• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Cancelling my magazine and newspaper subscriptions, saving $137 per year.

Going to the public library instead of shopping at bookstores, saving $391.95 in the first year.

Planting a vegetable garden to grow my own produce, saving about $300 in 2008 (see box on Pay Less for Power).

With just these few changes, I boosted my cash flow by $2,281.61 per year—that's almost $200 every month.

Changes like these don't affect just your short-term finances—they also help you build long-term savings. Here's a look at the cumulative gains I can expect by investing the money I've saved thanks to the changes listed above. (This chart assumes a 6% return on investment; The Power of Compounding has more on the power of compound interest.)

Monthly

1 year

2 years

5 years

10 years

20 years

Cable

$53.81

$663.78

$1,368.49

$3,754.33

$8,818.35

$24,862.42

Phone/Audible

$68.45

$844.37

$1,740.82

$4,775.76

$11,217.54

$31,626.70

Subscriptions

$11.42

$140.87

$290.43

$796.77

$1,871.50

$5,276.51

Books

$32.66

$402.88

$803.61

$2,278.69

$5,352.30

$15,090.26

Garden

$23.80

$293.59

$605.28

$1,660.53

$3,900.33

$10,996.57

Total

$190.14

$2,345.48

$4,835.63

$13,226.07

$31,160.02

$87,852.46

You won't get rich—slowly or otherwise—by simply cutting your cable bill or growing your own tomatoes. But as this chart shows, when you make small changes part of an ongoing campaign of saving and investing, they can lead to a very large change indeed.

Frugal Tactics Anyone Can Use

Every year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics looks at data about millions of households to create a profile of the average American consumer. In 2008, the typical U.S. family spent the following amounts each month:

$1,747.83 on housing, including $372.08 on utilities.

$954.17 on transportation.

$687.92 on food.

$332.00 on healthcare.

$316.50 on entertainment.

Your Money And Your Life: It Never Hurts to Ask

A willingness to ask questions is one of the best weapons you can add to your financial arsenal. If you're able to overcome a little shyness, you can ask your bank to waive overdraft charges, your landlord to give you a break on the rent (see Tips for Renters), the cable company to lower your monthly fee, and your employer for a pay raise.

If you ask, you might be able to save money on almost anything. Be careful, though: It's not your right to get a better price—only to ask for it. For best results, arm yourself with information (like a competitor's ad showing a sale price) and be polite.

One reader at Get Rich Slowly sits down once a year to call all of his service providers to ask if he can save money. He simply calls the customer service line and asks about specials and promotions. This only takes a few minutes, but yields repeated savings. For more on this tactic, check out Ramit Sethi's post about asking to have bank fees removed: http://tinyurl.com/RAMITnofees.

Chapters Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 discuss ways to spend less on housing and big purchases, but there are plenty of opportunities to cut spending on smaller stuff, too. The next few sections cover the best techniques for saving on four large chunks of your family's budget: food, utilities, healthcare, and entertainment.

Note

It's impossible to list all the great ways to save on small stuff here, so think of what follows as a sort of "greatest hits" collection. You can find tons more money-saving tips at www.getrichslowly.org.

Eat Well for Less

If you work at it, you can probably save $80 or $100 or more on food every month. The four keys to fighting food costs are saving at the supermarket, making your own meals, dining out sensibly, and growing what you can. Since this isn't a cookbook, you won't find any make-at-home recipes here. But the following sections elaborate on each of the other three strategies with specific tips to inspire you.

Supermarket savings

The easiest place to trim your food budget is at the grocery