If you have both a landline phone and a cell phone, and don't have a job, consider if you can get rid of your landline phone.

This will of course only work if you don't spend hours on the phone, and your cell phone plan has enough minutes. Remeber this: cell phone companies love people who go over their plan minutes and then squeeze as much as 50 cents per minute out of you for the additional minutes.

With those caveats, sit down and figure out if dumping the landline will work for you. If it does, you will save at least $25/month. Yes--it may not sound much. But trust me, when you are scraping bottom, you will be thankful for even $25 extra per month.

If you want to keep a landline, consider one of the VoIP services, and not just the ones offered by Verizon, ATT or Comcast (or whatever cable provider you may have).

MagicJack gives you 1 year of unlimited US/Canada calls for $40, after which it is $12/year if you buy 5 years at a time. But you need a working broadband Internet connection, and a computer that has to remain on all the time you want to use the phone.

For $249, you can get a Ooma box that gives you 3000 minutes to USA/Canada per month. You can pay $13/month to get extra features.

There are lots of other options available. Let others on LSN know your experience or comments so we can all cut our costs.

[This interview appeared on Boston.com on Feb 4, 2009]

Jeff Yeager, a former chief executive with various nonprofits in Washington, D.C., launched his career as "the ultimate cheapskate" five years ago, and has started a website, www.ultimatecheapskate.com, and authored a book, "The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches." These days he is increasingly in demand as people look for creative ways to save money. He spoke with us by phone from his Maryland home.

Q. Has being cheap hurt your relationships?

A. No, I have a lot of fun with the title cheapskate. To me, it's just the opposite of being a conspicuous consumer. They spend and consume at warp speed just to show off to others. Cheapskates like me, we're too self-confident and too smart to spend money on things we don't need and, if we stop and think about it, we probably don't want.

Q. What do you waste money on right now that you shouldn't?

A. Oh, I don't really waste money. I do lead a very frugal life. Sometimes people ask me, if money wasn't an object, what would you splurge on? I'd say I like to travel. We travel on the cheap. Maybe I'd do more of that. What I write about is the whole idea of enough and deciding what's enough for you. Everybody's answer is different. Most people don't seem to ever stop and ask themselves that question. All they know is that they want some more. More than they have right now.

Q. Do you really take barf bags off airplanes and use them as lunch bags?

A. I take those things when I can. I like to have some fun with being cheap. Right now, I'm experimenting with dryer lint.

Q. What do you use that for?

A. It's very flammable, so you can use it to start your wood furnace.

Q. Is lint a great thing to burn?

A. You can compost it easily. Dryer lint is kind of symbolic for me because it represents tremendous waste. It's your clothes having the life being beaten out of them. You're better off hanging them on a line.

Q. You also have this thing where you try to spend a dollar a pound. What's a perfect example of a healthy food that's that cheap?

A. Lentils are probably the all-time perfect food. The things we're supposed to eat the most of, they cost the least. It's the things that are the worst that cost the most.

Q. Like what?

A. Red meat. Processed foods.

Q. But I'm a big believer in wild salmon. That's not cheap.

A. I'm not saying you can buy any food you want for a dollar a pound, but I'm taking on this common myth that it costs more to eat healthy. You can score beans and rice and whole grains, legumes.

Q. Tell me two things people can do to save money.

A. First, simplify your life. By that, I mean everything from staying around home more to eating lower on the food chain to using up stuff you have on hand. In general, whenever you simplify, you save money, live lighter on the planet, and it makes you happier.

Second, contact your insurance company, phone company, bank, cable company, et cetera and ask them how they can help you reduce the amount you pay them every month.

Q. Can this economic downturn actually be good news for a guy like you?

A. It is. We're fighting a cultural battle here. My quest is to make cheap, as I defined it, the new cool. I'm trying to tick that pendulum back and say maybe that waste is not cool. The current rates of spending and consumption in America are unsustainable on the earth. . . . A victory in my camp I would point to would be the rapid decline of the Hummer in the United States.

Q. Do you own a house?

A. It's the only house we've ever owned, and we've been here 20 some years. My theory is finish in your starter home. Buy a modest home, pay it off as quickly as you can, and stay in it as long as you can. We started with a 30-year mortgage, reduced it to 15, and ended up paying it off by 13 years.

