By Nora DunnAre your credit card interest rates getting to you? Are those monthly cell phone bills a pain in the wallet? How about cable TV? Internet? Even the power bill? Would you like to reduce these charges without the hassle of changing suppliers? Read on, my frugal friend.  

[Yvette Eastman, today's C&D's guest blogger, is the founder-director and instructor of Touchpoint Institute of Reflexology and Kinesthetics, for all levels of Reflexology, Specialized Kinesiology, EFT, and Pawspoint Reflexology for Animals. She has written a variety of books on different modes of reflexology and teaches classes in all of them. Check her website or ask for her catalog.

A few years ago, there was a very widely circulated statistic from the National Association of Home Builders about the increase in home sizes over the last sixty years. According to their numbers, the average American home grew from 983 square feet in 1950 to 2,434 square feet in 2005.

Today, February 2, is Groundhog Day. My associations with this quasi-holiday are less about a groundhog’s prediction about the beginning of spring, and more about the movie Groundhog Day.

[Every Monday afternoon, I'll be sharing a few of the more interesting links I've come across in the past couple of days. Let us know if you've stumbled across your own treasure trove of interesting stories/ideas/websites -- share them in the comments!] We Love: A classic Monkey Bread recipe We’re Learning: How to build a foolproof upside down fire We Love: The idea of a Virtual Assistant

In light of the recent rise in popularity of virtual assistants, we thought that our readers would find a listing of virtual assistance providers to be useful. Executive Secretarial Services This company provides expert virtual assistance in paralegal matters, freelance office management and secretarial services. Kim Hughes and Company

By Paul MichaelHow's your hearing? Think you have the kind of listening skills that would put the CIA to shame? Well, there's a website out there that's ready to put its money where its mouth is. And if you can guess the sound they play, you win $2000 instantly. No catch. No red tape. The money is yours...if you can guess the sound.

Hoarding is a topic that we at Unclutterer feel should be part of the uncluttering conversation. Hoarding is a serious medical condition, usually linked to obsessive compulsive disorder, which can take over someone’s life and living space.

Language learning is essentially fun, or should be, if it is done naturally, in line with how the brain learns. We learned our first language quite well, without explicit instruction. Unfortunately, the teaching of second languages has been turned into a complex classroom ceremony, consisting of obtuse grammar rules, annoying drills, rote memory and tests.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

We’ve all got a dream project - something we’re telling ourselves that we’ll get around to one day. It could be that novel we want to write, that new career we want to launch, that skill we’d love to develop, that language we’re keen to learn, the level of fitness we’d like to achieve, etc.The problem?

One of my favorite personal finance tools is the spreadsheet. Although I’m no Excel master, I’ve found that I can create a spreadsheet to find answers for many money questions that I have. If I run into problems, I ask Google…or my wife.

Today is Groundhog Day, the confusing day of the year when Americans try to figure out if Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, and what seeing it or not seeing it means. (Answer: If he sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter weather — if he doesn’t, there will be an early spring.)