I will admit that I returned a few Christmas gifts this year. There's usually a couple in my pile each year that I find aren't quite what I wanted. This year only three things begged to be brought back: Two movies and a shirt.

Free Money Finance has a great guest post about giving generously during hard times. I encourage everyone to read it.

One particular section, however, has elicited a few negative responses.

An article at Yahoo! Finance provides a list of 10 gifts that save money. Some of them are great ideas – like the electric oven (hint, hint, for anyone who is looking to donate to a worthy blogger) – but a few are stretches. Here's my take on the more sketchy "money saving" gifts.

So, I'm going to be in my good friend Speedo's wedding this weekend, and my wife and I haven't yet gotten a wedding gift for the lucky couple. While looking over the registry, I asked my wife how much she thought we should spend.