While I was interviewing Bonnie Eaker Weil, author of Financial Infidelity: Seven Steps to Conquering the #1 Relationship Wrecker, for a story on her book, she mentioned an intriguing concept: "pop shots," which she defines as "pissed-off purchases," usually made after a fight or falling out with a romantic partner or spouse. According to her survey, the average pop shot is $486, and people average three to four a year. That adds up to almost $2,000 a year—a lot to spend because of a few fights. I am somewhat skeptical of that number—are so many people really so unhappy in their relationships and willing to blow so much money because of it?—but Weil stands by the survey results.

She also has a solution to such conspicuous consumption: Hug or kiss your partner. "That high that you're looking for [when you spend], you can get that from your partner. If you hug for 20 seconds, you get a dopamine high. If you kiss 30 seconds, you get a dopamine high. You can actually have an affair with your partner—you don't have to shop until you drop," says Weil.

Are you convinced?

The Alpha Consumer Challenge will remain open to submissions until 9 a.m. Monday. To participate, just post your answer below to this question: If you suddenly had $1,000, what would you do with it? After we've narrowed the entries down to three, you can vote to pick the best one. The winner will get his or her name and photo posted on this blog and also receive a copy of Curtis Arnold's How You Can Profit From Credit Cards.

Here is what the blogger at Boston Gal's Open Wallet would do:

If $1,000 was suddenly to fall into my lap, my first instinct is to save it. I'm a saver, and saving money is generally what I do. However, I do have expenses and many needs and wants which require spending money to satisfy. Found or unexpected money mostly gets divided. Some goes into savings, some goes toward purchasing a need, and the rest goes toward obtaining a want.

It's Day 2 of the Alpha Consumer Challenge, which means there is still time for you to answer the question: If you suddenly had $1,000, what would you do with it? To participate, just post your answer below. After narrowing the entries down to three, we'll vote to pick the best one. The winner will get his or her name and photo posted on the blog and also receive a copy of Curtis Arnold's How You Can Profit From Credit Cards.

To get your wheels turning, I asked You're So Money author and TheStreet.com correspondent Farnoosh Torabi what she would do with the windfall:

For information on preventing ID theft and what to do if your information is stolen, you can watch this video of my discussion on Retirement Living TV:

As my mom, grandmother, and I barbecued on a community grill in Florida earlier this year, we chatted with a woman struggling to keep her flame lit as she cooked hamburgers. "My husband always did this for me," she said, adding that last year, at the age of 60, she became a widow.

Before we parted, after she had successfully mastered the grill, she offered me some advice. "Women today should learn to do everything themselves," she said. "Don't wait until you have to."

If you suddenly had $1,000, what would you do with it? Would you save most of it, spend it on a new bike, or buy a plane ticket to Paris? That's the question I put to three personal finance bloggers, all of whom have very different approaches to spending and saving. Over the next few days, I'll be posting their answers to that question, and their responses to each other's choices.

Then it's your turn. In the first edition of the Alpha Consumer Challenge, the question is: What would you do with $1,000 that dropped unexpectedly into your hands? To participate, just post your answer below. I'll pick the three choices that are the most creative, savvy, and also realistic (of course, there is a lot of subjectivity in those criteria), and then we'll pick the best one in a vote. The winner will get his or her name and photo posted on the blog and also receive a copy of Curtis Arnold's How You Can Profit From Credit Cards.

I recently spoke with Felicia Taylor at Retirement Living TV about why you should know your credit score and how to improve it. Here is the video:

For more tips on how to take advantage of the Fed's recent interest rate cut, you can tune in to my discussion on WTOP radio. We talked about asking for a lower rate from your credit card company, getting a good deal on an auto loan, and the pros and cons of refinancing. Listen now, download on iTunes, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Welcome to the 151st edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance! If this is your first time visiting Alpha Consumer, welcome. You can check out the top posts on the bottom right-hand side of the page and subscribe through Alpha Consumer's RSS feed.

Today's theme is managing money in tight times. Tax rebates, the much-discussed recession, and food prices were among the topics on bloggers' minds.

I recently spoke with one of my favorite personal finance gurus, Liz Pulliam Weston. She has written a new book, Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life. You may have seen her columns on MSN Money. I asked Liz to about her book and to share some of her top advice on saving money. Here's what she had to say:

What are the most common mistakes people make with their money?
Number one is confusing "need" with "want." Before you understand the difference, you may think of yourself as a victim or as having limited choice about where your money goes. When you understand the distinction, you realize that virtually all of your spending is a choice of some kind. That's pretty powerful, and puts you back in charge. Yes, you need food, but you don't need steak, and eating something less expensive may mean you can take a killer vacation or do something else you really want to do.

I am excited to be hosting next week's Carnival of Personal Finance, which will be posted Monday. You can submit blog entries to it through CarnivalofPersonalFinance.com/submit.

Also, if you are interested in writing a guest entry for Alpha Consumer during the week of May 19, please email me at alphaconsumer@usnews.com. It can be on anything personal finance or consumer-related, especially advice, your personal experience, or an opinion on something consumer-related happening in the news.

Waste not, want not. That was a favorite saying of my father when I was growing up. He also liked to remind my sisters and me that when he was a young boy in England in the 1950s, no amount of food was ever wasted. My grandparents, who experienced strict rationing during World War II, made sure of that.

