Another blogger sent a request to HelpAReporterOut.com asking for tip sheets on how to save money. That got me thinking: Probably some of you could use some ideas.

You’re probably not going to do all of these but you can probably do some of them. You might not even do the ones you do all of the time. The thing is to get yourself in the habit of saving money. With that …

1. Never spend coins. Every time you get any coins, put them in a jar. When it’s full, roll them up (or be a lazy bum like me and take them to your bank and have them sort them) and deposit them to your savings account. If you are also like me and tend to spend money if it’s easily accessible, get an online bank (like ingdirect.com) and transfer the money there. It takes two days to get the money back from ING, so that may dissuade you.

2. Don’t spend single dollar bills either. The point of this isn’t so much to put the money in your savings account, though goody for you if you do. Especially when you’re young or newly starting out on your own, it can be hard to anticipate every possible emergency. It can also be hard to save up the 3-6 months salary (or 9 months if you listen to Suze Orman) that financial gurus say you should have. Besides, sometimes you just have a minor cash flow issue. That’s where all those ones come in handy! If you’ve been saving your singles and you find yourself with more month than money, you can snag some of your saved bills to buy gas, get milk or dog food or whatever. Don’t automatically reach for your credit card! You could be paying for that “emergency” latte for decades.

3. Actually save your savings. My pal Anne said something so smart to me one day. In response to my saying, “I’ll save a fortune by not getting a latte every morning” she said”Well, you won’t have any more money unless you actually put it in savings.” Well, I don’t put the daily $6.67 for the bagel and latte I used to get every day in savings, but when I use a coupon or buy something on sale, I do transfer the money I saved to my savings account. Sometimes it takes me a little while to be able to do it but eventually I do. For example, I needed some new clothes and I got a great deal on what I bought. I saved $59.20. Well, I didn’t happen to have an extra $59.20 available right that minute but I put a note in my checkbook and transferred it when I got another paycheck.

4. Copy Bank of America and Keep the Change. A while back there was a hilarious commercial for Bank of America’s Keep the Change program. The wife in the commercial told her husband, “We just saved 37 cents!” His smartass reply was “I’ll alert the media.” Then he found out how quickly that can add up. If you don’t bank with Bank of America, you can do the same thing yourself. For example, if you buy something that costs $3.57, then you’d transfer 43 cents. You don’t have to do small transfers with each purchase, but keep a running log and transfer it all at the end of the month. I write in my checkbook, next to the name of where I used my debit card how much I should transfer. At the end of the month, I total ‘em up and transfer them. In January 2009, for example, it was $8.43. Doesn’t seem like a lot but if you think that if I only did $8.43 each month, that’s more than $100 at the end of the year, relatively painlessly.

Clipping coupons can be tedious but if you consider that coupon to not be a pain, but to be 25 cents closer to your goal, you’ll look at it differently.

What are you saving money for? Not every bit of savings has to be long term for retirement or some other big goal, though you should be doing that. Maybe your savings goal is $800 to buy a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes to reward yourself for achieving another goal. Or maybe you want to go to Africa.

Here are some other places to get money information that are reliable. There’s a lot of bad information out there – you can trust these guys.

Buy a book: The Complete Cheapskate: How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out, and Break Free from Money Worries Forever

Visit these websites:
Suddenly Frugal
The Dollar Stretcher
Kiplinger
The Simple Dollar looks good but I haven’t read it for very long.