Easy ways to save money

Saving money for the future you want doesn't mean feeling guilty about every cent you spend on yourself now. Who would want to stick to a plan that entails that much suffering?

The Smart Cookies are all about preserving the lifestyle you enjoy – just doing it for less. Each of us managed to find lots of ways we could save extra money, without feeling like we were giving up the things that gave us pleasure. When it comes to deciding what spending strategies work best for you, it's important to come up with some that fit with your lifestyle, not just your goals. We’re not asking you to stop visiting the spa or to swap your cashmere sweater for a polyester blend just because it's cheaper. The idea is to figure out what is really important to you and what's not. We learned that we all spent a lot of money on things that didn't provide a great deal in return. And even in those areas that are important to us, there were ways to save money without sacrificing our social lives, stylish wardrobes, or the small luxuries that brighten our days.

Some places to look should be obvious to you by now. If you haven't watched the Discovery Channel in more than six weeks, maybe it's time to consider switching to standard cable. If you're spending a disproportionate amount of your paycheck on dinners out, try meeting your friends for brunch or a drink instead. There are lots of easy ways to cut back a little without lowering your standard of living. Here are a few more of our personal favorites:

Socializing
• Instead of meeting a girlfriend for dinner, suggest meeting for breakfast, lunch, or even coffee, as we mention above. If you eat out, dinner is always the priciest meal. And you are likely to have just as much fun no matter when or where you meet a friend. If you're dying to check out an expensive new restaurant, why not go early for a drink and split an appetizer? You'll get to sample the ambience and the menu for a fraction of the cost.

• Have a Girls' Night In. Rather than going out for dinner with your girlfriends, have $6 Girls' Nights In. Each person can spend $6 on food made for sharing – like pita bread, olives, and a container of hummus, for example, or a small pizza – and bring a regifted wine or combine funds with others to buy a bottle. We estimate that we collectively saved at least $3,600 just by doing this once or twice a week for one year. (How? We figured that we each would have spent at least $20 had we gone out instead. So we took that $14 saved, multiplied it by 52, then by 5, the number of Cookies in our money group.)

• Be fashionably late. Eat dinner at home before you go out to meet your friends. Then you can snack on an appetizer or skip the meal altogether and just have a drink or two with your friends.

• Eat early. Most restaurants and bars have happy-hour specials between the hours of 5 and 7 p.m. on weekdays, with drinks at half price and a range of menu items for under $10. Why not meet a friend right after work for a half-price drink and appetizer and then head home for dinner?

Page 1 of 4 — on page 2, learn how you can stay beautiful on a budget.

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Excerpted from The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough, copyright 2008 by The Smart Cookies with Jennifer Barrett. Used by permission of Random House Canada.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.