Save Money

IF YOU BUY stocks on a hot tip, spend more than you earn or have yet to take full advantage of your employer's retirement savings plan, you're not alone.Unfortunately.Experts say these are some of the most common money mistakes people make that can help derail their financial futures. But the good thing about mistakes -- either your own or others' -- is you can learn from them. And better yet, it might not be too late to correct them.With that in mind, we asked financial pros to name some of the most frequent financial errors:Living beyond your means.

Her parents raised her right. They are the ones who taught her to save money for a rainy day.When that rainy day arrived in 1994, it was her parents who needed her help."

SOMETIME after the cheering has ceased, and the new mayor has been sworn into office on Dec. 7, Martin O'Malley will sit down with his budget director, Edward Gallagher, and face a stark reality."

WANT TO save money? "Some banks offer `special senior accounts' for people as young as 50," says Bottom Line. "These have benefits of regular (over 65) senior accounts but don't charge monthly fees or require minimum balances. Some offer free checks and ATMs. If your bank doesn't offer these, shop around."With low-fee brokerages, who needs a full-service broker? Financial planner William Brennan says, "Full-service brokers still have value for investors who are uncomfortable making their own decisions but who don't want to pay fees to an investment manager."

MUSKEGON, Mich. -- SPX Corp., the world's top maker of automobile-testing equipment, said yesterday that it will take a fourth-quarter charge of as much as $250 million to cut 1,000 jobs, or 7.1 percent of its work force, and close 25 plants and offices.Over the next six months, SPX will close some of the manufacturing, sales and administrative locations it acquired in its $2.34 billion purchase of electric-motor maker General Signal Corp. in October. The news boosted SPX shares $3.125, to $66.1875, yesterday.

The next couple of weeks are sort of a nothing period for local sportsmen.Hunting is just about over, and it's still too cold for most types of fishing. That's why I always reserve this time of the year for re-loading my rifle and shotgun ammo in preparation for warm weather woodchuck hunting, target shooting, trap, skeet and sporting clays shooting, and early fall's doves.I have been an active shooter practically all of my life and the only way that I have been able to shoot as often as possible is by loading my own ammo.

Teams of Howard County workers began a trial program yesterday that would give them financial rewards for discovering ways to save money or improve efficiency in their departments.The program, called "gain sharing," is part of the county's sweeping personnel overhaul. But while the rest of the package of new classifications, pay scales and other changes is bogged down at the County Council, gain sharing is going forward.Assistant Budget Administrator Gale P. Benson has spent several months developing the pilot program, recommended by the county's personnel consultant -- Organizational Consulting Center in San Diego -- in its preliminary report last summer.

ON THE longest day of the year, we present some short items about your money:"Women worry more than men about money. Fifty-five percent said paying an unexpected $1,000 bill posed a big problem vs. 33 percent of men." (Money, June.)"Even if your 401(k) is 'capped,' fund an IRA. May not be tax-deductible but earnings grow tax-deferred." (Business Week, June 24.)"To save money, take a 'random' day trip with the kids. The only cost: Gas and the price of a quick lunch wherever you end up." (Family Circle, June 4.)

Gasoline tax cut mere drop in the tankThe Republican-controlled Congress is stampeding to repeal the 4.3 cents-a-gallon gasoline tax increase and the Democrats are too timid to resist. This in spite of the generally understood economic facts that the budget deficit and gas consumption are too high, while both the price of and tax on gasoline are too low.If left alone, gas prices will moderate. Unfortunately, election year grandstanding will cost the American people $5 billion in revenue so the average driver can save the price of a tank or two of gasoline.

TO PEP UP the mid-August "dog days" on Wall Street, here are "Seven Strategies to Help You Outrun the Market," from "Michael Sivy's Rules of Investing" ($24.95):"(1) Buy depressed shares after company starts getting its act together. (2) Favor firms that invest in themselves. (3) Put money in companies where top executives own big stakes. (4) Look at stocks after they split."(5) Buy closed-end funds at discounts of 10 percent or more. (6) Buy spinoffs a month after they go independent. (7)

Howard County is planning a slightly shorter Fourth of July celebration at Columbia's lakefront this year. The celebration will officially begin at 5 p.m. rather than 2 p.m. to help save money, though the $60,000 menu of entertainment and fireworks is going forward, mostly at county government expense. County Executive Ken Ulman said he and his staff discussed whether to make larger cuts this year due to the recession, but rejected the idea. "It's the Fourth of July. It's important for the county.

