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If you want to keep your kids' minds sharp this summer, two bookstore chains might help.

In Barnes & Noble's program, kids in first through sixth grades complete a downloadable journal by reading and writing about eight books. Return the journal to a store and the child can select a free book from a grade-appropriate list.

Borders offers a similar program. Children 12 and under read 8 books, list them on a form, and then return the form to the store where they will get a coupon to buy some selected items for $4.99.

And, if you're not sure what your child should be reading, check out the state of California's reading list for Kindergarten through 12th graders. The list is sorted by reading level as based on the California English-Language Arts Standards Test.

The recession is clearly fueling the popularity of mother-oriented blogs that focus on penny pinching. But it's difficult to estimate how many there are because many female bloggers who used to limit themselves to such areas as gardening and weddings now include money-saving tips.
Jessica Hogue, research director of Nielsen Online, which has studied more than 10,000 parenting and mother-oriented blogs, believes about two dozen mother-oriented blogs that focus on frugality are influential. She ranks them based on how much chatter they garner, their volume of followers on Twitter.com and the number of times consumers link to them from other blogs, among other criteria.
Here are the top five mom-oriented blogs with a frugal focus Nielsen found most influential.

1. www.commonsensewithmoney.com:
Founder: Mercedes Levy, 34, mother of two boys, ages 4, 18 months.
Based: Sheboygan, Wis.
Background: Certified Public Accountant, holds an MBA. Stay-at-home mother. Started blog October 2007.
Focus: Rock-bottom deals.
Philosophy: "I wanted people to see that you can not only make it on one income but you can thrive on one."

2. www.5dollardinners.com
Founder: Erin Chase, 31, mother of two boys, ages 4 and 2.
Based: Dayton, Ohio
Background: Former high school math and science teacher. Started blog summer 2008.
Focus: Cooking and planning nutritious family dinners for less than $5.
Philosophy: "I buy EVERYTHING on sale and most non-produce/meat items with a coupon."

3. www.couponmom.com
Founder: Stephanie Nelson, 45, mother of two boys ages, 13 and 16.
Based: Atlanta
Background: Bachelor's degree in finance, 10 years' experience in sales and marketing with Procter & Gamble Co. and MarriottZZTO International Inc. Left corporate world 1995. Started blog 2001.
Focus: Slashing your grocery bill in half.
Philosophy: "Strategic shopping is not about changing the way you eat; it is about changing the way you buy the food you like."

4. www.moneyssavingmom.com
Founder: Crystal Paine, 27, mother of two girls, ages 4, 23 months and a boy, 3 weeks old.
Based: Kansas
Background: Stay-at-home mom, learned to live on "beans and rice budget" when husband was in law school. Started blog in late 2007.
Focus: Living on less than you make by using coupons and finding other deals.
Philosophy: "After years of scrimping and sacrifice, we're reaping the benefits now of being able to live significantly below our means because we don't have any payments."

5. www.freebies4mom.blogspot.com:
Founder: Heather Hernandez, 33, mother of two boys, ages 4,2.
Based: Houston
Background: Civil engineer. Stay-at-home mom. Started blog October 2007.
Focus: Free samples, freebies on products that families use daily.
Philosophy: "Moms deserve to be spoiled, and I help them by sharing the hottest freebies as a fun way to save money."

-- The Associated Press

The Los Angeles County assessor Monday again warned property owners about companies offering to find ways to lower property assessment rates.

County Assessor Rich Auerbach says his office continues to receive calls from property owners regarding such solicitations.

"Neither Los Angeles County nor any government agency approves or endorses these companies' services," Auerbach said. "Furthermore, companies offering to lower property taxes must show clearly that they are not a government agency, and failure to do so is a violation of California law."

"Don't get ripped off," county Supervisor Gloria Molina said. "You never have to pay for a review of your property's assessed value. The L.A. County Assessor's Office does this service for free."

The county is conducting an automatic review of about 500,000 single-family residences, with the list of properties included in the review posted on the County Assessor's Web site.

