Going off the thread about things that leak money, what are some little things that save money? I know a lot of us have financial goals for the year so I thought it would be nice to share some simple ideas.
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We sold our house in October and moved into a rental temporarily...we are now in the process of beginning to build a house so we are in save mode...here are things I've done/tried:
1. We cut the cable cord. We use a digital antenna, Netflix, and we do have HBO Now for the time being. We are stereotype millennial in that we use my parent's DISH login for shows on other apps we want to watch (makes me feel so cheap!) We stream with Chromecast.2. I've got grocery shopping down to $110/week. I always buy meat in bulk on sale (and we just got a 1/4 of a cow to save on meat for a year!)
3. We only allow 1 lunch out a week. We don't drink coffee, but I started brewing my own chai tea/hot tea at work instead of the coffee shop to save $3-4 bucks a day on that.
4. We switched DD's extra circular activities to a different studio and saved $40 a month.
5. We paid off some smaller bills we had to save on the monthly payments. Still working on the bigger loans, our goal is to have those paid off by 2018. We use the snowball method...rolling over the savings into a bigger payment for the next bill (Dave Ramsey style.)
6. We are doing no spend February - only the necessities no extras (eating out/unnecessary target purchases, no clothing, etc.)
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@LuLu Mom: I'm interested in #5, is the info on his site?
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@Bao: Here is a breakdown of the snowball method. It has worked for us for sure, and we are still using it about 2 years later, will continue until all debt is gone!
http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/get-out-of-debt-with-the-debt-snowball-plan
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I use the phone company ting. It is not unlimited data/minutes/messages, but we're all on wifi most of the time anyway. No contract and you buy your own phone, we buy used ones and are not into the latest and greatest anyway. Our phone bill went from $260 a month (for 5 people) to average about $85 a month (for same 5 people).
I stay away from shopping websites. When I see a sale it is hard to resist so I just keep away in the first place, I keep the bigger goal in mind (saving for retirement, paying for vacations) which helps keep me motivated.
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I have removed myself from sale emails, removed all the saved credit card information from store websites and stopped reading a lot of blogs.
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@shellio: Yes, its my "sale" and "deals" shopping that breaks the budget the most.
1. I unsubscribed from as many emails as I could.
2. I unlinked my CC from the websites (so I would have to manually enter the card every time which is a PITA).
3. I added my husbands email address to our amazon account so he gets notifications of any shopping.
4. I try to keep a goal in mind. -
I only get coffee out 1-2x a month and drink black coffee at home.
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Also, for purchases on Amazon, I put things in my cart and then "save for later." Nine times out of ten, the urge passes and I delete it. For things that we really need, I ask my husband to place the order, so he reviews it and is on the same page with what we're spending. It works for us, there has been some trial and error on our part to hold each other accountable for the things we are buying.
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@looch: I like the save for later idea. I end up buying too much on amazon. My husband is not a good money saver - he is a SAHD and I think he feels a little awkward telling me not to spend money (although I would welcome it!) since I'm the one who has my name on the paycheck, although I consider his contribution at least as valuable as mine.
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@LuLu Mom: @Bao: I've used the snowball method to pay down/off debt in the past and it worked really well!! I don't always like Dave Ramsey but snowball works!
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@yoursilverlining: Agree, we pick and choose from him, we are not "die hard" Ramsey fans but this one I love seeing the progress of bills being paid off.
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@yoursilverlining: @LuLu Mom: I'm curious which of his suggestions you guys aren't fans of? I don't know much about what he suggests so just going to look into it now!
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@T.H.O.U.: part of my resolution for this year was to declutter, and I included my emails as well. I unfollow/unsubscribed from so many stores so it reduce the amount of stuff I buy because of a "Good deal."
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@Bao: I think the envelope method is a little unfeasible, I'm not going to go without fuel for my car or food for my family because I budgeted short one month. I'm just not willing to sacrifice that much.
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I am finally moving over to Ting for cell savings. Remember Mrs High Heels Ting blog post from three years ago? I do. I also will not subscribe to Prime. If I need to buy something with free shipping I just add a grocery store gift card which bumps my total. I shop the sales for groceries, meaning I plan meals around the sales while at the grocery store.
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@Bao: the two main pieces I disagree with him (strongly) on are cutting your retirement savings - even if that means not taking advantage of employer matches - in order to pay off debt and his NO on credit cards. Credit cards are not the problem and can be leveraged nicely, and can even save you $$. We were just at Disney World and had an extra $350 cash to spend at the parks thanks to using the Disney Chase card (they accumulate cash rewards vs points). I also get a couple free air tickets each year from other cards. I get that a lot of people end up abusing credit, but having cards isn't evil and like I said, you can leverage them. Paying in cash gets you nothing; but if you worry about controlling spending I can see paying cash vs credit.
But I do love the snowball method. It has worked really well for me in the past.
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@yoursilverlining: Agreed on using rewards cards to help you cut travel expenses. I used to tell people about the great rewards if leveraged wisely but stopped recommending it because I found so many people cited reasons that they lack the organization, the credit score, discipline to control spending and end up paying interest, which costs more. I don't know the person's financial picture/tendencies and I don't want them to end up in a worse situation. For some people, it can save a bunch though!!
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Drinking water instead of ordering drinks when eating out. I was self conscious about it at first (feeling that I were being cheap), but then I realize I am legitimate because water is really a health choice. I choose not to drink processed sugary drinks that my body doesn't need. One stone kills 2 birds. I feel we set a good model for DS too.
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Kind of a spend money to save but our house has those recessed lights with big flood lights in them so after we moved in we replaced them all with led lights. We only bought the new ones when they were cheap on sale. There was an immediate savings on our electricity bill.
Along the same lines, make sure you maintain your house. We had a drip in our shower and it increased our water bill by like $60. As soon as we got it fixed our bill went down. We should've taken care of it much sooner! -
@irene: Thank you for that...it's health choice, you're so right.
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@Bao: I agree with @yoursilverlining: and disagree with Dave Ramsey on these two items. I also disagree with paying down the smallest loan as opposed to the higher interest loan first as I believe he encourages. I'm glad he has so many people on board, though, and I know that for many people the psychological impact of some of these things is the most important.
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This is something pretty small but I've been using the Ibotta app for cash back on groceries and although it's just a bit back at a time, it adds up! After using it for a few months I cashed in for a Target gift card that I used for Christmas gifts.
I don't know if other people have any grocery rewards cards that work this way but at our grocery store if you swipe your rewards card, for every $100 you spend, you get 10 cents off per gallon of gas at participating stations. DH and I wait until we've accumulated 40 or so cents off per gallon and then go and fill up together. We can also buy gift cards to pretty much anywhere at the same grocery store, so if we know we are going to be making purchases at say, Home Depot, we buy a gift card first to get the rewards.
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@Bao: Regarding Dave Ramsey, I would caution you that many of his methods are psychological and not really financial. If you open up the link posted about snowballing, it flat out says that mathematically, it makes better sense to pay off high interest rate debt. Well, when it comes to saving dollars and cents, you better believe I'm going to go with math over psychology. I think you are more than capable of motivating yourself to pay off debt in the way the actually saves you the most money, rather than needing to do it his way so you get "quick wins".
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Date night at home! We have cut back from going OUT to dinner 3-4x/month to 1x a month. We still try to do a weekly or bi-weekly date night, but we do it at home- rent a movie, cook something fancier than usual (like STEAK!), have cocktails, but all in it's less than half the price of dinner out, and we don't have to pay a sitter or for taxis/parking.
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