With today's less-than-perfect economy, many people have been looking for ways to save money, to cut their expenses while still maintaining the same quality of life they always had. Many of the simple tips and tricks to saving money, however, are overlooked because they are not quick fixes. They do not provide large savings immediately, and so a lot of people feel that they just aren't worth the hassle of attempting.

However, if you add up enough small steps, you'll find that you've come a great distance, much further than you originally anticipated. Changing small things in your life is usually the best way to start, building better habits and attitudes that can pave the way for bigger changes (and potentially bigger savings) in the future.

So with that being said, I'd like to provide some tips and tricks to cutting your costs and still living a good life while you're at it.

Many people dislike shopping at thrift stores, under the belief that if something has already been used then it's now a much lower quality item than something brand new. This isn't the case, not always. Yes, you will find some things in thrift stores that aren't the best quality, but most of the items there are still in great condition.

I buy most of my clothing at thrift stores. I don't see the need to spend $20 on a pair of pants when I can spend $5 and get a pair that will last me almost as long. Where a lot of people would willingly spend $50-$75 on a pair of designers jeans, I can get the same jeans for less than half that price, so long as I don't mind wearing something that's already been worn by someone else. Wash the clothes and you won't even have to deal with that 'thrift store smell'.

More than clothing can be bought at a lot of thrift stores. Books, craft supplies, decorations, furniture, movies, small kitchen appliances, the list goes on. If you go in there with an open mind, you might find something that you've always wanted or needed but could never afford before, only now it's at a price that doesn't make you cringe.

While it can be hard to go without some of these luxuries, it's important to remember that they are luxuries, and things that, in a pinch, we can easily do without. Do you really need all those premium TV channels that you spend $40 on but only watch for 2 hours a week? Does everyone in your household really need individual cell phones when a landline could do almost as well. (Landlines aren't as convenient as cell phones, but they're a heck of a lot cheaper!) Do you have high-speed Internet but only actually use it to send 1 email a week? Could you get by with a lesser package from your Internet provider?

It's important to take stock of what we have versus what we use. If we find that we're paying for something that we don't use often enough to be worth it, then maybe it's time to stop paying for that thing. At my apartment, we don't have cable TV. We have a television and a DVD player, which we use to watch shows from the DVD sets we buy. A season of a TV show can cost $30-$60 on DVD, the price of 2-3 months worth of cable TV, but at the same time, if it's a show you know you'll watch again and again, the price becomes much more bearable. You can watch it again whenever you want, without having to wait for reruns. It's slightly more money upfront, but the entertainment lasts much longer and you get more bang for your buck.

My mother constantly pushes me to get a cell phone, and I constantly refuse on the grounds that it wouldn't be a financially beneficial thing to do. On the very rare occasion that I'm out of the apartment and need to call somebody, it's much cheaper for me to spend 25 cents and use a payphone than it is for me to spend $20 a month for a cell phone.

There are an increasing number of websites, especially in the United States, that provide free television shows over the Internet. This give you the change to get some visual entertainment without having to pay more than the Internet fee you're already paying.

Podcasts are becoming more and more popular too, which also provide free entertainment. Find a subject you're interested in, go to a podcast listing website such as Podcast Alley or Podcast Pickle, and find some podcasts that match your interest. You could get hours of entertainment this way without having to spend even a single cent on it.

There are many websites that also cater to free ebooks. Legal free ebooks, no less. The Baen free library contains some fantasy and science fiction books that people can read for free, and Project Gutenberg has quite possibly the largest collection of free ebooks I've ever seen, all of them with expired copyrights so that it's legal to have them available to the public at no charge.

There are also websites that specialize in small video games that you can play for free, if you're so inclined. Kadokado.com is one such website that I particularly enjoy.

Podiobooks.com specializes in free audiobooks, often read by the authors themselves, who don't mind releasing their stories for people to enjoy free of charge. The books are organized by genre, by author, by name, and I'm certain there's at least one audiobook there for everyone!

When you're buying food, do you always go for name brands? You ought to ask yourself why you do. A name brand doesn't automatically guarantee that it's the best quality. Often all it guarantees is that it's the most expensive, since you're not only paying for the product, you're also paying for the supposed bragging rights that come with using a name brand. In other words, you're paying for the box, the shiny packaging, the company name in 6-inch high letters.

More often than not it's more cost-efficient to go for a generic brand. The quality of the food is the same, sometimes even better, depending on your tastes. The only difference most of the time is that you're not paying your hard-earned money into the name itself.

Pay attention to the unit prices, too. These are often printed on the store's price tags, the ones that are on the shelves rather than the item itself. Often this will tell you the price for a certain unit for weight, making the value easier to compare between two like products. For example, if you have something price at $6.50 for 550 grams, or the same kind of product in a different brand that's $7.50 for 650 grams, you'll be able to break it down and find out that product A is $1.18 for 100 grams, whereas Product B is $1.15 cents for the same weight. The second product is more expensive, but cheaper in terms of unit price.

And so long as you can guarantee that you'll use all of the product, there's no harm in paying more in order to get more, especially when it works out to be better value.

For items that you know you will use a lot of, and regularly, it might be a good idea to buy in bulk. If you eat a 30 cent packet of ramen noodles each day, there's no sense in buying individual packets at a time when you could buy a case of 24 for $6.99. It's only a saving of 21 cents, but it's a saving nonetheless.

If you're lucky enough to have a store in your area that specialised in bulk products, take advantage of it. Some of those stores carry bins of loose food rather than boxes or bags or cans. Fill up your own bags, and you'll get charged for the weight of what you're buying rather than wasting money by payching for the packaging and the brand. So long as you're actually going to use what you buy here, buying this way is a very efficient way of cutting costs without having to sacrifice your favourite foods.

You'd be amazed at the things that you have lying around your home that you never use anymore, and may have even forgotten that you own. The bad news is that this stuff is taking up space in your living area. The good news is that if you've learned to do without it for this long, you can keep on doing without it and then sell the items for a little extra cash. Find a local flea market where you can rent a table, or set up a garage sale and put out some advertisements in your neighbourhood. Even if people only come and buy a few things, that's a little extra cash in your pocket and you still managed to get rid of some old junk that you weren't using anymore.

You can also auction these things off on eBay.com, if you wish. That way you can expand your market to people on the other side of the world who may want what you had stashed in the back of your garage.

While it may be much more appealing to call a restaurant and get your supper delivered, or go out to eat as a family, that can very quickly become expensive. While the prices at your favourite restaurant may be reasonable, and the portions may be generous, but it's still more expensive than eating a meal you cook yourself at home.

I understand that some people don't do a lot of cooking. Maybe they don't like to, or don't feel they're very good at it, or just don't have the time. On the flip side of things, in the time it takes to get the kids ready and to drive to a restaurant, get seated, have the meal arrive, eat your food, and then drive home again, you could actually prepare a simple yet delicious meal yourself, feeding just as many people with less than one third of the cost of going out. Experiment in the kitchen some time. You might find that cooking is more fun than you thought, and you'll be able to save yourself some good money without sacrificing the family time that you used to spend sitting in a restaurant.