Monday, August 15, 2011

How much protein do you really need?



(Photo: Getty Images)
(Photo: Getty Images)
By Sarah B. Weir and Lori Bongiorno
Posted Mon Aug 8, 2011 2:04pm PDT More from Green Picks blog
Guess how much protein is in a juicy, 8-ounce cheeseburger washed down with a milkshake? This single meal contains two to three times as much as most people need per day.
It’s no great surprise that Americans chow down on a lot of protein. We love beef and consume about 67 pounds per capita annually (that’s four times the international average). The popularity of low-carb regimes such as Atkins has also made meat the go-to food for dieters.
In fact, the average person eats about double the amount of protein that their body requires, according to the results of 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How to fulfill your daily protein requirement

The human body uses protein to repair damaged cells and to build new ones. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at NYU and author of What to Eat, estimates that the average adult man needs about 65 grams of protein a day and the average adult female needs about 55 grams. Some sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization say you can maintain a healthy diet with even less.
What does this actually mean in terms of food choices? The National Institutes of Health explains that most people can meet their daily protein requirement by eating two to three small servings of a protein-rich food a day.
Examples of a single serving of protein include:
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons of peanut butter
  • 2-3 ounces of red meat, poultry, or fish (about the size of a deck of cards)
  • ½ cup of cooked dried beans such as black beans or chickpeas
Whole grains, seeds, and some vegetables also contain protein, so consuming enough is not difficult even if you don’t eat meat. Vegetarians and vegans can easily get what they need by balancing complimentary proteins such as corn and beans or rice and tofu. Nutritionists used to recommend combining foods at the same meal, but research now shows that is unnecessary.

Are there drawbacks to eating more protein?

Eating large amounts of red and processed meats is associated with higher rates of heart disease and cancer, and most nutritionists such as Marion Nestle recommend cutting back on meat, especially on fatty cuts.
However, it’s less well known that your protein choices can have a substantial impact on the environment. Meat and dairy production requires tremendous amounts of fuel, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers, and generates greenhouse gases. The Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) recently published Meat Eater’s Guide points out that if you ate once less burger a week it would be the environmentally-positive equivalent of taking your car off the road for 320 miles.
Meat is also expensive. Not all proteins are created equal -- neither at the doctor’s office, nor the cash register. Here’s a comparison of three typical proteins:
Porterhouse steak
Serving size: 4 ounces
Protein: 22 grams
EWG carbon footprint rating: 2 nd worst out of 20 analyzed
Cost: 4 dollars
Fat: 22 grams
Saturated fat: 9 grams
Farm-raised salmon
Serving size: 4 ounces
Protein: 22 grams
EWG carbon footprint rating: 5th worst
Cost: 3 dollars
Fat: 10 grams
Saturated fat: 2 grams
Lentils
Serving size: 1 cup
Protein: 17.9 grams
EWG carbon footprint rating: best
Cost: 20 cents
Fat: zero
Saturated fat: zero
Many people find meat to be a delicious and satisfying component of their diet that they don’t want to sacrifice. But if you want to save money, eat a nutritionally sound diet, and are concerned about the impact meat and dairy production has on the planet, consider reducing your consumption.
Here are some tips from the EWG's Meat Eater’s Guide:
  • Reduce portion sizes by eating one less burger or steak each week, or participate in Meatless Mondays by skipping meat (and cheese if you can swing it) just one day a week.
  • Choose the healthiest protein sources when you can. Beans, low-fat yogurt, and nuts are all high in protein and low-impact.
  • When you do eat meat and cheese, eat the highest quality that you can afford. (One way to save money is to eat less, but better quality meat and dairy products.) Here’s a guide decoding the labels, from cage-free to grass-fed.
  • Don’t waste meat. Uneaten meat accounts for about 20 percent of meat’s greenhouse gas emissions.
You don’t have to become a vegetarian or go to other extremes. These small changes will help reduce your impact, while providing plenty of protein in your diet.
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Related: veggies, tips, pollution, health, food and drink
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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Surprising Habits That Can Sink a Marriage


Dan Farrall / Getty Images
Dan Farrall / Getty Images
By Tara Parker-Pope

Can you spot a good marriage? I was pretty sure I could, starting with my own. My husband and I rarely argued, we had similar careers, we shared common interests. Things weren't perfect, but we seemed to be humming along in harmony better than most other couples we knew. In fact, nobody was more surprised than we were when our 17-year marriage ended in a New Jersey divorce court.

