This is the real stuff you can do to save money!

1. If you smoke or chew tobacco, you can quit. A pack a day habit costs at least $6.00 per day. That's around $200 per month. $400 if there's two smokers in the house.

2. If you drink alcohol you can quit or cut back. A twelve pack is usually at least $10. If you drink every night, probably about 4-5 beers per person so figure $5.00 per day. That's $150 per month. $300 if there's two drinkers in the house.

3. If you smoke weed, you can quit or cut back. Figure an 1/8 of an house cost about$70-$80. Probably lasts about 5-6 days. So for the sake of simplicity say you buy four bags a month. Probably at least $300. Two dope smokers in the house...$600 per month.

4. If you go to fast food or eat out a lot the best thing to do is to not eat out at all. Figure at least $10 per day, per person, per meal time. A family of four eating out is at lest $50 per meal. Do that once per week and your looking at $200 per month. Your still gonna spend some of that money to eat but lets say your gonna save at least 70% or almost $150 per month.

5. Bring a lunch to school or work. You gotta figure at least $10 per day per adult. Two working adults going to A&P every day for lunch is probably around $100 per week so by bringing lunch you can easily save at least $300 per month for a couple. Gotta figure it'll cost around $100 for the same amount of food prepared at home.

6. If you can't afford the car payments on a new car, the stupidest thing you can do is be making payments on one. Or two for some families...Status doesn't mean sh*t when it comes to what car you drive. The moment you drive that car off the lot, you've lost. Looks good, feels nice, smells good...Really, who cares!

These are just some ideas of mine that I was thinking about while eating dinner. I know we've all become accustomed to our ways of living. I just think any little idea you can find will help out right now.

Luckily for me I haven't used tobacco in about 18 months, I haven't smoked weed in at least ten years, I don't drink, I bring a lunch to work every day(so does my son), my biggest vice is probably eating out. (We love us some Sandpiper). We do have one car payment but I can proudly say it's a used car.

So for us so far the biggest challenges have been not using the dryer or the oven. We've made a weekly trip to the laundry mat to dry our clothes. We use the BBQ almost every night. We generally only have either the TV "or" the computer on. We never have more than one light on.
I guess I can ramble on all night here.

I think the bottom line is there is a lot of stuff we can give up. So as one person I know said..."You could be in Iraq!"