Simple ways to stretch a buck

Looking for some quick and easy ways to stretch the money in your life? Chec koutthese ideas.

Ne verthrow o utah alf-full garbage bag: Make sure your garbage bags are full before you toss them out. If they’re not, go around the house and empty all the wastebaskets into your main garbage bag.

You’ll cut down on the amount of bags you use and save money by not having to buy them so often.

Cut everything in half — literally: Youcancutmany common household items in half to get twice the life out of them. Try it with napkins, paper towels, dryer sheets, sponges and anything else that you think m ayw ork.

Turn off the lights and use natural sunlight: It may sound old fashioned, but it’s true. When not in use, turn off the juice.

Collect your pocket change and cash it in once or twice a month: Ifyoudon’t take them ou to fyourp ockets, let’s face it — they pose a laundry hazard. They can puncture a whole in the drum of the washer or dryer. Now that’s a real wardrobe malfunction. Instead, get any simple con- tainer and collect those coins.

If you have to eat out, buy ap artially used gift card: A lot of personal finance articles focus on how you should skip the expensive latte, brown-bag your lunch and so on. All great ideas, right? But sometimes, you just want to eat out. Turns out you can have your cake— or coffee, or sandwich, or burrito — and eat it, too.

ABCGiftCards.com, CardPool.com and MonsterGiftCard.com are just a few of the many sites that let you buy second hand gift cards at a discount to their face value. For example, her eareaf ew deals we found on ABCGiftCards:

Chi pot le–save up to 7.3 percent; Cracker Barrel–save up to 18.4 percent; IHOP – save up to 15.7 percent.

Check with the website seller for their protection policy before you buy. Most will guarantee the card will work for 90-180 days or your money back.

Freeze your credit cards and go cash only for a week: Freezing your plastic will help you stretch a buck because you’ll be more mindful about the w ayyousp end. Research shows there’s something tangible about cash in hand that makes us spend it more sparingly than we do with plastic.

If you do this for a couple weeks a ndliketh e results, why not consider making it permanent and going to a cash-only envelope system in your life?

Visit ClarkHoward.com for more info, or get his best-selling books signed with fre e shipping at GetClarkSmart.com.