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It turns out, though, that the signs of trouble had been there all along, if only I'd known what to look for. Instead, I was judging my marriage by the wrong standards—which, I've since learned, most of us do. In one now-famous study, researchers asked therapists, married couples, and others to watch videotaped conversations of ten couples and try to identify the relationships that had ultimately ended in divorce. The results were abysmal—even the therapists guessed wrong half the time.

So how can you diagnose the health of your relationship? Armed with huge volumes of data on married couples, scientists have identified some simple but powerful indicators that can help couples recognize marital strife long before their relationship hits the skids.

QUIZ: How Well Do You Really Know Your Partner?
The Way You Were
Imagine a couple that go hiking on their first date. In a happy marriage, the wife might tell the story this way: "We got terribly lost that day. It took us hours to find our way back, but we laughed about how neither of us had a good sense of direction. After that, we knew better than to plan another hiking trip!"

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But if the relationship was stressed, she might tell the story this way: "He lost the map, and it took hours to find our way back. After that, I never wanted to go hiking again." Same story, but instead of reflecting a sense of togetherness—using pronouns like "we" and "us"—it's laced with negativity. Research has shown that analyzing what's known as the marital narrative—the way you talk about the good and bad times of your early years together—is about 90 percent accurate in predicting which marriages will succeed or fail.

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Had I been paying attention, my own how-we-met story could have told me a lot about how I was feeling in my marriage. Early in the relationship, when asked about our first date, I recounted a magical evening that ended with a walk around the Texas capitol building in Austin. I often laughed about the fact that I was limping the whole time because I'd recently had surgery on my foot. But later in my marriage, I changed the story slightly, always adding, "Of course, he didn't even notice."

RELATED: It's All About Timing: How to Make Sure Love Lasts

Fight or Flight
When my husband and I first married, I felt lucky that we almost never fought. But studies show it's a mistake to judge the quality of a relationship by how much or how little you argue, particularly in the early years.

University of Washington researchers studied newlywed couples and learned, not surprisingly, that those who rarely argued were happier in the relationship than those who fought often. But three years later, the findings had reversed. Couples with an early history of bickering had worked out their problems and were more likely to be in stable marriages. The couples who'd avoided conflict early on were more likely to be in troubled relationships or already divorced.

RELATED: 12 Simple Ways to Have Better Sex
Obviously, fighting that includes violence or verbal abuse is never acceptable. But most marital spats represent an opportunity to resolve conflicts and make things better. "We need to learn to tolerate conflict in our relationships," says Carolyn Cowan, a longtime marriage and family researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

KEEP READING: 3 More Surprising Habits That Can Sink a Marriage
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Friday, August 5, 2011

An Easy Trick for Cutting Down on Junk Food Purchases


by Sarah Lorge Butler
Friday, August 5, 2011
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A new study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, reveals one way to curtail the purchase of Bavarian Espresso ice cream, Chips Ahoy and Coke, three items which, sad to say, currently occupy space in my kitchen.
What's the trick? Pay with cash, not credit or debit.
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Can it really be that easy to eliminate our family's ice cream sandwiches? I spoke to Manoj Thomas, assistant professor of marketing at Cornell and one of the authors on the study, for clarification.
"We found people had a larger proportion of unhealthy food items in their baskets when they paid by either credit card or debit card, compared to when they paid in cash," he says. This happens only with "vice" products, like cheesecake, cookies, and ice cream -- not yogurt, oatmeal or bread. For "healthy" products, he says, people spent the same amount, cash or credit.
I enjoy talking to people like Thomas, academics who study the data from our shoppers' club cards and devise experiments to test our behavior at the supermarket. Insights into how a shopping brain operates can help those of us trying to save money, shrink our waistlines, or both. Here's what Thomas said about the two major takeaways from his study:
"There are two distinct types of purchasing decisions, and most people don't realize that. The way I make a decision to buy a cookie is altogether different than the way I make a decision to buy oatmeal. I'm not aware of it, but in my mind, the process is very different. If I buy oatmeal, I'm thinking, 'What is the price of it, do I have more at home in my pantry, which brand is healthier?' It's very deliberate, and my decision is governed more by my thought process.
"But when I'm buying a cheesecake or ice cream, it's less deliberate, and it's also an interplay of how I feel about that product. I stand there, I think, 'How will I feel eating that cheesecake? Well, should I or should I not?' Sometimes you think less about it and succumb to your feeling. It's in those situations, that if you know you pay in cash, you become less susceptible to impulses. But all purchase decisions are not categorized by the same process."
The second big takeaway, Thomas says, is how prone we are to environmental influences that most times we're not even aware of. "Who would have thought that mode of payment would influence what we buy?" he says.
"Things in the environment that change the way we feel can influence what we buy. So if you really want to be a prudent shopper, you should try to have things in your environment that make you think more about your purchases. Go with a list in your hand, shop with people who are responsible, those kinds of things."
The list-in-hand strategy is well documented, but shopping with people who are responsible? Guess that eliminates anyone in my family. I'll be waiting for Thomas's study on what happens in the brain when you're shopping with kids in the cart.
___

