I thought it might be fun to share ideas with each other on how to save money. I know I'm always looking for new ways to save since I have a tight budget. I know many others do as well as a sacrifice to being able to keep the kids at home. Feel free to add anything you want to the list. Here's a few off the top of my head Use cloth diapers, napkins, and reusable menstral products(cloth pads, sponges, diva cup etc.). Buy used any time you can. Add more veggies to a meal to use less meat. Eat leftovers for lunch and/or once a week for dinner. Check what you have on hand before going to the store. Never shop hungry.
I have an app on my Kindle that includes a "pantry" section and "spice rack" section. I used to find myself doubling up on spices because I didn't see them the first time I looked, went and bought more, then found the first container. If I keep a running list in the spice rack list, I always know what I have, even if I don't see it right away. Stay organized. This is probably the most difficult for me, but if I can't find something, I assume I don't have it (see example above). Or if I can't find it in time, I *have* to buy another. In addition to "never shop hungry" (good advice), never shop stuffed or ill. Then you don't buy nearly enough and have to make a return trip sooner than later. [Speaking from experience. I've even not bought things on my list because, "I don't really want that after all," only to regret it in a day or so.] Don't be brand or store loyal. Instead of working from your menu plan to figure out what you need to buy, work from your pantry to make your menu plan. Many recipe websites (like food.com) have a place where you check off what you have and they give you recipes that use your ingredients. You'll only have to buy a few things to fill in the gaps.
Coupons-only use them for things you would be buying anyway and only if it makes the name brand cheaper than the store brand. I usually only have enough coupons to equal the tax, but every little bit helps. Prioritize your grocery list and know the prices of the things you're buying. The things that are "must haves" go at the top and the things you'd like to have but aren't necessary go at the bottom. As you shop, keep a running total. Once you've gotten all the necessities, if there is extra in the budget, pick up some of the wants. Take cash to the grocery store. You'll be more likely to stick to your list if you know you might have to put something back at the register if you go over budget. Drink water when you eat out. Around here, a soft drink or tea is about $2 each, water is free. This saves our family $12 per meal. That's enough to buy our milk and bread for the whole week. Wash plastic and glass containers from groceries and reuse them for your leftovers instead of buying containers. Store leftovers in reusable containers rather than plastic baggies. I'll keep thinking. Can't wait to get some ideas from others.
Make your own cleaning products and beauty products if possible. I second drinking water when at a restaurant. I use a Soft Cup. They are WAY cheaper than the Diva or Moon cup and they are washable and reusable. Do not buy processed. Make your own bread. We enjoy tea at home. Pack lunches instead of buying them. Eat out as a treat. Stay away from the doctors unless you must visit them. Treat yourselves naturally if possible. Do not buy prepackaged foods even if they are precut veggies. Anything prepared or precut will cost more. I buy new and used clothes. I visit Salvation Army on half off days only.
Always bring water and snacks with when you travel in the car. This is a big one for us, because we spend a lot of time driving around. If I forget to bring supplies, stops at the gas station to buy bottled water and snacks add up fast. Calculate and compare the price per ounce on items, instead of just looking at the price or coupon. This is the best way to know if a bulk, name brand, or sale item is really a good buy or not. Make your own laundry soap/cleaners. Do some creative garage sale scouting. You may find an outfit you like, but it is the wrong size. It is easy to take clothes in at the seam a bit, or hem up pants that are too long for your kids. A king sized comforter makes the perfect dust ruffle-less bedspread on a queen sized bed. An inexpensive or free over-the-door shoe rack makes the perfect wall hanger for a stuffed animal hoard (Ours is called the walla-walla puppies!). When buying towels, skip the wash cloths and make your own. You can buy a full sized towel and make about 8 washcloths for a fraction of what they cost to buy them individually. It works the same with hand towels, except you get about 4 per towel. Get a laser B&W printer vs. an inkjet. The cost per sheet to print is much lower.
