Skipping Starbucks won't save much money. Go hardcore

Thrift is chic. We've heard that a lot lately. So the question is, how serious are you about saving money?

America Saves recently uncorked some of favorite money-stretching tips it solicited recently. Some of them seem better in theory than fact to me. I've never gardened, for example, because it's cheaper to have friends who do and, in the course of things, become desperate about unloading zucchini. Plus it's hard enough to keep wild life out of the tulips at our house. Who knows what would happen if we planted real veggies.

I don't get the fascination with raising chickens that's gripping the next suburb over either. At best, you're going to need one bird per family per day to make breakfast. As for other meals, I've actually helped butcher, gut and pluck entree chicken as a farm kid. As hobbies go today, that one's got to be shorter lived than home haircuts.

Long time personal finance blogger Trent Hamm recently posted better techniques on www.thesimpledollar.com. It's a free 49 page book outlining how to take control of your money and your life, based on his and other contributors' real life experiences. The basics? Spend less than you earn. Earn more. Live frugally. Manage your income. Control your destinyy.

It's a lot better than cleaning up after the chickens. Believe me.