Now, if you fit into the 'other' category and you don't think you have an easily recognizable talent I think you might find this less of a challenge than you thought. I'm going to suggest making coupons for your friends. Gifts really should say something about them - not about you. So, the fact that you might be talent-less is immaterial. Your friends or relatives may need something and you may be able to meet that need. Your job is to figure out how to do this.

Take the next couple of weeks and months to watch or listen or carefully read their emails to see what they most need. Does an elderly friend need someone to take them to the mall once a week? If so, is it something you could do occasionally? Do you have a young mom on your block who needs a few minutes a week to walk to the school to pick up her older child during the younger child's naptime? If so, could you spend 20 minutes holding down the fort?

Maybe you can't take care of everyone forever, but you can help out occasionally. Make up some coupons. Mother's Helper Once a Month. Trip to the Mall. And my personal favorite, Date Night Babysitter. There is no greater gift to someone in need than meeting their need without them having to ask. People will be more touched that you recognized the real need in their lives than if you gave them another blue sweater with cats on it like Aunt Mary. I promise you and it's the best Cool Idea I know of.

If you have more time than money let's start planning!! I hope you have your list of ideas from yesterday. If not, go get it ....

Good. For those of you with easily recognizable talents like knitting, crochet or cooking and baking, I'm not going to do a lot of steering. I'll mostly be guiding because individual skill levels will dictate more of what you will do than anything else. I will caution you to cut your plan in half. Why? Because you don't want to end up with half an afghan on Christmas Eve! So, think hats, washcloths, dishtowels and other small items that can be finished quickly.

So, for knitter/ crocheters or other handworkers [quilters, tatters, etc.] - your local craft store will have some excellent guide books. So will your library. I've browsed through the One Skein Wonders book a couple of times and remember bookmarking a couple of items. Now I wish I could remember what they were:) Also, if you are a remember of Ravelry there are some wonderful ideas. Whether you want to make something with a holiday focus or just something that can be done in a short time frame this is a great resource. My local yarn store has a great blog and although I can't afford to buy yarn there all the time they are a great resource and I love them dearly.

If you cook or bake you might just be in the planning stages at this time of the year unless what you make freezes well. If so, then you can probably go ahead and get started, too. I mostly use family recipes as resources but there are some great online sources as well - Kraft, Food Network, All Recipes, etc.

So, start planning and get your fingers moving. I have 5 skeins of yarn I got at the craft store on sale that I think will knit up some quick scarves if I do them on large needles. Then in November I'll start baking cookies and making fudge [I don't have the freezer space to start this early] and I'll also be making some Cookies in a Jar gifts this year, too. Personally, I love to give handmade gifts to friends at the holidays. I like to think a little bit of me goes to each and every one of my friends.

Join us tomorrow for more of the the Christmas in July discussion when we look at what seemingly talent-less people can do to help their friends and relatives during the holidays.

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This morning we enjoyed seeing The Clone Wars at Regal Cinema this morning as part of the Free Family Movie Festival. Comfort's favorite character is Master Soda. Yep, you read that right. LOL.

Join me back here tomorrow when we'll continue the Christmas in July series. See you then.

Talking about talents in July might bring back horrible memories of end of summer camp talent shows but I assure you I have nothing like that in mind. We've spent the previous week looking at raising money for holiday shopping but I'd like to believe that money isn't the only thing we have to give our friends and relatives. We each have something unique about us. Something that can translate into a gift.

Today sit and brainstorm what your gift might be. For some it might be easy. If you are the 'one' in your family that everyone wants brownies from then you can make brownies. But maybe you secretly want to move away from brownies and into fudge or knitting. Or maybe you don't have an easily recognizable talent. Perhaps your talent is that you are incredibly patient. Or maybe you don't think you have a talent but you have every other Tuesday off of work.

Sit and doodle some ideas because the rest of this series is going to focus on how we can utilize our talents, and some time and planning, to make gifts for our friends and family. See you back here tomorrow for some more awesome and definitely Cool Ideas!

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And keeping with the Christmas in July series these really would make great gifts to people that you know well. If you know their habits and likes or even their travels grab some Restaurant.com certificates and give them a treat.

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For the last day of this part of the Christmas in July series in which we are looking at ways in which to make out-right cash in preparation for the holidays we'll be looking at traditional ways to bring in cash.

If you've been listening to the news or the radio at all you've probably heard or seen a piece on 'How to spiff up your Yard Sale'. Last week while I was traveling I saw the the Today show for the first time in F-o-r-e-v-e-r and they had competition between two families to decide the best way to handle a yard sale. I didn't find that piece in their archives but here is another with some great tips.

This can work well depending on the type of stuff you have to sell and the area in which you live. Remember though that there are other options. For children's clothes there are great resale stores in most areas. Books can also find homes in second-hand stores. But what about other, harder to place items? Or maybe you live in a more remote area or you have difficulty getting around?

