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Five iPhone apps that can save you money

As I often tell people, it's not the price of the iPhone that bothers me--it's the monthly fees! (Grumble, grumble, AT&T, grumble.)

Alas, while there's no way to get around that $70/month minimum, at least I can use my iPhone to save money on other things: gas, groceries, books, DVDs, and even energy. Let's take a look at five killer apps that can help you pocket extra cash.

BetterDeal Next time you find yourself standing in a supermarket trying to figure out which size box of corn flakes provides the best bang for … Read more

Photo resizing tool

PhotoRazor provides users with a fast and efficient way of shrinking photos without diluting quality. With only a few commands and impressive results, this will be an asset for frequent photo editors.

The program's interface is an intuitive affair that most will feel instantly comfortable with. By only offering a few well-placed command icons, users will understand almost immediately how the program works. A useful Help file is available. The program begins by users selecting a folder they'd like to convert. Each of the photos is listed along the right side, with one featured in the center of … Read more

Squash your salad spinner

A challenge of any kitchen, especially those that belong to gadget enthusiasts, is finding the space to store everything. For many people, the only way around this obstacle is to limit the number of times they indulge themselves in buying the latest and greatest kitchen tools. But in some cases, some clever modifications allow us to stock up on gadgets without worrying about running out of space.

This Collapsible Salad Spinner on Sur la table's Web site solves the space issue by using a patented design that allows the bowl to be collapsed to one third of its original … Read more

Backup utility for Outlook

Migrating applications from one computer or operating system to another can be a hassle. Doing so for e-mail clients can be particularly frustrating. However, this dandy little utility lets you breathe easy by making the Outlook move a simple process.

BackRex Outlook Backup loads an easy-to-access icon onto your desktop. Launching the utility opens a small dialog box from which you can choose the Outlook components to back up and the destination location for the resulting package. This handy utility performed well in our tests, and selecting options was simply a matter of a few clicks. Navigating its processes was … Read more

Bond monitor

Savings Bond Wizard gives users a tool to help them manage their savings bonds. Using a very simple format, this is a great tool that will save time and headaches by doing all the complicated calculations for you.

This program isn't much to look at, but gets its job done. Its basic black and white screen takes a little clicking around and possibly a trip to the Help file to fully understand management and entry of data. Fortunately, the program is organized in a way that users should only need the information on their physical savings bond to fully … Read more

Easy budget program

Keeping your family's budget on track can be a difficult, if not frustrating, experience. We found that Simple Home Money Manager lives up to its title with an easy-to-use approach that makes it easy to know where your money is going.

The program's clean interface is easy to understand, but we liked the start-up wizard that takes users through the various steps of organizing their budget. With simple-to-understand categories of incoming and outgoing money, it's easy to enter individual items. Users can designate an entry's recurrence, add a note, and can even assign an icon. At … Read more

Search for icons

Icons from File offers users an opportunity to fish through their computer and safely extract any icon imaginable. With a very simple design, this program's best feature is its focus.

This program has an incredibly simple interface that may be a little confusing on your first try and require a trip to the Help file to define what its sparse buttons do. While the program aims at making selecting the folder to search easy, some may be surprised to find several different methods for choosing what icon to extract, using everything from drag-and-drop to file trees. Icons from File … Read more

Well-designed video downloader

Flash Video Downloader YouTube offers a convenient and comfortable interface for downloading videos from the Internet. Despite its name, the program supports a number of formats, including MOV, MP4, and AVI.

Among the program's thoughtful features are a built-in tabbed browser, options to change the application's appearance and to show and hide toolbars, an output list for viewing files you have already downloaded, and a menu item that provides one-click access to 37 video Web sites. Downloading is quick, and on completion you can choose where to save the file. The program does lack the ability to set … Read more

12 online tools for price-conscious shoppers

The stock market may be showing signs of a rebound, but consumers still have a lock on their wallets at retail.

Shopping online for the right products at better prices can be quite overwhelming, but with some know-how, it's less intimidating and certainly worthwhile. These 12 tools will not only help you save cash, but they might also make you more confident about your purchases. I am.

Cash-saving tools

Frucall: Frucall is a really great service. When you're at a brick-and-mortar store checking out a product, you can either call Frucall's free telephone line, text-message the company, or access its mobile site and compare the store's price with online pricing. When you input the name or bar code, it returns the pricing on the product from Amazon.com, Shopping.com, and other services. It's quick and easy. Plus, it's free, though standard text-messaging rates do apply. I really liked Frucall.

Google Product Search: Formerly known as Froogle, Google's Product Search is a relatively useful tool for finding cheaper prices on desired products. It will return a good portion of the online stores currently selling products that match up with your search terms. It also lists their seller ratings, based on customer reports. It's a nice tool, but it doesn't quite stand up to some of the more useful sites in this roundup. Consider Google Product Search a backup.… Read more