Dad was raised during the Great Depression and made sure that the lessons he learned the hard way were burned into our minds. The first rock I remember throwing was to backfill the footings on Dad’s mortgage-the-family box factory here in North Jersey in 1970. No need to rent machinery when we all had two hands!

Well, things have changed a bit around here since then. Last week we had a NASA-like transformer installed to power a high speed graphics press. But when we figured out that a large tree needed to be taken out to make room for it we all dropped our blackberries and grabbed the chainsaw and axes.

Same family. Same penny-consciousness. Just a lot more efficiency so that our boxes can be delivered at an even lower cost.

But enough about us, lets talk about you. If you are running a business today you are on the front lines of the battle to get the economy back on track. We don’t have to tell you that this is really important work. So let’s all give things a second thought before we break out that checkbook. Is there a cheaper way? Can we do that ourselves?

For example, did you know that printer ink is some of the most expensive liquid on the planet? A lot of it is margin so there is opportunity to save.

See more business savings tips in this article from Entrepreneur.com

And on a larger scale, what kinds of products are we developing? Can we make them cheaper? Watch this video from The Economist about frugal innovation:

Tom Sutherland
President
Sutherland Packaging, Inc.