I recently drove my daughter to the University of Washington for her freshman year. Everything seemed to be in order—she had a new account with Wells Fargo, she had a new phone, her books, and a cozy room to share with someone who seemed sane enough. I drove home no more concerned for my daughter than I naturally should be.

Two days later, though, she called in near hysteria. Apparently, she had spilled coffee on her laptop, and hadn’t been able to revive it. When I said I’d buy her a replacement, she asked if she could also get a tablet of some sort, and said that most of her friends could accomplish more on both a social and academic level with said gadgets. For the time being, I’m replacing just the computer. Then I’ll gift her with a tablet for Christmas…but which one?

As someone who takes pride in being frugal, my gut response is to buy her an older, still well functioning Kindle Keyboard. I could solve her technological problems with just a single Ben Franklin. But not so fast: if she wanted an ad-free model that provided Wi-Fi service, we’re looking at steeper prices (somewhere between $169 and $189). That’s nearing the Kindle Fire price range. If the Fire or iPad2 can provide her with more tools for academic success, as well as for social connectivity (hey, I want my daughter to be happy, too), then maybe it is worth checking out. After all, “frugal” doesn’t just mean “cheap.” It means “cost-effective” and “resourceful.”

The new Kindle Fire is dazzling for the eye that’s accustomed to the austere, black-and-white mode of the original. It operates using the Amazon Silk browser, which means the server can process demands on both a local level, and also on the Elastic Compute Cloud. If you want to free up some space by keeping a minimal amount of books on your Kindle, you can store the rest of your data in the Cloud. However, the internal memory of the Kindle Fire weighs in at a mere 8GB, and only 6GB are usable. There is no expansion slot to help remedy this.

The iPad2, on the other hand, comes with 16GB of internal memory, with variants of 32 and 64GB should you want the upgrade. This device also operates on a cloud system called—predictably—iCloud. This is a very important factor to my daughter, who’ll be saving a lot of information on the tablet, including movies (she’s a film studies major).

There are iPads capable of operating on a 4G service, but those are much more expensive, and some compromises need to be made if I’m going to spend more money. The iPad2 is a tad heavier, but it’s also a bit sleeker. Also, she’ll want to have a working camera on her tablet, which is a feature you won’t find on the Kindle Fire. I, for one, would forego the extra expense for this, but I must keep in mind that this is an investment for my daughter, not for me. And so being frugal isn’t just about what’s cost-effective, but also about what’s durable, lasting, and appropriate for her. By the way: the iPad2’s camera? It’s capable of 720p HD video.

It’s true that the iPad2 starts at $499.99, which makes it $300 more expensive than the Kindle Fire. And it’s true that I’d leap on a Kindle model were this a purchase for myself. But the iPad2 seems more flexible, more dynamic, and more likely to thrill my daughter at Christmas. I’m all for saving money now, but I get the feeling that the Amazon Kindle ‘s cheaper price is more an apology than a bargain, and that my investment will save me more in the long run. The iPad2, therefore, is the smartest and the most cost-effective choice, the buying it will allow me to maintain a sense of frugality. Besides, as an informed consumer, I understand that time, alone, will reduce the hit on my wallet—the holidays bring deals every year, making patience as much a virtue as frugality is.

For the latest coupons and promotional deals from Amazon, check out the Frugal Dad Amazon Coupons page.

The app market has exploded in recent months—there are currently over 350,000 apps available on the apple.com website alone—and more are being added constantly. Many of these apps are designed to help thrifty consumers save money. There are apps to help you cut costs, track spending, maximize efficiency, and even avoid budget-busting pitfalls.

It’s now positively cool to pinch pennies using a slew of apps that can help you throughout the day: on your commute, while preparing meals, at the grocery store, even during happy hour. Here are a few money-saving apps to help you squeeze the most out of your monthly budget and look cool doing it:

1. Dinner Spinner – This iPhone app from the popular cooking site allrecipes.com allows you to enter an ingredient and see a list of recipes using that item. It can be a great source of inspiration when you are trying to whittle down the pantry supplies, or are stumped for what to do with an eggplant. Price: Free. (A pro version with enhanced features is available for $2.99.)

