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It's pretty well-known that cars are one of the worst investments you can make but, for a select group of small used cars, rising gas prices are sending values upward.

The average sale price for used vehicles in the United States has fallen 2.5% in the past year but, according to the Associated Press, "In the past year, the average used small car price has gone up 2 percent, from $9,278 to $9,470 ... There's evidence that the prices are accelerating, according to recent data from J.D. Power and Associates."

There's wonderful karmic beauty in this: gas pigs who bought environmentally unfriendly cars are now looking to sell because they can no longer afford the gas -- and they're finding that the cars aren't worth nearly as much as they thought they would be. And they're swapping into smaller cars that are more expensive than they used to be.

If you're looking to buy or sell a car, or just do some market research, check out AOL Autos.

On Tuesday an appeals Court ruled paper money discriminates against the blind. Since I'm quite sure paper money cannot take a position on the subject, clearly it was the U.S. Treasury that was at fault for its short sightedness. Having given the case a good look the appeals court refused to overturn a lower court ruling.

It would appear to me that the court system should have recused itself entirely based on the conflict of interest in the case since there is a long standing tradition of blind justice making impartiality most difficult.

Nevertheless the court did rule 2 to1 that it is entirely possible for the government to design paper currency so that the blind will be able to easily discriminate between different denominations.

While the court took issue with the government's lack of sensitivity on the subject they felt that sensitivity could easily be added to the paper currency by the use of a textured surface or varying the size of the notes as is commonly done in other countries that are more sensitive than our own.

The American Council for the Blind sued for such changes but the Treasury Department has been fighting the case for about six years. "I don't think we should have to rely on people to tell us what our money is," said Mitch Pomerantz, the council's president.

Unfortunately for all of us what our money 'is' only deals with a small aspect of our currency problem. The more pressing issue has to do with what it's worth!

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: sometimes I can be silly.

I was fantasizing about how I might spend my economic stimulus check. If I lived in New York or Miami, I'd be tempted to splurge on a lifelong fantasy, to spend a day behind the wheel of a Lamborghini.

In those two cities, Gotham Dreams Cars rents out some of the world's finest automobiles, such as the Ferrari F430 Spider, the Rolls Royce Phantom (with chauffeur) and the Aston Martin DB9 Volante. As you can imagine, these are not supersaver specials: The Spider will set you back $1,950 a day, the Volante a mere $1,450, and the Rolls $450. An hour.

The Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster runs $2,250 a day, but oh, what a day. 580 horsepower from its V-12, with a top speed of 205 mph and 0-60 in the time it takes to read this sentence: "Tom sure looks sexy in that Lamborghini."

The car only gets 9 miles per gallon, and the rental only comes with 100 free miles, so a full day behind this wheel is beyond my means. Do you suppose they'd rent it to me for an hour? Just long enough to cruise down Broadway and enjoy the lust of those watching.

Working parents all over the country lament that fact that they don't get to spend enough time with their kids. Then they spend an average of more than $500 a month on daycare. So the obvious question rises: "Might an entrepreneurial parent be able to spend more time with their kids and still earn a decent income by operating a daycare center out of the home?"

In a piece on The Dollar Stretcher, daycare operator and industry expert Fiona Lohrenz looks at the financial advantages of this business. You'll spend less on gas and dining out, and there may be substantial tax savings to be had from operating a home-based business versus working a regular job.

Of course, starting a home daycare business is no simple task. There are plenty of regulations, so be sure to do your research. If you think this is an option you want to explore, you can get a copy of How to Start a Home-Based Day Care Business for 1 cent + shipping used on Amazon. Of course, check your local library first.

You know you're really a yard sale addict when you don't sleep well on Friday night. Worse still when you find yourself rummaging in your dreams! Maybe the dreams come from the excitement of the hunt (do fishermen and hunters dream about it the night before?) and maybe it's because when it comes to yard sales, if you're on time, you're late.

How early is too early? No one knows. There are sales where you can show up two hours ahead, sometimes even the night before, and you can shop. Those are the exception though. Mostly, fifteen to thirty minutes early is still polite and it's tolerable if you have to wait. You can see what's out there and if it doesn't look like it's worth waiting for, you're off. Annoying: sellers who rope off their sales and don't open until the dot of the hour. That's a fine thing for community sales - for churches and schools, it just seems fair. For your neighbor's sale though, it has the feel of rigidity, of someone who over-values their recyclables and where prices are likely to be on the high side. The truth though is that you just never know.