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Thursday, July 21, 2011

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Stay Cool for Less This Summer
 
Saving on your energy costs while still keeping your home cool this summer is possible. You just need to know some easy steps to take!  

Don't Heat Up Your Kitchen 
 
Using your oven or stove to prepare dinner adds a lot of heat to the interior of your house. Try using your toaster oven, microwave or outdoor grill more. Microwaves use two-thirds less energy than stoves and because toaster ovens are so much smaller, they don’t warm up a kitchen like a conventional oven. An even easier solution is to not cook at all! Make a cool salad with pre-cooked chicken, serve a cold soup such as gazpacho or make sandwiches.

Use Natural Light

Use window coverings wisely. Take advantage of longer summer days by letting the sunlight in on days when outside humidity is low instead of turning on lamps and other lights. However, if you’re not home during the day, close all windows, curtains, and blinds to keep your house cool for as long as possible. Remember that south-facing windows get a lot of sun throughout the day. East-facing windows get sun in the morning before it gets too hot, while west-facing ones get the hottest and strongest sun in the afternoon and evening.

Use Landscaping To Cool Your House

Another way to keep hot summer heat out of your home is to plant trees to provide shade on the south and west-facing sides of your house. It may take a few years, but will be worth it in terms of energy-savings and beautification of your property. Another landscaping tip to reduce energy-consumption is to plant trees or shrubs to shade air-conditioning units. A unit operating in the shade uses up to 10 percent less electricity than the same unit operating in the sun. Be careful not to block the unit's airflow, however.

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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Do you really need 8 glasses of water a day?

editor
How much water do we really need? You may think six to eight glasses per day because you have probably read many articles and had discussions with your doctor to support that. But a Scottish physician has blasted that standard in a British Medical Journal article, stirring the debate about how much water we should drink and how much is too much and bad for our health.

Dr. Margaret McCartney argues there is no quality scientific evidence to support the recommendation, which she says can lead to over-hydration problems for some people.

Here's what you need to know to sort hydration hype from good health advice.

Don't skimp
The eight-glass formula doesn't fit for everyone. It depends on your gender, size, and level of activity, other studies note. The Institute of Medicine calls for adult men to drink 13 cups of fluid daily (which totals three liters, or a little more than four tall reusable water bottles) and women to have nine cups (2.2 liters, or about the amount found in three reusable water bottles). That number changes according to lifestyle. The more active a person is, the more they will need to replace fluids. Larger people, pregnant and nursing women, and those who take dehydrating medications also will likely need to account for that by adding more water to their diet.

If you are active, it's also important to account for your environment when calculating how much fluid you need. If you are exercising in temperatures that are very hot (likely leading you sweat more) or very cold (which can stunt your ability to sense dehydration), are an endurance athlete, or are active in a high-altitude area, you will probably need to up your water intake.
                                       
                                         Related: How much exercise do you really need?

Don't overdo it
The debate about how much water we really need to be drinking is centered around the risk of hyponatremia, or taking in more fluid that the body loses while sweating. It is a serious condition that occurs when there is not enough sodium (or salt) in the body fluids outside of the cells. This can cause swelling, including of the brain. Hyponatremia happens when a person sweats excessively in one stint, does not eat, does not urinate enough, and drinks a great deal of water. Symptoms include confusion, headaches, muscle spasms, vomiting, convulsions, and fatigue. In the worst cases, hyponatremia can lead to seizures, coma, and even death.

There are exceptions for medical conditions and other situations, but  athletes are often watched for signs of hyponatremia, especially those participating in endurance events like a marathon or triathlon.

