25 Ways to Save Money

Wise Bread lists 25 ways to save money. I've covered all of these one way or another over the years, but I thought I'd list their suggestions along with what I think (and what I do) about each suggestion. Here goes:

1. Reduce/Eliminate Daily Luxuries - You know I'm all about this. Yes, there's certainly room for the occasional treat, but I keep a pretty tight grip on small spending. Fees too.  

2. Carpool - I have never carpooled for a long period of time (I have for short periods when I or friends needed extended rides) and I've also taken the bus. There's just a HUGE convenience issue associated with being tied to another's time schedule. I'd be willing to cut out a lot of things before I started carpooling.

3. Prevent Repair Costs - IMO, maintenance is worth it's weigh in gold. That's why we always keep on top of it for our cars, mower, snow blower, appliances, etc.

4. Share Toys - Our kids are past the toy stage, but we certainly did pass along our share of them through the years -- though I don't recall us receiving many used ones. But we never spent a lot on toys, grandparents took care of that. ;-)

5. Shop on a Full Stomach - Or shop at Costco during sample time! ;-)

6. Share Baby Clothes - Did the same here as with toys.

7. Purchase Generic - We've been buying store brands for years. I even went to the trouble of comparing costs between Costco and Walmart, and store brands were much less expensive in both.

8. Buy in Bulk - You just need to calculate the per size/per use cost because buying in bulk isn't always the best deal. And if you don't use it all because it's too much, buying in bulk is almost always a worse deal.

9. Turn off the Lights - We run hot and cold on this one. We do well for awhile, then we'll have a few nights where every light in the house seems to be on.

10. Purchase Used Items - We do this all the time -- mostly on clothes (Goodwill). That said, we do buy new cars.

11. Cut Food Costs - My wife is the coupon/sale/rebate queen. I think we could cut our food costs a bit, but not much.

12. Reduce Reoccurring Costs - We've added and deleted from this category over the years. We have eliminated all magazine subscriptions but we do have cable and internet service (in addition to phone service, of course).

13. Save Your Spare Change - I put all of my silver coins in my car (for miscellaneous expenses.) I give all my pennies to my daughter. She thinks they are still worth something. ;-)

14. Shop Online - Two tips: 1) Amazon and 2) always look for a coupon code. For example, there's no reason to ever buy from GoDaddy without a discount of some sort.

15. Drive Steady - Ha! Good luck with this one!

16. Start Bargaining - Probably my favorite money saving tip of all time: asking for a discount. I f you need some help in this area, I've discussed how to do this at a chain store, when you're embarrassed about it, and when you just can't muster the courage.  

17. Eat Steak at Home - I think everyone knows it's cheaper to eat at home, right?

18. Pre-Drink at Home - We don't drink, so we save even more! ;-)

19. Use Coupons - Coupons can save you $30 to $120 per hour. Not a bad payback at all.

20. Watch the Game at Home - I actually prefer to watch a game at home rather than at a sports bar or at the actual venue. More comfortable IMO.

21. Fix It Yourself - If it's an easy and quick repair, I do it. If it's hard and long and there's a good chance I'll make it worse, I have someone else do it. If it's somewhere in the middle, I weigh the cost of the repair versus the time it would take me to do it and decide from there. For instance, if something takes five hours to do and costs $50, it's a no-brainer since I'd pay $50 to save 5 hours.

22. Romance on a Budget - My wife is more frugal than I am, so we don't have a problem here.

23. Be Debt Focused - Don't have any debt. Don't need to focus on it. ;-)

24. Do Your Own Taxes - I think this is an area where some people can be penny wise but pound foolish. That's why I use a CPA to do my taxes.

25. Learn More about Frugal Living - Learn about it? I'm living it!

What's your take on these suggestions? Any of them stand out as particularly good or bad?

Comments

[Alotta Lettuce]

My husband and I have been carpooling since October and it's cut our fuel expenses in half. It's been such a simple and seamless transition, that I could kick myself for not starting a year earlier (when we first started working in the same area).

One area I struggle with is romance on a budget - particularly when it comes to date nights that involve special meals. Maybe if we ate at casual restaurants more often, or ate simpler/cheaper food at home on a regular basis, cooking up an excellent meal might actually feel special, but we already cook 95% of all meals at home, and we eat well to begin with, so there's just nothing special about trying to do a date night dinner at home.

To us, date night and special mean really nice, usually expensive restaurant serving creative dishes that we could never dream of recreating at home.

