A penny saved being a penny earned, a new book called "365 Ways to Save Money" by Lucy H. Hedrick offers a full year's worth of useful tips, including these:
- Schedule moving day for a weekday. Fees can be up to 50 percent higher on weekends.- Shop for a car at the end of the month, as dealers like to clear their inventories then. To bargain better, check the car's date of manufacture on the driver's side doorpost.
- When investing, understand the "72 rule." Seventy-two divided by percentage yield equals the number of years to double your money, when income is reinvested.
- Car insurance is often reduced when vehicles have automatic safety belts, airbags, antilock brakes and antitheft devices; and, in some states, when the driver has completed a defensive driving course.
Nicotine patches help
Twenty-two percent of smokers who use nicotine patches successfully quit smoking, a survey by the University of Wisconsin Medical School shows.
Overall, those who use nicotine patches were twice as likely to stop smoking cigarettes as those who used phony patches during 17 medical trials, Wisconsin's Dr. Michael Fiore reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
However, the studies also showed that those who stopped smoking did so after wearing patches for eight weeks, not the 10 - 18 weeks recommended by three of the four companies that market the patches.
---Don Kirkman, Scripps Howard News Service
Earth Force vote
The ballots are in. "Preserve wildlife" was the top vote-getter with 40 percent of the vote in Earth Force Alliance's recent "Kids Choose" contest. The contest asked kids to choose the environmental issue most important to them.
More than 140,000 young people across the United States cast ballots.
Among the vote-getters:
-Plant/save trees, 26 percent of the vote;
-Reduce garbage, 21 percent.
-Conserve water, 9 percent.
Reduce air pollution, save the rain forests and protect the ozone layer were the most frequent "write-in" choices.
The Earth Force Alliance, a coalition of leading youth environmental groups, says that based on the "Kids Choose" vote, it will develop a campaign to protect and restore wildlife habitats. Ballots were available through a number of sources. Anyone under 18 years of age was eligible to vote.
---Associated Press