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Dear healthwellness82@gmail.com, Can you think of a better source for money advice than an economist who has been awarded the Nobel Prize? We asked five such esteemed economists to share their best budget secrets -- we got insights on the smartest mortgage deal, the best timing for investments, a fail-proof savings strategy and -- would you believe -- a tip that may have you rethinking your own "regifting" policy! Can everyone do yoga safely? Don’t be too quick to say yes -- Beryl Bender Birch, founder of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute and author of the book Boomer Yoga, reveals the surprising reason why yoga can be harmful to people with heart problems, eye conditions and a few other medical issues as well. All the best,  Jessica Kent Editor BottomLineSecrets.com The 5 Simple Money-Savers Even Nobel-Prizewinning Economists Use Economists spend their days exploring weighty topics ranging from gross domestic product and stagflation to trade balances and yield curves. But when they crunch numbers at home, the challenges they face and the solutions they find are not that different from what the rest of us grapple with. Learning how economists manage their money can help all of us spend less, save more and invest more wisely, so we asked five prominent economists to reveal money-saving strategies that they use in their own lives... George Akerlof, PhD Take out a 15-year mortgage. In the mid-1980s, I refinanced my 30-year mortgage to a 15-year mortgage. The shorter mortgage meant thousands of dollars less in interest payments -- and the higher monthly mortgage payments gave me experience living on a tight budget. That made it easier for me to continue to save aggressively even after my mortgage was paid off. (Recently, the average rate for a 30-year mortgage was 5.2%, versus 4.5% for a 15-year loan, a savings of more than $50,000 for every $100,000 borrowed.) Mortgages provide automatic savings discipline. We must make our mortgage payments every month or we could lose our homes. Thus, money needed to make mortgage payments is less likely to be misspent than money earmarked for bank and investment accounts. George Akerlof, PhD, is Koshland Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. He is coauthor of Identity Economics (Princeton University). EDWARD C. PRESCOTT, PhD Don’t wait for a "better time" to invest. I don’t get caught up in trying to time the markets. There is no wrong time to save and invest. When stocks are struggling, I tell myself, Good -- I can buy bargains. When stocks are up, I tell myself, Good -- investing is paying off for me. I don’t get caught up in worrying about which investments to buy, either. I just put all of my savings into low-expense stock index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Edward C. Prescott, PhD, is the W.P. Carey Chair of Economics at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, Tempe. He won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics. Prescott is coeditor of Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis). BETSEY STEVENSON, PhD Make sure your gifts are worth the cost. The rules of etiquette warn us not to arrive at a party empty-handed -- but gift giving often is economically inefficient. The gift that costs us $40 might hold only $20 in value for its recipient. Like most people, when I’m in a situation that requires a gift, I usually bring a bottle of wine. It’s not the most unusual or memorable gift, but if I select a wine that I know offers good quality for the price, my gift is likely to hold approximately as much value for its recipient as I paid for it, and it doesn’t matter that he/she likely already owns bottles of wine. If the recipient does not value wine, it is one of the easiest gifts for him to give to someone else. Economists tend to be less sensitive about such "regifting" than most people. Betsey Stevenson, PhD, is assistant professor at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. She also is a faculty research fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research and a visiting scholar with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. TAHIRA K. HIRA, PhD Set your spending priorities, and stick to them. Unfortunately, most people spend money on things that are not particularly important to them, which leaves them unable to afford things that would hold greater value. In the early 1980s, when my husband and I were assistant professors earning modest salaries, we decided that owning a home was high among our priorities. To afford the down payment, we made sacrifices -- for instance, cutting back from two restaurant meals each week to an average of one or fewer. When we met with a real estate agent, we were encouraged to buy a larger home than we had saved up for because we could qualify for a larger mortgage. But my husband and I decided that we would rather have a modest home and enough assets left over to travel than a large home that consumed most of our resources. Because we had prioritized our wants, the agent could not talk us into overspending. Tahira K. Hira, PhD, is executive assistant to the president and professor of personal finance and consumer economics in the department of economics at Iowa State University, Ames, and creator of its Financial Counseling Clinic. JOHN CASKEY, PhD Make it easy to save and hard to spend. The easier it is for us to spend our money, the more likely it is that we will do so. I build up almost all of my savings by having money automatically withdrawn from my paycheck and invested. That money never even makes it to my bank account, so it is difficult for me to spend it. And in the case of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, there is a penalty for taking out money early, so that is an additional deterrent to spending. John Caskey, PhD, is professor of economics and former chair of the department of economics at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He previously was economist with the International Monetary Fund. He is author of Fringe Banking: Check-Cashing Outlets, Pawnshops, and the Poor (Russell Sage Foundation).   Are You or Your Loved Ones Taking Any of These Highly Prescribed Medicines? Yoga Safety 101 Beryl Bender Birch The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute If you have a chronic medical condition, check with your doctor before beginning a yoga program, and consider consulting a qualified yoga teacher for a customized "prescription" of yoga poses.* Caution: While doing yoga, don’t hold your breath! That may raise your blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, any eye condition where increased pressure should be avoided or neck injuries, forgo postures in which your head is inverted, such as headstands -- these poses can significantly increase blood flow to the brain, increasing your risk for a stroke or other cardiac event. *To find a qualified yoga therapist, consult the International Association of Yoga Therapists, 928-541-0004, www.iayt.org. Bottom Line/Health interviewed Beryl Bender Birch, founder of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute and the nonprofit Give Back Yoga Foundation, www.GiveBackYoga.org, both based in East Hampton, New York. She is the author of Power Yoga (Simon & Schuster), Beyond Power Yoga (Fireside) and Boomer Yoga (Sellers). Introducing Bottom Line on the Radio (and Listen Live on the Web) Sarah Hiner, publisher of Bottom Line Publications and Daily Health News, is bringing the information you love to the radio -- every Saturday afternoon 4-6pm (Eastern time). In Bottom Line style, Bottom Line On Your Health talks to mainstream and naturopathic medical experts about the many and confusing options in health care... helping people to know that they have choices in a medical world that increasingly focuses on drugs and surgery as a first line treatment. You can even call in with your own questions for her medical experts, Dr. Andrew Rubman, ND, Contributing Medical Editor for Bottom Line Publications and Dr. Max Gomez, Emmy Award Winning Medical Journalist. Listen live every Saturday in Connecticut at 4:00pm at 1400am WSTC/1350am WNLK or streaming live on the web at http://www.bottomlineonyourhealth.com/. Important: Help your friends get much more out of life -- forward this E-letter to them. Better: Send it to many friends and your whole family. This is a free weekly e-mail service of BottomLineSecrets.com and Boardroom Inc. 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