2. BigOven – Similar to Dinner Spinner, this cooking app has a deep recipe database and a special function to help you use up leftovers creatively. Available on iPhone and Android. Price: Free.

3. Groupon – Groupon’s subscribers leverage the power of collective purchasing by signing up for daily deals in select cities. If the minimum number of purchasers signs up, then the coupon is activated and users receive a deep discount on a product, event or service. Available on iPhone and Android. Price: Free.

4. Carticipate – This carpooling app puts riders and drivers together to unclog the roads, take advantage of rideshare lanes, and reduce pollution. Go green and meet like-minded people in your area, all while lowering your monthly gas bill. For iPhone. Price: Free.

5. CheckPlease – Much more than a tip calculator, this app also helps you divide up restaurant bills among multiple diners, switch to different currencies, and even skip tipping on sales tax. Helpful if you have friends whose math-impairment leaves you with an unfair share of the bill at times. Available for iPhone and Android. Price $0.99.

6. Cobra iRadar– All of your scrimping and budgeting for the month can be blown away by one hefty traffic fine. The award-winning Cobra iRadar app for iPhone alerts drivers to red-light cameras and speed traps, as well as dangerous intersections. Bugs in earlier versions have been largely resolved. An Android version will be available in early 2011. Price: Free.

7. Skype — Skype is a great resource for making free calls either computer to computer or device to device over WiFi or 3G. Skype is especially useful for avoiding steep international phone charges. Calls and text messaging to land lines are charged at reasonable prices. Available on Android and iPhone. Price: Free.

8. Mixology – The free app Mixology Drink Recipes lets you be your own bartender. Look up a few cool recipes (the “Guilty OJ” sounds pretty interesting), invite some friends over, and have happy hour at home instead of going out and paying for overpriced cocktails after work. With nearly 8,000 drink recipes, this little app should keep you entertained for quite a while. Available on Android and iPhone. Price: Free.

9. Coupon Sherpa – This coupon app allows you to take advantage of in-store merchant discounts without the hassle of clipping or printing out coupons. The location-based software uses your phone’s GPS to identify coupons for stores in your vicinity. To redeem, the cashier scans a bar code from your device or enters a numeric code. You can also customize the display to highlight your favorite merchants and filter out the duds. Special coupons for app users are available as well. Available on Android and iPhone. Price: Free.

10. GroceryIQ – Shopping from a list helps keep your grocery store bill under control by eliminating impulse purchases. The shopping list app Grocery iQ takes the shopping list to a new level of usefulness. This app helps you get in and out of the store in an efficient manner by organizing your list by aisle, and also lets you scan and record favorite items for future reference. Coupons, sorted by aisle or brand, help you trim costs, and a new feature allows you to synchronize shared lists with multiple users so you and hubby don’t come home with redundant purchases. Available on Android and iPhone. Price: Free.

11. Mint – No money-saving app list would be complete without Mint.com. Mint is an on-the-go personal finance app that gives users a detailed financial picture across multiple accounts. Categorized budgeting info gives you an up-to-the minute spending picture for the month, so it’s easier to keep your finances on track. Available on Android and iPhone. Price: Free.

12. GasBuddy – Another simple, but popular app, GasBuddy, lists fuel prices based on the user’s location. Powered by a community of users who input data on local gas prices, this app will save you money at the pump (as long as you don’t drive across town for a one-penny-per-gallon discount). For iPhone and Android. Price: Free.

Since there are a few hundred thousand apps out there that I didn’t mention, there are probably many more that could be added to this list. If you have any favorite frugal apps, please share them!

This post is contributing author Laurel Gray.

These days, we need to pinch pennies everywhere we can.  And, because we’ve all had to get creative about where and how we work, your family’s home computer may be more important now than ever before.  If you are working from home, or just want to load up your computer with great software, you can do it for very little.

Gone are the days when you had to head off to buy expensive boxed software at your local computer store.  Now you can simply download what you need and some of it is free of charge.  That’s right.  If you haven’t investigated, there is tons of high-functionality software out there to do just about anything.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Productivity Suite. If you think Microsoft’s Office Suite is not in your budget, why not check out OpenOffice.org from Sun? This community-developed suite offers all the same applications for FREE to anyone who wants to download them. You’ll save hundreds!

