Thrifty Living

Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are a mother / daughter dynamic duo of dollar stretching. As a single mom Jill raised two kids on a limited income without giving up their comfort or security. When Tawra married Mike, they struggled to raise their small family, but by applying the lessons learned from Jill (Tawra’s mom), they were able to pay off $20,000 worth of debt in five years. They did all of this on an average income of $22,000.

Okay, so the title just doesn’t grab you (it didn't grab us either), we mean, who sets out to be average? An average family has piles of debt, loads of things they've purchased but don't need and spends way too much on their children.

Greg Karp is an award-winning, nationally published newspaper columnist. He understands that earning more money isn’t the solution to most financial dilemmas — but that spending smarter is! He discusses evaluating your life insurance; owning cars; analyzing phone, internet and cable TV bills and usage; options to wasting money on overpriced bottled water; extended warranties; timeshares; smoking; playing lotteries and much more. This book talks about lots of very practical ways to save money — but doesn’t really address how to develop a budgeting system.