Budgeting And Saving Tips
Looking for ways to save money? Here are a few that can help!
- Coupons.com has a lot of great coupons that you can print out
- MyCoupons.com has a lot of great information on deals that are being found at various stores
- Buy off-brand items. Yes, some will taste like sawdust, but others are identical to the name brand. If you have an ALDI grocery store in your area, it is worth the drive to purchase groceries there. We save at least $50 a month by buying our essentials there – milk, bread, canned foods, eggs, etc. As a side note, their eggs can be somewhat non-uniform – I get double-yolk eggs, oblong eggs, and wobbly eggs. It is really interesting.
- Skip the grocery store for one week. Put together meals from stuff that is in the cupboards and freezer! You will enjoy some concoctions you have not had in awhile (or never), AND you will be able to save a week’s worth of grocery money to put toward your emergency fund!
- Have the kids mow the lawn and maintain landscaping instead of paying someone else to do it. Pay your kids and teach them how to save, give, and spend their money! Can you spell, “LEARNING OPPORTUNITY?”
- Cut your kid’s hair. This will save many families $20 – $40 per month!
- Visit consignment stores, Goodwill, or Salvation Army Thrift Stores. You can find some great deals on clothing!
- Shop your insurance for quotes (US Insurance Online). Get at least three quotes and obtain one of them from an independent insurance agent. You may be able to save $100 – $500/year on your insurance!
- Take a low-budget vacation instead of a $3,000 one. Using creative options, you will discover just as much fun, and you may be able to save $2,000 – $2,500 which can then be used for debt reduction, emergency fund, or retirement fund!
- Wait one day before making a major purchase decision. This will really help you to avoid “impulse” purchases like a new car, a pricey vacation, a new plasma TV, etc.
- Eliminate the home telephone. So many people have cell phones that the home phone has become virtually obsolete. For basic home telephone service you will pay $25/month, and it will not come with basic features of a cell phone such as free long distance, caller-id, call waiting, voice mail, camera, text messaging, games, etc. If you need a basic phone for emergencies, I like the MagicJack.
- Get rid of the movie channels on cable.
I would love to hear more ideas on how you can save money!
If you live in the upstate of South Carolina, there is a store in Pelzer, South Carolina off of Highway 8 called Bargins. This store is great if you are looking to save money on groceries. It is open Monday through Saturday until 8 pm. They sell every thing except wine and beer. They are a bent and dent store, with over stock items as well. The milk has been $2.99 per gallon!!! At Walmart, it was $4.09. They do not take coupons, but you save more with them, than going to the regular grocery store with a coupon. I can buy twice as much groceries there!!!
Also, on the make ahead meals. I have started a club with other women. We get together 1 Saturday out of the month and make these meals. We purchase food from Bargins and Sams Club. By the time we have finished, we have 9 complete meals, along with 4 desserts. The totals came out to be $67.05 per family. All the recipes were found on Pinterest.
Great list Joe. We do a lot of those things too. We also cut cable. Most LCDs have a built-in tuner that picks up free channels in HD quality. The DVR is handy and we still miss it but we can still watch football and our fave prime time shows for FREE. We mourn a few other channels but we survived. 🙂 Savings $50/month.
Another huge savings tip for those with families is communal living. Maybe this is too hippy for some hear me out. You’re probably like us and have tons of friends with kids in the same life stage. We ALL share clothes with one another. Kids’ clothes (and shoes!) are expensive. We have shirts that have been worn by 5 different kids and everyone gets to benefit from some other kids’ rich grandma. 🙂 This allows us to have cash in the bank, no consumer debt, AND still afford five kids. Savings: $150/month — and that’s conservative for our size family.
Boom.
I budget my dinning out and entertainment. Two ways that have really saved me money is restaurant.com and groupon. Restaurant.com allows you to purchase a meal coupon for as little as $2.00 for a $25.00 coupon. All you do is spend $35 at the restaurant for dinner and you get $25 applied to you’r bill!! You have to watch for the deals, so it’s best to get their emails.
I also get groupon emails an use this for my outings. My family of 4 can go to the movies for $20.00
And they also have lots of other cool stuff such as Rick climbing etc for date night/day with your spouse.
I alwas think twice now before I pay full price!
After seeing Joe about 18 months ago, the first thing I did was cut DirecTV. Sure I miss it, but was it worth the $112 a month I was spending on it?…..NOT!!!! I bought me an HD antenna. I actually like it. I get about 18 HD channels on that thing and some I didn’t even get on DirecTV. I splurged a little on the antenna. Spent $63 bucks on a nice one that goes outside, got a pole and some concrete and put it in myself. Ended up spending about $100 after it was all said and done, but hey, it paid for itself in 26 days.
We now buy off brands of can food saving about 20 bucks a month. Now with just those two things changed in our life that saves us about $1500 a year!!! Can you say VACATION??!!