As promised, below are the money-saving tips from the Kodak “Print and Prosper” event. They are from Laura Rowley a personal finance expert, Yahoo! Finance Columnist and mother of 3 kids.

LIVING ROOM: MAKE A LIVING FROM YOUR LIVING ROOM
Use your family room to unplug, literally. Vampire drain of electricity in “standby mode” –turned off but still plugged into the wall – drains our wallets $3 billion per year. Plug items into fuse-protected power strips that don’t suck energy from the wall when turned off.

Watch a little closer. Americans pay an average of $60 for cable, but only watch 15 channels, according to the Consumers Union. If you pay for premium cable, call your provider and put the service on “vacation mode.” You’ll still receive basic service but save temporarily on the extras – and get a good sense of whether you miss them. If you don’t, call the cancellation department and say you’re considering eliminating service altogether – this department has the best deals on hand to keep you as a customer.

HOME OFFICE: CREATE A HOME (OFFICE) TO CALL YOUR OWN
Rethink your ink. Equip yourself with items that stretch your dollars like Kodak’s All-in-One Inkjet printers, which can save you up to $110 a year on ink.

Channel your inner freegan. Sign up for free services like Skype that lets you make long distance calls online without spending a penny and faxzero.com, a service that allows you to fax for free by adding an ad coversheet to your faxes.

BATHROOM: DON’T FLUSH MONEY DOWN THE TOILET
Go with the low-flow. Water bills can be cut back 25 to 60 percent by replacing showerheads and faucets with low-flow aerating models for $10 to $20 each. Look for a model that’s 2.5 gallons per minute to save on average $200 per year.

A prescription to save. Only one-third of prescription drugs are mostly covered by insurance, according to a recent Consumer Reports survey. Prices can vary as much as $100 between designer and generic drugs so make sure you ask your physician for a generic equivalent, which can cost up to 40 percent less.

LAUNDRY ROOM: DON’T GET TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS ON YOUR DRY CLEANING
A dirty secret. Households spend an average of $1,500 a year on dry cleaning, and 65 percent of those clothes are washable, according to Proctor and Gamble research. Wool, cashmere, silk, rayon, polyester and spandex can all be laundered, saving America $750 a year.

(For more savings ideas and to calculate getting started, visit www.moneyandhappiness.com and www.printandprosper.com.)

Earlier this month, I attended an event sponsored by Kodak as part of their global ‘Print and Prosper’ campaign to support its line of all-in-one inkjet printers. I’m sure that other printer sellers aren’t too happy with this campaign because it exposes that U.S. consumers have overpaid for high-priced printer ink – in the amount of $5 billion in 2008 alone (?!). As an alternative, Kodak offers cost-effective inkjet printers that use reasonably priced ink. They even have an online calculator which can tell you how much you can save on ink yearly on their Print and Prosper site. (Consumers who print a lot save $110 on average per year on ink by making the switch.)

At the event, Laura Rowley a personal finance expert and mother of 3 kids, also talked about ways that people can save money in every room of their home. (I will be doing a separate post on those tips later this month.) I was also able to meet up with some familiar (and a couple of new) local bloggers:

-Amanda of GoodyBlog
-Amy of Selfish Mom
-Katja of Skimbaco Lifestyle
-Kelcey of Mama Bird Diaries
-Nicole of Momtrends
-Wendy of Babies Gotta Have It

Kodak’s Jenny Cisney was able to capture Laura Rowley and some of the bloggers at the event (including me!) on video…

Here’s the best part…both I and one Mom in the City reader will receive a new ESP 7 Inkjet printer for our families to begin stimulating our own home economies! I already received mines and it’s great. Kodak is already known for its printing excellence and this printer doesn’t fail to deliver. It’s easy to set up and use. If you print out a lot of photos, you’ll especially like that it has a dedicated photo paper tray. My husband was especially excited about the ink savings, because as a teacher, he uses the printer A LOT. Personally, the only thing that I don’t like (since I work from home) is that faxing is not included in this model. (The fax is included in the ESP 9.)

In any event, not only will one lucky Mom in the City reader win the Kodak printer, but also the winner will be entered into a drawing to receive a full scholarship and travel costs to attend the BlogHer conference in Chicago this summer.

To enter this special giveaway, please use the Ink Savings Calculator to tell me how much money you could save in a year by switching to a Kodak printer and what you would do with that extra cash in the “Comments” section below by Friday, April 17th at noon. (The winner will be notified immediately and must respond by Sunday, April 19th at noon to claim their prize.)

FYI: The following sites are also running the contest this week:
* Blissfully Domestic
* Designher Momma
* Rockin’ Mama

(To see other contests & giveaways around the web, visit Contesting Monday or Contest Monday.)