Midday: Entertainment

Noon. Convert coins to cash, get a library card, and swap your gift cards.
After a lunch break, get ready to take a walk or a drive. Gather up all your spare change and go to one of the free or cheap change-counting machines that are available in many grocery stores and banks (for a nationwide listing, visit www.theunderstory.com). One tester turned up $143, which she then put into an interest-bearing savings account. While you're out, sign up for a library card. Borrowing hardcover books instead of buying them can save even the casual reader, who buys an average of four hardcover books a year, about $70. Once you're back, hunt down any unused gift cards you have and go to www.swapagift.com. For a $4 listing fee, you can buy, sell, or trade your unused cards for those of merchants you prefer.

Average Annual Savings: Library card, $70. Found money, varies by household. Gift cards, $25 to $50 (assuming you would otherwise have let the cards languish in your desk drawer).

1:30 p.m. Liberate yourself from video- and DVD-rental late fees.
You checked out The Remains of the Day at Blockbuster on a Thursday and plugged it into your DVD player, as planned, on Friday night. But just as Emma Thompson came on the screen, the phone rang...and you never saw the remains of the movie. The next thing you knew, a week had gone by, you'd forgotten all about the movie, and the late fee was more than the cost of a new DVD. If this sounds familiar, don't feel bad; you're in good (if late) company. A recent report by Decisive Analytics, a market-research firm, found that 20 percent of movie renters pay, on average, $7.60 in late fees for every tardy rental. So take three minutes — literally — and sign up at Netflix (www.netflix.com) or Wal-Mart (www.walmart.com; click on "DVD Rentals"). Then take five minutes more to browse through their listings and create a rental queue. For $19 to $20 a month (the cost of renting four new releases at Blockbuster), you can rent as many DVDs as you want, keeping three out at a time for as long as you want. When you return one, the company will send you the next one from your queue. Each movie arrives in a prepaid envelope, which you reuse to return the DVD. And you'll never pay a late fee again.

Average Annual Savings: Depending on your lateness record, up to $280 a year (based on rental costs and late fees for the average of 60 rentals a year, with half of those returned late).

1:45 p.m. Analyze your attendance at the gym, the theater, and art museums.
Let's face it: Sometimes your ambitions don't mesh with reality. You buy a pricey membership, then hardly use it. Take the gym. In a three-year study, economists at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University combed through 8,000 gym-membership records in the Boston area and found that about 80 percent of the members with a monthly contract were paying significantly more than they would have if they had gone on a pay-per-use basis. That's because the members had overestimated their gym usage and went fewer than five times a month, on average — far less than they had initially projected. The result: An average user paid $17 per workout, even when a $10 pay-per-use option existed. And that added up. Members were losing on average $700 over the life of their monthly or annual gym contracts. One RS tester realized she hadn't been to her local Y in more than a year and was wasting $87 a month ($1,044 a year) in membership fees. She found she could pay $10 a visit and canceled the plan.

Conversely, you may be overpaying for single visits to the local zoo, art museum, or aquarium if you go frequently and don't have a membership. For instance, another RS tester, who lives in Philadelphia, found it would cost her family of four $56 to visit the zoo, plus $7 for parking. But for just $79, her family could buy a membership and enjoy unlimited visits and free parking for a year.

Average Annual Savings: $700.

2:00 p.m. Donate to charity.
Rummage through your closets and bookshelves for clothing and household items you can donate. "Have a two-year rule," suggests Michelle Singletary, a Washington Post columnist and the author of 7 Money Mantras for a Richer Life ($25, www.amazon.com). "If you haven't worn or used it in the last two years, give it away." Even a sum as nominal as $150 worth of goods can reduce your taxes by about $42, if you itemize your deductions and are in the 28 percent tax bracket. (If you're in the 15 percent tax bracket or lower, this may not be worth your trouble. You can find your tax bracket at www.irs.gov; search for "tax rate.") Try to do this at least twice a year, and remember to get a receipt from the charity.

Average Annual Savings: $84 (if you're in the 28 percent bracket and make two $150 donations a year).