Friday, April 18, 2008

Saving Money

10 easy ways to stash away thousands

Money guru Jean Chatzky knows her book "Pay It Down: From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day" centers on a gimmick.

The thing is, gimmicks work -- at least when it comes to our often-irrational relationship with money.

Chatzky promises financial freedom for anyone who can scrounge up an extra tenner each day -- what you might spend on lunch, a car wash, a movie ticket. Someone who feels hopeless at the prospect of paying off $8,000 in credit card debt can embrace this one-day-at-a-time approach, which makes debt repayment seem not only possible but almost easy.

"It's a hook, kind of like 'no carbs' is a hook," says Chatzky, financial editor for NBC's Today Show. "This is a problem we need to get our hands around. . . . (We need) some sort of mental game we can play with ourselves that will help us solve the problem."

If we were entirely logical, of course, we wouldn't need hooks or gimmicks or any of the little self-delusions that in reality can be so helpful in giving ourselves a financial cushion. We're not Mr. Spock, though, so savings tricks can prove mighty helpful.


Check out the full list here.

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