South Florida on the Cheap

I rarely need medication, so I wasn’t prepared for the price the first time I had a prescription to fill after signing up for my $5,000-deductible health-insurance plan.

Co-payment for a tiny bottle of eye drops: $94. Ouch. And I mean the bill, not the eye drops.

United Way of Miami-Dade has partnered with a service called [...]

I’m surprised that so many of my friends and relatives are still doling out money on demand to their teenagers: $20 for pizza and a movie, $10 for a school field trip, $5 for lunch. If the kids don’t have a budget, how can they learn to live within one?

Maybe it’s time for a New [...]

Back when I was putting myself through college in the 1970s, and lunch was a major investment, nothing was so annoying as spending hundreds of dollars on textbooks that ended up never being used in the class.

After a few semesters, I figured out how to save some money: I quit buying textbooks, or at least [...]

The latest craze in the money-saving world is the group coupon — or Groupon, the name of the biggest group-buying site.

If you enroll at www.groupon.com, you get an e-mail with each day’s deal, usually 50 percent or more off the goods or services of a local business. When you sign up for a deal, you [...]

Ordinarily, I’m not an enthusiastic user of coupons. Lots of them are for packaged foods I don’t use, I’m feeding only myself, and I often can save by buying the store brand.

But, in the name of research, I decided to try clipping coupons. I followed some of the techniques recommended by serious couponers, such as [...]

We have learned to look for coupons when we do online shopping. But we often don’t think of looking for online coupons when we visit local attractions. We should. The weak economy means many of our local attractions are offering frequent discounts, deals and coupons, most on their websites.

Here are some current deals:

• Get a [...]

The New York Times recently ran a story on “cat-ios” — screened enclosures that give cats a taste of the outdoors while still keeping them confined. The ideal “cat-io,” of course, is a large screened porch or pool enclosure, and if you have one, I’m jealous. So are my cats.

Unfortunately, the cost of building one [...]

Sometimes you find bargains in unexpected places. Or unexpected items at bargain stores.

I have long shopped at Marshall’s, Ross and Big Lots for clothing, linens and other household items. But those stores can also be good places to find fine foods at bargain prices. The selection varies, but it’s not unusual to find gourmet chocolates, [...]

With so many people in South Florida struggling to make ends meet, the last thing you want to do is waste money on food you’ll never eat if we don’t have a major storm — and maybe even if we do.

When you do your pre-hurricane shopping, keep in mind the types of food your family [...]

Would you like your children or grandchildren to learn how to build things even though you’re not the crafty type? National chain stores and local museums offer regular “make and take” classes for kids in which the little ones can make items and take them home.

Among the stores that offer free craft classes:

• Home Depot: [...]