Then let the internet work for you. EBay and Craigslist are modern-age forms of the yard sale except that they are not limited by time or geography. If you have never sold anything in these venues before you might want to just dip your toe in the water and try it once to learn the ins and outs of the process. Make sure that you take the necessary precautions in regards to communications, information transfers, and money exchange, etc.

And there you go. Today is now just over a little less than six months until Christmas so let's start pacing ourselves for the planning that this will entail. I truly think that if we are careful to plan ahead then the meaning of the holidays will continue to shine through for each of us - no matter what form th holiday takes for you.

I know that I've posted about Swagbucks before. In fact, there's a link in my 'Stickies' section so that the post is always at our fingertips because Swagbucks is an awesome way to search your way to cash and prizes.

How? Just use Swagbucks the way you would Google or Yahoo search engines. It's powered by the same engines as Ask.com and gives great results except that also randomly gives out Swagbucks!

There are also Swag Codes for additional Bucks. These also come out randomly. Sometimes you see them on the homepage or on the Swag Blog or on the Facebook page or on someone else's blog. But the best way to get additional Swagbucks is my referring other people. It's as simple as that.

So, what can I use my swagbucks for? Almost everything under the sun! I've traded mine in for Amazon e-certificates but now they do Paypal, too. It takes 80 swagbucks for $5 into Paypal vs. 45 Swagbucks toward Amazon but if what you are after is cash then this is worth it and if you are doing internet searches anyway you'll rack up the Swagbucks quickly enough.

The Swag People make it fairly easy. You can download a Swagbucks search toolbar if you use IE and there's a drop down box for the Firefox search area. Whew!! How easy. It's right there at your fingertips. So go and get started and to make it even easier click on the gigantic Swagbucks banner in the righthand sidebar and it'll magically take you to the land of the Swagbucks. Now go and get started and begin learning things so that you can pick up more Swagbucks!! It's a Cool Idea!

My biggest money maker- by far - is not one that I can fully share with you. I wish I could. But I can share with you how I got there. I started signing up for some survey companies this time last year with the hope of making some extra money for the holidays after reading a post on Deal Seeking Mom. I took surveys on Survey Spot mostly. If you've been on Survey Spot you'll have noticed that most don't actually pay any money. Somewhere in there though I took a survey that got me an invitation to a private online community.

Huh! What is this? I don't think I can tell you what company it's for and I'm not going to jeopardize the deal by getting close but I can tell you that I've seen surveys for similar communities run by Wal-mart, Fidelity Investments, etc.

So, what does this mean? Product communities like to get feedback about new ideas and shopper habits before products 'go live' and in exchange for your honest and private feedback you receive compensation. Most of these communities pay in Amazon certificates. What you owe them is 5-15 mins of work every week in exchange for whatever amount they choose to offer.

So when you are filling out surveys sometimes it 'pays' to fill one out even if it doesn't pay in cash. I always fill ones out that say 'Moms' or 'Women: We need your help'. You never know when one of these surveys is going to turn into an invitation for something wonderful and helfpul to long-term and this is such a Cool Idea!!

Another short hiatus in the Chistmas in July series so that I can bring you this important information:

It's almost that time again! I love getting ready to get new school supplies and can't wait for the list to come out each year. If you are in this category - or even if you are on the other end of the spectrum - try this sweepstakes from Nestle where you can enter daily to win $5000 for back to school essentials, a $2000 Literacy Grant for your school and a Mead messenger bag full of Five-Star brand school supplies. Check it out and enter every day.

Also, Box Tops for Education has begun their Better Back to School Sweepstakes and they are giving away 5000 to 12 winners. Enter every day until October 4th. Not a bad way for your school to start out the year if you win!

I've have posted before about my various Mystery Shopping adventures. One great way to pickup some wonderful gifts for people during the holidays is to combine this with Mystery Shopping.

Last year my Mother-in-law got a lovely jar of lemon curd from Williams-Sonoma and my mom got a fantastic jar of gourmet salsa and my best friend got a great paring knife. These items were purchased as part of my Mystery Shop. Sinclair Consumer Metrics was my first Mystery Shop company and in my area they also do shops for Pottery Barn, PB Kids, West Elm, etc.

These shops are popular, as you can imagine, so if you decide to signup you'll need to keep an eye on the schedule and sign up quickly once new shops open up. But I can say that these shops make great ideas for gift giving/ stocking up because they are for stores that people may consider to be 'treats' for themselves and that means that even finding some small treat can be special for them.

Another company that I have yet to get on the schedule for because of it's popularity is one that schedules the shops for Plow and Hearth gardening stores. I've also seen shops pop up for Brookstone. Right now I'm seeing a lot of Fashion Sunglasses shop requests. Mostly you won't know what stores the company 'shops' until you sign up unless you know someone who already works for them but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It might be something you kow you'll need or turn out to be a place you can pick up the perfect gift for someone you know.

So, start early and stock up on your gifts. Work the schedule well but make sure that you fulfill on the shops that you take. Mystery shopping for your holiday gifts is definitely a Cool Idea and one that we can all take advantage of!