Q. If you were Bill Gates, would you act this way? What sorts of things might you allow yourself?

A. I'm not opposed to having money. But . . . I don't think I would change my life at all with the possible exception that I would maybe travel more, though I'd maybe travel on the cheap. I'm not a rich person by certain standards, but my wife and I decided this is the life we want.

Q. Who is to blame for the economic collapse?

A. You mean consumers? I think there's plenty of blame to go around. Certainly at the core of this problem we're having has been greed and excess and blind ambition to amassing more money. Many consumers are guilty of that. But certainly our institutions and banks have been guilty of the same thing. This is a financial orgy we've been going through.

Q. Wouldn't another Great Depression be the ultimate lesson?

A. I think we're getting that. It's a question of what degree you need to inflict that pain. A whole bunch of people are learning a very hard-earned lesson. That's part of the learning exercise.

I feel like the government probably ought to do something to help out. I bristle at the thought government money might be used to pay off people's mortgages and put them back in homes they couldn't afford in the first place.

Those people were stupid and greedy, and I don't think that should be rewarded. At the same time, I don't want to see people out on the streets.

Did you know that there is a "Free" subcategory on CraigsList, listed under "For Sale"?

I have a friend who listed his 50" projection TV there (in fine working order, but too big once he got a Plasma) and some lucky college kid with a truck picked it up in 30 minutes.

Dig through that--who knows, you may find your next table there.

[By Doug Most / Boston Globe Magazine]

Now where is that waiter?

It's the parental quagmire. Date night is supposed to be relaxing. The kids are asleep. The mayhem of the week is gone. And yet it's impossible to relax completely knowing a baby sitter is back at the house, watching television on your couch while eating your cookies and texting her friends - for $12 an hour.

Tick, Tick, Tick.

It's 9 p.m. If the check comes in five minutes, the thought process goes, and we're done by 9:15, we can be home by 10 p.m. and not let another $12-hour begin. That would be $50 for baby-sitting plus the $80 dinner tab, plus $20 for the movie, for a $150 evening.

This tiramisu is delicious. Now where is that waiter?

At a time when everyone's looking to trim nonessential expenses, baby-sitting is a logical place to cut. Sure, it's nice to get out occasionally, but it's expensive and times are tight.

But there is a way to have baby-sitting and a cheap night out. It just requires a little effort, ingenuity, and community spirit. If you spend $100 a month on baby-sitting, you could save $1,200 a year.

A baby-sitting co-op with friends and neighbors - whether it's to help a parent run a few errands child-free, or get both parents an adult night out on the town - is a way to take advantage of your circle of friends with children so that everyone can benefit.

It can be a formal co-op, with a website and a secretary who tracks the favors, or informal, with a list of phone numbers or e-mail addresses and nothing more.

Or it can be a simple arrangement between two couples. My wife and I have often gone to the house of some good friends to watch their children one night, and in return one of them came to our house the next night while our children slept. Both couples got date nights with no baby-sitting costs and the comfort of knowing that parents we trust were watching our kids.

Christine Andacic, a mother of two in Billerica who organizes a local parents' group called My Moms' Group Baby-sitting Coop through www.meetup.com, said she has 82 members, from Billerica to Burlington to Chelmsford. New members start out with 20 points, she said - for each favor they perform, they get points, and for each favor they request, they subtract points.

If a mom drops off her two children at another member's house for two hours, she loses four points, one for each child and one for each hour. So her 20 points would drop to 16, while the parent who watched those children would gain four points and go up to 24.

There are specific rules about the point system. Watching children at night costs extra points because it takes parents away from their own families. And no negative balances are allowed. A family that drops below zero cannot ask for any favors until they have performed favors to get back above zero.

An organizer in the group posts a spreadsheet on the website to track everyone's points.

"It's probably used once a week now," Andacic said. "Everybody is just starting to get know each other."

The idea of baby-sitting swaps is hardly new, according to author Carole Terwilliger Meyers, who wrote a 1976 book (now out of print) called "How to Organize a Baby-sitting Cooperative and Get Some Free Time Away From the Kids," in which she claimed the concept was born during World War II, when women left behind to keep up their homes and raise children relied on each other.

"A lot of people start the co-ops not to save money, but also to assure their babies are being taken care of by other parents, who have that instinct on how to deal with children," said Meyers, 63, a mother of two adult children who lives in San Francisco. "I know I had that feeling, rather than leave my baby with a teenager who doesn't have the same instincts."

