Now That Cheap is Cool, How To Save Money with Social Media.

So while I’m waiting for Congress to TARP the Bank of Guru, I’m spending the summer exploring the other side of Social Media, where function and frugality reign.  Yes, that’s right. Twitter especially has proven itself to be a powerful tool for productivity — especially when it comes to saving money. No longer merely the domain of shameless promoters and mindless chatters, Twitter is turning into the Bootstrappers’ BFF.

I’ve assembled some of my favorite ways to tap into Social Media and (as I used to say when I wrote ads for Sears) “Save Big.”

Deals Galore

Retailers are jumping aboard the Twitter train in droves — @DellOutlet just passed a record two-million-dollars in sales –and with them come aggregators like The Bargainist. To get in on the non-stop supply of deals, sales and discounts, simply follow @bargainist.

Last minute deals for everything from travel to free dinner at your local cafe are up for grabs but can go in a flash. So follow your favorites — or use Twitter’s search to nab those bargains.

The number of people turning to the web for coupons soared to 36 million in 2008 –and almost a quarter of the 148 million Americans who use coupons now find them online. Now the fierce sport that is couponing gets an upgrade with Twitter-friendly CheapTweet and Coupon Tweet. These services aggregate coupon codes and deals from Twitter merchants and organize them in neat lists. Both capitalize on social media features –  letting users vote on the best, and provide tools to share on Twitter and other social media sites. CheapTweet even lets you set up your own online store.

Also check out Tweeters: @CouponCabin, @CouponCravings, @FrugalFreebies and @CouponPrincess.

Coupons.com is currently the only source for printable coupons on Facebook but there are other coupon apps including Online Coupons from GetMyThrift.

The New Payment Systems

Twitter makes everything easier — including “invoicing”, sending and collecting money.  (Although it may not nudge your deadbeat little brother to pay up any faster.)   Stay tuned for the new Paypal X, scheduled for full roll out this November 2009. In the meantime, here are some of today’s options:

Twitpay relies on Amazon Payments to send money in increments of $0.01 to $1000.00 via Twitter. The charge is $0.05 for any transaction over $0.99.

Tipjoy, which I first tried over the holidays this year, is popular with charities that collect donations via Twitter. Tipjoy can send money to you via PayPal or Amazon gift card, whenever your balance is over $5. They charge a 3% transaction fee.

Twippr is also Paypal based –charges a flat 4% fee on transactions.

And here’s a truly intriguing twist.  Content developers (so many of us) — read up:

Ready to make money on Twitter? Twitpay’s Retweet Commerce Suite is the way. The feed is the future, and Twitpay brings you there. It’s simply the fastest and easiest way to get started with Twitter commerce.

RT2Buy™, part of the Retweet Suite, makes it easy to sell digital content over Twitter. All you need is a Twitpay account, a PayPal account, and something to sell.

More Money Savers

www.domystuff.com 40,000+ Assistants are waiting to do your stuff!  No time to pick up that dry cleaning or do some little project around the house? No problem. A quick post on DoMyStuff.com sends your chore into cyberspace where businesses and individuals (think of them as “temporary assistants”) place bids; the lowest bidder wins. There’s even online escrow accounts to keep your payment safe until the task is done.  (Thanks to PCMag.com)

Make Money: People post their tasks on DoMyStuff. All you have to do is bid on a task. If an employer accepts your bid, you do the task and then get paid!

Saving you money one bill at a time: Let this site help you shrink your cell phone bills. Billshrink.com

FuelFrog — this handy Twitter app lets you track your fuel usage: log mileage, gas prices, gallons you used. The site then creates an eye-opening log of your fuel consumption plus pretty graphs of fuel consumption.

Tweetwhatyouspend takes this same FuelFrog concept and applies it to everything you buy. The site encourages users to record, via Twitter direct message, every time they make a purchase.The site will then keep a running tab of your spending, broken down into categories (Sales at Anthropologie? Chocolate?) as well as an average per day amount and the average spent per day over the past week.  Oh those laazy Sundays!

Xpenser is a great tool for business that lets you keep track of all those sneaky business expenses such as mileage, client lunches, and travel costs, from the road using just about every technology available: SMS, iPhone, email, voice, web, or Twitter.

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Job Search Alerts

You want to know about those juicy opportunities as soon as they’re posted. An easy way to stay ahead of the snarling packs is Twilert.com. Simply create an account, choose key phrases “looking for prima ballerina” or “tree surgeon” — Twilert will send you updates based on these keywords.

Contests R Us

If all of the above aren’t saving you enough, give abundance some help by entering contests. Here are the Contest Mavens on Twitter: @Sweepstakesgirl, @ContestsGuide, @ContestTweets, @bloggygiveaways, and @Bloggiveaways.

A blog I love: The Cheapskate Blog.  Most recent post is on “Ten Oddball Ways to Save Money.”  If you enjoy your wine, you need this tip.

Guru’s Kudos: A big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream to the spunky, savvy, never-say-die homeowner who baked her way out of foreclosure with her Mortgage Cakes.

For other valuable sites click here.

Many thanks to the inspiring Mashable.com, PCMag and the Bargainist.

The Big Three That’s *Not* Asking for Money and Why They Should Go to Washington Instead.

All day long we’ve been hearing about two different sets of The Big Three.

There’s The Big Three from Detroit, now jetless and nibbling on humble pie as they carpool it to Washington armed with their freshly minted ’strategic’ plans so they can continue to troll for trillions.

Then there’s The Big Three from California, who in heated competition, each released new technology that’s projected to generate some hefty revenue.

An excerpt from today’s Seeking Alpha:

The three horse race between Facebook, Google, and MySpace to achieve dominance in the internet identity space doesn’t appear to be letting up any. It isn’t a mere coincidence that both Facebook and Google have announced their public launches on the same day; both are struggling to establish themselves as the de facto standard for both developers and end users. MySpace managed to beat out both Facebook and Google months ago when it publicly launched its service.

Which is why I wholeheartedly agree with the mavericky (and oddly charged) Mark Cuban who declared mere days after the Election that Obama had made his 1st big mistake.

Unfortunately, the economic advisory team that he has put together looks more like a semester’s worth of great guest speakers for an MBA class than an economic advisory team that can truly help him.

There are a lot of great minds on the list.

“Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Laura Tyson, who served as Clinton’s top economic adviser; former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson; Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard Parsons; former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman William Donaldson and Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Anne Mulcahy.

Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Roel Campos, an ex-SEC commissioner, and Warren Buffett are also on the advisory board.”

Notice anything missing ?

Not a single entrepreneur. Yes Warren Buffett started a business, but he will be the first to tell you that he “doesn’t do start ups”. Which means there isn’t a single person advising PE Obama that we know of that knows that its like to start and run a business in this or any economic climate. That’s a huge problem.

So here we are in the midst of a (insert scary word), (insert scarier word) recession, with the media convincing us that we all should be cowed and question ‘the American way’, and yet these Big Three geeks are still scrapping in the schoolyard to beat each other to the punch. Silicon Valley and its neighbors to the South practice a quirky version of spiritual capitalism, worshipping gamesmanship and brainpower, and it’s this bootstrapping version of business that needs to be well represented in Washington as President Elect Obama assembles his economic team.

Certainly, the man who used social media to the max in his winning campaign has to include brainiacs beyond academics, politicians and big business, yes?

Guru’s Note: Thankfully, Eric Schmidt of Google is on board, although has reportedly turned down the first-ever office of CTO.