[Jonathan]

#15. Drive Steady - This is a two-fold saving method. It both saves gas and reduces wear and tear on your engine, transmission, and brakes. I commute about 20 miles into and out of downtown Los Angeles, so I'm used to stop-and-go traffic. I tend to make it a game to see how little I can use my accelerator and brake pedal (or at least, how little I can modulate them - using the accelerator isn't bad!) when in traffic. It tends to confuse (and annoy) the driver behind me, but I get a lot of amusement out of watching that person swerve into the next lane, speed way up, swerve back into my lane ahead of me, and stop, having gained one car-length in the pecking order. It's especially fun when I get the glare as they drive by.

[Matt]

Buy a small freezer to freeze your bulk items. We have had a 7 cu ft chest freezer since the kids were little ( more than 15 years) that has more than 1000 time paid for the initall investment ($250) in money savings.

I buy 10 lbs of chicken on sale, cook it and then freeze it into lunch portions. Make 5 lbs of my own meatballs for spagetti, buy 2 dozen bagles when we have a coupon buy one get one free, loaves of bread, I make mega meals like a 5 to 8 lbs of pork tenderloin or a 5 lbs sirloin tip roast. We eat one meal fresh and freeze another onr or two for later. I use to do a marathon cooking day and make about 6 weeks of ready to warm up in a microwave meal.

When i was growing up my mom had a 20 cu ft chest freezer where we would go and buy a side of beef. Talk about mega savings on meat.

Healthier with less sodium.

[Jonathan]

Honestly, I think its unnecessary to save money on these little things. They all add up to peanuts compared to the big things such as salary negotiation, car/house loans, insurance, etc...

I know you mention increasing your income as the #1 thing to do, and I would love to see more posts in this area rather than on all this peanut stuff that is pretty useless. Your posts on increasing income and saving money on college are very good! But, I think its almost a waste of time to try to implement these 25 steps.

[Michael Goode]

21. Fix it yourself.

I have looked through quite literally hundreds of homes in the search for a house. In almost every single used house I have seen multiple examples of poor work that was likely done by a homeowner fixing it himself. In some cases that is okay (sloppy painting job, cracked tiles) while in other cases I've noticed things like poor electrical work, unsafe structure (in building an addition, rebuilding stairs) that can be quite dangerous and can actually end up lowering the value of the house.

[Scott Messner]

#15 Drive Steady - I've recently started experimenting with this. I have always quickly accelerated from a stop to cruising speed. Now I accelerate slowly making sure not to wind out every gear. Maybe I need to refine my technique but my Saturn L300 only went from 26.7 to 27.5 mpg. Frankly I was expecting a bit more.

My next experiment is to drive slower by dropping my speed to 2 over the speed limit.

[John]

^That's exactly what you need if you having a tough time paying bills. Spend more money!?! SPAM!

[Danielle]

To #14, I'd add: use a service like ebates. By checking there first, you can get a % of whatever you spend back.

[Georgia]

I was leery of doing any bargaining, but I tried it at Walgreen's twice and came out way ahead. Where I worked, I had 2 wards or more and 3 shifts that I bought Christmas presents for - about 150. To be frugal, I would shop all year long to find sales on items I could use as small gifts. To put the gifts in, I managed for 15 years to get a different container each year.

One year, at Walgreen's, they had small, 6" or so Christmas stockings in felt. They were $1 each. Just before the holiday or immediately after, they would drop them to 2 for $1. I stopped a manager and asked what they would charge me if I bought all they had left. I got them 3 for $1. What a savings, from $1.00 to .333 cents.

The next year I did the same thing on another container. Got those a little cheaper. But, one place I bargained and lost. It worked okay in the long run though. A grocery chain had the lighted ceramic houses for Christmas. I forget their price, but after Christmas I offered to buy the few they had left for a certain price (about 1/2 what they were asking.) They checked and said they couldn't do it. Two weeks later I went in and they had them on sale much lower than I had offered. Paid to bypass it that time. This is a great tool.

Driving steady is also a great one. I read an article on how to up your gas mileage and was going on a 1500 mile trip. The tips - drive 55, smooth, even accelerating, slowing gradually to stops, putting your car in neutral if going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds and parking as often as possible where you could pull forward to go. On my 2000 Ford Taurus Wagon, I usually get 27-28 mpg on trips. On that trip I twice got 33.7 mpg and 29+ a couple of times. I call that a major good. My mileage is good from 55-60, but the best is at 55. I stay in the right lane and let everyone else pass me.

[John]

I did not even think of some of these things simply because I am 18 and don't have a lot of stuff other than college to worry about. This was helpful.