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By Lindsey Meier
For thousands of years, women have found ways to stretch the family income through creative planning. In by-gone days women made their own soap, sewed and mended clothes, grew their own salads, and plucked their own hens. While some of those are still valid dollar-stretching techniques, modern ladies have many more options. Saving money often just means spending less. If a girl works it right, she can live the lifestyle she wants without getting tangled in debt, just by spending carefully.
Feed Your Family And Your Piggy Bank
The food budget is often the easiest place to cut back on spending. Cooking at home saves hundreds of dollars over eating out, unless of course you always cook steak. With low cost foods such as beans, rice, pasta, frozen vegetables, potatoes, eggs, and so many more, you really can serve up a delicious and quickly prepared meal that packs more nutrition per calorie and per dollar than anything you can find on a drive-through menu. Surprisingly, the cheapest costing foods are also the most nutritious, with the exception of hot dogs and ramen noodles. If you just hate washing dishes but wouldn't mind cooking, then go ahead and eat on paper plates like you would if you had ordered take-out. Eating cheap nutritious meals saves money now and keeps you healthy longer, decreasing the risk of extremely costly illnesses in the future.
If you can, find alternative food sources. Try joining a produce co-op, and buy your meat from a meat market instead of the super market. You often get fresher food for a better price. Also, check the sale ads for things your family loves. Walmart will give you the sale price on any item from any current ad of their competitors.
Don't Just Accept High Bills
If you find your bills are still higher than you'd like them to be, consider what you could do to change them. A long distance phone bill can be staggering. Try using a $.04 per minute calling card, or get your best friend in Mexico and your mom in Michigan to sign up for an online voice chat service such as Skype. If your phone bill is $70, consider getting high-speed internet access for $50 and a digital phone service like Vonage for $25, and kiss the pricey landline telephone and your dial-up internet service provider goodbye.
Approach your dry-cleaning, utility, and fuel bills with creativity, and don't be afraid to try new ways of doing things. Conserving resources is great for your pocket-book and good for our planet, too. Why not give cloth diapers a try? Or what about those home dry cleaning kits? Saving money can be a fun project if you let yourself relax and enjoy doing things differently.
Save 30-75% Off Your Life
Just imagine... if you saved 50% on everything you paid for, you could make an income of $30,000 seem like $60,000. Or you or your husband could work 50% less and have more time to find the good deals! While this may not be realistic, the theory is a good one, and could possibly inspire you to shop more carefully. Take time to find the best price on the things you want. Shopping smarter is sometimes slower, but saves money.
Housewares, electronics, gifts, clothes, and other great items are easily bought for less online or in local resale shops and dollar stores. Search online auctions and e-stores instead of going to the mall to find the perfect gifts for Christmas. Buy a box of hardly used children's clothes on Ebay instead of getting all new ones. Buyer beware, shopping thriftily can become addictive, and you may end up buying way more than you really need. Don't worry through, you can always auction the surplus off to someone else.
Cheap Entertainment
Staying home instead of going out to have fun is also a great way to save without stressing. Cancel the cable TV and sign up for unlimited DVD rentals with a company like Netflix, or buy a bunch of $1 movies from Walmart and your dollar store. Eat ice cream at home, play games, read, or do crafts instead of running around town. Becoming a homebody can save you loads of money. When you need to get out, visiting parks or libraries, going window shopping, and visiting friends are all free ways to enjoy leisure time without having to plan a big event or spend a dollar.
Make A Game Of It
Keep track of how much money you save through your creative efforts. Set goals and then award yourself with something special and low-cost. You may find that saving money becomes a favorite hobby and something you would choose to do just for kicks.
Lindsey Meier lives in Texas with the love of her life and their two children. Between diaper changing and dish-washing she enjoys writing, reading and art. Lindsey and her husband aim to live productively and purposefully but don't mind having a little fun along the way
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