.REFINANCE
Whether it is your car, house, or any other kind of loan, take the time to see if refinancing is right for you. For example, I spent a little time finding a better car loan and reduced my loan by $50 a month! Same amount of loan time, just a better rate. That was time well spent.
GOOD COP BAD COP
When purchasing a large item or haggling over service price, I like to play good cop bad cop. It goes something like this. I’m usually the good cop when my husband isn’t around. I’ve done this with my cell phone service and cable company. I express how happy I am with our service but that my husband wants to leave because of cost. (All of which is true) Then there’s a little bit of “Help me help you” to the salesperson. At the end of the conversation I look like the good guy and get a lower rate. When my husband and I go to purchase a large item I get to play bad cop. That is, I express over and over how we don’t “need” it in the first place. (Which is also true) This also helps us get a lower price.
LIBRARY
There is this place where you can borrow books and movies for no money at all. All you need is photo ID and patience. It’s called a library and I am now a more frequent customer. I love books. In fact, I love books so much that I purchase them so I never have to let them go. With this economy, it’s time to save money and space and let go of the books. Even though I get a good price on Amazon, it’s still $6 bucks here, $15 bucks there. I’m finding that the library can get me the books I want to read for free! One of my friends is an avid movie renter from the library, something I’m not on board with yet since I don’t like watching movies that are 5 years old. But hey, it works for them and might for you too.
TRACK THOSE DOLLARS
Where exactly is your money going? I know one couple who began keeping track out of curiosity. They had no kids and both worked so had lots of money to burn apparently. They discovered they were spending $500 a month on restaurants and take-out. They put themselves on a budget of $200 a month for restaurants and put $300 more towards investments. I personally was shocked at how much I was spending on coffee, more on that later. Easy Envelope Budget Aid “EEBA” is a good way to help you track. You can use it on your computer and/or install app on your phone. It’s free on the web.
STOP SPENDING MONEY
Crazy idea I know. One idea I got from a friend was “No Money Mondays.” The idea is to not spend one penny on Mondays. I think this is very clever and sad at the same time. Clever in that it gives us a small goal that is obtainable, stop spending for one day a week. It also saddens me since there are so many people out there who would love the ability to spend money one day a week. Food for thought.
FIND FREE FUN
Who says the family needs to spend a lot of money to have fun. There are many free activities in your local area if you just search a little. Start Googling resources that can assist you. I subscribe to Parent Map and look at local park websites. Another trick is to pack your lunch when out and about. Free events are fun but they usually charge an arm and a leg for food.
MAKE IT YOURSELF
Take the time to sit down, look around your house, and think about what you could be making instead of paying full price for. Here are a few examples of things I do.
Make laundry detergent: I was spending $18 to wash 64 loads. Expensive because my family has skin allergies and I wanted environmentally friendly product as well. Now I spend $4 on 64 loads and that’s with me using an expensive bar of soap. Here’s the recipe: 2 Cups Borax, 2 Cups Washing Soda, and 1 bar of soap. Shave the soap into fine mixture, similar to parmesan texture. Mix all ingredients well and use 2 Tb. per load of laundry. For those nasty stains I throw a bit of Oxyclean into a load. Something I did with previous detergents too.
Make your own gifts: After tracking my spending a while back, I realized I was spending $50 to $100 a month on gifts. There are birthdays, weddings, showers, etc. Now I make my own gifts. It does require a little creativity, but hey, if this uncreative lawyer can do it, so can you. You’ll still need to be thoughtful in you’re giving. Although I usually give my homemade sugar scrubs as gifts, the men in my family won’t be getting them.
Bread and Jam: I started to make my own bread and jam. This saves me $3 on every loaf I make and $3 on every jar of jam I had purchased. That’s a $20 savings a month for us. You’ll want to see my previous article entitled, “Not by Bread Alone…Need Bread maker” for more information.
GROCERY DO’S/DON’T
The word loathe comes to my mind when I think of grocery shopping. It’s an evil necessity though since I don’t have a personal assistant. Here are a few suggestions on how to save.
• Don’t be fooled by the 3 for $5 bit. This past weekend I saw a sign for BBQ sauce that read 10 for $10. Seriously? Who needs 10 jars of BBQ sauce? I grabbed one for a dollar and moved on.
• Stock up, modestly, when there’s a good deal. Every time I see my organic frozen veggies go on sale I stock up. However, be careful not to buy something you normally wouldn’t just because it’s on sale.
• Leave the spouse at home. My husband was surprised while standing in the check-out line on what our bill was. Frankly, so was I. I turned to him and said when I go alone it’s around $25 less.
• Go less often. I swear you would see me at my local grocery store every day of the week. As you read earlier, I loathe the place, so why am I there so often? I decided to only go twice a week. I’d say one day a week but fresh fruit and vegetables will go bad towards the end. This will require you to plan meals ahead of time, another cost and time saver. Now when I say grocery shopping I mean picking up anything at the store. If you remembered you needed something on one of your non-shopping days, too bad. You’ll have to go without. Harsh I now, but couldn’t we all use a little lesson in doing without.
SUBSTITUTION
If you are able to make any substitutions for what you’re currently doing, go for it. One of my substitutions is my coffee run. I would spend around $4.50 on my favorite specialty drink at Starbucks. I’ve now switched to a tall latte with flavoring. Since I registered my Starbucks card online, I get free syrup. (.40 savings) Now I spend $2.50 on my delicious coffee, saving me $2.00 a drink. On hot days, iced coffee with cream and sweetener does the trick for about $2 less.
We also put our Netflix subscription on hold, and started using Redbox. This is saving us around $10 a month since we really don’t watch movies all that often.
PRINT COUPONS
Alright, so you’re probably wondering how coupons got in here since I said you wouldn’t have to cut anything. But hey, printing coupons is not cutting. Go find your favorite products online and check to see if they have any coupons. Almost our entire dairy comes from Organic Valley. This is because their cows are grass fed and pasture raised. The importance of this will be in another article. It is the most expensive dairy product out there, but a choice our family makes for our health. You will rarely find coupons for their products in the paper but can easily go online and print them off.
These ten ways to save might seem small… but that’s the point. They are not big life changes but can add up to a great deal of savings. Feel free to try one of these tips at a time or all at once. Any one of them will start you in the right direction.
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