The econ­omy is hit­ting every­one hard. And while we all fight for money, often chas­ing the same dol­lars, there’s one thing we can all col­lab­o­rate on, and that’s sav­ing money. Here are a few rec­om­mended sites, tools, and tips for sav­ing money.

Be a gourmet for a bud­get: While the top site for recipes is epi­cu­ri­ous, some blogs are going out of their way to deliver you the best din­ners on a bud­get. I rec­om­mend you check out Fru­gal Cui­sine, and just launched last week, the Broke Ass Gourmet, which promises that all its recipes for two cost less than $20.

Know when to refi­nance your mort­gage: Finance rates are drop­ping, or they were. They just bounced back up. But there’s talk of lob­by­ing the gov­ern­ment to drop them down to 4% to stim­u­late the econ­omy. And when the bank rate hits that rock bot­tom point, it’s def­i­nitely time to refi­nance. Just fol­low Bankrate.com to see up to the minute mort­gage rates.

Gad­gets that save money: Sim­ple Dol­lar has put together a great list of the 25 gad­gets that will save you money. For each gad­get they give you the cost sav­ings it offers and the time it will take for you to break even on your invest­ment. Love the advice about get­ting the game “Dance, Dance, Rev­o­lu­tion” to replace your car­dio work­out. Assum­ing $25/month gym mem­ber­ship fee, they cal­cu­late you’ll break even in 8 months.

Man­age your money: There was a time peo­ple man­aged all their finances through Quicken. You can still use Quicken which has a free Web based ver­sion now, or you could use Mint to watch all your finan­cial accounts so you can see what the sta­tus is of all your holdings.

Watch prices of prod­ucts: Inter­ested in some new prod­uct, but you just don’t want to pay the cur­rent price? Put it on a watch list at Price Pro­tectr and you’ll get an alert when the price drops. Sim­i­larly, for air travel, you can use the ser­vice Yapta, which also offers price pro­tec­tion. If you buy a ticket through Yapta, it’ll alert you if the ticket price drops and you can get money back on the difference.

Be a Craigslist power user and power seller: Life­hacker has put together a great Craigslist guide for users and for sell­ers. Fol­low their tips to find the best deals and to make the best sales.

There’s almost always a coupon: My wife showed me that just before you buy any prod­uct online, to check to see if there are any avail­able online coupons. You can almost always inevitably find at least a 10% dis­count for what­ever you’re try­ing to buy at most major online retail out­lets. Start by look­ing at Fat Wal­let and Retail­MeNot. You might also want to make a call out to your friends on Twit­ter. You’ll never know what they might have for you. Read my tale of how I saved $150 with Twit­ter.

This online tech tip is for the Spark Minute which can be heard daily on Green 960 and 910 KNEW in San Fran­cisco, CA.David Spark helps busi­nesses grow by devel­op­ing thought lead­er­ship through sto­ry­telling and cov­er­ing live events at Spark Media Solu­tions. He blogs at The Spark Minute and can be heard and seen reg­u­larly on ABC Radio, Cranky Geeks with John C. Dvo­rak, and KQED in San Fran­cisco. See his busi­ness pro­file, con­tact David, or leave a com­ment below.