Six of the highest-selling prescription medications in the United States will be “off-patent” before the end of 2012. The costs associated with those currently pricey meds will drop faster than the Dow on a bad day.

Here's one example: The generic form of Lipitor might cost as little as $10 per month, compared to the $150 it can cost now. Yowza!

It's a very big deal even if you have health insurance. The average co-pay for a generic formula in the U.S. is $6, as opposed to $24 for non-generics with "preferred status" and $35 for non-preferred brand. That doesn't help much if you use a medication not afforded rock-star status by your insurer — or, worse, if you can't afford insurance.

According to the National Retail Federation, we'll spend $68.8 billion outfitting our students for school this year. Yes, I said $68.8 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, right?

More than 80% of the nearly 8,700 people surveyed say that the still-crappy economy has affected the way they'll shop for school supplies. For example:

• 30.7% will comparison-shop online
• 38% will buy store-brand or generic products
• 44.6% will spend less overall

Good ideas all, but I'd add another tactic: Start early.

Last year the zipper on my winter coat broke. Not before time, mind you; I'd had it so long that I couldn't remember exactly when I bought it. My best guess is 25 years.

Gut reaction: Oh no! I can't afford a new coat. But of course I could. I have a regular writing gig. Yet I actually thought about getting a seamstress to put in a new zipper.

Folks, this coat wasn't classy even when it was new way back in the mid-1980s. It was a navy blue, butt-length cloth coat with a hood, bought from the clearance rack for about $40. After a couple of dozen years of wear it was fraying badly, especially around the cuffs and pockets.

The holidays are about six months away. Why wait until the last minute to shop? Answer: You shouldn't. And you won't have to if you have a decently stocked gift closet. Some people I know keep their eyes open starting on Dec. 26 and are finished by mid-summer.

It's more than just the December holidays, though. A small selection of “evergreen” gifts (non-perishable, non-trendy) means you're prepared for any birthday, anniversary or new baby that comes along.

Building your gift closet doesn't have to cost much. I always trot out the example of the puzzle depicting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the perfect gift for a jigsaw-loving relative. Still shrink-wrapped when I found it on half-price day at a thrift shop, it set me back a whopping 35 cents.

I'm currently house-sitting in Anchorage, where one of my duties will be kid-wrangling while my niece does the Alaska Run for Women. The first order of the day: Breakfast at IHOP, my treat — and at 8% less because I'll be paying with a discounted gift card.

Discount gift card sites

Sites like Plastic Jungle, CardCash, Cardpool and Swapagift re-sell unwanted gift cards to hundreds of different retailers. A secondary-market aggregator called Gift Card Granny can help you find the deepest discounts.

Discounted gift cards are as good as coupons: They provide a consistent discount of 3% to 30% or more. While I don't buy a whole lot of Stuff, I do use these cards to save money on haircuts, groceries, movies and more. Continue reading...

I regularly empty the change from my wallet. Pennies, nickels and dimes go into a pink piggy bank. Quarters go into “Mr. Nest Egg,” a bank shaped like Humpty Dumpty.

The quarters are for when I finally get around to washing my jeans. The rest of the change gets wrapped every so often and deposited into my “Home” account, where I'm saving for a down payment.

I'm one of the lucky ones: My bank accepts rolled coins. Not every financial institution accepts large quantities of coins — and some of the ones that do will charge a fee to count them. (Ever notice that they don't charge you to count the ones, fives, tens and twenties you bring in for deposit?) In this economy, you may find yourself prospecting under couch cushions for bus fare or a quart of milk. And since squirreling away spare change is a relatively painless way to build an emergency fund, it's a shame that some banks and credit unions discourage the practice.

Everybody talks about the cost of lunches out. But what about breakfast? How much are those bagels or egg-and-cheese burritos costing you each week?

The first meal of the day can be challenging. Some people aren't hungry when they get up and thus need to take food with them for later. Or they spend the early-morning hours trying to get kids up, dressed, fed, lunchboxed and off to the bus stop or the child-care center. Or they sleep until the last possible second and fly out the door, and then hit the coffee cart in the lobby.

But have you checked the labels on those sweet rolls? (Hint: The only thing higher than the fat and calorie contents is the price of the pastry!)

Automated teller machines are from the devil, and debit cards are Satan's imps.

Sure, it's great to be able to get cash whenever you want. The problem is, well, you can get cash whenever you want. Not only do you get hooked on instant access, you may not use the money wisely once it's in your hand.

Notice how $20 bills have become the coin of the realm, as it were? (I've even seen little kids use them to pay for candy bars, which is just scary.) Once that $20 is broken, what are the chances that you'll take pains not to waste the rest?

Hey, federal employees: How many of you were you watching the Countdown to Shutdown clock and wondering how you'd cope if salaries were delayed by even a few days?

The time to figure out how you would have managed was before the crisis loomed. The same goes for any non-government workers living paycheck to paycheck. What if something happened to delay or (heaven forbid) curtail those checks?

You can't predict illness, layoff or your employer going out of business. But you can prepare for these contingencies with a financial fire drill, i.e., getting a clear idea of baseline expenses and creating a plan to cover them with available funds.

Images of devastation emerged after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. We watched water sweep away vehicles and houses; we saw stunned men and weeping women in the ruins. But we also heard about survivors whose homes weren't flattened or inundated, people who subsisted on stockpiled food and water while waiting for help. Living on the “Ring of Fire” means temblors and tidal waves are a fact of life — and so is disaster preparedness.

We need to be prepared, too. The Department of Homeland Security's Ready America program says we should be able to sustain ourselves for at least three days after an emergency, whether that's a hundred-year storm or a civil insurrection.
How ready are you?

Right now, before anything bad happens, is the time to build your emergency kit — and you can do it on a budget. In fact, you probably already have some (or a lot) of what you need.