| Interview: Jean Chatzky |
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Ways to find money
 Generally, most people know they could hold a garage sale or use coupons at the grocery store to save money. What are some less-obvious ways people could save money?
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| Make financial
goals tangible |
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 I
think a lot of people know that they can refinance
a mortgage -- although these days, with mortgage rates
going up, that's a little bit harder. A lot of people
don't know that they can refinance a car loan. Refinancing
private student loans if you have a decent credit
score may be a way to save yourself some money. I
agree with you -- I think a lot of the solutions are
sort of out there in the ether already. But everybody
has spending weaknesses and until you take a very
close look at your own spending behavior, it's impossible
for me to tell you where your weaknesses are. I'm
a firm believer in this exercise of tracking your
spending. Just do it for a month - get a notebook
and write everything down. When I did this for the
first time, I saw I was spending a huge amount of
money, more than I ever thought, on birthday gifts
because my kids were pretty young at the time and
they were of the age where you go to the birthday
party of everyone in the class. My solution to that
was to start a present closet. When I would find something
good for $10 rather than $20, I'd buy eight of them
and stick them in the closet, which ended up saving
me time as well as money.
If you're a commuter, you may buy something
to read before you get on the train every day. If
you're a cosmetics junkie, a trip to the drugstore
ends up meaning a new lipstick every time you're there.
Pay attention also to your communications bills. A
lot of people didn't add things like texting to their
cell phone plans when they started because they didn't
think they would use the program. Texting has become
extremely popular, however, so you know if you're
spending a lot of money on pictures, texting, voicemail
or additional services, and not using your landline
anymore because you completely rely on your cell phone,
then maybe it's time to get rid of the landline.
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