A lot of grocery items are cheaper at the $1 store; but a lot aren't. I'm blessed in that our $1 store is right next to the grocery store, so I stop there first. I have figured out which items are only, say, $.88 at the grocery store, so I skip those. I have saved a lot of money on pasta and pasta sauce and chips/snacks (not that we eat a lot of them, but when we do buy them). I buy a lot of decorations and gift bags there, too. Bottom line, learn your $1 store. Blizzard made me think of this one: When shopping garage sales and thrift stores, sometimes you find a dated outfit that could be doctored to be modern/classic. If you aren't sure where to start, check out A New Dress A Day for ideas. (She takes sometimes hideous thrift store dresses and remakes them into all sorts of great clothes.)
I haven't read the others yet, cause I'm in a hurry but my big tips are... Learn the difference between NEED and WANT. (I think 90% of what Americans buy are WANTS!!) Prioritize the WANTS. Only buy the ones you can afford. Make do or do without. Credit isn't an option! Cut up the cards and toss them OUT!!! Lists & Planning! Write it down and stick to it when shopping! Plan how you're going to use money-for the day, the week, the month, the year! A month ago I figured out what I needed to buy out of each check up until Christmas to make sure I can buy it all. Invest in long lasting purchases and buy the BEST you can afford. Buy used/cheaper/generic for things you don't use as long are aren't as important to your family. And my big one-Most people don't need a smart phone-data packages are wasted money for the majority of people. A basic phone can do many of the same things without the added $40/month.
I love our Goodwill store and find lots of things there. I buy jeans for our youngest there and she loves them. I became friends with one of the workers there and if she sees me she tells me if any new mens overalls have come in because she knows Freddy loves them. I watch for new items right after major holidays because lots of people donate gifts they received and didn't care for. It is amazing what you can find. I saw a dress with the tags still on it and it had been $410.00. The store priced it as a special find for $20.00.
I second buy used.. if fabric is on sale and I can make it cheaper than store prices I do. Use what you have and make due... Live within your means and Don't think you have to keep up with the Jones.. You ladies have so many great ideas and helps.. most I practice but some I need to start doing! OH, One thing when Thrift store shopping.. don't pay high prices for clothing and items you may find at walmart, target..etc. Example, I have been winter coat shopping for myself and girls.. I noticed that some walmart brand coats were priced the same as you can find at the store new.. so know your brands and prices to compare.. just because its at goodwill does not always mean its a good deal.
OK! Kids and Baby We make our own babywipes - Cloth Diaper - Eat out 1x per month - Kids only get toys for Major Holidays (absolutally no toys inbetween unless I make them via sewing or crochet) - Buy gently used clothes whenever possible and modify/patch them accordingly Grocery Shop once a month at Aldi - Practice food portioning (good for being healthy and possibly losing weight while saving food and money) - for bread we shop at the Sara Lee bread store (we can walk out of there with 10 loaves of bread for $11) - freeze extra food portions, and extra bread you buy (it even works with Milk, just let some of the milk out first bc your cartons will split) - freeze unused cookie dough for up to 2-3 months in air tight containers for a quick easy dessert Miscellaneous Conserve gas any way you can (carpooling, making a list of stops and streamlining them or having an "errand day") For more tips (because I know I have more) visit my blog post: http://house-wife-life.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-we-save-money.html
My realization is that you either spend money or you spend time!!!! And noone else cares about your money but you. On groceries.... For a time, I found walmart to be the cheepest for most of my items so I got lazy and kept all my shopping there. It was easier to spend one hour and be done, then three going to different stores. (not counting time online) Found out that one chain now has their own "brand" and it is sooooo much cheeper than "great value" AND a lot of products are actually better than namebrand. So, dont get in a rut with your shopping. INSURANCE: This is one of the biggest savings I found and it takes meticulous review. Look over EVERYTHING listed when your policies renewal. Auto - If you have more than one vehicle and one driver, look at who is assigned to what vehicle. Every vehicle has a rating. Every driver has a rating. The cheeper way seems to be to have the lowest rated driver with the highest rated vehicle; highest rated driver with lowest rated vehicle. Have your agent change it around and see if it saves you money. Those "accident forgiveness" and "vanishing deductible" cost YOU. With our renewal last year, we read "Your policy now has accident forgiveness" and when I called our agent and requested to not have that, our premium dropped $45 a month. Insurance is a business...so ask ask ask, dont assume they are always doing the best price for you. (It isn't always the agent doing this, sometimes it's automatically done by the corporate office.) Home Policy Sometimes raising your deductible will reduce your cost. Combining your home ins. with auto in the same company can save you money as well. Check the extras they have such as "furs and china" coverage. You may be able to drop those if you have none and save on your premium. $10 a month is a savings of $120 a year! UTILITES - (I'm sure most know these....) *Drop or lower your cable/satelitte package and get netflix. *If you have a landline, check on the "package" they have you on. Do you really need all the bells and whistles? Or, if you can...drop the homephone and just use a cell. Pay-as-u-go phones like Net10 only cost about $45/mth unlimited. *Chilly morning in the house? Dont turn on the heat....plan any baking in the oven for the morning. You might have planned on using your oven anyway, so why not take advantage of the heat from it? *Turn heat down 2 degrees (or AC up) ....if after a couple weeks noone notices, turn it down 2 more. *Turn off appliances you are not using....yup, computer, tv, etc. You may think it's not much, but if you have 3 computers, 3 tvs, 2 cable/sat. boxes in the house, you'll see a change in your bill. Just some things I found useful when our income dropped over 1/3rd.
