If you're a novice at backyard vegetable gardening and your first season was successful, you may want to take advantage of the cooler weather to expand your garden. In multiseason climates, when the leaves change color, you can pile compost and soil right onto grass to naturally prepare it for plantings in the spring. Covering grass now with a few inches of organic planting matter will allow the grass to break down. Sure enough, you'll have new raised beds when the snow melts away.

ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

One of the biggest energy hogs in the home isn't glaringly obvious: the cable box/internet modem/Wi-Fi router. Designed to provide television, phone and internet, the box is a major energy drain by itself. One way to help curb the cost of electricity is to plug the cable box into a surge protector that has an electrical kill switch. If you switch off the electricity right before you go to sleep and turn it back on in the morning, you'll reduce your household's overall energy usage by as much as 10%. Manufacturers like Belkin even make surge protectors with a remote control, so one click can turn off the power to the cable box and other electronics plugged into the power strip.

ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

If you'd like to save on organic food when grocery shopping, opt for private-label store brands over the national ones. Not only are certified organic store brands the real deal, they often are 10% to 20% cheaper in price. On top of that, the store brands often are made by the national brands FOR the store. That means the jar of organic pasta sauce from a well-known brand is likely to be the same sauce in the private-label store brand, but at a much lower price.

ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION