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Christmas shopping is getting more and more expensive each year. With over 70% of Americans reported to be living paycheck to paycheck, where does the money come from for Christmas shopping? Here are 5 tips to getting some extra money for holiday shopping:

1 Sell items on Ebay

Everyone is buying right now. Why not have them buy what you have for sale? All different types of items sell on ebay the clothes your kids never even wore that still have the tags on them, DVDs, collectible items sitting around just collecting, and any other hot items you may have lying around.

2 Garage Sale

Do a little Winter Cleaning and make room for those Christmas decorations and presents. A Saturday morning garage sale can make you $50-$500, or more.

One person's junk is another's treasure!

3 Collect your Unclaimed Money

There is an estimated $25 billion dollars of unclaimed money in the U.S. On the Oprah Winfrey TV Show it was announced 8 out of 9 Americans have unclaimed money.This money comes from many places. For example it could be an old checking or savings account your forgot about, an inheritance, savings bonds, uncashed checks or money orders, the list goes on and on. This money is yours and just sitting there waiting for you to claim it. A simple search in a quality database that includes all states and federal unclaimed money could mean a check in your mailbox!

A simple search in a quality database that includes all states and federal unclaimed money could mean a check in your mailbox! www.cashunclaimed.com is the largest unclaimed money site and is a great place to conduct your unclaimed money search.

4 Holiday Job or Overtime

Companies are hiring for the Christmas shopping rush. Usually they are simple retail positions that dont require specialized training or experience. A couple nights or days a week could be $1000 by Christmas!

If you are paid hourly at your job, and have enough work and flexibility with your schedule, you can put in some extra hours.

Workers who have restaurant jobs can pick up extra shifts.

Special Note: Many people claim 0 exemptions on their W4. If you have children, own a home, etc. increase your exemptions to the correct number. Your employer can assist you in filling out a new W4. This can mean an extra $50-$400 per paycheck!

5 Reduce Expenses

You can reduce simple monthly expenses to keep more of the money you already have. Here are a couple money saving ideas:

- Eat in instead of dinning out

A family of 4 that eats out twice a week spends about $100 per week.

- Pay minimum payments this month on credit cards

Dont make this a habit, but for December it will give you a little extra rather than racking up more credit card debt

- Leave your ATM card at home, carry a little cash for what you need

- Make coffee at home and skip your morning latte
(youll live, really you will)

Now that you have the extra money Merry Christmas Shopping!

Nicole Anderson offers a free search for your portion of the $25+ BILLION in unclaimed money in the United States. Millions of Americans are unaware they are owed money. It could come from old savings bonds, uncashed checks, checking and savings accounts, the list goes on and on. Click on to http://www.cashunclaimed.com for your free search and see how much money is owed to you and your family.

Offside Rule - Usually, soccer rules are easy to grasp even by someone that's watching the game for the first time in his life. You foul someone, you get penalized. You hit him in the box, his team gets a penalty. The ball goes beyond the marked area, it's an out throw. Everything is really basic, except the soccer offside rules. This is one tricky rule and although it's not in the original soccer cookbook (as in, it was added over the course of time) it's a much needed one, so that's why I'll try to explain it a bit.

The offside trap rule only applies to attackers and it is meant to regulate both team's positions on the pitch. Without an offside rule, an attacker could simply stay in the other team's penalty box, receive balls and try to score. This would pin down the defenders and they would virtually be unable to play anywhere else outside their own penalty box, since their main job would be marking the striker that is lazying off in there.

It's also a known fact that attackers generally don't have the same effort requirements on the pitch, since they only need to participate in one phase of the game (the offense), unlike defenders and midfielders who have to participate in both the offense and defense, thus having to run more. So now that you know WHY the soccer offside rule is there, let's see WHAT it is anyway.

There are two phases of the offside soccer rule: the offside position and the offside trap sanction. If an attacker is in an offside position, he will only be sanctioned if the ball is heading towards him and he has an intention to play it. Otherwise, if he skips the game, he will not be called, despite having a clear offside position.

An attacker is in an offside position if he is closer to the other team's goal line than the ball and the second last opponent. You'll often hear people say "he was in offside, because he was further towards the goal than the LAST defender". This is actually not a correct statement, since this doesn't take the goalkeeper into account, so the LAST defender is actually the second last, as the above mentioned offside rule shows.

So let's say that team "Yellow" is attacking and "Red" is defending. The ball is at the feet of Yellow's midfielder and the Yellow attacker is a few meters further to the Red team's goal line, than the last Red defender. Then the Yellow attacker is in an offside position, but the referee will only call an offside sanction if the Yellow midfielder passes the ball to the Yellow attacker while the latter is in the offside position.

If you're new to soccer, the offside rule might need a bit of getting used to, but you'll soon be able to spot exactly how and why someone was called offside if you watch a few matches. Note that sometimes, the position of the attacker and the other team's defender are so close together, that the referee will have hard time deciding whether or not an offside should be called.

Niv Orlian is the author and the owner of http://www.soccer-fans-info.com a website that provides information on various topics related to soccer such as the history of soccer, rules, famous soccer players, real time news, statistics, and training guides.

I have to admit it. I think its cute when my dog whines. Even adorable. Thats because she whines for only two reasons: 1) When she sees a dog friend she really likes and she wants to be allowed to greet them and play; and 2) when she sees a human friend she really likes and she wants to be allowed to greet them and play. This prelude to play is music to my ears, since I know its a short - and by all measures, sweet - song that she sings. Of course, not all dog owners have reason to feel the same.

Dogs can whine for many reasons, and dealing with this habit is almost always a matter of reading the signs right.

Pain

This cause is the least common but also the most important one to rule out first. A dog whose whining comes on suddenly and is fairly steady afterward is possibly reacting to pain. Even puppies can have severe growing pains or genetic conditions that cause great discomfort, so you should not rule out this reason for puppies.

Usually, you can palpate areas of the dogs body, paying close attention to legs and the tail. To check for arthritis, which often develops first in the rear hips, you can try this:

1. stand over your dog with your legs on either side of theyre torso, with the head facing behind you.

2. Gently lift their hindquarters up with one arm, and then lift each leg up and out behind them with the other.

3. You should then be able to release the hand that is supporting their body, and in effect, suspend them by one extended leg at a time. A pain free dog will be able to flex this leg comfortably, even with all their back weight on it. Any hip pain, they will jerk away and youll hear it from them.

Check their ears (a painful ear infection will also bring lots of scratching or head shakes, and a discoloration and / or odor of the ear membrane). Check their mouth. Tooth problems can not only cause pain, but an over-dry mouth can be an indication of extreme discomfort or even fear. In all cases, if you think your dog is whining from pain, but cant find the source, take a trip to the vet.

Fear

Fear can itself be another cause for whining. Often this behavior is short-lived and the stimulus is likely to be fairly easy to recognize. One tip is simply not to encourage the fearful behavior but emphatically comforting your dog when the fear is not warranted. In other words, if you comfort and soothe them in response to a thunderstorm, this will send the message that the thunder is in fact putting them in some danger and they SHOULD be afraid of. Instead, you should act like its no big deal, perhaps even distract your dog with play. Of course, if you happen to be afraid of thunderstorms as well, then youre out of luck on this one.

Boredom or Loneliness

Two further common causes of whining are boredom and loneliness. They are treated separately simply because boredom whining is what a dog does when youre there and loneliness whining is what they do when youre away. The first means that you probably are not giving your dog as much exercise as they really need, even though you think it gets out as much as a dog should or as much as you can possibly let it. Enough said.

With lonely whining dogs, youll have to do your best to spend more quality time with them, get them more tired out when you do, and consider the possibility that you may have a full-blown case of separation anxiety on your hands. This will require extra patience and training, and there are plenty of detailed training programs available to address this.

Until then, enjoy the music.

Martin Olliver is a proud member of the Kingdom of Pets team (http://www.kingdomofpets.com/). For more great articles on problems with whining and barking dogs, visit: http://kingdomofpets.com/dogobediencetraining/articles/whining_dog.php