When you grow up in poverty you get used to going without, but you learn three very valuable life lessons. You learn to make do with what you have. You learn to stretch a dollar until you can see through it. And you learn the difference between a want and a need. These lessons, the latter in particular, all come in very handy when you need to save money.

As common sense would dictate, the first step to saving money would be to cut back on unnecessary expenses. This is where knowing a want from a need comes into play, because it’s not so much the cutting back part that most people don’t get, it’s the definition of an unnecessary expense. I know that modern life is not simple, and everyone is different and has different needs, but when you really boil it down; if you can’t eat it, it doesn’t protect you from the weather or is not integral to you earning a living, its an unnecessary expense.

Many of these things that the majority of us believe we need, but don’t really, have to do with entertainment and communications.

Entertainment

Entertainment is important, particularly in stressful economic times. So you shouldn’t cut out the fun for the sake of saving money, but you should know what you’re spending at all times, and only pay for entertainment when you’re actually using it.

The first thing to cut is going to the movies. On average, between tickets and snacks you can blow $40 to $50 for two people to go to the movie theater. While for many that doesn’t sound like a lot, when you look at it through the scratched lens of the poverty savings plan, that’s a credit card payment or a couple days worth of groceries.

Renting is far cheaper. That is if you don’t rent six DVD’s at once that you will never get around to watching; one or two are enough for an evening. And avoid the higher priced new releases, wait a couple weeks and they’ll be cheaper. However some movies really must be seen on the big screen, in these instances you wait for the big block busters to hit the Dollar Theater.

Yes, I know, you won’t get to see the movies until months after they’re released. Welcome to my childhood! But consider if you and a friend went to the theater and saw four movies in a month, you’d drop about $80 on just tickets ($160 with snacks). While with the budget plan, you could rent eight DVD’s and see four flix at the Dollar Cinema for under $50. You actually get more entertainment for about $30 less.

If the thought of cutting into your cinematic experience isn’t sitting well, you better stop reading now, because the next thing to go is cable and satellite TV.

Your heart may be sinking, but believe me you can live without cable or satellite. By cutting subscription telli you can save anywhere from $50 to $200 a month. Remember, only pay for entertainment when you are actually using it. You aren’t watching cable 24/7 so why are you paying to have it 24/7? Besides, all television broadcasters are switching over to digital signals this year, so you will be able to get all the free channels in digital now, and in most areas you will even have HD.

While we’re on the subject of subscriptions, start cancelling anything that has a reoccurring subscription. Netflix, satellite radio, online music, porn sites… everything! Your 50k tax bracket mind may not think $10 a month seems like much, but you need to think at a $5.15/hr level. Those $10 all add up. Subscriptions are like economic internal bleeding, you can’t see the money draining away but it’s slowly killing your bottom line.

Other big entertainment expenses are concerts and sporting events. Sports you can usually get on regular TV and with the new digital and HD broadcast signals you really won’t be missing much. As for concerts, well you always got the radio.

Communications

Cell phones are expensive! I don’t know anyone paying less than $70 a month, including me, and I don’t use it that much. The solution here is simple, get a pre-paid cell phone, then you can control how much you spend and only pay for what you use. And of course if you are one of those people (meaning women) with a $200 a month bill, maybe you should look into getting a pre-paid cell phone for emergencies, and a cheap hard line for home to do all your pointless gabbing. I know that sounds sexist but really it seems ever since Bell invented the damn thing women havn’t put it down.

The other big communication expense is the internet. This is a hard one, even for me, I’d rather lose a nut than my internet connection. But you really have to take a look at what you use. If your on the internet every free minute of the day, especially if it is part of your livlyhood, then your high speed connection is justified. But if you check your email at best once a week, then get a cheap or even free dial-up, or you could drop the internet altogether. For about $10 you can get a day pass and sit at a local coffee shop and do your surfing when you need to.

Taking another tip from the fiscally less fortunate, there’s another option to get high speed internet at a discount, although it is a bit illegal. Start a GhettoNet! Basically if you live in an apartment complex, you get your neighbors together and you all chip in. Then one of you gets a high speed subscription and everyone else taps into that connection via WiFi network (or drilling holes between floors and running cables, you weren’t getting the security deposit back anyway). You can often split a $50 a month connection up among 6 to 8 people. And if you’re tech savvy you can use some basic encryption and limit its usage to those who put in on it, cutting out free-loaders. Or you can just highjack your neighbors connection without telling them, whatever works for you.

That’s it for today’s lesson on Povertynomics. The thing you should be taking away from this is that you don’t have to do without, you just have to be creative and give up some convenience and you can keep a lot more of your hard earned money in your pocket. Or in a sock taped under the bathroom sink, ’cause when the crash comes you can’t trust the banks!