CNN Money has a piece on how you can save almost $9,000 a year. They list the following suggestions for ways to do this:
- Strategic shopping -- Potential annual savings: $5,200. Stephanie Nelson, founder of couponmom.com, a site that tracks deals at your local grocery store, says that shoppers can save an average of $50 to $100 a week on their groceries if they spend about 30 minutes once a week planning out their supermarket trip.
- Skip Starbucks -- Potential annual savings: $2,425. And brown bag your lunch too.
- Upgrade your appliances -- Potential annual savings: $150. Newer energy efficient appliances can save $50 to $150 a year in energy costs, according to Energy Star.
- Go generic -- Potential annual savings: $161.20. Generic brands of food and drugs can cost 20% to 50% less than the name brand and you're not likely to tell the difference.
- Pay an extra $1 on your credit cards -- Potential annual savings: $203.25.
- Sitter sharing -- Potential annual savings: $780. Families that pool together can still save between 20% to 50% off the cost of childcare while they enjoy their weekly date night.
Ok, so it's not a great list. Some of these are actually quite weak, but there are some nuggets of savings here that either work themselves or work with a twist or two. Here's my take on each of them:
- Strategic shopping -- My wife already does this, but I think we can save more by planning our meals ahead and making fewer trips to the store. We're working on this now.
- Skip Starbucks -- I don't drink coffee and I already take my lunch to work. ;-)
- Upgrade your appliances -- My take on this is that the cheapest appliance you will ever own is the one you already own. In other words, it's going to take a long time to make up for a $700 purchase by saving $50 per year -- not to mention the landfill issues of throwing away perfectly good appliances.
- Go generic -- Did this a long time ago. Most stores allow you to try their store brands at no risk (you don't like it, you bring it back and get your money, no questions asked), so that's what we do. We try items and if we like them, they become part of our future purchases (at a big savings versus name brands). If we don't like them, we return the products and get our money back. I'd guess that we like the store brand 80% of the time or so.
- Pay an extra $1 on your credit cards -- Weak idea. Pay it all off.
- Sitter sharing -- A better idea: trade baby-sitting with another family -- you watch their kids while they go out and they do the same for you. Let's face it, baby-sitting can cost a fortune, so this is a GREAT way to save money.
Should be titled "How to Exaggerate Numbers for an Eye Popping Headline"
$5200/year savings on groceries (plus another $200 for "going generic")? Isn't that more than the average family spends total?
Posted by: Strick | October 30, 2008 at 12:08 PM
If your appliances are not too old, say 15 years or less, then its not really worth it to upgrade to new just for the energy savings.
But If your appliances are 15-20 years or older then it very well might be time to look at replacing them. They keep making appliances more efficient. So the really old ones are particularly inefficient compared to todays models. If your fridge is from the 1980's it may be using $150-200 annually in electricity whereas a new model uses only around $40-50.
Many placses have programs to recycle old fridges :
http://www.recyclemyoldfridge.com/
My utility company even has free pickup plus a cash rebate for recycling an old fridge.
Jim
Posted by: Jim | October 30, 2008 at 12:28 PM
And I agree with Strick that the numbers seem pretty exaggerated. The average American family spent about $3400 for food at home in 2006:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm
Its probably gone up a ways in the past couple years but I doubt its even hit $5200 yet.
Jim
Posted by: Jim | October 30, 2008 at 12:33 PM
Pretty useless if you are already frugal, we spend less than $5k a year on food so yeah I guess if we stop eating completely we could save that much. I also could live in a cardboard box on skid row and not have to pay for housing, that would save a ton. I hit starbucks maybe once a month, the appliances are new enough to not justify the replacement cost, already buy generic and don't carry a balance on credit cards. Lastly, don't have kids except the 4 legged kind that don't require baby sitters (though they'd probably love the company).
Posted by: Miss M | October 30, 2008 at 01:04 PM
I totally agree on FMF's sitter sharing idea. Not only is the savings huge in terms of cash, but the only "cost" is when it is your turn to sit and, frankly, my kids are easier to watch when there are other kids to play with anyway. Plus, I do feel much more comfortable with my friends watching my kids than some 16 year old who has never raised a child.
Posted by: Strick | October 30, 2008 at 01:25 PM
I agree on the groceries, too -- I am a frugal shopper in many ways, and yet we buy a lot of organic products, luxury items like cheeses, bought 1/4 organic cow from a local ranch for beef, have an organic CSA farm membership for produce ... and our average monthly grocery cost (including those expenses) is still around $400. We are frugal in many areas, so this is a place where we splurge somewhat -- if it were unimportant to us or we were in dire straits (have been before!) we could cut it, but not by that much. And the problem with the coupon-focused shopping is that you do not save much on things like protein foods, produce and whole grains -- where the nutrients lie!
Posted by: Cheap Like Me | October 30, 2008 at 01:36 PM
$6.64 on starbucks a day? Really?
We spend a total of $100 a week on groceries (for 2) and we shop at an organic co-op half the time! They are also assuming a 50% savings from coupons which to me seems quite optimistic.
Posted by: Chris | October 30, 2008 at 04:30 PM