Experts advise taking in some electrolyte-replacement fluids in addition to drinking water while you are exercising. However, you really only need a minimal amount to keep your body in balance and give you an energy kick. For example, it is recommended that runners out for 30 minutes to an hour take in three to six ounces of fluid every 15 or 20 minutes, including one sports drink. There's also evidence that simply taking sips or swishing a sports drink will do the trick.

Don't get sucked in to the sports drink hype
The risks of hyponatremia are steep, but take the hype about over-hydrating with a grain of salt. The multi-billion-dollar sports drink industry has pushed the idea that most people need more than water when they are active. However, some experts say that most people don't need a lot of sports beverages, and that they often just add calories to diets. The CDC recommends choosing sports drinks that do not have added sugar, which can total 38 grams in just one bottle.

                                       Related: 'Healthy' foods that could make you fat

In May, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a report warning that children should not consume sports drinks except when participating in lengthy sports competitions.

Consider these other drinks that carry the same benefits of electrolyte-replacement beverages but also have nutritional value or are less caloric:
  • Chocolate milk beat out water, sports drinks and regular milk in a recent study of what is the best post-exercise drink for our bodies. Lowfat milk has also been touted as an ideal remedy for muscles that have been rigorously exercised.
  • Coconut water is a nonfat beverage that has about half the calories of a sports drink while being high in potassium and antioxidants. Coconut water works best for average athletes.
  • Pickle juice is packed with sodium and, if you can bear it, can be added to water or made into popsicles for hot-weather workouts. There's also scientific and anecdotal evidence that drinking a shot out of the pickle jar will help alleviate muscle cramps faster.
  • Beetroot juice has recently been recognized as a new "super drink" after one study found it helped competitive cyclists cut down their times by a few critical seconds. Not taking part in the Tour de France? Then keep an eye out for more research on how this alternative beverage might help weekend warriors.

Count other drinks besides water as fluids
It's OK to include other drinks when you're measuring how many fluids you take in per day. However, that isn't a license to subsist on soda, coffee, and sugary drinks. Although caffeine in soda and coffee won't dehydrate you, they shouldn't be used to quench thirst or as a substitute for water. Add them to your fluid tally, but do reach for water more often than you pop open a can of bubbly stuff.

People who imbibe, particularly wine and hard liquors, should also be aware that those drinks with a high alcohol content can be dehydrating. Beer, however, is less dehydrating because it is predominantly water. Drinking a glass of water before and after alcohol can't hurt fluid intake or the chances of avoiding a headache the next day.


Eat your water
You don't always have to sip to stay hydrated. Experts say that 20 percent (or 2-1/2 cups) of the water we ingest comes from the foods we eat. Choosing the right water-rich fruits and vegetables will also add nutrients to your diet, fill you up, and may even give some oomph to your exercise.

Fruits like strawberries, cantaloupes, and peaches are packed full of water and potassium, which is the electrolyte shed when your body sweats. Adding more to your daily diet will help balance the fluids your body needs, regulate your heartbeat and circulation, and tastes better than chugging an energy drink.

Selecting foods that fuel your health while helping keep you hydrated will give you more bang for your buck. Watermelon offers a vitamin C boost, broccoli helps fight cancer, pineapple aids muscle recovery after a big workout, and yogurt ups immunity. (Read more about foods that keep you hydrated and healthy here.)


Sneak in the good stuff
If you're up to your ears in cucumber salad or can't manage to down another bottle of water, work in little ways to stay hydrated. Add slices of orange, lime, kiwi, or watermelon to a jug of water for a burst of natural flavor. Make a regular old glass of tap water feel fancier by adding fizz with a counter-top carbonator (sold for about $100 and marketed as home soda-makers, skip the added flavors to make sparkling water in your own reusable bottles). Take 10 minutes once a week to stock your fridge, car, gym bag, and desk with water bottles so it's convenient to grab water wherever you spend most of your day.  Finally, you can up your fluid intake with one little step by simply adding a straw to your glass of water.



How much water do you drink a day?