If the sale isn't open but something on the other side of the rope calls loudly, "Stay," then take the opportunity to practice scanning. You let your eyes travel deliberately over the sale. The clearer you are about what you need, the more likely that your eyes will find it. Going directly for what you want can be the difference between getting it and not. You can always put it back if you change your mind...

The house my wife and I have shared for many years has been repeatedly attacked by termites, and we've burned through several companies, each of which has promised to solve the problem but failed to do so. I've been taking bids to treat the house with Dow's Sentricon system. Wow, was I shocked by the different in price quotes!

Seldom can one compare apples to apples, but this time I could. Company A, with my Angie's List discount, offered to treat the house for two years for $2,636.73. For each additional year, I'd pay $447. Ouch!

Company B, at the top of the Angie's List vendors in my city, quoted for the same system $1,381 for two years and $245 for each subsequent year.

Guess which company I chose. I don't often manage to save $1,255 so easily.

The lesson? When you are shopping for services and don't know what price to expect, ALWAYS get more than one quote! Why throw away a year's worth of coupon clipping by grossly overpaying on tree trimming, driveway sealing or window washing?

Or is $1,255 not enough to justify your efforts?

BioArts International is scheduled to hold an unprecedented online auction in June. According to the New York Times, They will sell off their services to clone five dogs. The lucky bid winners are expected to fork over well in excess of the starting bids of $100,000 (that's $700,000 in dog dollars).

The company will work with a South Korean firm that has already made a carbon copy of an Afghan. Sooam Biotch Research Foundation's scientist Hwang Woo-suk (no giggles, please) was part of the team that falsely claimed to have cloned stem cells in 2004. This time, though, the company is doggone sure it can live up to its promise.

While I dearly love my pets, I can't help but think of how many I could rescue from the pound for $100,000. Also, who knows how a pet will mature in a different time, with older owners? What is worse than a bad dog from the pound? One you paid $100 grand for.

Last night, I overheard my six-year-old daughter make a comment to my wife, that got me thinking. Just what I can conclude from this, I'm still working out.

My daughter, Isabelle, saw a reference in some ad to Wii, the popular Nintendo game (as if I need to tell anyone what Wii is). And she made an off-hand comment to my wife that we can't afford to buy Wii.

It sort of stung for a variety of reasons. One, I'd like to think that I could afford to buy my girls a round-trip ticket to the Moon, if that's what they wanted. Two, I know Isabelle would love a Wii console and all of the games that go with it. Three, what killed me is that it isn't that I can't afford to buy a Wii; I just haven't decided if buying one is worth it to our family.

I mean, we only have so many disposable dollars in our income. We could buy a Wii, but then maybe we wouldn't go on a vacation this summer, or we'd go on a smaller one. Or maybe we could have our Wii and our vacation, too, but we'd decide to cut back somewhere else, whether on the restaurants or movies that we go to, or the books that we buy. It's an inexact science, just what our disposable income is, but I know we'd take a hit somewhere, even if we didn't necessarily feel like we were cutting back.

Restaurants are dealing with increased food prices in a variety of ways. But it's a simple fact that they can only raise their prices so much before customers complain and refuse to come back. So it's more important than ever to come up with creative ways to make the most of menu items, reduce the amount of waste, and still provide value to customers.

Zac Bissonnette wisely pointed out that reducing portion sizes probably isn't a bad idea for many of us. Less obvious changes might include cutting out side dishes and sauces or substituting cheaper ingredients in favorite dishes. This video details one restaurant owner's struggle:

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

It's graduation season, and another year's worth of college students will be paroled from the dorms, thrust into the scary world of trying to pay off the student loan debt they accumulated.

MSNBC has put together a video featuring clips from The Today Show experts giving tips to outgoing college students: the best cities for graduates, mastering the job market, succeeding in the interview, managing money and, heaven forbid, moving in with your parents.

Forward this post to any seniors you know who are graduating this year.

Several weeks ago, I took my car to a Sears Auto Tire & Repair to have a flat tire replaced -- for free, since my wife had the brilliant foresight to get a warranty. (OK, honey, you can stop looking over my shoulder.)

I was stunned because to my utter shock, I experienced some great customer service. For starters, Sears has a bad rap, sometimes deserved, for customer service. But I was also stunned simply because customer service is more and more often hard to come by anywhere.

