Are you a teacher looking for free, quality resources to help instruct students on managing their personal finances? The nonprofit Alliance for Investor Education (AIE), a consortium of America’s top regulatory, self-regulatory and industry organizations focused on investor education, is now making available in one place a variety of resources online at http://www.investoreducation.org.

AIE is outlining 10 of the best Web-based resources for teachers looking to give their students a strong base of knowledge in investing and personal finance so they will know how to properly manage their finances as they grow into adulthood.  The Alliance's new "Investing and Finance for Kids" is available at http://www.investoreducation.org/kidsinvest.  AIE is the organization of the United States’ leading financial-related foundations, nonprofit organizations, associations and governmental agencies.

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More than one-third of consumers have already finished most of their holiday shopping, a figure released by the American Research Group on Monday that's particularly irritating to procrastinators. Just because you waited until the last minute, however, doesn't mean you have to pay top price for the dregs of merchandise.

In an effort to reduce their inventories further, some stores are dropping prices as Christmas approaches, so it sometimes pays to wait. Still, it's a lot more stressful and shoppers are more likely to grab the first thing they see, regardless of price. Avoid overshooting your budget by following these six tips for last-minute holiday shopping.

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When I was a kid, the back-to-school season was always one of my favorite times of the year, right after my birthday, Halloween and Christmas.  You see, I've been a die-hard shopper for as long as I can remember and it was always so exciting to know that a new set of clothes, shoes and school supplies were waiting for me once summer ended.

I can vividly remember the anticipation of going back-to-school shopping with my mom.  For at least a month before the actual shopping trip, I'd pour through magazines and catalogs making lists of the styles, colors and types of clothing, shoes and supplies I wanted.  Then, as our shopping date got closer, I would check out all of the sales flyers from the major department stores to see what kind of savings I could net and plan accordingly.

Finally, the night before our back-to-school shopping trip was filled with the same level of anticipation as I would experience on Christmas Eve.  The best part of course, was when I would put all of that planning and preparation to good use and hit the stores.  Since my family didn't have a lot of extra money to spend, I always had to find a way to make our school supply budget stretch as far as it would go.

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One of the most essential pieces of clothing you'll buy this season is your child's winter coat.  I don't know why children's winter wear is so expensive, but in the few years that I've been buying kids jackets for Riley, I've discovered that her coats cost almost what mine do!  I don't mind splurging a little when it comes to either my husband's or my own jacket, because we will be able to wear ours for many, many years to come.  But with the way my little weed is growing, I'll be lucky if her winter coat lasts the entire winter!

So what's a family to do when your budget is tight, yet all of your children need warm jackets for winter?  Here's a few tips that I've found will give you the most bang for your buck and keep your kids toasty all season long:

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Did you know that at any given time, there's up to $10 billion worth of coins out of circulation in the United States? At Coinstar, their aim is to dust off those piggy banks and put that money to work for you. Just to send a little motivation your way, they've created an exclusive offer that I think you'll be interested in:

Receive a FREE Sherpa bag (no coins included).  By using a Coinstar kiosk with the promo code (COINBAG) between August 1st and August 26th, you can get your very own Sherpa bag!

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The national crime wave that stunned the nation earlier this spring – coast-to-coast thefts of Tide laundry detergent and its use in illicit drug buys – didn’t surprise Kris Anderson.  “Laundry detergent can be expensive and it’s a product just about everyone values – even drug dealers,” says Anderson, president of Country Save Corp. (www.countrysave.com), maker of all-natural laundry and dish detergents.

“But it’s not just stores getting ripped off; it’s consumers. Anyone who buys laundry detergent and doesn’t pay close attention when they scoop it ends up using too much,” Anderson says. “Not only is it a fallacy to believe that more soap will make your clothes cleaner, it’s a huge waste of money and it’s actually bad for your clothes.”  Almost every brand of detergent has a declaration of loads per box on its packaging, he says. And for almost every brand, the number on the box does not match the scooper size provided in the box.

Anderson, whose environmentally safe Country Save laundry detergent is also distributed by the Department of Defense to all soldiers in the field, offers these facts about using your detergent prudently and economically:

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