Free software

Another good way to save money is to use free software. Now I'm not talking about ripped off versions of Office, but legitimate choices like Open Office. I have been on strike with Microsoft products since they put that crummy little .x at the end of everything produced with Office 2007. Now Open Office isn't quite as fully functional as MS Office, but it is pretty darn close, and here's the good part...IT'S FREE. They just came out with the version for Apple Mac's, so there are options for Mac users. Another good one, but kind of buggy is Docs from Google. The best feature with Docs is that you can work from any computer and you don't need anything but a web browser. Sometimes you just have to have MS Office so when that happens I just mooch off someone else. It seems like almost everyone has some version hanging around. Look around the web there are tons of great free goodies that are excellent products, and I'll share more in future posts.