In less than three years, Carrie Rocha and her husband, Marco, paid off $50,000 of nonmortgage debt and accumulated a six-month emergency fund and other savings by clipping coupons, buying store brands and reducing unnecessary expenses.

Rocha, of Maple Grove, Minn., says the couple realized they were spending more than they made and started cutting expenses across the board. But rather than tackle huge expenses, they started small.

"For us, large lifestyle changes would have turned my husband off to the whole idea of saving money. We have been intentional to set aside a little, a little, a little, until it became a lot, a lot, a lot," says Rocha, who now blogs about her experience at Pocketyourdollars.com.

Thrift gurus long have espoused the wisdom of pinching pennies because of its potential to add up to big savings.

But do clipping coupons and just saying "no" to the daily $4 latte really make a difference in the long run? Or is it big stuff -- such as downsizing a house or getting rid of one car -- that really helps families save?