Property owners who disagree with the results of the review may contest the outcome through Dec. 31.

A resource historically only available in classrooms has moved online to seize on a "national teachable moment" and make saving money a lifelong habit.

The Teach Children to Save Web site offers tips for children and parents on how to make budgets, start savings accounts and make regular deposits.

If you haven't already, you should be getting a fatter paycheck soon. That is if you're among the 110 million families to benefit from the government's economic stimulus plan.

The way the benefit works is that the Internal Revenue Service has issued new tax tables to employers, effective April 1. The tax tables reduce the amount of taxes withdrawn from your check, giving you a little more money to spend.

However a few groups of people may get caught up in having too much money given back and find themselves owing the government when they do their taxes next April.

Probably the best approach is to use a withholding calculator that will figure out for you how much money you should be taking out of each check. The IRS offers one that includes the new tax break.

To get an accurate picture, you'll need a recent pay stub and you'll need to know how much money you expect to contribute this year to your 401(k) or other retirement accounts.

If needed, you can adjust your withholding by filing a W-4 form with the IRS. The form allows you to adjust the amount of money withheld from your paychecks to match closely what you owe in taxes.

You can get a W-4 form from your employer or on the IRS Web site.

Always check your withholding if there are personal or financial changes in your life, or changes in the law that might change your tax liability. They include:
Lifestyle changes. Marriage, divorce, birth or adoption of child, loss of an exemption, purchase of a new home, retirement.
Wage income. You or your spouse start or stop working, or start or stop a second job.
Increased or decreased income not subject to withholding. Interest income, dividends, capital gains, self-employment income, IRA (including Roth IRA) distributions.
Increased or decreased adjustments to income. IRA deduction, student loan interest deduction, alimony expense.
Increased or decreased itemized deductions or tax credits. Medical expenses, taxes, interest expense, gifts to charity, job expenses, education credit, child tax credit.

-- The Associated Press

In a recent letter to the editor, Redondo Beach resident Francisco Peralta bemoaned the inadequate financial literacy taught to students in schools, ("Teach kids financial basics," last item).
"As citizens lose their jobs, they realize that they don't have enough money to pay off their debt because they were never taught how to save money or how to manage it well," wrote Peralta.
It is a point worth taking to heart, and the message is not limited just to younger people. The Internet has made getting your financial affairs in order less time-consuming than it was before and free.
The leader of the Web-based personal finance pack is Mint. The Daily Link last reported on Mint in July. The site has grown to nearly a million users and is constantly adding new features. It has bank accounts, credit card purchases and investments tracked in tables and in visual graph formats.
What's the catch in offering this free service? Mint is supported through advertisers -- banks, credit card companies and investment brokers -- who pitch money-saving offers to users.
Mint has an enviable position at the top of the market heap, but Fortune magazine reports it is facing some stiff competition. Intuit, the leader in personal finance software, now makes Quicken Online free to use. It offers the same services as Mint, but in a more formal interface. Users of Quicken software should find the free online version very familiar.
Of course, success breeds competition. Other personal finance management sites worth checking out are Buxfer, Geezeo, and Wesabe, which emphasizes the social networking aspects of budgeting.
Each promises secure setup, and the initial registration is the easy part. Once an account is established, all sites require you to sync up with your financial institutions' online accounts. This takes more time, and not all sites are compatible, but it does save the trouble of having to remember multiple passwords.

Who doesn't have a good tip or trick for sticking it to the man? Search www.everydayloopholes.com for tips and loopholes created by two New Yorkers, Morgan and Kareem, and those of people who have contributed their knowledge as well. Find advice on how to order wine, how to get the most out of coupons and how to get the best cell phone or Internet service. You can even find a few good tips to save for the upcoming tax season.

The Associated Press tells us how to stay on the money trail as the government begins to spend the money allotted in stimulus bill President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday:

President Barack Obama promised taxpayers they could track each of the billions and billions of dollars in spending Congress has approved to stimulate the nation's flailing economy and save its banks.

