Maybe we've had no choice. Raising children is so expensive, with the high cost of clothes, child
care, after-school activities, and maybe braces. The price of gasoline makes us crazy every time we
have to fill 'er up, and our utility bills are high enough to start a revolution. And taxes? We all
agree they're way too high!
So how can we find an extra $2,000-$3,000 a year to invest? Well, we only need to save $5.48 each
day. In this chapter you will not only learn how to automatically save $5.48, but much, much more.
But not this way:
My ex-wife, bless her heart, came home with a pretty new dress. She assured me that it was too good
of a bargain to pass up, "It was free”! It was obviously an expensive dress, so I asked her to
tell me why it didn't cost her anything. "Well", she explained, "it was on sale for
half-off the regular $200 price. So I bought it with the $100 I saved. And since the sales tax was
less, I really came out ahead."
I guess it takes a person with a special kind of logic to see the world this way. (But then maybe
she was hoping it would make sense to dumb ol' me)
My earliest experience with frugality was watching my mother saving aluminum foil and using it a
second time for roasting or baking. She also saved the rubber bands from the newspaper that was
delivered every afternoon. She would carefully compare the supermarket ads for bargains, and of
course, clip the coupons.
My mother canned fruits and vegetables that she grew, darned our socks, made our Halloween
costumes, and re-used Christmas wrap and ribbons. She hung the laundry out to dry instead of
insisting on an electric dryer. We exchanged some clothing with cousins and baby furniture too. Our
hair was always cut at home.
Of course every aluminum can and soda pop bottle was saved like it was made out of gold. My mother
always seemed to know which kind of things went on sale in which months. But nobody would say she
was cheap or a spendthrift or a tightwad. This was all a pretty normal way of saving money.
Then there was an uncle, who bragged how he had a way of reusing vacuum cleaner bags. He would even
put his electric bill and payment in the same envelope with his neighbor's, to save a few cents on
postage. He must have had a mile of string stuffed in a drawer, along with dozens of 1 inch pencil
remains. He re-used his calendars, since every 7 years (except leap years) January begins on the
same day of the week. He drove a 25 year old car.
He only wore one color of socks, black, so when the wicked washer/dryer duo would eat one, he was
never left with a sock without a mate. His shower curtain had been repaired so many times with duct
tape that you had to laugh at it.
My uncle never went out to a movie because it was a "waste of money". After all, in a few
years all the "good ones" would be shown on TV anyway, and there was The Lawrence Welk
Show every week for real entertainment. I never did figure out why he was saving all those egg
cartons. He was quite proud of being a tightwad, quoting "a penny saved is a penny earned."
I promised to show you how to easily save at least $5.48 a day ($2,000 a year). I also promise on
the following pages not to suggest any of the dozens of silly things people do to save pennies,
they just aren't worth the effort.
We already know all about coupons and generic foods and buying in bulk and eating leftovers and
carpooling and that it's cheaper to rent videos than go to the movies. So I'm not going suggest the obvious.
So here we go.
Other Saving Money and Smart Spending Topics:
-
Saving Money for Investments
- List of Ways to Save Money
- More Money Saving Ideas
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