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Is your job in danger of being shipped overseas? Is your employer considering a hiring and salary freeze? Are you unemployed? These trying economic times may cause difficulties, but they also represent a tremendous opportunity for each of us to examine our role in the economy and to examine our personal consumption habits. If we all resolve to improve the quality of our spending, even though we may be limited in how much we spend, our world will come out of the current recession much healthier than it was before.

If money is tight, be especially thoughtful about how you spend it. Here are some no-brainer suggestions for ways to cut your expenses. You may think these things are too trivial to bother with, but over the course of a year or two, the savings will really add up:

• When you reach for the last book of checks in your drawer and see that “reorder now” sheet, instead of calling your bank, buy new checks online instead. Buying online can save you most of the markup that your bank charges.
• Check your newspaper subscription rates. If it is cheaper to just get the Sunday paper, change your subscription. You don’t need to read the paper seven days a week, and you will be saving many trees by cutting down to one day. Be sure to clip grocery coupons from your Sunday paper. The savings will pay for the paper many times over and will significantly cut your food bill.
• If the store is just down the street, walk or ride a bicycle to do your shopping. Use high quality reusable tote bags so you can carry your stuff home. If you avoid driving just one mile per day, you will save anywhere from $25 to $75 per year on gasoline, depending on your car’s efficiency and the price of gasoline.
• Turn your thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer. Look for inexpensive ways to improve the energy efficiency of your house. Easy ways to save energy are by covering windows on cold nights and plugging leaks around windows and doors.
• Buy inexpensive grocery ingredients and cook from scratch. Not eating out can save you a ton of money. But, don’t neglect to support your local eateries on special occasions like your significant other’s birthday!
• Need new clothes? Check your local thrift store first, especially for kids’ clothing that they will outgrow quickly. You can find like new items at amazing prices.

This is just the beginning of ways you can streamline your personal economy. Make saving money a pleasurable pastime. When you buy checks, don’t get the same plain boring style you have had for years. Get frog checks or something exciting like endangered species checks instead. Make foods you have never tried before, like a green salad with arugula and spinach, or grilled bison burgers. Buy colorful, offbeat clothes at your local thrift store that you would never think of paying retail for. Life is short. Have fun!