Today’s guest post is from the team at CouponSherpa.com.

A sweet coupon is tough to resist, but offers that appear too good to be true can be fraudulent. Coupons are easy to find and have become so popular that scammers regularly reared their ugly heads with sophisticated cons. With a little experience and the following nine tips, you can spot these con artists and avoid being taken for a ride.

If you have kids or someone in your life who will need to be supported in the event of your untimely demise, you should have some life insurance. But how much is enough, and how can you make sure you’re getting the right rate? Here are some important facets that I recently had to consider.

When my husband and I had our first child, we went to talk to a life-insurance agent. Our agent suggested that term-life insurance would be the most affordable option for us. We were new parents, and therefore paranoid, so we covered my husband for $600,000 and me for $500,000. This would be enough to support us in a manner in which the survivor would like to become accustomed, while also saving enough for Babykins to head to an Ivy-League school in 2018. Good plan.

According to TowerGroup, the gift card industry was worth $87 billion in 2009 alone. However, 6 percent of this huge figure – nearly $5 billion – was wasted due to gift cards that went unused. To help consumers take advantage of this five-billion-dollar untapped resource, CardHub.com is pleased to announce the launch of the Social Gift Card Exchange. This is the first gift card marketplace to cut out the middleman and provide a trustworthy environment for direct user-to-user interaction.

Card Hub brings a new level of innovation to the industry with its Social Gift Card Exchange that not only includes the primary functionality of other gift card depots, but also provides a platform for users to trade their gift cards directly with their friends, neighbors, colleagues, and trusted companies.

So, April 15 is right around the corner, and with it, the dreaded looming day to pay Uncle Sam. If you earned too much money last year and are looking for some ways to trim your tax bill now, as well as next year, look no further.

If you need a break now and have a few extra thousand dollars kicking around, now is a great time to invest that spare cash in a traditional IRA. Make a regular (NOT a rollover) contribution and see how it reduces your adjusted gross income. This will lower your tax bill across the board, though the maximum deduction is dependent upon your modified adjusted gross income total and also your filing status and cohabitation situation (where applicable).

Back in August of 2009, Yian Mui of the Washington Post reported that “sales of bottled water have fallen for the first time in at least five years.” Its meteoric rise to popularity was astonishing: sales of bottled water “swelled 59 percent to $5.1 billion between 2003 to 2008, making it one of the fastest growing beverages.”

So, economically, if you owned shares in a company that sold bottled water, you probably received a tidy return on your investment.

I pay my bills on time, have a cushion in my savings account, and don’t spend-and-burn. I’ve also worked with Card Hub since the beginning of time. So, I can honestly tell you I know that secured credit cards can be a super way to build or repair your credit history, and that I never imagined having one in my wallet, given that I have excellent credit.

This goes to show that one should never say “never.” Citibank has a cute little offer going, one that rewards account holders with a 4.07% annual rate of return, and rewards itself with a new base of no-risk credit card holders.

Given the recent economic upheavals, as well as the unprecedented manner by which the government is handling these dilemmas, a lot of people are worried about what inflation will do to our savings and investments.  One option that investors have to safeguard against inflation is to put money into Treasure Inflation-Protected Securities or TIPS.

Basically, the principal investment for TIPS is adjusted by the Consumer Price Index (measures inflation) + A Fixed Yield that is unique for each TIPS (recently it has been around 2%).  This means that your investment primarily rises or falls along with inflation.   To use a simplified example, if you put in $100 in a TIPS that has a 2% ‘Fixed Yield’ and the nation goes through 5% of inflation in a year, then the value of the TIPS will raise from $100 to $105 over that year (as a result of the 5% inflation)+ 2% of $105 to a total value of  $107.1. 

I recently found a great high-yield savings account. United Federal Credit Union has introduced a 6.01% APY Interest Plus Checking account on balances up to $25,000 for qualifying members. The rate is guaranteed “until at least 2010,” and the account also includes “free ATMs nationwide.”

Unfortunately, I don’t qualify for this credit union. I can’t become a member based on this list, nobody in my family is a member, and I don’t do business in their geographic area on a regular basis.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, aka FDIC, has voted to bar shaky banks from hiking up interest rates to attract more customer money. This change is known as Section 29 and will go into effect on  January 1, 2010. Section 29 says that banks that are struggling to stay in business will only be able to offer interest rates with a top limit of 75 basis points above the national rate.  The national rate is an average of all rates paid by reporting banks.

As a result, you will be getting the best interest rates from well-capitalized banks and we should expect around 3 percent of banks to be affected by Section 29. Some higher-yield banks, such as  Ally, the institution formerly known as GMAC Bank, which has been advertising all over the place and boasts of high capitalization, will likely be able to continue offering high interest rates to its depositors.

Looking for some free money? Ask and you shall receive! Wainwright Bank (of Boston, MA) is offering a free $200 savings bond to new customers who open a Value Checking account with Direct Deposit. You do not have to be a Massachusetts resident to apply, and you can complete your application online.

The skinny: You only need ten dollars for an opening minimum balance, but Wainwright bank requires that you have a $500 minimum balance to avoid a $6 monthly service charge. If you link your account to Direct Deposit, though, the account is “free with no minimum balance required and unlimited check writing.”

Let’s face it: one of the things that we’ve learned from the current economic crisis is that the U.S. government isn’t going to allow any significant number of depositors to lose their money when a bank fails (which we completely agree it is the right and smart thing to do).  If this is the practice, then, wouldn’t it be better to make this the official policy?

If the government is already unofficially insuring savings accounts, regardless of size, they would do well to turn this practice into public policy, and let Americans and the rest of the world know that, no matter the size of their savings account, their money will be safe in a U.S. bank.