Savings guru Elisabeth Leamy offers tips on saving big

So you're brown-bagging it, making your own coffee and clipping coupons. Sound familiar? It's what a lot of us are doing these days in order to save money. It's also what Elisabeth Leamy used to do before she realized it wasn't really getting her family's finances very far. Instead, Leamy attacked her big-ticket expenses and, by doing so, saved her family a whopping $160,000 over the past ten years.

In her new book, Save Big, Leamy doles out some saving advice that may not seem so conventional. For instance, she says to go ahead and keep that daily latte (though we still say skip it and embrace the Mr. Coffee machine instead.) Leamy believes that the only way consumers can truly save cash is to tackle larger chunks of wasteful spending, particularly when it comes to your house, your car and other key areas.

But can Leamy's ways help us save tens of thousands of dollar, too? WalletPop got her advice firsthand. Here's what she had to say about five key spending areas.