Where's my unclaimed IRS refund check and how do I get it?

Looking for some free cash?

Well, you could buy lottery tickets. Or, if you're really lucky, you have an IRS refund check just waiting to be collected.

According to the IRS, 1.8 million taxpayers have unclaimed refunds from 2003 totaling more than $2 billion dollars are waiting for them. And the average unclaimed refund is $611.

But here's the kicker – if you don't claim your refund by April 17th, you'll lose the opportunity to collect your cash.

To collect your refund, you must have filed a tax return for 2003, 2004 and 2005. The tax return due on April 17 is for last year, 2006. If you filed a return for those years and it showed that you were due a refund, go the IRS.gov website and type in the word "refund" into the search engine. Clic

k on the "Where's my refund" link to determine whether you should start an online trace of the cash. Or, you can call the IRS toll-free help line at 1-800-829-1040.

TGI Fridays Offers Smaller Portions for Less money. Does that sound tasty?

Thin is in and fat is out. The only problem is, Americans like to eat. We're consuming 12 percent more calories than we did in the 1980s. And the fast food nation we've become doesn't help.

At Burger King, you can buy a Meat 'Normous breakfast sandwich that offers a full pound of sausage, bacon and ham. Of course, if you don't want to buy that, you can buy on the menu that's less, well, meaty.

TGI Fridays is in the middle of an experiment to see if consumers will choose a smaller meal for less money. Their new "Right Size" Jack Daniel's Chicken Alfredo has 40 percent less fettuccine, a third less chicken and half the sauce of a full-size portion. It costs just $7.99, or 30 percent less than the full-size entree.

Will consumers swallow it? It's hard to say, since big portions are big business.

Starbucks doesn't offer its 8-ounce "short" anymore, but they're selling plenty of Ventis at 20 ounces. It seems more likely that 30-ounce Trentas will be on the menu before shorts come back.

Who makes the smartest money moves? Economists show middle-age is best

There's something sort of unpleasant about admitting to being "middle-aged."

But as we're living longer, and taking care of ourselves, we're pushing back on middle age. You know, 60 is the new 40.

But maybe we should embrace our middle-aged selves. According to a quartet of top economists, Americans in middle age make the smartest money moves – far smarter than our kids or our senior parents.

What's that about? The economists found that younger and older Americans were more likely to get hit with easily avoidable fees for managing their finances.

Not only that, but after looking at 75,000 home equity loans made in 2002, they founds that the loans of younger and older Americans were a full point higher than loans made by folks in so-called middle age.

So what is the optimal money-managing age? According to the economists, it's a few months past your 53rd birthday.

If that's middle-age, you can expect to live well past your 100th birthday.

Why Do People Save Money? The Answer May Surprise You

The Federal Reserve's most recent Survey of Consumer Finances found that between 2001 and 2004, the median net worth rose 1.5 percent to around $93,000.

Excluding rising real estate values, some people, about half of all Americans, are saving something each month. What are they saving for?

Tucked away in the middle of the report is an interesting chart. In 2004, 11.6 percent of consumers saved for education, most likely college tuition for their kids. Nearly 5 percent saved for the family and another 5 percent were saving up to buy a home. The biggest chunk of people, almost 35 percent, were trying to save for retirement, while another 30 percent were saving for general "liquidity."

Just 4 percent of the population in 2004 reported not saving at all, and this was down from nearly 7 percent a decade earlier. So, that's a good thing.

I'll link to the report on my blog, at thinkglink.com/blog.

Researching exotic vacation destinations with success on the Internet.

For my Spring vacation this year, I've rented a condo near a small town in Mexico called Bucerias.

It's about a half hour outside of Puerta Vallerta, but my husband, Sam, and I were trying to figure out if we needed to do our grocery shopping at the Commercial Mexicana grocery store in town or if we could get what we needed near where we'll be.

After hunting around on the Internet, we were able to discover not only a map of Bucerias, but a listing of all the stores, restaurants, Internet cafes and coffee shops that fill this tiny town dedicated to vacationing foreigners.

Not only that, but we found online reviews and photos of the restaurants!

It almost seems as though no place is too small to escape the computer power of the Internet. If you don't find what you're looking for on the first website, change your search terms to pull up a new slew of sites. Eventually, you'll find what you're looking for.