QotW: Piggy Bank
What have you cut back on to save money this year?
I've become very good at talking myself out of buying or doing things in an effort to save money. Among them:
- New clothes for myself. I'm making do with existing jeans, T-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. It also helps that I occasionally get free clothes at work. I did need to get some long-sleeved shirts (on sale - 3 for $15) and sweatpants (2 pairs for $13), and I also need some socks and undergarments. And as much as I would like a new pair of shoes, I've been able to successfully talk myself out of them for the past few months.
- Dining out. Lunchtime at work is the only time I would eat out, but I've been saving money by either brown-bagging it or going across the street and getting frozen dinners (2 for $2! You can't beat that!) or a salad. I'll splurge once a week or so and spend $8 on lunch somewhere, but that's considered a treat.
- Excessive road trips. If I need to go to the grocery store, I stop on my way home. If I need to run errands and can't manage them during my lunch hour, I stop on my way home. Weekends are typically spent at home, but if I need to run errands (as I did this past weekend), I do all of it at once.
- New craft supplies and books. It's not like I have the time to create or read these days, anyway. (I still have yet to design our Christmas card.) And let's be honest - I have enough craft supplies to teach daily scrapbooking classes for an entire year. So now I don't even bother looking at the Sunday ads for Michaels or JoAnns, and I've dramatically scaled back my Amazon.com visits. After all, it's easier to wear blinders and not know what you're missing than to see it, want it, and later need to talk yourself out of it.
- Vending machine vists. Rather than feeding the vending machine 75 cents every time I want a bag of chips (and we all know those bags are woefully inadequate), I buy a big bag and keep it at my desk. I do the same with granola bars, cookies, and crackers.
- Using my credit cards. The interest rates are ridiculously high. As it is, I now only have one that still carries a balance, and I'm desperately trying to eliminate that, too.
When you don't really do a lot of extra stuff to begin with, it's hard to scale back for the sake of saving money. It's not like I'm a Starbucks afficianado or can't function without an Egg McMuffin first thing in the morning. But I cut back where I can.
Comments
There are so many good ideas to save money. Most start with being willing to look at things a little differently. I like cruising thrift shops for stuff like books and kitchen gadgets. I can get something I need for pennies on the dollar. We get all our dvd's from the library so we save rentals fees. In our part of the country where it gets really cold, I have been keeping the thermostat down and we wear layers. I also put hot water into recycled jars to warm up our beds at night. Another thing is monitoring Freecycle for things we need or want. Often, for the effort of pick- up you can get craft supplies, furniture, books, toys, etc.all for free. I also cook most everything from scratch. We eat more healthfully and it is much less expensive. If I buy a bag of lentils for example, I can make a nice soup in the crockpot with an onion, some garlic, and a handful of carrots. With bread and a salad, we're good to go.
The nice thing is that many of the things that save money are also really good for the environment.
I'm from sunny Sinagpore and found some of your tips really useful. And am big on home cook meals and saving up on dinning out. Thanks
I've learned to bargain shop. If i know its cheaper to buy milk and bread at one grocery store, i go there. If i know chips and other snacks will be cheaper elsewhere, that's where i go. Often times, i go to places like Costco/Sam's Clib/Wholesale Stores and buy my trash bags, toilet paper and paper towels in bulk there. Items that you really need to keep a good amount of will probably save you money to shop in those larger stores where you can save a ton more.
What I find makes the biggest difference is knowing how to cook and what to buy at the store. A box of Bisquick (baking mix) and a few of those "Helper" (just add meat) dinners makes the difference.
Also, turning your heater down (or even off) while you're at work cuts the heating fuel cost, and if you cook or do laundry at home in the evening, you will find that running those appliances helps heat your house so you don't need to run the thermostat high in the evenings either.
Lastly, now is a good time to look at dropping a costly habit such as cigarettes, beer, Starbucks, or lottery tickets. Those dollars add up in a year..and in the case of smoking especially, the health benefits are worth the effort.
I wish my husband was more open to eating soups and salads for dinner. Inexpensive meals are easy for me, but my husband is a serious carnivore and doesn't fill up unless there's a good amount of meat. And Lord knows meat is so expensive these days.
I've been in purge mode for about a year now, so I haven't bought myself a lot of things, which has also helped save money. I've looked in thrift stores for clothing and stuff, but I still haven't bought anything from them.
And now I'm in the process of using my existing craft supplies to make my own Christmas cards. I usually make about 100 of them, which translates to about $25-75 in savings, depending on how fancy you want the card. (If I were to buy my cards in the stores, they would be on the high-end scale... which is why I choose to make them instead.) It saves me money, it gets rid of clutter in my house, and, since I'm using envelopes that I "rescued" from work a couple of years ago, it's green, too!
I love Costco. My parents had a membership when it was still called Price Club! The only thing I realized, though, is that I can get cereal cheaper from the grocery store when I wait for BOGO and use a coupon. But there's no better place to get distilled vinegar (a staple for my laundry room) and hand soap refills!
