

I know many of you were pretty excited about the Synovate survey company I posted about previously. Well, I found a new company that is also accepting applications: Toluna Opinons.

Toluna is a survey only company which pays $1-$5 per survey. You need to take a pre screening survey when you sign up so they can send you only qualified leads. Toluna has a minimum cash out value of $20 and they will mail you a cheek when you reach $20. I know a few people with very tight budgets who have built a nice rainy day fund solely from their survey revenue. You won’t get rich doing surveys but it is a nice way to make a few extra dollars per month.

I personally have not used Toluna but I checked in with a few other bloggers and friends who have and they all had positive feedback. The main suggestion I heard was to set up a separate email address for survey accounts. Then your personal emails don’t get mixed in and you won’t miss anything.

Have you used Toluna before? What’s your experience with them?

This article was originally published 4/16/09.

If you have ever taken a business class, you’ve learned about setting goals that follow the SMART acronym. This method isn’t just for business moguls, you can (and should) apply it to your personal goals to help you be more successful.

The SMART acronym has several slightly different variations. These can be used to help you set more comprehensive goals:

S - specific, significant, stretching

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational

A - attainable, achievable, acceptable, agreed upon

R - realistic, relevant, reasonable

T – time-based, timely, tangible, trackable

If you haven’t already set some financial goals, I encourage you to do so now using these suggestions. For those of you that already have goals, how do they measure up against the SMART method?

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know our ongoing goal is to cut expenses at the grocery store in order to set aside 6 months of living expenses for our emergency fund. So, how does my goal measure up to the SMART method?

Specific
I’d say my goal is very specific. I need to have X number of dollars set aside by the end of the year for the emergency fund.

Measurable
Since there is a specific dollar amount, it’s easy to see how far I have come and how much further I need to go.

Attainable
Yes. There is a definite end to the goal and that number can be reached. If I go for one of the other ‘A’s, it is also agreed upon. My husband and I discussed the importance of a 6-month fund and agreed to focus on this together.

Realistic
This is where I run into some trouble I think. Based on how much we save each month and how far it is to the goal, it may not be realistic for my goal date to be the end of 2010. I may want to set a new time line for this goal or prepare myself to make much greater sacrifices in order to make it happen.

Timely
My goal is time based. Even though the time frame may be unrealistic, there is a time element to the goal.

Conclusion
I may need to revise my goal a little. We didn’t quite hit the 6-month mark at the end of 2009. Then our fund took a HUGE hit earlier this year. I am going to see how far we at at the end of August and review the time-frame. I want there to be a sacrifice in order to get to my goal but not an unrealistic sacrifice.

Do you set financial goals? How do your goals measure up to the SMART method?