Ways to Really Pinch Those Pennies in Tough Economic Times

A lot of people are cutting back these days on how much they spend and what they spend it on. When my wife and I sat down to make a plan to tighten our belts yet make the money we have go further, we were a bit surprised at how well we were able to do.

One easy thing right off the bat was to cut back the cable TV. By cutting it down to the most basic package possible, we now pay roughly $20 a month instead of the $60 or more we were spending before. (We hardly watch anything on TV regularly anyhow, so no big loss.)

You could call your cell phone provider and see if they are willing to cut you a better deal. Or, try what we did and get rid of your long-distance phone plan and instead make those long-distance calls on your cell phones, if you have them -- cell phones often have free long-distance at nights and on weekends.

Since food is a necessity, it's important to find the most economical supermarket around. There is one called Aldi's that has very low prices -- you can get for $80 there what might cost $200 at a Shop Rite or A&P. If there is no Aldi's in your region, maybe there is a Sav a Lot or something with a similar concept. Such stores are probably doing better now given the bad economy. (You'll probably still want to go elsewhere for certain things, like fresh produce, but sometimes produce markets are more affordable than big-name stores.)

Cheaper gas is at least one thing in our favor right now.

We canceled things like Netflix and magazine subscriptions that we really did not need.

You can try to see how low you can stand to keep the thermostat, depending on where you live. Checking your home for drafts and dealing with those can probably save you additional money on your heating bill.

We also cut out clothes shopping or, frankly, any kind of big purchases. And the funny thing is, once we made all these budgetary adjustments, we found we really were not missing anything and did not feel our lives were any worse off than before. And we saved some money in the bargain.