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Thursday, July 7, 2011

5 Surprising Signs of an Unhealthy Heart


By Melanie Haiken, Caring.com
Fri, Jun 24, 2011
We've all read the signs of a heart attack listed on posters in the hospital waiting room. But what if there were other, earlier signs that could alert you ahead of time that your heart was in trouble?
It turns out there are. Researchers have done a lot of work in recent years looking at the signs and symptoms patients experienced in the months or even years leading up to a heart attack. "The heart, together with the arteries that feed it, is one big muscle, and when it starts to fail the symptoms can show up in many parts of the body," says cardiologist Jonathan Goldstein of St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey. Here are five surprising clues that your heart needs checking out. Any of these signs -- and particularly two or more together -- is reason to call your doctor for a workup, says Goldstein.
1. Neck pain
Feel like you pulled a muscle in the side of your neck? Think again, especially if it doesn't go away. Post-heart attack, some patients remember noticing that their neck hurt and felt tight, a symptom they attributed at the time to muscle strain. People commonly miss this symptom because they expect the more dramatic acute pain and numbness in the chest, shoulder, and arm. Women in particular are less likely to experience heart pain that way, and more likely to feel twinges of pain and a sensation of tightness running along the shoulder and down the neck, says Margie Latrella, an advanced practice nurse in the Women's Cardiology Center in New Jersey and coauthor of Take Charge: A Woman's Guide to a Healthier Heart (Dog Ear, 2009). The pain might also extend down the left side of the body, into the left shoulder and arm.
Why it happens:
Nerves from damaged heart tissue send pain signals up and down the spinal cord to junctures with nerves that extend out into the neck and shoulder.
What distinguishes it:
The pain feels like it's radiating out in a line, rather than located in one very specific spot. And it doesn't go away with ice, heat, or muscle massage.
2. Sexual problems
Having trouble achieving or keeping erections is common in men with coronary artery disease, but they may not make the connection. One survey of European men being treated for cardiovascular disease found that two out of three had suffered from erectile dysfunction for months or years before they were diagnosed with heart trouble. Recent studies on the connection between ED and cardiovascular disease have been so convincing that doctors now consider it the standard of care to do a full cardiovascular workup when a man comes in complaining of ED, according to cardiologist Goldstein says. "In recent years there's been pretty clear evidence that there's a substantially increased risk of heart attack and death in patients with erectile dysfunction," Goldstein says.
Why it happens:
Just as arteries around the heart can narrow and harden, so can those that supply the penis. And because those arteries are smaller, they tend to show damage much sooner -- as much as three to four years before the disease would otherwise be detected.
What distinguishes it:
In this case, the cause isn't going to be immediately distinguishable. If you or your partner has problems getting or maintaining an erection, that's reason enough to visit your doctor to investigate cardiovascular disease as an underlying cause. "Today, any patient who comes in with ED is considered a cardiovascular patient until proven otherwise," says Goldstein.
3. Dizziness, faintness, or shortness of breath
More than 40 percent of women in one study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, reported having experienced shortness of breath in the days before a heart attack. You might feel like you can't breathe, or you might feel dizzy or faint, as you would at high altitude. If you can't catch your breath while walking upstairs, vacuuming, weeding the garden, or doing other activities that previously caused you no trouble, this is a reason to be on the alert.
Why it happens:
Not enough blood is getting through the arteries to carry sufficient oxygen to the heart. The heart muscle pain of angina may also make it hurt to draw a deep breath. Coronary artery disease (CAD), in which plaque builds up and blocks the arteries that feed the heart, prevents the heart from getting enough oxygen. The sudden sensation of not being able to take a deep breath is often the first sign of angina, a type of heart muscle pain.
What distinguishes it:
If shortness of breath is caused by lung disease, it usually comes on gradually as lung tissue is damaged by smoking or environmental factors. If heart or cardiovascular disease is the cause, the shortness of breath may come on much more suddenly with exertion and will go away when you rest.
10 Ways You Can Help Prevent a Heart Attack
4. Indigestion, nausea, or heartburn
Although most of us expect pain from any condition related to the heart to occur in the chest, it may actually occur in the abdomen instead. Some people, particularly women, experience the pain as heartburn or a sensation of over-fullness and choking. A bout of severe indigestion and nausea can be an early sign of heart attack, or myocardial infarction, particularly in women. In one study, women were more than twice as likely as men to experience vomiting, nausea, and indigestion for several months leading up to a heart attack.
Why it happens:
Blockages of fatty deposits in an artery can reduce or cut off the blood supply to the heart, causing what feels like tightness, squeezing, or pain -- most typically in the chest but sometimes in the abdomen instead. Depending on which part of your heart is affected, it sends pain signals lower into the body. Nausea and light-headedness can also be signs that a heart attack is in progress, so call your doctor right away if the feeling persists.
What distinguishes it:
Like all types of angina, the abdominal pain associated with a heart problem is likely to worsen with exertion and get better with rest. Also, you're likely to experience repeated episodes, rather than one prolonged episode as you would with normal indigestion or food poisoning.
5. Jaw and ear pain
Ongoing jaw pain is one of those mysterious and nagging symptoms that can have several causes but can sometimes be a clue to coronary artery disease (CAD) and impending heart attack. The pain may travel along the jaw all the way to the ear, and it can be hard to determine which it's coming from, says cardiovascular nurse Margie Latrella. This is a symptom doctors have only recently begun to focus on, because many patients surveyed post-heart attack report that this is one of the only symptoms they noticed in the days and weeks leading up to the attack.
Why it happens:
Damaged heart tissue sends pain signals up and down the spinal cord to junctures with nerves that radiate from the cervical vertebrae out along the jaw and up to the ear.
What distinguishes it:
Unlike the jaw pain caused by temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ), tooth pain, or ear infection, the pain doesn't feel like it's in one isolated spot but rather like it's radiating outward in a line. The pain may extend down to the shoulder and arm -- particularly on the left side, and treatments such as massage, ice, and heat don't affect it.
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Sunday, June 26, 2011

