#12 Shop Rummage Sales, Thrift Stores & Ebay

The idea here is to buy used things (or sometimes people are selling new items they bought & didn't need) so that you are preventing items from ending up in a landfill and not adding to further production & consumption of new goods, while in the process saving yourself some green.
I find these places the best for picking up items for your kids who go through toys & clothes so quickly. It could cost you a small fortune if you had to clothe and entertain them their whole lives at retail prices, plus imagine the landfills if no one ever bought used. How many times has your child (especially during the first couple years of their life) worn an item of clothing only to grow out of it or have it shrink before they could wear it again?
Of course there are lots of other items at garage sales besides kids items and you never know what you might find at one.
To maximize your gas money, plan ahead and map out garage sales you want to go to by checking out your local paper, looking at the garage sale listings on Craigslist, or finding a website dedicated to garage sales. A neighboring community has a free website, http://www.owatonnagaragesales.com/. By mapping out ahead of time you are not driving all over town using up more gas.
I like to go to garage sales when it is a city-wide event because then I know there will probably be the maximum amount of garage sales in one location on that particular weekend. Check out some garage sale tips here. http://www.northerncheapskate.com/2009/06/strategies-for-garage-sale-season.html