Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Are you barely able to keep food on the table? Are you working for your money, or is your money working for you? In today’s tough economic times, it can be difficult to make ends meet.

I have always tried very hard to make my money work for me. There are times where that was harder to accomplish than others, and I have been at the bottom of the bottom making miracles just to survive and keep my head above water. I have always thought of being broke as being akin to being extremely thirsty; like you spend all of this time in a financial desert, desperately wanting a cold and refreshing sip of water. Yet everywhere you look, there is just more sand. Then, after what may seem like forever of crawling through this barren wasteland, you finally find the oasis. You greedily drink the crisp, cool liquid until your stomach aches, and you have to stop to catch your breath. 

After going for long periods of time being denied the guilty pleasures we crave, when we are finally in a position to do more, we do too much. I cannot count how many times I have fallen victim to this cycle; until one day, I made a concrete resolution to make money moves to get ahead instead of continuously falling behind.

As a single mom, I certainly understand the value of providing a future for your children. Everything we do is motivated by the intrinsic desire to make their lives better than our own. It's just that sometimes good intentions and reality do not coincide or intersect. When one path doesn’t get us there, we try something new. The thing is, until we change our perception of the problem, we can't adapt our solution to it. We have to take a step back and view the problem through a different lens and work a solution from this newfound perspective. 

Instead of thinking of each paycheck as being 100 percent disposable, we have to learn to view it as a means to an end. If you have $200 left from your paycheck after paying rent, don’t see that $200 as what you have to spend until you get paid again. Break that cycle. If you don’t, you will never get further than where you are.

When it comes to dinner, this is usually where we have the most control over what our family eats (and how much we are spending on it) as the one who prepares the menu. This is where the real test of our thriftiness will come into play. A big part of that is going to be how we can make that dollar stretch and still provide healthy, filling meals that taste good.

When planning your dinner menu for the week, try to focus on recipes that will allow you the freedom to stretch the protein beyond the current meal. This is the part of the book where I will show you practical ways to plan and save on your grocery budget–probably the number one place to make your money stretch farther.

• Separating negotiable and nonnegotiable bills
• Planning payments by due date
• Factoring in miscellaneous expenses
• Cutting back on negotiable bills
• Coupons, store rewards programs, and social media pages
• Saving without sacrificing value
• Buying in bulk
• Meal planning on a budget
• Family staples as meal stretchers
• Feeding the finicky eater
• Repurposing leftovers
• Twenty-five recipes under $10 for the whole family
• Entertainment for the whole family
• Going out on a budget
• Finding joy in togetherness
• Rewards and indulgences
• Splurging without overindulging
• Knowing your limits
• Assessing your plan for functionality
• Assessing family satisfaction
• Fine-tuning the plan
• Other ways to save
• Saving on utilities
• Saving on car insurance
• Getting rid of unnecessary bills
• Negotiating your rates