7. Use up all the food in your pantry, freezer, and fridge.

This one doesn't need a lot of explaining.  The title says it all.  Take an inventory of the food that you currently have in your house and make a concerted effort to use it all up.  Start with the items that are going to expire the soonest (and throw away the ones that are already expired!).  Make it a goal to try to not buy groceries for one month (this excludes perishables such as milk since they will not last that long).  The average American family of 4 spends around $600 a month on groceries.  If you could cut this out for just one month, you could use all that extra money to pay off bills or to put into savings.  If you are stuck and can't figure out what to make, you can use websites like www.recipepuppy.com to help with your meal planning.  You just type in the ingredients you have and it will give you recipes that include those ingredients.  Also, make sure to use up the meat in your freezer.  After awhile, it does get freezer burn and then it does not taste very good.  Use it up.  You can always buy more when you find a good sale.  As you start using items up, you may be surprised at what you find pushed to the back of the freezer, fridge, or panty!  When the month is over and it is time to replenish your supply, remember the food you had to throw away because it expired before you got to it. Hopefully, that will prevent you from overbuying in the future. 

6. Make reusable “paper” towels

Making your own reusable "paper" towels does require a little sewing, so if you (or someone you know) don't have access/ability to sew, this one may not be for you.  The tutorial that I used can be found here.  I found the flour sack cloth at my local Wal-Mart Superstore in the section with oven mitts and kitchen towels.  They had white, red, and black.  I went with white just because I'm a traditionalist and I like my paper towels to be white :).  As stated in the tutorial, the towels are very large.  I cut 24 "select-a-size" pieces from each towel.  The way the towels are folded, you can just cut along the creases to get this size.  24 "select-a-size" pieces x 5 towels = 120 paper towels.  I used a serger to finish off the edges so that they wouldn't fray and viola...Done!  I put a small basket that I got from a thrift store for 50 cents next to the sink and I put the towels there (right next to the paper towels).  It did take a little while to retrain the family to stop using the paper towels, but it has sunk in and is working great!  We do still use the paper towels for really bad messes (like grease) because I really don't want to have to try to launder something like that out of them.  I'm estimating that we use one roll of real paper towels about every 3-4 months.  It might actually be longer than that.  The set of flour sack towels actually made so many, that I put half the stack away.  When the ones I am currently using get torn up or stained too badly, I'll pull out the ones I have stored away.  I've been using these for over a year now and they are holding up really well.  Not only are you saving money, but you can save a tree or two as well.