Annette and Steve Economides (economy-dis) have lived the Economiser lifestyle since 1982 and according to Good Morning America / ABC News are America's Cheapest Family.
America's Cheapest Family and The HomeEconomiser Newsletter are dedicated to encouraging you to find creative ways to live within your means, avoid debt with a smile, and achieve goals you never dreamed possible.
Over the years we've accomplished some above average things on a modest income. It took us 9 years to pay off our first house - on an average income of $35,000. We currently spend $350 on groceries for our family of seven, and have never had debt of any kind except for a home mortgage.
Our articles are written from our life experience and that of people we have helped over the years. Our book, America's Cheapest Family Get's You Right on the Money and each issue of the HomeEconomiser newsletter provide a dose of encouragement to resist consumerism and keep economizing!
Why economize? Our reason for economizing is to free up money and time to achieve the goals that really matter: providing for family needs; investing more time in people – spouse, children, siblings, parents and friends; eliminating debt; saving for the future; and helping others.
Free Newsletter Sample Issue - You can read or download our free, four page sample issuehere (html or .pdf).
Search for Money Saving Tips
We have hundreds of tips for helping you to stretch your paycheck.
Type in what you are searching for:
The Sept/Oct 08 HomeEconomiser Newsletter
is available! It was bulk mailed on August 29, 2008
Here's a preview
Organic Food — Is It Worth It? Your health is important, but is going “all organic” and spending gobs of money the thing to do? We have some options.
We’re stuck on Tape! What is the most economical tape for sealing a box or wrapping a present — you’ll be surprised at the price differences between equal amounts of masking, packing, duct, transparent and Kraft tapes.
Economy Hits Economical Economides’ What do you do when prices keep increasing, but your income remains the same? Find out how America’s Cheapest Family has been adjusting their spending.
Success One family shares how they started budgeting and paying off debt, but then came a lay-off — learn how they survived.
The Book Corner - Each month we review books for adults that will help save money, time and improve your family life. We also review chapter books for teens and picture books for younger readers. You can see a bunch of our recommended books here.
InsWeb.com is a great resource for quoting Auto Insurance and Homeowners insurance. We discovered them after reading a Consumer Reports article about Auto Insurance quotes. We were hesitant at first to submit personal data through this web site, but our experience has proved to us that it is very secure and we have received no spam. Our information was submitted to numerous companies (More than 28 are listed on the web site) and we started receiving quotes within 24 hours.
We spent about 15 minutes punching in our information and ended up saving $400 every six months on our auto insurance.
SAVE ON HEALTH
We've purchased our vitamins and herbal supplements from Puritan's Pride for years and years. Great customer service, excellent return policy and fast shipping make them a pleasure to do business with. But the best thing is the buy one, get multiples free deals they offer. Watch their catalogs and web site for monthly special offers.
FOOD AND FUN FOR HALF PRICE
Get an Entertainment Book for your summer vacation destination.
The Entertainment Book is a great resource for two-for-one dining coupons at restaurants from fast food to beautiful resort settings. It also provides discounts for museums, hotels and great savings on rental cars (we received a better discount from Entertainment than from AAA, Sams or Costco). We've purchased these books for use at home and also for our summer vacation destination cities and saved hundreds of dollars in a week.
Years ago, Annette's dad, Syl Meola retired from a sales job in the electronics industry and took a job at his local church as the head of the maintenance department. Syl is the consummate organizer and master of efficiency. One thing he noticed was that whenever there was a reception or some sort of meeting where drinks were served from a coffee pot or cooler, inevitably some of the liquid ended up on floor.
Over time he developed a simple yet revolutionary idea - The Original Drip Catcher was created.
It's an inexpensive way to eliminate this sticky and messy problem.
After years of selling thousands of these products by word of mouth, we've finally helped him to put up a simple web site to let the world know about his invention.
Health insurance is your first line of protection against financial disaster. If you can't afford health insurance, please, please contact your state department of insurance and see what they can do to help you.
GREAT WEB HOSTING/ GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE
Our web site is hosted by www.GoDaddy.com . To be honest, there are other providers who may be a little cheaper, but we like the fact that we can call (480) 505-8877, usually spend less than 3 minutes on hold and get a live (English speaking American) on the phone to help answer any questions we have. No joke, a real person who is well trained and speaks English. We've been to their offices in Scottsdale, they run a great organization and give you real help. (The are the largest registrar of domain names too — GoDaddy.com $1.99 Domain Names ). Here's a link to GoDaddy.com Hosting Plans
TIRED OF OUTRAGEOUS
CELL PHONE
BILLS?
How many families have been stunned by their teen's cell phone bills. We're talking shockers of over $400 in a month!
Put a stop to this budget busting habit.
First, have your teen be responsible for most, if not all of their cell phone bill.
Second, if you want to help them control costs, get them a prepaid cell phone plan.
One note: Avoid TracFone. We tried them and their customer service is TERRIBLE. Most calls are routed out of the US. You'll be on hold forever and in over 10 different phone calls, not once did the person we talked to do what they said they would to remedy our situation.
Organic Food — Is It Worth It? Your health is important, but is going “all organic” and spending gobs of money the thing to do? We have some options.
