14 Solid-Gold Ways to Save - Without Giving Up Your Latte

By Anne Kadet

Some of the best things in life can be free-or blissfully under budget, at the very least. Find out how with more than a dozen O geez-I-wish-I'd-thought-of-that-earlier tactics to help you squirrel away a small fortune by this time next year.

Buy the smaller package.

Yep, you read that right. Some supermarkets and drugstores charge more per unit for the supersize product. At my grocery store, the price for a 200-ounce bottle of Tide worked out to $3.71 a quart; the 100-ounce bottle, $3.52. Ocean Spray cranberry juice cocktail cost $2.66 a quart in the larger size, $2.29 in the smaller size.

Slash your prescription budget.

Have your doctor write you a prescription for pills containing double your usual dose and cut the pills in half. Savings can be considerable: A prescription for 30 pills of a 50 milligram dose of Zoloft at cvs.com costs $96; 30 of the 100 milligram pills cost just $9 more. Some medications work only when swallowed whole, so ask the doc before you start slicing

Ask for a better rate.

You can often get a better deal on Internet service by calling your Internet service provider and requesting a discount. I called Time Warner Cable and mentioned that their competitor offered better rates. They dropped my monthly bill from $45 to $30.

Check the total.

Many online stores make up for a free-shipping policy with higher prices. Zappos.com charged $163 for a pair of Aerosoles boots, for example, that aerosoles.com had on sale for $135 plus $9 shipping.

Swap books and CDs.

Websites make it easy to trade used books and records for titles you want. Lala.com charges a dollar per swap for CDs; bookmooch.com arranges book swaps for free.

Join a ticket club.

In big cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and New York, online ticket distributor Goldstar helps theaters and clubs get rid of unsold seats by offering last-minute discounts to members; tickets are sometimes offered free when a theater needs to generate word-of-mouth for a little-known show. You can also find good deals through stubhub.com, where people resell tickets they can't use.

Get free (and souped up) 411.

Dial 800-GOOG-411, tell the nice computer what you're looking for, and Google does the rest. When I asked for a French restaurant in Brooklyn, it named 10 popular spots, sent a text message containing the address and phone number of my selection, and connected me to the restaurant so I could make a reservation.

Outsmart the airlines.

The best time to find a low fare is in the morning, says Keith Melnick, vice president of travel site kayak.com. Airfares are sometimes reset overnight, and the best pickings are available before East Coast workers get to the office. Look for flights departing Saturday, when fares are often cheapest; avoid Monday mornings and Thursday evenings, when flights are crowded with business travelers. Book as far in advance as possible-the chance of a price drop is slim, and should one occur, many airlines will credit you the difference upon request.

Rent local.

I rent cars from an independent shop that usually charges half what the big chains do-so what if that Ford Focus is a little scratched up? There's a cheap option in nearly every city, like City Rent-a-Car in San Francisco, which offers cars for as little as $25 a day

E-mail your text messages.

It's free to send text messages to a cell phone from your computer-just type your friend's cell phone address into the "to" box in the e-mail header. For Verizon Wireless customers, the address is the number@vtext.com; for AT&T, number@txt.att.net; for T-Mobile, number@tmomail.net; for Sprint, number@messaging.sprintpcs.com.

Call Hong Kong for free.

Talkster.com lets you chat for free with people around the world for as long as you please. Enter your home or cell number and a friend's number at the website. Talkster issues a set of local numbers you can call to connect. The catch: You have to listen to a 10-second ad.

Ditch the paper products.

Cloth napkins over paper is a no-brainer (cloth instead of paper for a family of four adds up to $12 savings per year), but you can also swap your paper coffee filters for a metal mesh filter (saving $8 this year after paying for the new filter, and about $18 annually thereafter), paper towels for dish rags (annual savings: $40), and memo pads for a mini chalkboard ($15 this year). Total savings: $75 (plus a lot of trees).

From 14 Solid-Gold Ways to Save-Without Giving Up Your Latte in the March 2008 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.