The guy who was in charge somehow managed to wait on me and two other customers at once, so that none of us had to go more than about 60 seconds without talking to someone. He was unfailingly polite. And when I was ushered into a waiting room, they had free Internet service, free coffee (I don't like coffee, but I appreciated it), vending machines and a TV, and I could watch my car through a window, so I always knew how my tire was progressing. I left within 45 minutes and was floored -- because the customer experience was fantastic. (Anyone at Sears, whoever runs the tire place near the Kenwood Mall in Cincinnati -- give that person a raise.)

And then, driving home, I got a little miffed because good customer service, of course, should be the norm. Instead, I had found myself thrilled because I wasn't ignored and then shuttled off to wait in a dark corner. Honestly, I think if the clerk had belittled me and then thrown me down a flight of stairs, and my two front teeth had fallen out, I might have said optimistically, "Hey, this isn't so bad. I mean, as long as they're going to fix my tire ..."

In the internet age, no TV show is ever gone, just a little harder to find. If you're looking for that classic episode of My Mother the Car or Tila Tiquila's latest mush, you'll probably find it among this, our list of places to watch TV shows on the internet.

Joost Jericho, Star Trek, Babylon 5
Hulu (NBC and Newscorp) House, Family Guy, The Simpsons
ABC Family 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Smallville
ABC Lost (all seasons), Dancing with the Stars, Ugly Betty
AOL and AOL in2TV Full episodes of hundreds of shows, including many long-gone
Disney Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place
Fancast Episodes from 'classic' television; MacGuyver, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Dragnet
Liketelevision Golden oldies: Ozzie and Harriet, The Andy Griffith Show, Beverly Hillbillies
Fox Full episodes of many Fox staples: Prison Break, American Dad, Cops
Turbonick: Nickeloden's channel, with episodes of SpongeBob and other children's favs
TBS A light offering of shows including Seinfeld, House of Payne, and The Bill Engvall Show
USA Full episodes of USA originals such as Monk and Psych
Cartoon Network The cable network's cartoon lineup minus Adult Swim: where is my Robot Chicken?
The CW Video Aliens in America, Wet 'n Wild, and other quality fare
Looney Tunes For lovers of classic animation

Thanks to Jeff Baker of Seabreezecomputers.com

I'm a clean guy. I shower daily, shave every other day, change my sheets regularly, and am careful to straighten up the house before it becomes a breeding ground for disease and vermin. In other words, while I'm not Howard Hughes, I take personal hygiene very seriously. Consequently, when I began noticing little bumps on my legs a few months ago, I was pretty alarmed. The fact that my wife and daughter had them as well made me feel simultaneously relieved and disturbed; on the bright side, I realized that my bumps weren't a symptom of herpes or some debilitating infection that I caught off a toilet seat (I used to watch way too many medical dramas). The downside came with the realization that my wife, daughter, and I were now sharing our house with some unwanted visitors that my wife subsequently identified as bedbugs.

Bedbugs! I'd thought the little bastards were extinct. After all, the only place I'd ever encountered them before was in the pages of old English novels, where they were a tool for demonstrating the slovenly lives of various villains. After researching the bedbug issue, I discovered that, like me, many scientists had assumed that the little creepy crawlies were eliminated about 50 years ago through the use of DDT. Sadly, however, bedbugs have been on the rise over the past twenty years or so. The New York press has even taken to tracking infestations as they crop up in each borough.

As the video below explains, suddenly frugal consumers are eating out less -- and tipping less. One bar owner told NBC that customers are still spending the same amount -- but tipping 10% or 15% instead of their customary 20%.

If you're a customer, don't be a jerk: if you can afford to go to the restaurant , you can afford to leave a solid tip. Being a stingy tipper isn't frugal; it's rude. If you're feeling hard up for money, try cooking at home or going to less expensive restaurants.

If you're a server and you're not making as much as you used to, this may be a time reevaluate the service you provide and look for areas to improve. Boom or bust, the best servers will earn the best tips. For some tips on better serving, check How to Be a Waiter and How to Be a Great Waitress, both from wikiHow. If you're feeling really ambitious, there are a few books on the subject. Two of the highest-rated on Amazon are Clam Chowder: The Server's Field Manual and Tips: the Server's Guide to Bringing Home the Bacon - The Customer Speaks To Every Waiter, Waitress, and Restaurant Manager In America -- Make More Money!