Every once in a while, you hear a story like the one recently about the librarian who left more than $650,000 to the Enoch Pratt Free Library in her will - more money than she earned during her entire career there. It makes you wonder: Why are some of us great savers despite modest incomes, while others are living paycheck to paycheck even with healthy salaries? And could this recession spur a new generation or two to become avid savers, as the Depression did before? The recession is already having an impact.

Maybe you've spent the past year envisioning yourself strolling down the Champs Elysees this summer or downing a pint in a London pub. Now those daydreams are becoming frightfully expensive. The dollar has been on a downward slide and sunk to an all-time low against the euro in late April. That means a hotel that cost $88 a night six years ago, when the euro was the weakling, now runs about $135. And not since the early 1980s has the British pound been this strong against the dollar.

Frugality, long out of favor in our free-spending, debt-racking society, is making a comeback. Dumpster diving, thrift store shopping, knitting one's own clothes and DIY household projects aren't just ways to save money; they're considered cool. Pro-penny pinching blog Frugal for Life (fru galforlife.blogspot.com), on the other hand, isn't exactly cool. There are a few too many posts about mundane topics like how to get rid of bugs and remove stains. Still, the site's extremely useful, and you can bet your iPod more than one hipster wouldn't mind learning ways to save on her grocery bill so she could spend more on iTunes.

Visiting an amusement park during the summer can be a fun family getaway, but make sure you're not needlessly overpaying for those rides on roller coasters and water slides. An admission ticket to a regional amusement park often costs $40 to $50. That means a family of four could easily spend $300 on a one-day trip when all costs are tallied, said Tim O'Brien, author of The Amusement Park Guide. The choices you make before you go and while you're there will determine how much you save and how much fun you'll have, he said.

My job was outsourced to India last year, and I lost my health coverage. My wife and I dipped into savings to pay more than $600 a month for our medicines. I take Lipitor for cholesterol, Norvasc, Altace and Toprol-XL for high blood pressure and Actos for diabetes. My wife takes Fosamax for her bones and Aciphex for reflux. It became essential for us to find a way to save money, or we would have had to stop taking many of our essential drugs. We found that ordering our medicines from Canada saved more than 40 percent.

Like all of us, Howard Transit would like to save money on expensive fuel, and administrator Ray Ambrose thinks he may have found a way - by using government diesel fuel to avoid taxes private buyers pay. Ambrose, administrator of the county-subsidized 26-bus system, said that if it's technically feasible to isolate the diesel the buses use, he hopes to save about $200,000 by avoiding fuel taxes this fiscal year. "I'm very optimistic" that the idea could work, Ambrose said. Ambrose said the bus system buys fuel under a private contract with Yellow Transportation, but the contract includes a fuel price escalator for rising diesel prices.

The state's Mass Transit Administration is trying to negotiate "a new kind of service" for Baltimore residents who need transportation to jobs in suburbs such as Howard County, state Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said yesterday. A system of passenger vans, financed by tax credits for employers and fares paid by employees, could help workers who depend on lightly used, inefficient bus routes, Flanagan said, though no deals have been struck. In addressing a Columbia-based group called Transportation Advocates at the Bain Center, the transportation secretary said that he is trying to restructure underused bus routes to save money -- a plan that was put off after intense criticism last spring.

WASHINGTON - A majority of the members of the independent commission assessing the Pentagon's proposed list of domestic base closings says that the Defense Department probably overstated the nearly $50 billion in savings projected over 20 years - nearly half of which could amount to pay for personnel simply moving from one base to another. In interviews last week with six of the nine members, they expressed varying degrees of concern about the accuracy of the Pentagon figures and said they had directed the commission's staff to conduct a separate savings analysis before the commission's final votes on the military's recommendations this month.

Guy Thompson stumbled across a geodesic dome home while taking an architecture class in 12th grade at C. Milton Wright High School. "And it stuck with me ever since," recalled the 30-year-old senior software engineer and lifelong Harford County resident. "It was something different, not as boring as a plain old box house. Structurally, it's a lot stronger because it's triangles. Plus, it's supposed to be more energy efficient," Thompson said. What began as fascination with residential dome structures became a goal for Thompson, who after graduating from the Johns Hopkins University nearly a decade ago moved in with his parents to save money - to buy property and build a geodesic dome home, similar to the ones he'd studied in high school.