What is the easiest way to sell used textbooks? Craigslist like sites are good. If you don’t find anyone there, you can try the websites created just for this purpose. I tried the websites listed below.

Cash4Books: Interface looks good. But, the site pays peanuts for the books. They generously agreed to pay $2 for the book I paid $90! No, thank you.

Bookjingle: Same as above.

BookScouter: This is better than two sites listed above. BookScouter is more like comparison shopping site for used books. When I was browsing bookscouter, I came to know about Amazon’s trade-in program.

Bookscouter List

Amazon’s trade-in program is simple. Amazon agreed to pay $21 for my textbook whereas every other cheap site was adamant about $2-$5 price range.The catch with Amazon is that they give you gift card instead of cash. If you use Amazon regularly, gift card is as good as cash.

All the above sites, including Amazon, have lot of restrictions when buying used books from you. If your book is published before 2008, you are out of luck. Used textbooks sites are looking for fairly newer books so that they can turn it around quickly. So, don’t wait around to sell your used textbooks. Sell them as soon as you get your grades.

Every year we come up with new year resolutions. Most of the resolutions’ vigor fade away as the days pass by. But, we never give up! We make another set of resolutions when the new year approaches.If you want to do this right, an interesting article from Wall Street Journal could help you.

Here is the summary of that article:

• Max your 401k contributions.
• Check where your moola goes, verify and validate all the cash flow
• Lock up your credit/debit cards for a month
• Check your current asset allocation in all the investment accounts and reshuffle
• Knock off that nasty debt
• Invest in yourself
• Check your progress on the cash flow monitoring
• Check if you can reduce your auto/home/medical insurance
• Update your will
• Open 529 accounts if you have children or grand-children

Read the article here for more details.

If you are itching to find out what the deals are going to be next Friday, check out the following sites.

Black Friday Ads

Deal Taker

Both sites give the preview of what retailers like Amazon, Target are going to offer next week. I suspect the retailers are intentionally “leaking” this information to have marketing edge.

This used to be a simpler question some years back, but now with the advent of the Internet, the waters have been muddied. Some investors wonder why anyone would have an advisor (and probably pay for it) when you can find out anything you need for free on the internet. Sounds like a slam dunk for the argument for not having an advisor (Stockbroker).

How well do all those content writers who write in those websites really know you? What do they know of your risk tolerance? What do they know about your retirement goals? Since the answer to that question is going to be a big fat no, can you really trust what you are reading on the net? There is so much information on the internet it is a real challenge to know what information is accurate and pertains to you and your situation and what doesn’t.

So how can my financial advisor help me? The more your advisor knows about you the better. He should know all your investments, your investment goals, particularly regarding retirement, and your risk tolerance.

In order for you to make a wise decision not only do you need to know the ins and outs of a particular investment you are considering, you also have to sleep at night after you buy it. A financial Advisor can sift through all the information and present only those things that pertain to you and your particular needs, based on your risk tolerance and investment timeline. The more your advisor knows about you and your situation the better help he will be, so don’t hold anything back.

I used to get asked if it was okay to have more than one advisor and I think it doesn’t hurt to get more than one opinion but remember the old saying, too many cooks can spoil the broth. No matter what position you take on an investment you can easily find five professionals who oppose your decision and five who agree with you. That’s why it is so important that you work closely with your advisor so you can get clear and concise advice that works for you.

Keep in mind, you may not have the time needed to make the best informed decisions, but your advisor will have his finger on the pulse of the market and the economy probably fifteen hours a day or more. If you don’t have that kind of time maybe you should consider working with a Financial Advisor. Just don’t turn your brain off the moment he is on the phone. It should be a team approach with you making the final decisions.

Good luck and happy investing.

529 College Savings Plans are arguably the best way to fund your children’s higher education, and has long sense surpassed the traditional methods like, Custodial Accounts and Educational IRA’s.

A 529 Plan is an educational savings plan is a plan set up under the IRS code 529, to help families fund their children’s education, and have significant tax breaks. I does not matter what state you live in or what state your child goes to school in; you can still fund his or her 529 plan.

Here are 5 benefits of 529 plans that you’ll want to know about.

Federal Tax Breaks: While your deposits in the plan are not deductable on your tax return it grows tax deferred. When your child is ready to attend college, distributions that are used for those expenses are tax free. It’s not hard to imagine the bite the IRS would take out of an investment that grew from twenty grand to two hundred grand, and that is what used to happen to the old college savings accounts, like custodial accounts. Keep in mind, if you use the money for non college expenses you will be subject to federal and state taxes.

State Tax Benefits: Nearly every state offers the same benefits as the Feds do, but just check in your particular state to make sure. If your state does not offer any benefits at the state level, just switch to a state that does, and you do not have to move to receive those benefits.

You Control the Funds: Unlike the old custodial accounts and Educational IRA accounts, the 529 account does not automatically become the property of the beneficiary. In other words, if your child decides not to go to school he cannot just take the money and run when he turns eighteen. You can hold on to the funds or fund the education of a younger sibling or a relative. Of course if your child does so well he/she gets a free ride in the school they are going to, then you can use the funds to help another child.

