Give Your Budget a Money Makeover

Firming Up Your Finances

When Stephanie Miles got married, she and her husband were living paycheck to paycheck and owed a combined $15,000 in credit card debt. By the time their first baby came along, her dream of being a stay-at-home mother seemed hopeless.

Yet today, at age 29, she spends her days at her home near Salt Lake City, Utah, mothering her three children, all under age 5. The secret to her success was analyzing and adjusting family spending.

"It's like a diet, where you write down exactly what you eat," Stephanie says. "We wrote down exactly what we spent, so we could see where our money was going."

Whatever your personal and financial goals are, we've found ways to chisel a whopping $10,000 a year from the household budget of an average four-person family. Of course, you know your family best: Some of the proven strategies here may need tweaking to fit into your lifestyle. Use the following advice as a guide -- and an inspiration -- to find your own savings solutions.