One on-line stop can help you pinch pennies. It's a website from Lieutenant Governor Barb Lawton, who says it's obvious that residents around Wisconsin are facing tougher economic challenges. “We don't have . . . a lot of time to search and hunt and look for the ways that we can manage better,” said Lawton.
So what can you find on the site? Basically, how and where to save money. Ways “to find the cheapest gas, to look for ways to save money on transportation, or save in your home on energy and insurance and other things. A way to save on health care and prescription drugs and education, all ogranized in one place.”
The new on-line resource serves as an aggregator of helpful state and federal government information, along with links to useful private-sector and news websites. Lawton says the site was inspired by the rise in costs of virtually everything, from gas to groceries to prescription drugs.
(In its June 2008 report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found wages for civilian workers increased just 3.1 percent for the year ended June 2008. Meanwhile, according to AAA's Fuel Gauge Report, the price of regular unleaded gasoline in Wisconsin has increased by 22 percent in one year from $3.054 to $3.726 per gallon. The price of diesel fuel rose 36.6 percent in the same time period from $3.067 to $4.188 per gallon. The Midwest region saw a 5.9 percent increase in the overall price of food in just one year and a 20.5 percent increase in the overall price of household energy according to Bureau of Labor Statistics' July 2008 Consumer Price Index Report.)