shrinking backup files

[Charles Malespin]

Hi all, I recently did a tar cpf etc.tar /etc and tar cpf
home.tar /home/usrname to make backups.  The .tar file I got for /home
is huge, 8Gb, is there any way that I can shrink this so that I can burn
it to a CD?  I dont have a DVD burner, so I would like to use these
files to burn to CD to back up(unless there is an easier way or
something I am not aware of)  Thanks, 
Charles