Large Deposits are allowed: With the old accounts, there were always the strict limits the IRS put on such accounts when it came to deposits. In many states you are able to contribute $300,000 or more, a far cry from the $500 limit of the old Educational IRA’s.

Flexibility: You have the ability to change 529 plans if you decide the plan of a different state is more beneficial than your current plan. You can do this once every twelve months for the life of the account.

So there you have it, five of the top benefits to the 529 plans. Do your research, determine which plan is most beneficial to you and get started funding your children’s college education.

Related Links: How to save money for college | How to save money on education costs

Forget clipping coupons and checking comparison shopping sites to find best shopping deals. If you have iPhone or Droid smart phones, you can find best deals using ShopSavvy application available for iPhone and Droid. Just scan the bar codes of the products you want to buy, the application will tell you where you can get better deal.

TheFind.com also has application for shopping deals. The website has good information too. Just like ShopSavvy, Redlaser also has application that scans products’ barcodes and find the best deals available. These applications don’t work in iPod Touch. If you have iPhone or Droid, give it a try. Most of these applications are free.

Related Link: Keep your personal spending in check

Because of the major downturn in the economy and the fact that interest rates now sit at about zero it is certainly hard to find a high yield savings account now, but there are still some better offers out there that wise investors should take advantage of. In order to appropriately use these short term savings account offers you will need to stay on top of the terms and be ready to move your money when the time has expired, but in the end it is worth the small amount of hassle that this will require.

Some online banks offer short term savings accounts at an introductory rate that is much better than the average savings account you will find at your local bank. While most local banks savings accounts are earning something like 0.10% you can find money market deals and savings account offers that give you in the range of 1.25-2.5% on your savings account. It may not sound like a whole lot, but in the long run it adds up in a big way. Even some bigger banks regional banks like Huntington are offering things like premier money market accounts where you can receive 1.5% for at least 90 days.

Take a look at the money you have in your savings account or money market account. What are you earning? If you continue to just let your money earn virtually nothing then you are getting behind the game. You need to get proactive and give the banks in your area a call and see who has the best money market specials or best savings account rates. If none of them are satisfactory try using an online bank that has great rates.

Short-term savings and money market account offers are not nearly as abundant as they used to be, but they are still out there and it is up to you to go out and find them!

Best buy announced door busters for tomorrow. If you are ready to get in line by 3am in best buy stores, you will have following deals.

HP Laptop for $197

Sony VAIO Laptop for $399

Insignia 10MP Digital Cameras for $49

Sears.com already has Black Friday pricing (10% off). Toys R Us has 3-day Cyber Deals starting today.

If you know of any other good deals, please post it in the comments.

Related Links: Irresistible Black Friday Deals | Black Friday Deals (Yahoo Finance)

The savings festival is on! All major retailers or competing to give you the best deals online and off-line. Just go on grab them before they’re gone! I found some of the most tempting deals. Let’s look at one by one.

Dell sells 15” laptops for $449 ($259 savings). Best Buy is selling HP Pavillion laptop for $499. Both laptops have all the goodies you need.

If you are a Mac person, Apple Macbook is selling for $999 at bestbuy.com. Apple 21.5” iMac sells for $1068 after $100 coupon in Macmall.

Dell 20” LCD monitor sells for just $99! Acer’s 20” LCD monitor sells for even less, just $79!

I always wanted to buy cheap and better webcam for my laptop. I have 9 year old Intel webcam that can’t be mounted on my laptop screen. Thank god, we got thanksgiving day now. Logitech webcam is selling for $19.99! Free shipping too!

Best buy sells Internet security pro sells for $5. No more excuse to not buying anti-virus!

Target is coming out with some good deals. See http://weeklyad.target.com/target/default.aspx?action=entryflash&ref=sc_iw_r_1_0_3_1

Walmart sells Emerson 32” LCD TV for $248, Sanyo 50” for $598 and Sony Bravia 46” LCD TV for $798. Xbox console with games are going for $199. PS3 console with games go for $299. Philips 7” portable DVD player sells for $49. Sony 10.1 MP Digital camera for just $79. Kodak 12 MP goes for $69.

Walmart sells video game bundles for $20. It sells HP G60-W519WM laptop for $298 with a 2.2 GHz, 1MB cache and 800Hz FSB Intel Celeron 900 processor. It comes loaded with Windows 7 home premium, a 250 GB Hard Drive and 3072MB DDR2 system memory. For $348 you can get an Acer laptop PC with an AMD Athlon 64 dual-core processor plus Windows 7 home premium.

J&R has Nikon Digital SLR for $299 ($100 savings).

Kmart is offering 32” Sony Bravia L Series LCD HDTVs for $380, Nintendo DS bundles with 5 games for $170 and Magellan Roadmate 1220 GPS navigation system for $85 from 6 – 11am.

More to come… Check back later today.

Related Link: Black Friday Deals: They are Worth Your Time

If you don’t use all your vacation days this year and if your company allows you to cash-out unused vacation days, you can contribute the amount for unused vacation to 401k plan. To encourage savings, the Obama administration recently blessed such transfers. More details are here.