If you want to protect yourself and your family without going broke, you will need to be pro-active when it comes to health care. Despite the extremely high cost of most medical care, access to free or discounted care is there for those willing to make a small effort to find it. Here are 6 tips to get you started.

1) Rx Discount Program - Prescription costs can be reduced substantially without buying insurance. There are discount purchasing groups that allow you to join them and receive their negotiated pricing on most prescription medications. One such group is UNA. There is no obligation or fee to register and it takes less than a minute to receive a personalized printable discount card which you simply bring to your druggist. He will save your discount group # in your file and you will then receive a reduced group price on all covered prescriptions. Discounts can be as much as 75% on some prescriptions. Go to  www.superrxcard.com and print your own free drug card in less than 10 seconds. There are no gimmicks attached to this one and over 57,000 pharmacies participate in this group. According to Wellness.com - April 2006: "Hands down, the finest prescription assistance program in the United States…"

2) Free Medical Q&A - Informational resources are abundant and free. If you have symptoms you want to confidentially discuss with a real doctor or if you want to research any disease or medication, here are a few good resources:  www.webmd.com , www.afraidtoask.com and www.yournetdoctor.com  .

3) Doctor and Hospital Ratings - before you select a doctor or hospital for surgery, you might want to know if you are making the right choice. There are research groups that independently research doctors and hospitals and rate them based on criteria which are designed to determine whether they have met the nationally recognized standards for excellence. One such group has made their data base of research on over 600,000 doctors and hospitals available to the public. Got to: www.healthgrades.com to see how your doctor and hospital rate.

4) Health Insurance - Given up on buying health insurance? Do a little more research. There might possibly be some good coverage available that is within your budget. Try www.insureme.com or www.healthinsuranceinfo.net before throwing in the towel.

5) Free Eyeglasses - If you are a student or have children and cannot afford eyeglasses for them, there is a program available that may qualify you for a free eye examination and free glasses. To see if you qualify, go to: www.sightforstudents.org and apply

6) Free Medical and Dental Clinics - Nearly every zip code has a medical facility nearby that will give anyone, without insurance or money, medical care. Most of these receive $ aid from governmental agencies or charitable organizations. How do I locate one? Just call any doctor or medical facility and ask them or visit www.ask.hrsa.gov/pc/ . This webpage will allow you to search for a clinic by zip code that will give you medical care, even if you do not have insurance or money. Another site that will help you locate free medical care is www.freemedicalcamp.com

This article was contributed by SuperRxCard.com

We've setup this blog to provide you with all the latest information from Tjoos. We also plan on putting up money saving articles to help you get the most value out of the Tjoos website.

Another aspect of the Tjoos blog is to allow you to put up your own articles onto the blog. We'd love to hear about your stories, especially if you have some tips, coupons, information and anything else you think will be useful!

Click Add Entry in the Top Right Corner to get Started

Once you click you can create a blog entry. Once you've completed your post we will review it and post it on our blog in a day or two.

Happy posting and stay tuned!

P.S. Please don't post simply to promote your site. These post get deleted. Instead, if you're a merchant, write a great article on something our users would like to read.

Ways to save on decorations

Depending on how many little monsters are in your neighborhood, you might have a lot of candy-giving to do. If this is the case for you, make sure you buy in bulk at a warehouse store; if you’re looking to go a little more gourmet or find a special chocolate treat for that special someone, checkout these chocolate, candy and nuts coupons at http://www.tjoos.com/Category/975/Chocolate%2C-Candy-%26-Nuts

• Instead of edible treats, you can also choose to give out favors and toys. There are multitudes of online stores that sell favors and toys cheaply and you’ll be able to find great little treats such as plastic spiders, stickers and Halloween pencils and erasers for $.05-$.50 per item rather than the higher prices that you pay for candy. The parents will also thank you for helping them limit the sugar little ghosts are consuming.
• If you’re having a Halloween party, there are many ways you can save on décor.
• First, take a look outside your window – fall is a beautiful season and you likely will be able to find plenty of branches, pine cones and colorful leaves that can be arranged on tables, in vases to create centerpieces or hung on the walls.
• Another cheap and easy way to decorate for a Halloween party is with lots of candles. Candles add a great atmosphere and come in amazing variety of colors, scents and sizes. Here are some good stores with jar candle coupons to start looking: http://www.tjoos.com/Tag/13357/Jar-candles-Online-Stores/ .
• Finally, many party supply stores sell “Halloween packs” which saves you the hassle of buying things separately. Oftentimes the prices will also be lower than if you buy the items individually.