Creative baby-sitting solutions are especially vital in tough economic times. With everybody looking for ways to save, a night on the town away from the children could be seen as a luxury. But Crista Martinez Padua, executive director of Families First Parenting Programs in Cambridge, said that would be a mistake.

"Parents are more than likely working harder than ever now, and children see that stress," she said. "Children are better emotionally when they see their parents taking care of themselves emotionally."

She said the parents coming to Families First these days talk about feeling guilty about working hard and being away from their children. They describe scenes where their children come home from school and say a friend's father or mother just got laid off and they wonder if that could happen to their parents.

"You have to allow yourselves some small pleasures," she said. "It does replenish your spirit. Date night doesn't have to be extravagant. Just a walk down the street hand in hand doesn't have to cost a penny, but it's a moment to catch their breath and check in with each other."

I am a transplant to New England from thousands of miles away, and one of the things I first read about when I moved to Boston was the 'Yankee Sesnibility', AKA 'Being Cheap.'

In these tough times, being Frugal is a necessity, but when does that morph into being cheap? Here is a quick exercise. Open a notepad window (or a blank email, or some other document--don't waste paper. I consider that frugal. Would you call it cheap?)

Are You Frugal Or Cheap?

1. Do you eat out (not counting lunches at work, if you have a job, that is)?

1. All the time
2. 2-3 times a week
3. 2-3 times a month
4. Never

2. When you eat out, do you?

1. I order whatever I crave
2. Order an entree for each person and take leftover to go
3. Share our meals to save some money
4. I don't eat out!

3. What do you drive?

1. The latest and greatest 2 years lease can buy
2. I buy new car every few years
3. I always buy used car
4. I don't own a car

4. What kind of TV do you have?

1. 1080 HDTV, of course!
2. A flat screen TV, but not the latest and greatest
3. I still have the one I bought 10 years ago
4. I don't have a TV

5. What cable/satellite package do you have?

1. Premium channel with everything under the sun
2. Just the basic channels so I can watch the news
3. Whatever I get with the rabbit ears
4. I don't have a TV

6. You have some old clothes, do you?

1. What are you talking about, I don't have old clothes.
2. I donate them when they get a little older
3. I turn them into rags
4. I am still wearing them

7. When you buy something, do you?

1. I buy what I want, whenever I want
2. I occasionally splurge on what I want
3. I only buy what I need, clip coupons, use discount cards, etc.
4. I avoid making any kind of purchases

8. When you receive gifts, do you?

1. I take them back to the store to trade up
2. I keep all my gifts
3. I may return or re-gift some
4. I sell them on eBay for cash

9. When you buy clothes, do you?

1. I always shop brand names
2. I usually buy when they are on sale
3. I usually shop at goodwill and thrift stores
4. I ask my friends and family for hand me downs

10. Regarding your lunches, do you?

1. I always go out to the local restaurants
2. I mostly eat low cost take out lunches
3. I occasionally pack my own lunch
4. I always pack my own lunch

Rate Yourself

For each question, give yourself: 1 point for any #1 answer, 2 points for #2, 3 points for #3, and 4 points for #4. Add up the points and rate yourself:

• 35+ = You're definitely cheap
• 25-34 = You're frugal. Good job!
• 16-24 = You're not frugal, but you appear to be reasonable with your spending habits
• 10-15 = There are a lot of opportunities for you to save money

So how did you score?

I can't believe how blunt Stewart was. Usually he softens the blows while making the point, but yesterday there were no gloves.. it was full-contact, bare-knuckles punch-fest.

By the time he said "roll 212" I was feeling pity for Jim Cramer--it was like watching Mini-me fight Mohammed Ali (could have been like watching a baby seal getting clubbed. ouch)

This was a huge wake-up call for the financial news networks. I hope CNBC does not "Tucker" Cramer--for all his bluster and mistake, he was still the only guy with enough guts to show up and face the onslaught.

Part 1 :: Part 2 :: Part 3

A Boston Globe blogger posted an article on the expenses of getting married and the stress that comes from the financial pressure of keeping up with the Jones.

Some of the comments were wonderful, practical, and could save you $50,000.

One begins:

How to avoid the wedding vampires:
1. Buy a bunch of disposable cameras and put them out around on the tables for guests to click away - provide a bag with a sign for full cameras, ask 2 of your friends to act as photographers as their wedding gift to you, if you want to be sure.

Read the comments, sorted by reader recommendations.