There are many practical ways to save money. While gas, utility and grocery items are becoming more expensive, it is important to use every opportunity to save. Information from this report will help you to save money without sacrificing your lifestyle.

1. Negotiate

Many rates, fees and charges are negotiable. Are you paying too much for your cable? You should call your cable company and ask if they have a better deal for you. If they are not receptive to your request and their competitors offer better deals, then you should seriously consider switching. Do you have excellent credit history, but your credit card company charges you high interest rate? It's time to call them and ask to lower your rate. Did you get a new cell phone and they charged you an activation fee? Why don't you give them a call and ask them to waive the fee.

There are several important things you must remember in order to succeed in your negotiation efforts. First you must be polite at all times. Second if your request is initially denied by customer service representative, you can ask to talk to account specialist or manager. If you are long time customer on a good standing, make sure to point that out. You can say something like: “ I have been customer of your company for seven years. I would like to stay your customer for many more years if you give me a better deal.”. In addition, you should mention if you have a better offer from competitors or you consider switching to another company.

Many people are shy about negotiation. I just have one question to ask if you happen to be one of them. What is the worst thing that can happen? If your request was approved, you saved some money. If they said no, you didn't lose anything.

2. Rebates, coupons and promotional offers

“What a genius! Who doesn't know about coupons or rebates.”, you might be thinking by now. Unfortunately many people fail to use coupons, fill rebate forms or take advantage of promotional offers.

Many manufacturers offer so called mail in rebates. Actually they hope that you might forget to fill rebate form and thousands of consumers do just that. They either forget or procrastinate until rebate offer expires. Some of them are thinking along these lines: “It's just $30. Why bother?”. Well, would you throw away $30? Probably not. However that's exactly what you are doing when you fail to claim your rebate.

Also if you use credit cards, you should use ones that offer points toward gift certificates, miles to buy airline tickets or other rewards.

3. Eliminate subscriptions and memberships that you don’t use

Millions of people subscribe to newspapers and magazines they don’t read. Let’s say you pay $30 a month for newspapers and magazines that are collecting dust. That’s $360 a year that you are throwing away.

Gym membership fees have become waste of money for many people. We often make resolution to become fit, pay monthly or even yearly gym fees… and then we don’t go to exercise in the gym. When it is time to renew membership, we pay again and promise ourselves to exercise regularly this time around. However we are still lying on the couch as time goes by. If you are one of those people, just cancel your gym membership. You can always sign up again when you become serious about exercising.