Many of us aren't so good at following that dictum today. In fact, the Washington Post reported this morning that according to a University of Arizona study, on average Americans waste about 14 percent of food purchases.

Dear Alpha Consumer,

I am interested in taking more control of my financial future, but I feel that I'm more ahead of the game then some of my peers. I have a 401(k) that I contribute to, I save regularly, and I am pretty frugal—I learned to use the library instead of constantly buying new books and I love consignment clothes shops—you can dress for less AND have stuff that everyone else isn't wearing.

I don't feel like I'm doing enough , though. A lot of the advice I've found for people my age is for those who have done nothing so far which isn't really me. About eight months ago, I was $3,000 in credit card debt. I had a very restrictive budget and am now debt-free, save my student loans and car insurance. Each week I saved $10 toward various long- and short-term goals—a car, a new computer, vacation, savings, etc.

Now that a rebate check or deposit is headed your way, retailers want to help you figure out what to do with it. Perhaps driven by the fact that only 1 in 5 shoppers expects to actually spend the money, stores are doing what they can to persuade those planning to save it or use it to pay down debt to change their minds.

Retailers ranging from grocery stores to discount shops are posting specials to entice consumers to spend their rebate checks on their products. Here are some of the appealing offers:

Tax rebate checks are now on their way to consumers, earlier than had been expected. Have you decided how to spend the money? A survey by TNS Retail Forward found that consumers are split on what they will do with it (more than one answer was accepted). Around one third will use it to pay bills, some 30 percent will put the money into savings, and about one quarter will put it toward everyday expenses such as food and gas. Only 1 in 5 shoppers will use it to buy something special, like a new television.

The market research firm says that will be enough to help retailers, bringing them a windfall of about $42 billion in sales. That would double third-quarter growth to 6 percent, TNS calculates.

That's good news for those in the retail business, but for the rest of us, the numbers in our own bank accounts are the more important ones. That's why so many consumers are choosing to pay off debt or boost savings instead of going for a one-time splurge.

So, what will you do with your check?

This week's Carnival of Personal Finance features lies we tell ourselves about money, how to save money on computers and honeymoons, and lots of other useful tips.

Next week, Alpha Consumer will be hosting the Carnival, so be sure to submit your blog entry here.

Also, I am looking for guest posts on personal finance and consumer topics while I am on vacation toward the end of May. Please E-mail me at alphaconsumer@usnews.com if you are interested in submitting one.

Tricia from Blogging Away Debt recently wrote about how being in a "funk" can be bad for the wallet, because it's easier to give in to urges to spend money on fast food or other temporary pick-me-ups. She writes:

I also get strong urges to go shopping for stuff. Maybe a new pair of shoes or something. The oddest thing about this urge is that I am not normally into fashion. But the minute I go into a funk I must think I need to be a fashionista (not that anything is wrong with that—it's just totally against the norm for me). Sometimes I budget shop and buy clearance items, but sometimes I don't. Again, it's best to stick around the house and not go anywhere. I didn't do this one (thank goodness—I have enough shoes!).

That's tough—although as she notes in her post, spending money might feel good at the moment, but it isn't a permanent mood-booster. That's where bubble baths and movies come in.

Yesterday, when I called Susan Wones, the consumer who testified at last week's credit card hearing on Capitol Hill, she was upset. She had just found out that Chase had distributed some of her personal information, including her account numbers and home address, to congressional staff members, despite her request that her information be kept private. (Before she testified, Wones signed a waiver that allowed the company to discuss her situation, but she says she asked that the identifying information be kept private.)

By the end of the day, Rep. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, issued a statement calling for Chase to publicly apologize to Wones, who is from his district. "Susan showed courage and came to Washington to tell her story, and now it seems she is being punished for doing the right thing and speaking out against unfair credit card practices," Udall said in a statement. He also took issue with the fact that Chase representatives handed out a rebuttal of her testimony to reporters who spoke with Wones after the hearing.

For more tips on saving money at the grocery store, you can watch my discussion with Good Morning LA's Jean Martirez here. As I've mentioned, one of my favorite ideas is to use ingredients that are already at home. Martirez wanted to know what she could do with ketchup, garlic, and some old cheese. Luckily, we have allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com to help us with that one. Allrecipes.com suggests baked spaghetti.

Imagine this: You go to a restaurant. The food makes you sick—so sick you need to visit the doctor. To compensate, the restaurant offers to pay your medical bills. Does that leave you a satisfied customer?

That's the situation more than 400 Chipotle customers found themselves in Kent, Ohio, last week. They experienced the typical signs of food poisoning, including nausea, vomiting, and worse. Test results suggest they were infected with a norovirus. To make it up to them, the company famous for its burritos said it would pay for the treatment of the sickened customers.

Rosalie from Allentown, Pa., sent in some additional ideas for how to cut down on food prices. In addition to planning menus in advance and checking out the week's specials, she writes:

Don't overlook making "breakfast" entrees for suppers. With our lifestyles so hectic, when do you get the chance to make a wonderful omelet or strata for breakfast? Also, [try] homemade pancakes. Making the mix is so simple, easy, and inexpensive, and you can add fruits for flavor and nutrition.

I agree—there's nothing like french toast when you feel like you're not supposed to be eating it. And breakfast foods, because they usually involve basics like eggs and bread, are cheap—and you probably already have the ingredients at home.