With the unceremonious shuttering of Microsoft Money a few months ago, a lot of former Microsoft Money customers are looking for alternatives. If you were using Microsoft Money Essentials, Plus Deluxe, Plus Premium, or Plus Home & Business, your software will still work but support will be gone.

Fortunately, there are a lot of alternatives in the online budgeting tool chest. After a recent Personal Finance Hour show all about budgeting, I took a look at several software tools. This post will cover all of them briefly to help you decide which might be right for you (and they are not ranked in any predefined order).

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For a month or so before our wedding, my wife and I used Crest Whitestrips to help whiten our teeth. We thought about doing one of those “professional” dentist teeth whitening sessions but between the cost and the discomfort (my wife has sensitive teeth and her dentist said these were just as good… and cheaper!), we opted for a do-it-yourself kit because we figured it was a good value. In the end, we were very happy with the results.

Just this last week, a representative from Crest asked if I’d be interested in getting a box of their new Crest Whitestrips Advanced SEal and five boxes to giveaway to readers. Any time a good company is willing to send me something I can give away to readers, I take it.

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Whew, the end of yet another week. Can you believe it’s already November? It seemed like only yesterday I was trying to figure out what to get my wife for Valentine’s Day and already we’re planning for Thanksgiving in a few short weeks. It’s been a heck of a year so far, though we still have a little bit to go, and while things haven’t been too rough, I know that everyone’s been dealing with challenges this year. One thing we can be thankful for is that we’re still here, still kicking, and 2010 is just a few weeks away. Keep your head up and keep fighting, you only fail if you give up.

I hope you enjoy this week’s picks:

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If you’re an American Express cardmember, you probably recognize the annual mailings from American Express about their cardmember gifts. They usually send out a couple of these types of offers each year and if you’re like, many of them go into the recycling bin. The one I always remember is the offer of an appointment book and day planner, but they do a lot more.

This year, the offer is for a 2009 Food & Wine Annual Cookbook that has a retail value of $29.95 (you can buy it from Amazon for $19.77 plus shipping). For the cost of shipping and handling, $2.99, we can get this book for free just because we’re a specially selected Cardmember. There is a money back guarantee on the shipping and handling costs too. If I don’t like the book, I can return it within 90 days of the billing date and get a full refund.

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All too often we go through our lives spending a little here, a little there. We make these purchases automatically because they can be so small and so routine that we forget we even make it. A lot of these things are habits, like smoking, or they’re part of our daily routine, like a cup of coffee in the morning. In this video, I talk about how you should take a look at all those small purchases because over time they can accumulate into something bigger.

I also want to thank the fine folks at Intuit and TurboTax for supporting Bargaineering and sponsoring this video. With the end of the year coming, you’re bound to see a lot of tax related articles everywhere as people give advice on what you should do before the end of the year, so it’s fitting that TurboTax is the inaugural sponsor of these videos. If you’re on Twitter, I invite you to follow @TurboTax for more information on tax and product news straight from the experts.

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Are you taking advantage of the only loyalty rewards program in the personal finance blogging world?

The Bargaineering Bucks system rewards you for doing things on the site such as visiting daily and commenting on posts. Over seven hundred readers have signed up and earned over 26,733 “Bargaineering Bucks” that you’ve spent in the Bargaineering Store for wonderful prizes such as ING Direct promotional referrals, popular personal finance books, USB thumb drives, copies of Quicken, and so many more wonderfully awesome prizes.

Earning a buck for logging in is a new way to earn points, made live earlier today. If you thought you were missing out before, don’t worry! We’ve been testing the feature and wanted to make sure we got it right before rolling out.

You can earn bucks just by registering for the site and doing what you do already. Right now the two easiest ways to earn points require no extra effort. For every day you visit, you earn a buck. For every comment you leave, you earn a buck. You just have to make sure you’re logged in or the systems won’t know who to award the buck to.

Is this worth the extra hassle? Yes!

Reader daemondust only recently discovered the site and has been commenting furiously, racking up 157 ββ that he’s put towards about ten ING Direct referrals in the Bargaineering Store. If you have an ING Direct account with some referrals left, then you know each referral is worth $10 to you. Daemondust has already made $100 by participating in the site and doing nothing extra, he just makes sure he’s logged in before he comments!

So the question I ask you is … are you earning your Bargaineering Bucks?

(Photo: sokwanele)

When Ramit approached me about writing about his new I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp, I was a little hesitant. I was hesitant because I didn’t really know much about him, despite writing a few pages in his New York Times bestselling book I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and I didn’t know if it would really be worth it.

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Think back to elementary school, can you remember how many times your school had a fire drill? They were never announced ahead of time, the bells just rang, everyone got up, lined up, and left the building in an orderly fashion. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do because it was scripted ahead of time. No one panicked because we always assumed it was a drill, even when it wasn’t. (which puzzles me why all of my employers pre-announced rare fire drills)

When was the last time you had a financial fire? Maybe the car broke down or you broke a window in your house. Maybe you were one of the many millions who lost your job last year. I bet, in most cases, you weren’t sure what to do afterwards.

That’s why I’m recommending that you conduct a financial fire drill.

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It’s Monday and that means we have another episode of the Personal Finance Hour where JD of Get Rich Slowly and I will discuss financial rules of thumb. I’ve always believed that rules of thumb are a good way to get a quick handle on a decision but it can’t be your only handle. You need to do a proper analysis of the situation before you make a decision. We’ll discuss a lot of rules of thumb from saving 10% of your salary to asset allocation according to age (yep, the 120 minus your age rule will certainly be featured).

The show will be on live at 6PM Eastern, 3PM Pacific and will be broadcast at this page, if you want to listen to it (it’s also recorded, so you can go to that page to listen in after it airs). As always, you can call in and listen live at 347-327-9144 to chat with us or just listen in the background.

Or click play on this widget (after 6PM on Mondays it will be that week’s show, before then and you’ll get last week’s show):

We are also on iTunes and you can subscribe by clicking on this link, which will open up iTunes.

We hope you get the chance to listen, perhaps call in and chat, or just pop on into the chat room to hang out. It can get a little rowdy in there but it’s good times I promise!

A year or so ago, I’d do weekly roundups highlighting some personal finance articles that I really enjoyed each week. Sometime within the last year, I fell behind and soon abandoned these articles because I felt like they weren’t adding much value. Well, over the last few weeks, a few new readers have told me that they discovered Bargaineering from roundups on other sites.

So, I’ve decided to bring these Weekly Roundups back in order to share with you some other websites I personally enjoy and hope that you will to. These will be once weekly and I will try not to link to the same sites because that really doesn’t help you find new and fun places to spend your valuable time.

And yes, that’s a Pontiac Firebird. It’s not a Phoenix, but it’s close enough!

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