I found a couple of recipes for spice blends that are cheaper - and healthier - alternatives to Hamburger Helper and such. And each year for Christmas, I ask one of my friends (who works in culinary and doesn't have a lot of money) to make me some spice blends. Just add meat and pasta, and you're ready to go!
Living in Florida, the struggle is to keep the house cool, not warm. So we allow the thermostat to go up during the day, and it drops down to a reasonable temperature when my husband gets home from work. During these winter months, especially with the rash of cold spells we've been getting, I don't touch the dial on the thermostat and leave the house as it is. After all, my husband and I can wear socks and bundle up in blankets, and my son's room (an inner room with no windows) is the warmest room in the house, anyway!
I don't want to eliminate eating out altogether because, let's face it, there are people whose livelihoods depend on restaurant patrons (myself included). But I like to keep it to a minimum, and I make sure my orders are within reason. There's no need, for example, to get a drink, an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. I usually limit it to an entree and a glass of water.
It's nice working right next to a Super Walmart, though, and Publix isn't too far away, either. This way, I can quickly pick up a frozen entree or something in roughly the same amount of time it takes to go to Wendy's (also across the street), and I'll spend far less than I would if I went to the drive-through. (It's also healthier.)
That's exactly it! For the past, oh, 9 months or so, I've been trying to eliminate frivolous purchases. And, except for food and gas, aren't they all kind of frivolous?
I did a partial switch to cloth diapers at the end of March in an effort to save the planet and some money, and I did it just in time for diaper prices to go up for the third time since my son was born! As it stands, every disposable diaper I put on him costs a quarter (really, more than that, but I'm being generous here), so even though the cost of 15 cloth diapers was a bit of a shock (about $260), I've only got about 50 more diaper changes before all of them are paid off in savings - and my son isn't anywhere near potty-training yet! (Let's not even talk about the money I've saved on using my husband's old T-shirts as wipes.)
So, yes, my son needs diapers, but no, I don't need the convenience the disposable variety brings. And let's face it: most of those things that are convenient really are just luxuries, aren't they?
And I agree about the hamburger helper - it really isn't that much of a money saver. You can make your own "noodle goo" (as I call it) cheaper and better. Processed food will eat your money up quick. It's ok to cook!
I bought a tin of smoked paprika awhile back and found that a 1/4 of a tsp of it in a pot of beans pretty much smells and tastes like you cooked them with a chunk of ham or a slab of bacon. That's a healthier and cheaper way of going.
I wish I could get my husband to eat a salad. I'd be happy if I could get him to eat more vegetables than just green beans and corn. (Our son's pediatrician says that corn is a questionable vegetable, anyway, since it's really more of a grain.) He'll eat broccoli if it's covered in cheese, and he'll eat peppers, but that's about the extent of it. Nowhere in the list of foods he's will to eat will you find "salad".
[sigh]
Smoked paprika, eh? I'll have to give that a try!
My son will eat almost anything, so I'm not overly concerned with his diet. When he was 6 months old, his favorite food was avocadoes. Then he developed a sensitivity to them (and bananas - they're related, you know), and I they aren't in season to re-introduce again. [sigh] Oh well. He'll be eating guacamole again in a few months. But the craziest thing is that he's got a terrible sensitivity to dairy, which includes ranch dressing, so the veggies he'll eat are of the steamed variety.
Sadly, my husband is too old to for me to teach the "dip it in ranch dressing" trick. A carrot is a carrot, he would argue, no matter how you dress it!
Ugh, corn. It is even a questionable grain...I consider it a starch just like bread and pasta - but bad for us and the environment...we are killing ourselves with corn syrup. Sorry, I am on an anti-corn kick at the moment...except when it's cornbread!
You know, my husband was sort of the same about salad, but then I started making them with more than just lettuce and dressing - I think I swung him around. I still can not get him to eat a carrot or a brussells sprout and when I make things like kale and turnip greens - I know that's just for me. One thing I made that he ate and he was surprised he even liked was spinach - but add bacon pieces to nearly anything and it's going to taste good. That's the secret - bacon! (and I sneak a lot of vegetables in spagetti sauce...shhhhhh)
I love kale, with chick peas, tomatoes and masala paste from the Indian store. My family eats salad and lots of beans, fava, refrieds, lentils, peas (in soup) chick peas in salads and pastas, black beans with salsa in tortillas, and kidney beans.
I also will sometimes puree veggies to go in meatloaf or stew.
I wish I could do away with dairy in my diet, mostly because I think I would lose weight (that gnarly 15 that just won't go). But mostly we try to avoid junk food, fast food and too much sugar. It is an uphill battle, though, when you are trying to eat well and the genetically modified foods and chemicals are in just about everything you don't make from scratch.
Funny you should mention his colon! He hasn't been formally diagnosed, but I'm convinced he suffers from IBS. Which reminds me: I'll need to make sure he gets checked for colon cancer in a few years...