How to Save Money, Live on Less, and Love It

How to Save Money, Live on Less, and Love it

Leifa Butrick

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2011 Leifa Butrick

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

How to Save Money, Live on Less, and Love It

An inspiring guide to taking control of your finances

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 In search of principles

Principle #1 Rethink your dependence on others

Principle # 2 Don’t buy insults

Principle # 3 Expand your skills

Making these principles pay off: two inventories

Chapter 2 Specifics of a Spending Plan

Eat better and save

Make your clothing compliment you

Home sweet home

Organizing

Cleaning tips

Utility bills

Transportation

Your car

Airlines and vacations

Communication

Entertainment

Insurance

Healthcare

Education

Gifts/charity

Chapter 3 Putting your spending plan together

Other resources

Chapter 4 A Little Help from My Friends

Adult Education—It’s Not for Kids by Marshall Boyler

Voluntary Simplicity by Mark Gill

Recipes for Quick and Easy Cooking by Julia Gerlach

How to Travel Light, Look Great, and Enjoy Your Vacation by Leifa Butrick

How to Save Money, Live on Less, and Love It

Introduction: A quick, inspiring guide to taking control of your finances

Lost your job? Congratulations. You could be on the brink of a great new career.

Creditors on your tail? Read this book and stop throwing your money to the wolves.

If you are broke or out of work, you are not alone. According to statistics available just prior to the publication of this eBook, eleven million people in the United States are unemployed and 1,596,355 people declared bankruptcy in 2010. Job creation is hardly keeping up with the numbers of new college graduates who join the workforce each year.

Don’t wait for the politicians to come up with a solution to bail you out. It may never happen. You could be so deeply in debt by the time it does that your financial recovery will take years.

Start today to take new responsibility for your financial welfare. Take a fresh look at the meaning of money in your life. Devise a spending plan that puts you in control and gets you what you really want and need.

More than a Laundry List

This is not a book for cheapskates who want to gyp other people out of their due. This is not a compendium of a million ways to spend two cents less here or a dollar less there. This book will change your life if you let it. It will help you put money into perspective and be a happier person as a result.

I whole-heartedly believe that you pay for everything. What you want may not always cost you in pennies or nickels and dimes, but to get it, you will have to give up, work for, make do, or trade something for it. It’s extremely important to be clear about what you are trading, or you might find out that you just made a bad deal. Peace of mind, for example, can be a big price to pay for something.

I also believe that it is easier to save money and abide by a spending plan if you have a set of principles to follow instead of an encyclopedic list of ways to cut corners or supposedly get something for nothing. These principles must be few enough in number to be easily brought to mind. They need to cover a multitude of situations, and they must be tailored to you in order to help you make the choices that will benefit you.

Chapter 1: In search of the principles

The reason we need money at all is that we live in a society where labor is divided among the workers for the sake of efficiency and greater production. Our complex industrial world has encouraged each one of us to make our living as an expert in something. We often learn little or nothing about other people’s skills. The result is automatic acceptance of our dependence on others. We are all willing to trade a great deal of money to have others do something for us.

Human beings are social creatures. We need one another for fun,