Birmingham, AL (WIAT) - In these lean economic times it's more important for families to cut spending.
But for the cuts to work it takes a long term commitment.

Andrea Roy is a typical example of the average American... Hard working, but struggling to survive financially.

"I do feel when prices increase like food and gas. I do feel that a lot."

Roy works 40 hours a week, but on a single income, expenses are quickly adding up.

"I do try to stagger my bills. Pay half of my bills with my first pay check and pay the rest with my next paycheck."

But that doesn't leave Roy with much money to play with.

"I’m really bad about writing stuff down… I’ll swipe. And dollars here and there add up."

Cynthia Frownfelter-Lohrke is the professor of accounting at the Brock School of Business and she has some advice for people in the same situation as Andrea Roy.

"One of the things I would look at are the extras. Just as when you are on a diet the first thing you cut out would be candy… or chips or whatever your weakness is."

Typical expenses that can be cut are eating out, coffee shops, and going to movies.

Lohrke also suggests getting rid of the cards and using cash!

Then there's Brandy and Eric Nix. They found saving success early after consolidating their college debts.

Eric explains, "We actually started off with the Dave Ramsey book and started off with getting the debt snowball going. And so we got our credit cards paid off in several years… and at that point we decided to start saving."

Lohrke says that's a good model to get you started.

"That is psychological. You pay your smallest bill and you get a bill out of the way."

But once the college debt was paid off Brandy and Eric Nix knew they wanted to stay out of debt. That's when the decided to adopt a frugal philosophy.

Brandy and Eric discuss finances regularly... And are successful savers because they have a common goal.

Eric says, "The way we do this is like I said earlier… auto deductions. It comes out when I get paid, so I really don't realize that the money's gone."

And by having money split out of their paychecks and into untouchable accounts it's allowed this couple to weather the tough economy very well.

Brandy says, "I bought a car what was it three years ago? And we actually ended up paying it off in two years, or a year and a half, just because all of our extra money we just pushed towards the car… and whenever we got a tax return, instead of going on vacation, we put it towards the car, and that was the best feeling in the world when we paid that off early."

And Eric says anyone can do this... It's all about setting and achieving goals.

"Get a goal in mind and work for it. It might take you 30 years to get there, but that's what you have to do. Have something to work towards."