Check out the Dollar Stretcher website.

http://www.stretcher.com/index.cfm

You can sign up for free ezines and you can browse the library of money saving tips.

The biggest tip of all is to have a united approach in your family to saving money. The money saving efforts of one person can be negated if the other spouse is a spendthrift.

Other money saving ideas.

I choose not to have cable or satellite. I only have a little Trac phone that I rarely use. Up until 18 months ago, I only had the cheapy $9.99/month dial up internet. I finally signed up for DSL.

Previously I have used TheGroceryGame.com to save tons of money on my grocery bills. I haven't found it as helpful here as I did in California. My daughter there still saves 70% routinely on her grocery bill. I was saving an average of 45%. Check it out. They have a cheap trial period.

Don't buy the froufrou coffees...okay maybe as a special occasional treat.

More often than not any more I piece the back of my quilt from left over front fabrics. If I do buy I always buy from the sales table or use from my stash. I was showing my daughter a blue fabric I was going to use on the back of one quilt. She says that it didn't really match. So I said, here let me hold it up and you tell me what you think. So of course I held up the front with the backing fabric hid behind it. She understood then that it doesn't really show anyway.

Ditto to lots of other suggestions given here. Great ideas, everyone. I have learned some new things.

Look at it this way, you were sort of getting paid $50 per hour to take that class.

Pat in Rockport, TX

I just returned from a defensive driving class. That will take off about three hundred a year on my car insurance. It's worth the agony of sitting through six hours..although, I always learn something new. I took it through AARP and it only cost ten dollars.

Wendy, I'm glad you sent that link to your friends, I hope some of the others here are doing it as well. The petitions that are sent out as emails never get anywhere, but this one will get the attention of our Congress. And I felt better having let them know how I felt about the lunacy of not going after our own resources. Just now, I see that there are now 242,000 signatures. When I signed yesterday, there were 166,000. This might make the national news.

Pat in Rockport, TX

BrinkOfNorway wrote:
I am picking my jaw off the table. I hope that your wages meet the cost of living. I did hear on CNN yesterday that Norway had the highest cost of gasoline in the world. Do you import all you fuel?

On Monday I saw that gas was $4.09 yesterday same station was $4.23. At this rate it won't be long until we're at $10 too.

I switched insurance carrier for home and car and saved $200. I also buy my cotton batting by the bolt now I have the room to store it. I try to support my LQS but sometimes buying from Fabric.com and Thousands of Bolts.com is cheaper. Batiks.com is also good. I am off to buy a freezer today so I can buy bulk meat. I needed a dishwasher but since there is just two of us and not a lot of dishes I opted for the freezer. I haven't tried this yet but my neighbour puts a bucket in the shower and fills it up with the water before it gets hot for her plants.
Wendy in hot hot Texas

It is always good to review insurance policies for your house and vehicles. We would receive a discount for my son when he was in high school for having great grades. And if you have a good driving record...it is easy to switch for a better deal.

One item: We had AAA and then when we changed to another insurance company for our car and house...we also got the benefits of AAA. SO...we dropped the AAA on the cars.
Since we also have AARP cards...we have better discounts then AAA for travel.
Frankly, I have better service the insurance company then I ever had with AAA!!

I do see more folks staying at home and in their backyards. We saw more neigbhors home and outside over the holiday weekend then ever before. I was actually nice to hear the kids playing and neighbors laughing and talking with each other.

I do have say...the last shopping trip to the grocery store was a big one for me. I have been using up things in my pantry. I planned carefully and went armed with my coupons...and had $88 in coupons and savings. It was 25% of my bill. I was VERY happy and surprised. My next goal is to do 35%!! The key is...don't buy things you will not use...and sometimes...the two for one is not such a great deal...if you will not use it.
If you have a way of buying a 'side of beef' from a butcher...do it.
Honestly....it has always been cheaper to buy my meat this way.
Whole chickens...when on sale...cheaper then cut chickens. Learn to cut them up.
The biggest thing...read the pricing label. What is the unit price...vs the sale price and what you may or may not be saving. There have been times...that the sale item was NOT as cheap as the store brand items next to it. Just because it has a 'sale' sticker items doesn't make it the best value.

OK...I will admit...I love the Dollar Store...but for paper goods...wrapping paper, cards, and fun stationary items. Why would I buy Hallmark...when I can buy a lovely dollar roll of wrapping paper? It is just going rip as nice as the Hallmark one!! LOL
For the Christmas holiday...this year....I bought all red paper and gold ribbon for ALL of my gifts. The paper was on sale at JoAnn's after Christmas along with the gold ribbon. I will make gift tags from old Christmas cards. Having one color....makes wrapping simple and it actually takes up less space!!
However...for my quilter friends...I still wrap in fabric!!! LOL

FW

Back in the 90s I got laid off and became a stay at home Mom for about 2 years. Someone recommended The Tightwad Gazette which at that time was either bi-weekly or monthly newsletter. When she decided to stop putting it out, she compiled all the newsletters into 2 books. I'm glad to see that people are still interested in what she had to say.

