With summer barbecues and backyard parties around the corner, the inevitable question comes up: What do you do with leftover beer? When stuck with half-empty cans or bottles, consider trying this reuse idea: Use the beer to attract butterflies. Mix stale beer with sugar and pour it all over your garden or lawn. Butterflies are attracted to the sweet, malty smell of beer and will transform your backyard into a butterfly haven in no time. Plus, plants love beer and will thrive from the sudsy drink.

The overwhelming majority of plastic gift cards sold (some 75 million pounds a year) can easily be recycled through a free program called Swipe It. Swipe It lets you collect and send in all of your old and used cards to be recycled into new plastic products. All you have to do is visit swipeit.com, enter the number of gift cards you want to recycle and mail them in. One other idea is to invest in gift cards that can be recharged and reused by the retailer. When the balance is up, you can reload it and give the gift card to someone else as a present.

It's an old-fashioned tip that works: Turn off the lights when you leave a room to save money and electricity. But it's an easy thing to forget, especially for young kids in the house. One idea to get kids' attention is to invest in colorful switch plates that come in vibrant colors like green, purple, pink and blue. They help remind them to turn off the lights when leaving a room. And if you can, invest in dimmer switches for light fixtures that are usually on. Lowering the light level means less energy is used, and the life span of the light bulbs will be longer, too.