Most of all, remember to have fun! Halloween shouldn’t be a burden money-wise.

Today Tjoos, one of the largest US voucher sites, launches its UK site, tjoos.co.uk. Tjoos aggregates discount voucher codes for online stores that give consumers instant discounts on their purchases.

An online discount voucher, also known as a promo or coupon code, usually consists of a series of letters and numbers that can be entered during the checkout process. These codes provide an instant reduction in the purchase price, free shipping or a free gift. Shoppers can get significant savings such as 10% off at Marks & Spencer, £10 off at Pizza Hut or 10% off Dell workstations.

Online retailers give out voucher codes to reward existing customers or to attract new business, yet shoppers often don’t have a voucher code for their purchases. Tjoos aggregates voucher codes from thousands of stores onto a single site providing free access for everyone to these sometimes exclusive and hard to find offers.

Co-founder of Tjoos, Bart Jellema explains: “Sites that aggregate vouchers are not new in the UK. Sites like MyVoucherCodes and EveryDaySale have been around for a while. We are different because we aim to provide a no-nonsense user experience. Our interface is clean and simple to use, we don’t ask our users to click to reveal codes and we don’t run advertising.”

Codes often have a limited time span and the advertised expiry dates are not always correct. Sometimes a merchant will extend the promotion or expire a voucher prematurely. To help identify working and expired vouchers, users have the ability to vote whether the voucher worked or not. On top of that, Tjoos is the only site that employs a dedicated team that regularly verifies vouchers for popular stores.

The new site currently lists over 9,000 vouchers and has a growing number of vouchers that are exclusively provided to Tjoos. Any merchant that is not yet listed can add their store information and vouchers to the directory via a self-serve Merchant Portal.

Recently ‘hitwise’ reported that the number of internet searches for vouchers have increased by 47.5% over the last 12 months. According to Jellema, “the use of vouchers is going mainstream and with a broader audience comes a greater demand for quality, which we are ready to provide.”

About Tjoos
Tjoos (pronounced: choose) was founded in 2007 with the mission of making online shopping easier and more transparent for consumers and merchants alike. Tjoos has sites in the United Kingdom, the US and Australia. Its US flagship Tjoos.com has the largest collection of verified online coupons and over one million visitors per month.

Today tjoos.com lists over 180,000 coupons with more than 20,000 verified to work. Bart Jellema, CEO of Tjoos describes this as a "historic victory for the online shopping community. The times of endless searching and trying broken codes is finally behind us as we ring in a new era of consumer power."

Tjoos embarked on their quest to rid the internet of deceitful websites that are trying to make a quick buck in October 2007. Dissapointed with the quality of online shopping portals Bart decided to "No longer stand by idle and watch innocent shoppers suffer the agony of badly designed websites luring consumers in with fake deals."

Currently the site aggregates coupon codes for over 20,000 stores. The site differentiates itself from other coupon sites by employing a team of coupon experts that regularly verify the coupon codes. Furthermore the site doesn't list any advertisements.

Tjoos currently helps over 600,000 shoppers each month and plans to win over the "hearts and minds" of many more online shoppers using a "shock and awe" campaign. "We believe that any online shopper that comes to tjoos.com will be shocked by the sheer magnitude of our coupon collection and will be in awe of the quality of our verification process."

Two years ago tjoos.com was founded by Bart Jellema and Kim Chen with the mission to empower online consumers. Coupons were the first step in a larger plan to create an online shopping portal including price comparison, product comparison and product recommendation. "While this first stuggle may be over, we cannot rest and become complacent. Much more work is to be done and we plan to bring the fight to anyone who enriches themselves off the back of the innocent online shopper. We will continue to work tirelessly to put the power back where it belongs: with the people."

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 28 -- Many online merchants issue coupon codes, which give you instant discounts when shopping at their online store. Coupon sites aggregate codes from hundreds or thousands of stores. Around the internet there are thousands of such sites, but most fail in at least one of two areas: Quantity (limited number of stores) or Quality (many coupons don't work). Fast-growing coupon site Tjoos.com has tackled both under the motto: More Coupons, Less Crap. 
 
Quantity - More Coupons 
Coupons for about a thousand stores are easy to get and maintain as they are available in feeds from merchant networks. Most sites will only list these coupons, however this is only a small part of all coupons out there. 
 
The Tjoos team sources their coupons not only directly from merchants, but also sifts through almost 10.000 newsletters monthly to find coupons that merchants send directly to their customers. The team also scans many forums for additional coupons and any remaining coupons are added by users. 
 