First Person: I Extinguished Almost $10,000 of Debt in One Year

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Jimmy Collins, On Friday June 24, 2011, 4:40 am EDT
*Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Do you have a personal finance story that you'd like to share? Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to start publishing your own finance articles.
Like many Americans today, I had a ton of debt that seemed to pile on month after month. Between credit cards, car payments, and the like, my debt situation seemed hopeless. I had one Visa card with a $1,250 balance and another with $5,000. I also had a MasterCard with a $1,250 balance and a Discover Card with around $2,500. Then I decided to take steps to eliminate my debt without having to make more money.
The method I used was not rocket science, and anyone can duplicate my success with just a little sacrifice and discipline. Here's what I did to all but eliminate my debt within one year.
Decide What Is Necessary
This is the discipline part I was talking about. When you make up your mind that you want to wipe out debt, then you have to have discipline. This starts with taking a hard look at what you have and what you want to get and then deciding what is really a necessity.
For me, this meant cutting out coffee shops in the morning and making my own cup of joe. I saved about $4 per day or $28 per week, for a total of $1,456 a year. I used this to pay off the $1,250 balance on my Visa and even had a couple of bucks to spare.
Others might decide to brown-bag it instead of buying lunch every day. You could also save if you spend $5 for lunch at the store instead of $9 for lunch at a restaurant.
Downgrade Where Possible
My wife and I went from being a two-car family to a one-car family. We sold the car that had payments and kept the one that was paid off. As our car payment was $450 per month that meant we saved an astounding $5,400 in one year. Include the money we saved on insurance at $70 per month or $840 per year, plus what we saved on gasoline at $25 per week or $1,300 per year. In total our downgrade saved us $7,540 for the year. Goodbye Visa Card No. 2 and Discover Card!
While this was an inconvenience, it saved us tremendous amounts of money each month that we then applied to our debt. We now have two cars again, and both are paid in full.
Cash Is King
My new favorite saying is, "If I don't have enough cash to get something I want, then I don't need it." This can be hard as credit cards allow you to make purchases that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. However, this will catch up with you, and then what good is a house full of material items?
Not Always Top of the Line
You don't always have to have the best of the best. My cell phone is nice, but not too nice. I also ended my long-term contract with a major cell carrier and now use a prepay service. While my phone doesn't do all the latest and greatest things, it still makes calls and texts, which is really all I use it for anyway. Besides, not having the "newest and greatest" cell phone is saving me over $80 per month or $960 per year. That was nearly enough to pay off my MasterCard.
When cutting debt you need to decide what is important. With a little sacrifice and discipline, I have been able to get rid of almost all my debt in one year's time and sock away a few bucks. At the end of the year I paid off $9,956 of debt. Now, I use my credit cards only to secure a hotel room or a car rental, and I've learned the value of what is important over what is wanted. Even though I did this without making any additional money, it feels like I make more since I actually get to keep some of it now.
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Smoking and Drinking Coffee Can Make You Go Broke
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