• Photo Editing. Photoshop is great and all but it is insanely expensive and has a steep learning curve. Check out GIMP for Windows. It’s a great replacement and will cost you nothing.

• Virus Protection. AVG Anti-virus. This software is highly-rated and notable for how well it protects your computer. It is not stripped-down and offers regular patches and updates, just like the expensive versions.

• Time Tracking/Billing. Working from home gets tedious when it comes to bookkeeping. If you have clients and need to provide invoices for your work, FreshBooks is a fabulous QuickBooks killer. It is very user friendly (something QuickBooks is not) and offers much of the same functionality.

• Business tools. Zoho.com provides databases, spreadsheets and word processing with nice functionality and no downloads. It’s all stored online.

You get the idea.  If you ever need software for your computer, check online for free versions before buying anything.  All software is not created equal, so be sure to look for reviews of any software in which you are interested to avoid malware (malicious software) or unscrupulous Internet phishing.

1. The Nintendo Wii. I was way ahead of Nintendo on this one. I’ve been throwing remote controls around my living room for years during college football games. They make a mint off the idea and I’m stuck buying replacement universal remotes twice a season – go figure. My favorite excuse for buying a Wii is to help “kids get exercise.” I know things have changed, but when I was a kid exercise looked more like riding a bike and playing basketball with my friends, not standing in front of a game console.
2. TomTom. I keep a neatly bound collection of maps of various roads I might travel safely stowed under the backseat floor mat. It’s called a road atlas, and it set me back $8.42 at Sam’s Club. No power, subscription, or satellite up-link required. Like I would ever look up directions anyway – don’t you know guys are born with the ability to use celestial navigation to triangulate the position of any convenience store in the country.
3. The iPhone. A $600 cell phone doesn’t seem very frugal, does it? Ok, so it is more than a cell phone, but will it really replace your computer, your mp3 player and your digital camera? Probably not. Use the $600 to upgrade your home computer and you’ll be much more efficient than trying to work on a screen the size of a deck of playing cards. Besides, desktops aren’t as likely to shatter when they fall out of your pocket.
4. Voice Activated Car Stereos. Let me get this straight – I yell out the name of a song or artist and my stereo system plays it for me automatically? I could see this being a problem in my world. “Honey, I wish you were here with me – it’s a beautiful day?” Suddenly the lyrics from U2 start buzzing through the speakers. I think I’ll stick with my old-fashioned radio. It pretty much ignores everything I say, and never follows any of my instructions. It’s almost like having the kids right there in the car with me.
5. Ipods, Nanos, and their “shuffling” cousins. There are a ton of mp3 players on the market that do basically the same thing as the iPod. This is a case of people paying for a brand name. Sure, my $19.95 mp3 player from Amazon.com probably doesn’t have a digital LED readout, a shuffle feature, or a hot pink faceplate kit, but it serves up my couple dozen favorite songs reliably enough.
6. Plasma televisions. Sometimes I think I must be the last guy alive who doesn’t own a plasma television, especially after Super Bowl weekend. Now, I am not completely immune to the normal technology desires of the average American male. I’ve stood in front of my share of plasma screens on display marveling at the video quality, and picturing that 60″ behemoth hanging on my living room wall. However, I just can’t bring myself to pay for something that is three times the value of my car. Besides, with our cable cut down to basic offerings there isn’t much left worth watching. “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns look surprisingly good on our old 32″ television.
7. Bluetooth. When these things first hit the market I had not been around them much. I flew out to Denver for a business trip, collected my luggage at the airport and headed for the rental car shuttle. I sat down on the bus with only a few other people and suddenly the woman next to me starts screaming at no one in particular. I really thought the woman was crazy, or on drugs (or both). The guy across the shuttle from us must have been amused by my reaction because he leaned over and said, “She’s on the phone.” For the remainder of our trip around the rental car lot I looked for that phone, but never found it. It wasn’t until she got off the bus that I noticed a glowing blue appendage on her ear. That was my introduction to a “bluetooth” and I swore I would never get one. The only thing more annoying are those 2-way cell phones that sounds like a walkie-talkie. Please, have some courtesy – put the phone up to your ear and have a semi-private conversation with the person on the other end.

Which cool technology gadget do you secretly covet, but refuse to purchase?