Busy stay-at-home mom Janet Menzies used to Google for coupons until she found Tjoos: “Now I always check Tjoos first. If they don't have any coupons I will still try Google, but this tends to be a waste of my time.” 
 
Quality - Less Crap 
Most coupons found online don't work. As a result, frugal shoppers waste a lot of time trying to find a working coupon code. Some sites rely on user voting to find out if a coupon works with mixed results. For the most popular stores this works, but for less popular stores there aren't enough votes. 
 
To safeguard the quality of coupons on Tjoos, the team verifies every coupon that gets added. When a coupon is verified it is marked as such and displays at the top of the list, making it easy for shoppers to locate the coupons that work. 
 
Bart Jellema, co-founder of Tjoos, says coupon site users have identified sorting through non-working codes as their top annoyance. “This makes it our top priority to ensure our coupons work. We are proud to be the first coupon site to deliver both quality and quantity to our users, with more than 11.000 coupons verified to work.” 
 
About Tjoos.com 
Tjoos.com is a leading online shopping portal providing the most comprehensive collection of verified coupon codes online.  It is the first to combine coupon verification with free listing for merchants to create a positive user experience.  Although Tjoos is based in Sydney, their primary markets are the USA, UK and Canada.

Today Tjoos.com, one of the largest online coupon sites, launches its Merchant Portal, allowing online stores to add their store information and coupons.

Coupon codes are similar to traditional grocery coupons but for online stores and give customers instant discounts on their purchases. They have proven to be an effective online marketing tool to achieve specific business objectives.

For example, merchants aiming to find new customers issue coupons that are only valid for first time buyers. To increase their average order size, stores can issue coupons that apply only to orders over a certain amount. This encourages customers to “up-size” their order to qualify for the discount. Adding an expiry date to coupons creates a sense of urgency and helps reel in those consumers that are sitting on the fence. By tailoring their coupons to meet their business objectives, merchants are able to create targeted marketing promotions through the use of coupon codes.

After they have crafted their promotions, merchants need to get the word out to the right consumers about their coupon codes. To help online merchants reach their audience, Tjoos.com developed a Merchant Portal (http://www.tjoos.com/Merchant-Portal/). This new self-serve portal gives any merchant the ability to add their coupons and store information to the coupon directory. Doing so gives the store free exposure to the quarter million people that visit Tjoos.com monthly. Sites that complete their listing by providing an exclusive coupon and placing a badge on their site are featured on the homepage for a limited time and receive premium exposure on an ongoing basis.

Bart Jellema, co-founder of Tjoos.com says “We are excited to connect with merchants and give them a place to get the word out about their coupons while at the same time help our users find excellent value deals.”

About Tjoos.com
Tjoos.com has the largest collection of verified online coupons. The company was founded in 2007 with the mission of making online shopping easier and more transparent for consumers and merchants alike.

Press Contact: Kim Chen
Email: press@tjoos.com
Tel: +61 2 9977 7478
URL: http://www.tjoos.com
Press Link: http://www.tjoos.com/Page-Content/6/Press-Room

Numbers released today by online coupon aggregator tjoos.com indicate that online spending patterns are rapidly changing and order sizes are down by 30% in the face of the current economic turmoil. 
 
Over the last two months the average order sizes shrunk 30% from $103 in August to $72 in October. The largest drop in order sizes came from the over $250 bracket, which nearly halved from 10.3% to 5.3% of all orders, a strong indicator that consumers are putting off spending on big ticket items as the uncertainty about the economy continues. 
 
Historically the use of price comparison and coupon sites tends to go up when the economy weakens. In 2001 tracking from ICOM Information & Communications, a Toronto-based marketing communications company, showed a significant increase in the number of coupons consumers redeemed each week. According to a recent poll conducted by ICOM 71% of consumers aged 18-34 are “much more” or “somewhat more” likely to use coupons in a recession. Traffic numbers for tjoos.com seem to back this up with an increase in unique visitors of 93% in the last two months. 
 
Retailers are reacting to slowing sales by sending out record numbers of deals and coupons. New York Bar Store went so far as to issue an “Alcoholic Bailout package” in the form of a storewide 10% off coupon until the Dow Jones closes above 10,000 points. 
 
Bart Jellema, co-founder of Tjoos.com says he saw a 31% increase in emails containing deals and coupons from retailers since August.  “This is great news,” he said, “as we are able to collect these offers and make them readily available to everyone. These deals and coupons can really help stretch the family budget further during these turbulent economic times.” 
 
