5 Tips to Help Moms Survive These Economic Hard Times
By Roblynn Neumann 

There is no doubt about it, these are difficult economic times for most people. As Moms we feel a lot of responsibility to help our families through these times, as well as teaching our children not to repeat our mistakes.

If you are like me you have been enjoying great success in your business as well as private lives. My massage business was thriving and doing very well for 11 years. Now there are changes to be made, and adaptations to make if we are to come out of this crunch gracefully.

The first tip would be to minimize your wants. If you are in the habit of getting your hair done every month, stretch it to six weeks. If you always get a new dress for Christmas, maybe take an old skirt and just buy a new blouse. Maybe do some clothing trades with friends who are about the same size, with similar tastes of course.

Second would be to minimize on the gifts. That does not mean quit giving, it just means give more thoughtful gifts. A good example would be to make a jar of cookie bake mix, with a nice ribbon on it and a recipe card attached. If you get creative you will find many gifts you can make for friends and family. Another example would be gift certificates. Maybe a certificate for a night of babysitting so a friend can go out for a nice evening with her husband.

Another idea is to make clothes last longer. We live in Costa Rica and are able to dry our clothes hanging them out on the line. The first thing we noticed was how much longer our clothes last now that we do not put them in the drier. We can go back to mending clothing with small tears and wearing them out. Again here in Costa Rica people actually take their shoes to the shoe shop to get them repaired when they start to fall apart.

Food would be a fourth very big change we can make to save money. Get up 30 minutes earlier and make your children and yourselves lunches. You can pack some pretty tasty lunches if you get creative. Also cut back on the eating out. Make it a family goal to only eat out once a week. The added benefit of this will be more family time together at meals. Cold cereal used to be pretty affordable but now I would recommend oatmeal or something a little cheaper. It is up to $4.00 a box for cereal now and that is not cost effective, considering most cereals don't even fill you up.

The final idea would be family vacations. We have been talking to more and more families who are returning to camping. When our kids were growing up we spent all of our family vacations camping. We did float trips in Missouri, beach camping in Hawaii, and mountain camping in Flagstaff. Our family has many happy memories of the times we spent camping. You can buy a couple of pup tents for a good price as well as sleeping bags. Surely there are some beautiful places near where you live to enjoy and relax.

We are being told this economic recession will likely last two years. Wouldn't it be good if we could come out looking great with our finances, retirement and homes still intact? With just a few simple changes we can do our part to learn and teach new financial habits to our families, that will serve them well forever.