Obama, whose presidential campaign harnessed technology to identify supporters and track voters, already has rewritten the rules on how technology can be used to shape public opinion.

"We're actually going to set up something called Recovery.gov. This is going to be a special Web site we set up, that gives you a report on where the money is going in your community, how it's being spent, how many jobs it's being created so that all of you can be the eyes and ears," Obama told an audience last week in Indiana.

"And if you see that a project is not working the way it's supposed to, you'll be able to get on that Web site and say, 'You know, I thought this was supposed to be going to school construction, but I haven't noticed any changes being made.' And that will help us track how this money is being spent."

It didn't work exactly as Obama suggested, however, when the Web site went live Tuesday as Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law.

The site breaks down the massive bill into broad categories, and provides state-by-state estimates of jobs that will be created, but it does not provide any details on spending by community.

White House aides say they will provide more information as soon as they can, but they cannot predict which specific projects -- this bridge or that highway, for instance -- will be included, because states make those decisions.

The problem facing the administration is that it's impossible to put on the Web site decisions that have not yet been made.

"They're thinking the right way and moving the right direction," said Gary Bass, the founder of OMB Watch, which tracks federal spending. "But we won't be happy, nonetheless."

At least for now, there's no way to track spending down to the town level, as Obama promised, especially on statewide projects such as installing high-speed Internet lines to rural areas that don't have street addresses, let alone local governments.

Obama aides say they will post such information as they can, but they acknowledge it's not going to be announcing things at a micro level. Money for students in a metropolitan area, maybe; how one school district spent that money, no way.

The administration also has promised that the public will be able to track how the separate, $700 billion bank bailout fund bill was spent, using a Treasury Department Web site -- financialstability.gov. But while more than half that money already has been disbursed, the site still contains no details of the spending, just press releases, a fact sheet and a video of a speech by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

The White House has a goal of committing 75 percent of the economic stimulus package within the first three months, and spending three-quarters of it within 18 months.

Though it's not able to send out refund checks yet, California might have prepared your tax return for you.

ReadyReturn uses information submitted from past returns to fill out Form W-2s for individual income tax filers.

At the site, you can determine whether you qualify for the free service and -- if you do -- access your return. If it's there, all you have to do is review it and make any necessary changes. Then you can file it and you're done.

You'll need your name, your social security number and access to Adobe Acrobat Reader.

According to the Web site:

To qualify, you must have filed a 2007 California resident return with:
-- Single or head of household filing status (New)
-- Income only from wages
-- No more than five dependents (New)
-- No credits other than the renter's credit (New)
-- Standard deduction

In addition, you must have had only one employer in 2008.

If you qualify but your 2008 wage data isn't ready yet, you can sign up to receive an e-mail when your return is ready.

The site also includes links to information about options for e-filing your federal return for free.

Maybe you didn't watch the game, maybe you're a huge fan of Conan O'Brien, or maybe your friends say you missed the best commercial while you were getting a drink. You can catch them online. Hulu.com seems to have most -- if not all -- of them. Here is a collection of direct links to some highlights:

The movie "Monsters vs. Aliens" and soft drink manufacturer SoBe combined for back-to-back ads demonstrating 3-D technology. Without the glasses, the effect was evident, yet harmed by a fuzzy screen.

Bob Dylan and will.i.am bridge generations on a version of Dylan's "Forever Young" for Pepsi.

Racer Danica Patrick takes her fifth shower of the day for Go Daddy Group Inc.

Conan O'Brien on a cheesy commercial he thought was only for Sweden.

Hyundai wins an award, sending competitors into screaming fits.

Ed McMahon and MC Hammer make a pitch for Cash4Gold.

Some of these commercials showed a hard edge seldom seen in Super Bowl ads, said Tim Calkins, an analyst at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

The economy "is forcing advertisers to really think about how they are going to drive sales," Calkins said. "What they're doing is really focusing on differentiation."