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He bills himself as America's cheapest man. Hardly anybody disagrees with him.

Jeff Yeager, 49, spent nearly 25 years working as a senior executive with national nonprofit groups in the Washington, DC area. Dubbed "The Ultimate Cheapskate" by the staff of the NBC TODAY show, he periodically appears on the program as a guest correspondent. His web site is www.UltimateCheapskate.com.

It's pretty easy to find Yeager on talk shows since his first book, The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches, came out in January 2008 under a Random House cover.

While immersed in management in the nonprofit section,Yeager at age 46 suddenly realized his tightwad ways in business and his personal finances left him in a position to be able to retire. He had reduced his dependency on money to the point where he was able to choose how to spend his time each day.

Yeager still lives with his wife on the fringes of Washington, DC. According to Dan Zak, writing in the March 2, 2008 issue of The Washington Post, the self-proclaimed cheapskate just finished the second leg of his book tour on a bicycle. While traveling through Florida, he accepted the hospitality of some fellow frugal folks and donated the per-diem for his tour to public libraries. Most of his budget-conscious followers consider him an advocate of the "cheap pride" movement.

Zak lists Yeager's six golden rules for ruling your money:

1. Manage to living within your means at age 30, then stay there. While you're still young, establish a frugal style of living. As your income rises, bank the difference.

2. Never underestimate the power of NOT spending. For every penny you save, you will have earned the equivalent of 1.3 to 2 cents, considering income taxes. Your objective should be create a cushion so that you can live well without having to expend more time to make ends meet.

3. Use discretion when shopping. Don't grab something that seems like an attractive buy. Instead, put it off and see if you change your mind. Another suggestion is to use only cash for purchases for a month and watch your spending plummet.

4. Do it yourself. This involves doing by yourself what you could have hired other people to do for you. Some typical examples include house cleaning and minor home and car repairs.

5. Bargain and negotiate. Yeager says almost anything is negotiable. Be sure to establish a rapport with the other person and bargain with a sense of kindness.

6. Pinch dollars and let the pennies take care of themselves. Giving up your daily cup of to-go coffee might be a good idea but is just one small step to financial independence. Yeager suggests looking at the bigger picture. For example, do you really need a three-bedroom apartment that costs $350 a month more than a two-bedroom unit?

According to The Post, Yeager believes that each generation's expectations of what people need and want have risen steadily. He cites the impact this thinking has on people's finances and says it has led the United States to have a negative savings rate for the first time since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Learn more about this author, Vonda Sines.
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