Report:
Heather Johnson of Brooklyn Park adheres to an entertainment and eating-out budget of no more than $100 per month for her family, and uses her connections to stretch those dollars further. For example, she's purchased cheap tickets to places such as the Minnesota Zoo through work and her insurance company, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Be sure you know about discounts offered through your employer.
Reader Sören Erickson's tip is to work where you'd spend all of your money anyway. Erickson worked at a bar during his years at Minnesota State University.
"It pays well, work is often fun, on your off days you'll likely get a deal from friendly bartenders, and it will minimize how much money you spend at the bar since you'll have to work nights," wrote the 31-year-old Farmington resident on my blog: www.startribune.com/kablog.
Be careful. Without discipline, this strategy will backfire and you'll spend your entire paycheck before you get home.
Finally, if you feel peer pressure to spend money and want to cut back without missing out, consider having a frank conversation with your social circle about setting a spending limit.
You could also try what 29-year-old Katie Wenigmann calls an "ATM diet," where you take a certain amount of cash out at the beginning of the week and it has to last until the next week no matter what.
For Wenigmann, who brings a bag lunch and cooks at home all week to afford eating out on the weekends and wishes her indebted friends would do the same, setting a spending limit or starting a group ATM diet might help her good habits rub off on her good friends.
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