I think that everybody is tightening their proverbial belts right now.  Times are tough.  I just read that unemployment in Michigan is at 25% right now.  I can't even believe that is true.

Ironically, I have a friend who works only part time, but gets by wonderfully.  It's truly amazing.  She's always eating out, taking vacations, and generally living better than most of us do.

Last night we had dinner and I always get a laugh about her latest adventures and how she went about paying for them.  She offered a couple of tips:

1.  She goes to every grocery store's website every single week to "download" coupons to her shopper's saving cards.  I definitely did not know about this, but I just signed up and downloaded a bunch of coupons.  You just need to enter the number on your shopper card.  I'm ready to go.

2.  She will shop at four grocery stores per week if she has to.  (Around my home in Chandler, AZ, I have six good grocery stores within a two mile radius.)  One store is inevitably running a special on chicken breasts and another will have her organic milk.  She claims that she often saves 75% on her food this way, which is totally worth the extra work.  She just purchased a boatload of Bumblebee Tuna in water for .25 per can.

3.  She never, ever goes out to dinner without an Entertainment Book coupon.

4.  Finally, she is signed up as a Mystery Shopper and dines out one or two times per month, writes specific details about the bathroom cleanliness and service and so forth, submits her receipt and gets fully reimbursed.  I realize that everybody is going to want to do this-- but the link she gave me last night does not work.  So I am trying to find that now and I will edit this post later on.  I sincerely apologize.  I can't imagine where she is at, because she only works on the weekend!

I shouldn't have ended my list with the word "finally."  Because she has about a thousand tips for saving money, getting free vacations and merchandise...  I'll write more later on.