| Five-dollar greeting cards. Huge packages of paper | | | | side, plastic on the other) into napkin-sized pieces. No |
| napkins that vanish in a matter of days. The little, | | | | need to hem! The plastic side keeps spills off your lap, |
| everyday things can soak up so much of our money. | | | | the felt side is good for wiping your mouth, and they're |
| Where does it end? | | | | washable. Just remember to dry them on the line |
| With you. Refuse to pay too much for these common | | | | instead of in the dryer. |
| items: | | | | Laundry detergent - the package usually tells you to |
| Greeting cards - make your own, of course. It's not | | | | use more than you really need. (Wonder why.) Put in |
| just for school kids making construction paper cards | | | | no more than half the amount suggested - then see if |
| for Mother's Day. There are tons of sites with free, | | | | you can get away with even less. It helps if you throw |
| printable greeting cards. If you have any talent for | | | | in one of your used cleaning rags, after it's soaked up |
| drawing, or just using rubber stamps and glitter, put it to | | | | a lot of cleaning fluid. (You do use cleaning rags, don't |
| work. | | | | you, not paper towels?) |
| Notepads - the kind you always need by the phone. | | | | Sliced lunch meat - companies slap an incredible |
| Save sheets of paper with one unused side. Cut or | | | | markup on meat they've bothered to slice and |
| tear a few of them into quarters and staple these | | | | package in small amounts. Get a slicing machine and |
| together into a pad. | | | | make your own. |
| Paper napkins - handier than cloth ones, but still too | | | | If all this is too much to remember, write it down - on |
| expensive. Try this: cut a cheap tablecloth (felt on one | | | | one of your homemade notepads. |