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Reader Tips

If you’re looking for lots of great tips to help you in your frugal journey, you’ve come to the right place! Our list of reader tips has been growing since we started in 2004, and there’s something for everybody. Browse from oldest to newest by type of tip.

Click a reader tip title below to view the full details.

Start Saving

Being smarter with your grocery dollars is one of the fastest ways to fire-up your family's financial recovery. Here are four ways to begin saving on groceries starting today.

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GROCERY BILL IN HALF!

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Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with America's Cheapest Family

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Get a copy of our 90 minute
Stretching Your Grocery Dollars
Seminar CD or Instant Download

Annette will walk you through how we plan
the shopping, cooking and storage of the food
we buy for our family.
We spend less than half of what most people
spend to feed their family.
It's like having a one-on-one coaching
session as she walks you through dozens of her
planning, shopping, storing and cooking strategies.

Listen to audio clips and a video here

Tip type: Groceries, Kitchen Ideas, Shopping

Free Menu Planner

In our book, Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half, we offered readers a free copy of our Menu Planner. Just click on the link at the bottom of this page and you can download your .pdf version. Website subscribers can also download a .doc version that they can personalize.

Thanks for visiting MoneySmartFamily.com! Hope you save a boodle.

Tip type: Cooking, Groceries
Farm Sense for Chickens, Pigs and Worms

Egg Shells:I bake my egg shells for a few minutes, usually I pop them into the oven after turning off the oven, and let the shells bake while the oven is cooling down. Then I then crush them and feed to my chickens (along with their food) as a calcium additive w/o having the expense of buying it at the store.

Tip type: Garden, Kitchen Ideas, Pets
I Like Facebook for Celiac Disease

I live in a small city and I have celiac disease. To save money and add variety to my diet, I communicate on Facebook with several other gluten-free households.

Tip type: Groceries, Health Care, Kitchen Ideas
No More Drain-O

We no longer buy drain cleaners. We use a combination of 1 cup of baking soda pour into the drain then 1 cup of vinegar on top of the baking soda and let it set for a few minutes then run hot water down the drain.

Tip type: Home Repair, Kitchen Ideas, Workshop Ideas
Post-Its Help Me Stick to the Meal Plan

I got your Grocery Book and love it!

Tip type: Cooking, Groceries, Kitchen Ideas
Simple Dough Ornaments

These are extremely easy to make and a great craft for younger kids to help with.

Tip type: Crafts / Decor
Simple Tinsel Wreath

This is an inexpensive favorite of mine. Start with a wreath — Styrofoam, straw or grapevine — about 18 inches in diameter, and two bunches of metallic tinsel garland.

Take two large paper clips and cut them in half so you have four narrow “U” shapes. Loop the end of the garland around a “U” shape and poke it into the wreath to secure the end.

Tip type: Crafts / Decor
A Child Running Your Household Budget!????

I know you just wrote a book on kids and money, but here's our best tip: We put our 15 year old in charge of the family finances. We homeschool, so he'll get 1/2 a credit for it too. We began by taking him to a free six week course on money sponsored by a local church. We talked about budgets, credit, tithing, and accountability. Then, we showed him our finance folder:

1) The "master" 2012 budget which lists each category and how much money is allotted each month to each category.

Tip type: Kids
Cheap Lunchmeat - is it worth the effort?

Pork prices have been pretty low lately. We've found pork chops for 99 cents a pound and shank hams as low as 78 cents a pound. Watch this video where we slice our own lunch meat from a shank ham and let us know if you think it's worth the effort.

Don't laugh at our video skills - we're still learning . . . and Steve being headless is actually a blessing . . . right?

Leave a comment and let us know how you save on lunch meat.

Tip type: Groceries, Shopping
College Text Book Savings - International Editions

I've been taking college classes for some time now and found that many times I can find an "International" edition of a specific textbook for less than the US edition listed for class. I've found them mostly found on Amazon.com.

Tip type: College, Kids
Foaming Savings

I use those soap bottle that automatically makes foam to wash hands. BUT, the refills can be quite expensive so I buy a big refill of Soft Soap regular stuff, fill my foaming soap bottle about 1/2 an inch with the regular soap and fill the rest with water. Shake and voila—foaming soap for a fraction of the cost.

Tip type: Babies, Cleaning, Hair & Personal Care, Health Care
More College Textbook Saving Ideas

We've been using Chegg for the past two years now to rent my daughter's college textbooks.

Tip type: College, Retirement Ideas
Saving By Evaluation

Go through your bills and identify expense charges on items that don't make sense! I just went through three accounts and "found" what amounts to a total of $535.56 in annual "savings" This includes eliminating a worthless insurance plan on a three year-old cell phone, and eliminating a second HD Cable Receiver Box in a spare bedroom that apparently already gets HD channels from the main box in the living room.

Tip type: Entertainment, Shopping
Cheap Fun—Telephone / Pictionary Game

We learned this game from a college-aged friend a few years ago. Every time we play it we laugh until we cry.

Tip type: Retirement Ideas