each day, we make choices that involve trading money for time and time for money. When we save cash by brown-bagging lunches and cooking dinner at home, and by doing our own chores, we trade our time for money. We do that by clipping vouchers, comparison shopping and tracking down deals that help us keep 1 or 2 additional USD in our pockets. Now, companies are increasingly demanding more of our time in return for giving them less of our cash. A cereal box might contain a prize, and card purchases might come with money back, frequent flier miles or some other motivation. I'll jump thru some rings to save cash. But we have all got to make calls about where to put the cutoff point ( I am not stitching my very own clothing and raising chickens for eggs. ). I clipped codes from 5 Kellogg's cereal boxes and entered them online in return for a production ticket worth $10. Were these activities worth my time? Would they be worth yours? The thing is, many folks in this "Great Recession" are earning less cash than we probably did the year before, regularly for doing the same work and more of it. And that is the lucky people who still have roles. All of the white-collar heroes who baby-kissers like to discuss -- teachers, cops and firefighters -- are taking pay cuts in Charleston this year. And when less cash is coming in, the scale tips in favour of trading time for cash. That may mean making the effort to read the corner store circulars in the paper to see what's on sale where, rather than just shopping at the same store each time. It can imply tiny things, like paying more notice to whether your car's tires are correctly inflated, which extends the life of your tires and saves gas. And it can imply massive things ,eg knowing how to chop your tax bills. And you could get the finest deal on shampoo at the corner shop and the best price on a 12-pack of soda at a drugstore. Being a smart buyer isn't making any person rich, nevertheless it helps pay the bills. An accountant I knew at a little mag publishing company once told me a dollar saved is really better than a dollar earned because you do not have to pay tax on it. Users can now build user-to-user connections, follow mates ' fresh posts, add an avatar that fits their character, and more.