What's weird is that she feels like she has to earnestly reassure the viewer that these cheapo products work perfectly fine despite having such shockingly low prices as $23 for a 1.7-ounce bottle of anti-aging cream. I know! How can they afford to sell you that at those prices? It's crazy!

If you really wanted to save money, you know that there's actual supermarket/drugstore-branded versions of Oil of Olay and other brand-name products, right? They're like right there on the shelf next to every brand-name product with a little tag that says "compare to (name of brand-name product they are knocking off)."

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There's literally a CVS copy placed right next to every brand-name product.

This might have occurred to someone as a money-saving tip if they had ever been shopping inside a drugstore instead of apparently getting excited about the concept of doing so for the first time.

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"I wonder if this is where they sell the crack!"

Other necessities MSN suggests you can save money on include your art collection (rent your art from a museum) and designer handbags (there are websites that rent them!). If you were ever in such dire straits that you were concerned you wouldn't be able to maintain your art collection or would have to choose your designer handbags from the mere 150 kinds they have at Ross at any given time, now you don't have to worry!

Meanwhile, Martha Stewart makes the bold suggestion that your family may even be able to do without your wine refrigerator, if you just store your wines in your cellar!

Now even if you've racked your brains trying to figure out how to cut costs here and there, there's probably a couple of tricky little things you haven't thought of, like buying things on sale.

That tip goes on to suggest that maybe you could go shopping on Black Friday, because apparently -- and I think I'm following correctly here -- there are a lot of big sales on that day. Did you know that? I bet you didn't. Too bad the news never covers it. Kind of weird, seems like it would be a pretty big event!

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Surely someone must have covered it somewhere.

Another strangely common tip is to skip Starbucks and make your coffee at home, because -- I'm going to need your full attention here, this is complex -- making coffee at home is cheaper than paying someone else to make it. I know that's a difficult concept to get your head around, which is why they lay out a bunch of calculations (and even source them) to convince you of this unbelievable fact.

Because that's why people get coffee at Starbucks -- they're unaware that it costs more to get coffee there than to make it themselves. It's not because, I don't know, they don't have time, or because they want some sort of cappuccino/frappuccino or other weird product of coffee science, or because they want to try a different flavor every day but don't want a kitchen full of Torani syrup bottles that they only use once, or because they are very lazy (guilty).

Even weirder suggestions include "Don't get sick." I don't even think that was originally supposed to be a tip, it was just supposed to be a "Here's some things you might not know about your sick leave policy" article. But for some reason they decided they wanted to sexy it up by making it sound like a money-saving tip, and the only logical one you could extrapolate would be "Don't get sick." Perhaps they're suggesting that people commonly pretend to be sick a lot, and they can save money by doing that less, but if not, not getting sick is pretty much the only thing you could actually do to act on this information.

And finally, do you have a drug addiction? Did you know that it's costing you a lot of money? If you just made a small change to your life and gave up drugs, you could have enough money left over at the end of the month to buy yourself a little treat, like a frozen yogurt. Or a car. I don't know how much you are spending on drugs.

The Simple Dollar

I mean seriously, that was sandwiched between a tip to eat less fast food and a suggestion to make large batches of casseroles. "Also, kick heroin!" You could take all that money you make selling your body on the street and put it in a 401(k). And if you're doing very well on the street, a self-employment 401(k) actually lets you put quite a bit more away than a regular 401(k) plan! Now that's a tip!

Supposing you find one that actually costs less than buying a new calendar, you still have to pay shipping charges. If you get free shipping or whatever, fine, you've saved $5 off of buying a new calendar. Is $5 off the yearly budget an incredible burden lifted off the shoulders of most American households? I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

However, if calendar costs are driving you to the poorhouse for some reason, did you know that you can get free calendars from Chinese restaurants, dentists, real estate agents and even your own printer? Technology these days is amazing.

Unfortunately, very few people have gelatin just lying around their houses, and apparently not a lot of supermarkets here have plain gelatin lying on their shelves, either, so unless I want to give myself a strawberry Jell-O facial (I can't imagine the sugar and red dye #9 are good for skin), this "money-saving" tip is going to cost me a lot of driving around and wasted time.

Other people suggest making your own beer and wine. I've had other people's homemade beer and wine, and it tastes fucking awful. Sure, some talented individuals make good homebrew, but odds are it is not going to be you. If you just want to produce alcohol in order to get drunk, I guess this works, though.

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Like, I guess if you learn how to make your own toilet wine, you can save a lot of cigs.

Still others suggest making your own clothes, which, again, works for people who are good at making clothes. That blogger suggests that making a sleeveless top takes "about one hour," which means it would take me like five hours, and that they save the $40 they would have spent on a similar top at the store, which means that "the store" is probably Nordstrom's.

Did you know you can save a lot on a top already by not shopping at Nordstrom's? Maybe go to Target or Walmart or Old Navy? Or if you must have a brand name, Ross or T.J. Maxx? I can probably get a sleeveless top from Old Navy for $10, so I think I can find better things to do with an afternoon than earn $10, like earn a lot more than that at my job.

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I work for an organization that teaches cats to read.

Something else you can make yourself is hair extensions, which require nothing more than wig clips, a needle and thread, and packages of "wefted human hair." I don't even know what wefted human hair is, but I have a feeling that it is going to be even harder to get than gelatin.

You know when underprivileged youth come to your door selling magazine subscriptions because it's the only thing keeping them off the streets? If they've never tried to sell you magazines, at least they've tried to sell them to the main characters of Office Space, so you can watch that.

Or maybe you've registered for something on the Internet, and when you're done they offer you a "thank you gift" in the form of free magazine subscriptions that you have to start paying for in three months.

Well, one Oprah.com reader knows exactly how much delight magazine subscriptions bring everyone and is going to force them on all her friends for Christmas.

Sure, some people might actually be happy to get Better Homes & Gardens for a year or whatever, but a lot of people avoid magazine offers like the plague and hate the thought of yet more mail clutter they have to sort for the recycling bin, not to mention having their address sold to mailing lists that want to advertise to people who like whatever the magazine is about.

Apparently unused magazine subscriptions is a big enough problem that it prompted this other list to give this tip:

The Simple Dollar

There is kind of a weird synergy between the two tips, where you could keep getting magazine subscriptions from the one person and keep canceling them per this tip. It's almost a sort of circle of life.

There's a similar kind of tip when they suggest making something for yourself that hardly anyone wants, like if your white clothes get stained, make them into tie-dyed clothes. Honestly, if I had to choose between the two, I would rather just wear the stained clothes.