Everyone seems to be feeling the economic pinch lately, so here at AutomaticMoms.com we’ll be posting some tips, strategies and resources to help you make your way through this tough economy.

It’s a bit of a departure from past posts, but when you find links and resources that can really be economically helpful, it’s tough to not share them. So here are a couple time-sensitive ones that you might want to take advantage of while the gettin’ is good!

~~For you fast-food fans who have probably cut back on drive-thru visits: Until March 20th, (tomorrow if you are reading this on post day) you can get a free Roast Burger when you buy a Pepsi drink! 

Printable Arby’s Free Burger Coupon: http://www.arbys.com/pepsixtras/

~~If you aren’t currently using CFL bulbs in all of your light fixtures in your home, you now have no excuse! Yes, I know they are slightly more expensive than the el cheapo bulbs, but they save so much money in energy costs. Target has 60-watt equivalent CFL bulbs on sale this week for only $1 and there is even a printable coupon that you can print twice for $1 off! That’s two free CFL bulbs! Be sure to also check with your utility company for information on any possible rebates for switching to CFL bulbs!

Printable $1 Coupon for CFL Bulbs: http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/coupons_offers/

Free food, free light bulbs….what more could you ask for?

If you’re like me, you have dozens of photos that you keep meaning to get made into nice, larger prints.

Through tomorrow, (Saturday, November 8, 2008) at Walgreens you can get a free 8 X 10 photo print with no further purchase required! Just order it for free online and pick it up at your local Walgreens location.

There’s nothing I’m loving more lately than these online photo deals, and I’ll have a roundup of some of the best ones very soon! But in the meantime, head over to Walgreens.com and click on “Photo”. Upload your fave pics, and when you get to the order page select that you want a 8 X 10 photo and then in the coupon section enter FREEPIC. That’s it! Your order should read $0.00 unless you are ordering something else.

Technorati Tags: freebie friday, freebie, free stuff, free photo prints, free photos

Today’s Freebie Friday is from Snapfish, one of my favorite online photo printing companies.

Snapfish is offering 25 free photo prints for the entire month of October! No coupon code required! Just visit Snapfish using this link and the offer will be shown to you automatically!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE online photo printing services! I absolutely hate bringing in my digital media to the photo printing places because I usually, A. Forget the media at home or B. Forget to pick up the pictures!

This deal expires October 31, 2008 so take advantage of your 25 free photo prints today!

Technorati Tags: Snapfish, free photo prints, free, freebie, photo prints, online photo prints, free stuff

Today’s freebie for the resurrected “Freebie Friday” is a great free report that explains how you can use PLR (private label rights) special reports to jumpstart any information product business.

Ok, let’s backup…what do I mean by PLR anyway? PLR simply means “private label rights” and it usually refers to written content (or software, or graphics, audio, etc) that is created by someone and then sold to someone else who now has purchased the rights to alter it, add their own name to it, add new content to it, subtract from it, break it up into smaller content pieces, and more.

Every PLR product comes with a license that lays out exactly what can and can’t be done with the content. Since most of the work has already been done for you, PLR content is a fabulous way to jumpstart a project quickly!

My friend Melissa Ingold runs, SpecialReportClub.com and is offering a free report that explains how you can use special reports (longer content pieces…think, ebook almost) to create your own information products that you can giveaway or sell!

She has a membership program that offers a new special report to her members every month complete with an audio version, a mini sales letter to sell it, an ecover graphic, and pre-written ads to promote it! It’s like an instant business kit every month!

I’m offering the free report Melissa is giving away as today’s Freebie Friday! It lays out all of the steps needed to get the most out of these reports (or any PLR content) and how to make them unique pieces of content for your business!

Grab the free PDF report titled, “Building an Income with PLR Special Reports” here! Just right-click the link and select, “Save As” and save the file to your computer. You’ll need the free Adobe Reader which you can download at no charge here.

This report is free, there is no list to join to get it and you can be reading it in seconds! If you’ve wanted to find a fast and easy way to add high quality content to your site or have wanted to write your first information product, Melissa and her team have done an amazing job to help get you started!

Check out SpecialReportClub.Com

Technorati Tags: PLR, private label rights, information products, free report, free download, freebie, free, free stuff

If you are like me, you have a ton of “Favorites” or bookmarks saved in Internet Explorer. I’ve always kept my favorites sorted into folders to make it easier to find them when I need them. It’s a much better strategy than scrolling through 200 or so URLS trying to find the one I need.

Well, my dad recently discovered the need for this as well and asked me how to sort his Favorites into folders. For many of you, this is old-news and you already know how to do it, but I know there are plenty of you who waste valuable time every day trudging through an ever-growing Favorites list trying to find, “you know, that one site with the thing written by that chick who wrote that book…” Yeah, I’m so gonna help you out here.

I made my tutorial into a handy-dandy PDF file (with screenshots of the browser with important stuff circled!) so that my dad could print it out and follow along. If you want to grab your copy, just right click and select, “Save target as…” and save it somewhere on your computer where you can find it. It’s a PDF file, so you need the free PDF viewer from Adobe, which most of you already have anyway.

No cost, no email opt-in required….just a handy little guide on how to get your Favorites organized so you can save some time and energy every day…my mission in life you know!

Free Tutorial on How to Organize Your Internet Explorer Favorites (right-click here)

Technorati Tags: Internet explorer, favorites, bookmarks, organizing your bookmarks, how-to, free tutorial, internet explorer hack

For all you under-appreciated, hard-working blogging moms…something that might finally make all your hard work pay off.

If you look to your right, you’ll see a new addition to the AutomaticMoms.com site….a cool little widget called, “Scratchback“. Basically, I’m pimping out my blog to big tippers…ok, not exactly big tippers….. The idea is that if you find my posts helpful, exciting, riveting…ok, if you like me even just a little…why not send a tip my way and show some love?

If you do, the sexy little widget next to this post will give you a complimentary text link to your site. Your link will appear at the top in the #1 spot. The next person who tips me will bump you down a spot until after nine others have tipped me, your link will fall off the bottom. Just some free thanks for the tip.

How long will your link last there? Could be awhile…I’m just starting to get some real traffic. Or, it could be a few hours. It’s all dependent on how many people choose to tip me. Once traffic picks up, I can easily change the tip amount to $2, $10….heck, maybe even $20 if traffic goes crazy (not likely that I would actually request that here, but Scratchback gives you the option to do that if you like).

So, why not show me some love for showing you this plugin? Add your tip to the right if this post has helped you!

Technorati Tags: WordPress, blog, blogging, widget, blog widget, Scratchback, wordpress plugins, plugin

Ok, busy Moms…..let’s say you’re on the computer and remember that you need to make a call to your friend across the country. You *could* pick up the phone and call her for a fee, or wait until your cell phone unlimited nights kick in….but what if you could make a quick and FREE call right from your computer? Here’s a great resource you should bookmark right now.

I “stumbled” (literally…I used StumbleUpon) across this resource that was instantly added to my bookmarks. It’s called FreeCallCentral.Com, and it’s a pretty sparse site except for the neat little form that allows you to enter your phone number and the number of the person you would like to call.

You’ll need a headset or headphones and a microphone to use the service, so be sure to have those accessories plugged in and ready to go. If you’re looking for a good, all-purpose headset that you can use for Internet phone calls, teleseminars, and other audio recording purposes, check out the Plantronics 400. It costs about $40 at Amazon.com and is a very nice headset for the money. Many people who use Voice Over Internet services like Skype report that this is their preferred headset.