Convinced Hubs to drop cale and phone. We use a Tracfone, and mostly text. Now we have Hulu and Netflix through Hubs' PS3 he got earlier this year. SOOO much more stuff there, it's on demand, and easy. Hulu is mostly for Hubs bc he can watch his shows like Wrestling, and it's only maybe a week behind. (Oh and for $5/ month I subscribe to Glenn Beck on the Computer) We went from spending $190 for phone and cable, to only spending $21 a month.
These are all great ideas!! I buy all my books from the thrift store for $1.49 for a paperback. Better yet, everything is half off on Mondays! I used to shop for produce at walmart, but then I discovered my local Ethnic Iranian store, where they are MUCH cheaper all the time. Shop for halloween costumed AFTER halloween. You can buy so many more and the kids can use them all year round for dress-up play. Like someone already mentioned: Use homemade beauty and cleaning products whenever possible. Get a membership at a bulk store, like Costco or Sam's Club. Combined with their occasional coupons, you can get really good deals on certain items that are otherwise pretty pricy, and even big things, like vacuum cleaners or television sets.
Interesting. Our auto insurance does not assign vehicles to a specific person. They go by the number of people, their age, and driving experience. I am curious, is only that one person who is assigned to the car allowed to drive that vehicle only?
Great ones! I'm not sure I have anything to add. The tips on netflix/hulu vs cable, pay as you go phone vs. land line, and knowing your prices are all my main ones. We've never paid for cable in 7.5yrs of marriage. We have netflix instant and watch what's available for free on Hulu and it's all good. I try to turn the heat down lower at night because I prefer a chillier night to sleep. I also try to turn it down if we're going out of the house for a few hours or more. Put plastic over drafty windows to help with insulation. I KNOW this has helped us a ton. We have several older windows in this house and the plastic really keeps that cold air out. I bought boxes of window plastic on clearance at the end of winter FOUR years ago and I'm still working on using them up. :lol: Christmas is coming up and I have never personally been bothered by shopping for gently used toys to gift to our children. It can save a lot of money to buy something used. I do this for birthdays and Christmas and my kiddos don't care one bit. A new toy is a new toy to them.
Our TV is our Roku box and computer. We use Amazon Prime for our main source of TV. It's $80/year plus includes free shipping from Amazon. Between Roku channels and Youtube-we have more than enough TV and only pay in year what we used to pay per MONTH for cable!
I have never heard of a Roku box or Hulu. What are they? We do not have a TV service. We watch DVDs. So our tv is off more than not.
Something else I just thought of. Infared heaters are amazing. They don't use much electricity at all. We didn't notice ANY difference at all when we started using ours daily. However we noticed a HUGE difference in the amount of propane we used since our heat and stove are propane. It takes some time to heat up a room but a small heater will help take the quick chill off, or put on a sweatshirt and blanket. We went from having propane filled about every 2 months getting it 1/2 filled to now only getting it filled about once a year and then at the end of summer possibly topping off(rates for us were cheaper in summer than winter so we wanted to avoid running out in winter). Also brings up another good point check prices on things at different times of the year. Prices of lots of things change through the year based on demand. Fix any water leaks you have to save water, especially the toilet if it runs constantly or tub/sink drips. Those little bits add up fast.