Our library was "kicked out" of the local inter-library association. We can no longer order books from another library. The next village over allowed us to go to their library, but our village had to pay an annual fee of $5000. Less than 10 people(of which I was one)used it so our mayor decided that the money was best used for something else. Now, if we want a book and they don't have it, they're supposed to buy it. Apparently this is more cost effective.

I do belong to our local freecycle. I've gotten rid of a few things and picked up some good stuff. My problem is my DH-he thinks I'm acting like "white trash" taking other people's garbage. However, he was happy with the electric snow shovel I got for him. Go figure.

I use ground turkey in a lot of recipes that call for ground beef. I've done it for over 20 years and we've come to prefer it. I buy it in 1 lb frozen packages-the kind Scrapple come in. They're usually less than $1.00/lb. There's a cash only supermarket locally. Their prices are so much lower than the big chains.

eileenkny

I pay 10.5 dollars for a gallon of gaz..and between 30-40 dollars for a yard of fabric..120 dollars for queensize batting...
Quiltrelated items I have started to order online...I pay 1/3 of the norwegian prize when I order from USA.
I make all my food at home (In Norway you will go out for a meal once a month maybe), I eat 3 meals a day and my snack is fruit. I never have chips, chocolate, candies or any sweets in my cabinet.

I NEVER go shopping for food when I am hungry!!!!! :shock: :shock:

I buy the things I need and if I can spend some extra money I buy from my "I want to have-list".

Hi Everyone!
This is a great topic!!! A couple years ago, I was trying to be a stay at home mom (didn't work out ) and I was reading books on being frugal/smart with your resources. Here are a couple you might want to check out for more ideas:

Miserly Moms and Frugal Families by Johnnie McCoy: These books are very good. Keep in mind that they were written in the 90's, so the prices she gives are outdated, but the tips are still good. There are some good tips about food purchasing and meal planning, such as having a soup and salad night, or a baked potato and salad night. Also, planning your meals... which allows me to recommend another good book:

Frozen Assets by Deborah Taylor-Hough: The book suggests buying all the ingredients for your supper meals at one time, with coupons and buying what's on sale/in season. Then plan to have a once-a-month cooking session... cook the meats and chop veggies the night before, then spend a day assembling everything in freezer bags/containers. This was a real eye opener for me when I did it one month as far as what I could save. In addition, it helped with my crazy work schedule so I could come home and pop something good in the oven, versus panicking and ordering out.

The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn: This book is large, and some of the suggestions are hard to do if you live in tight quarters or in the city and don't have room to store lots of stuff purchased on sale or have problems with clutter, but worth checking into.

Debt-Proof Living by Mary Hunt: I actually need to get back into this book!!! One of her tips is to write down everything you purchase for a month, then go back and see where you can cut back. There are also good ideas about getting out of debt, as the title suggests!

Here are some others that work for me:

Contribute to your company's Health Care Reimbursement or Child Care Reimbursement Accounts. Depending on how much you contribute, you could take back a chunk of taxes from Uncle Sam.

Shop your homeowner's and car insurance policies. I can never beat my car insurance (Liberty Mutual... LOVE them for customer service, too!), and last year it dawned on me to have them quote my homeowner's... I saved about $600 annually because of multi-policies, long time customer, and other discounts.

Look up Freecycle.org and join your local Yahoo group. You can post things you don't want anymore and browse for things other people are posting. Keep in mind, it's free - no strings attached, and no cost.

Lastly, if you are a book hound like I am... start ordering books from the library! In the last couple years I've discovered that I can get just about any book I want if I can wait a couple days for it to be ordered from another library. I can also do it online, so before I buy something on Amazon, I check the library. My local library almost NEVER has the books I want in their building, but participates in a system that gets books from cities over an hour or more away! However, I usually cannot find quilting books I want, so I ask people to give me gift certificates for book or quilt shops when they ask what I'd like for a gift.

Good luck!
Michelle in MI

Thanks Pat that worked its over 200000 now plus I emailed it to friends.
Wendy

Okay, try this url:

http://www.americansolutions.com/actioncenter/petitions/?Guid=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659

Pat in Rockport, TX

We're at $4.19 a gallon for gas here in Michigan! I've started to carpool to work with a neighbor. It's somewhat inconvenient, but not as bad as the sporadic bus system and I guess I can deal with it in order to save gas.