About Tjoos.com 
Tjoos.com is a leading online shopping portal providing the most comprehensive collection of verified coupon codes online.  It was the first to combine coupon verification with free listing for merchants to create a positive user experience.  Although Tjoos is based in Sydney, their primary markets include the USA, UK and Australia. 
 
Sources: 
http://www.tjoos.com/Page-Content/26/Coupon-Statistics 
http://i-com.com/aboutus_news_detail.asp?pid=68 
http://www.newyorkbarstore.com/alcoholic_bailout_package/

Online shopping portal Tjoos.com today launches it's personal style recommendation service (http://www.tjoos.com/Compare-Products/) for clothing and accessories. Traditional shopping sites present clothing in the same way they present digital cameras, allowing shoppers only to shop based on price and features. The deciding factor however for most people is whether they like the look of it and if it matches their style. 
 
Mountain View, CA May 10, 2008 -- Many of the mainstream shopping sites have taken a one-size-fits-all approach, comparing books, digital cameras and shoes in exactly the same way. Where this approach has been very successful for electronics and computers, it doesn't do a good job at helping consumers find a nice pair of shoes or a good book. For books, music and movies there are several sites out there such as gnod.net, liveplasma.com and thefilter.com that give recommendations based on your input. 
 
For clothing and accessories the closest services available are style based community sites such as stylefeeder.com and stylehive.com. These sites give product recommendations, however don't provide a way to narrow down by category or provide comparison shopping features. 
 
To fill this void Tjoos.com has added a personalized recommendation service on top of their price comparison engine. "We are exited about this new feature as it provides a much needed service to our users." says co-founder Kim Chen, "Combined with our upcoming merchant portal, which will allow merchants to add their products to our price comparison engine free of charge, this will be a powerful tool for online consumers." 
 
To use their service users select what they are shopping for, such as handbags (http://www.tjoos.com/Recommend/685/Handbags), shoes (http://www.tjoos.com/Recommend/37/Shoes) or dresses (http://www.tjoos.com/Recommend/603/Dresses) and will be asked to select 7 items they like. While picking the items a preview of the recommendations is shown. Once ready, the recommendations are shown in a view similar to other price comparison sites but are sorted according to the user’s personal style preferences. 
 
Currently Tjoos lists over 100.000 products in 45 clothing and accessories categories from hundreds of different online stores. Chen comments: "We will be adding many more products and stores soon as we believe this is the new way consumers will shop for clothes online." 
 
About Tjoos.com 
Tjoos.com is an advertising-free online shopping portal with a strong focus on the consumer experience. Tjoos aims to make online shopping easier and more transparent to the user. Tjoos is a privately funded company based in Sydney, Australia with 6 employees and caters primarily to the United States, UK and Australia.

Tjoos.com currently lists over 20.000 coupon codes and has made these available as RSS Feeds. Feeds are available for individual stores and for groups of stores tagged with specific keywords, such as 'electronics', 'women's shoes' and 'kitchen'.

The coupons are collected from a wide range of sources. People at Tjoos plough through a large amount of newsletters and check thousands of datafeeds every day. Coupons can also be submitted by users of the site.

The new feeds make it easy to add the latest coupons for a specific tag or store to your favorite feedreader or homepage service. Some of the feedreaders and homepage services supported are Bloglines, newsgator, Google Reader, My Yahoo, iGoogle and netvibes.

Subscribing to the feed is possible in two ways. In the top right corner of any page, such as the page for the tag 'electronics' (http://www.tjoos.com/Tag/1387/electronics-Online-Stores/) you will find the orange RSS icon. Clicking this icon will open the actual RSS Feed in your browser. You can subscribe to this feed by adding the URL of the feed to your favorite service.

To make this process easier for people who are unfamiliar with feeds there is an RSS Feed button at the bottom of the page which allows you to add the feed to many services with a few simple clicks.

Some of the best discounts that stores make available are only valid for a few days. By adding these coupon feeds to your homepage or feedreader you make sure you don't miss out on the best deals out there.

Coupons codes are used to get instant discounts during the checkout process of many online stores. Using a coupon code can sometimes take 20-30% off your entire order.

Coupon site Tjoos has made it easy for users to access their coupons from their favorite platform. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to get access to the best coupons out there.

Through the RSS Feeds you can get our coupons in a miriad of places such as Google Reader, BlogLines, You can also add it to many homepage services like iGoogle, My Yahoo, My MSN, At the bottom of the pages there is a button provided by AddThis.com that makes adding the feed to your favorite service a simple task. Due to the flexibility of RSS Feeds we will see people use our feeds in ways we haven't even thought of.