by Elaine Burgin

Created on: January 24, 2009

My kids call me a cheapskate for trying to save money every way I possibly can. They make fun of me because I am one of the few people left who will actually stoop to pick up a penny on the ground! I've always been like this, even when gasoline cost 87 cents a gallon. But now, with the price of food and fuel skyrocketing, I feel obligated to pass along my penny pinching tips to you, dear readers, so that you can cut your expenses just like I have just by using the following tips:

Save money on groceries by buying the house brand instead of a name brand. The cost of advertising drives up the cost of a name brand, and they pass that cost along to you, the consumer. I've used house brands of almost every product and found them to be as good as or better than the name brand. The only exception I found is laundry detergent. I stubbornly stick to my favorite brand because it just works better.

Grow your own food. You don't have to have a big yard- I have a tomato plant in a pot on my screened porch, and we've eaten tomatoes from it all summer. Another advantage of growing your own is that you don't have to worry when food safety issues like the recent salmonella scare make the headlines. You know your home grown food is safe.

Make a bar of soap last a lot longer by keeping it dry between uses. Use a soap dish that keeps as much of the bottom of the bar as dry as possible and you will eliminate the "soap dish jelly" that forms when the soap sits in water.

On the back of almost every shampoo bottle are the instructions "Lather, rinse, repeat." Since I shampoo my hair nearly every day, I skip the "Repeat" part, and that works just fine for me. Try this yourself for a few days. If it works for you, you can make that bottle of shampoo last twice as long.

Every commercial on TV shows an actor covering a toothbrush from one end to another, and then some, with toothpaste. That's just way too much for me, and results in a blob of toothpaste left in the sink. I use 1/3 to 1/2 a toothbrush length and that works fine. And, my toothpaste lasts 2 to 3 times longer.

I use leftover grocery bags to line my garbage cans. The large paper bags work fine for tall kitchen cans. You can even double bag to guard against leakage. The smaller plastic bags work great for bedroom and bathroom cans.

Instead of reordering checks from the bank when you run out, use one of the mail order check services that advertise in your weekly newspaper supplement or in the mail. This generally costs much less than

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