Yesterday I shared with all of you our journey to becoming debt free. Today I wanted share with you five things our family does to save money, both on daily items and big ticket items.

These are pretty basic and you are probably already doing them. If not, maybe this will inspire you.

1. We are not too good for hand me downs.

We love hand me downs. Both my boys have been outfitted pretty much since birth due to the generosity of my sister and friends. And we have since passed on many of those hand-me-downs.

But we didn't stop there. A few years ago our vacuum cleaner exploded. Literally. The motor exploded. I asked my mom to be on the lookout for a good deal and to pass that info along if she saw one. But my mother just happened to have an extra vacuum she wasn't using! It's not brand new, or the latest and greatest, but it gets the job done and saved me about $200!

2. See if you can get it used.

This sort of goes along with the last one. But, if you can get a good deal on something second hand, go for it.

When I moved Isaac out of his high chair and to a booster seat. I found one I wanted on Amazon for around $30. I was about to hit the "Add to Cart" button when I reconsidered. I hopped onto Craigstlist and found (almost) the exact same booster seat for $10. The best part was, it was only used by the previous owner a couple of times, so it was practically new.

3. Borrow, borrow, borrow

There are things you might need for one season of your life, there is no sense in buying them brand new. I have personally lent out many baby items like our co-sleeper. I know a lot of families who swap baby items back and forth as their children out grow them and as new babies are welcomed into the family.

4. Meal Plan, meal plan, meal plan.

I cannot tell you how invaluable this is. You will save so much time and money by simply meal planning. I am so passionate about this topic I even put together an ebook about it.

I estimated that it saves our family around $1,600 a year in meal planning and it saves me hours of time.

5. DON'T SPEND MONEY.

I know, you just had your mind blown, didn't you?

But before you spend money ask yourself these questions:

Do I really need this?

Can I live without it?

Do I have something else that will do the same job?

Can I borrow this?

Do I really want it?

Like I said, these are basic and we're not reinventing the wheel here at the Senn house, but these simple tools have really helped us carve our way out of debt and get on the path to financial freedom.