My brother I never wanted, ahem TonyJ, brought up a great point in a prior thread- lets start a thread about how you guys try to save money.
If you judge Wayne and I by our “latest purchases” “current projects” etc. you will think, wtfff you two never save money- but this is quite untrue!!! My goal (most of the time) is to save our joint accounts money every month. It’s been tough during the holiday season, but in 2013 our annual saving goals are going to double. Below are some things I personally do to help us out:
Read the Sunday paper: I never look forward to doing this, but in order to get the best deals it must be done. I review the major grocery store’s flyers and the weekly coupon inserts. The main things I focus on are meat and household products (laundry soap/ dish soap etc.) because these are the most expensive on my list. During the summer PC usually has BOGO meat, especially pork. I will go to PC strictly for their weekly deals and nothing else. One week I purchased $60 worth of meat for less than $10. I froze most of it and rationed it out weekly.
Cut coupons for THINGS YOU NEED: This was hard for me to comprehend at first. I would cut all the coupons, especially for things we WANTED not needed. If you stick to the things you need you will only purchase those items.
Make a list (and stick to it): I do not step foot into the grocery store without a list. It helps organize my trip and as long as I don’t try to stray from it, I can usually stick to the budgeted amount for the trip.
Plan out lunches/ dinners: Every two weeks I sit down and try to figure out a plan for dinners/ lunches for the next 14 days. This helps us not eat out as much and also helps me make our weekly shopping list. Without a list of what we are eating, it’s super easy to eat out more often, or just grab something on the way home. We are notorious for getting Subway, because it’s quick and easy on my way home. Our two subs are now up to $14- I could get 10.5lbs of chicken for that price or 5lbs of ground turkey, which would both easily feed us for 2 nights and 2 lunches.
Buy store brands: This is denial and error procedure. I do 90% of my shopping at Walmart because it’s cheap- and I have tried a lot of their own brand products and now know exactly what I can and can’t buy store brand. The majority of the time the store brands taste the same and cost a fraction of the price.
PUT MONEY INTO A SAVINGS ACCOUNT- This was easy for me to comprehend, however took time to get Wayne on board. About 2 years ago we started putting XXX amount of dollars each paycheck into our savings account as well as our tax refunds and any money our families give us for holidays. Even from the beginning, it was nice to see progress each month and encouraged us to continue doing it. We almost doubled our goal our first year and have continued to increase the dollar amount ever few months. It doesn’t have to be a lot, heck it could be $25 a paycheck, but once you start I guarantee you will continue.
Buy the products you need in bulk- every year we receive a BJ’s membership as a gift. I purchase toilet paper and paper towels from there in bulk. Once you start purchasing stuff they will also send you countless coupons in the mail, like $4 off your TP purchase. I sacrifice part of our closet to store the TP and paper towels, but it is well worth it to not buy it every time I go shopping. So for $25 we usually have enough TP to last 6-8 months and for $15 we have enough paper towels to last about the same. These are also expensive in the grocery store.
I know I have a ton more, which I will post throughout the thread, but I want to hear what you guys have in mind!!! We recently started making coffee at home ever day. We both went to DD every morning for a LG and XL(Wayne). Combined we spent $5.12 everyday. I purchased two pounds of DD coffee 3 weeks ago for $12.99 and it has already paid for itself at least 10 times. This was extremely hard for us to break the habit of going there daily, but once we perfected our coffee making it is actually working out better for both of us!!!
Tracey, you can never have too much toilet paper or paper towels. Good point. You forgot to say tissues. Whenever i run out of toilet paper, i wipe my ass with tissues.
Have a credit card that gives you a discount on gas. If you can’t get out of buying it might as well save on it. I get ~3% of at Hess and only fill up at Hess because of it (bikes I fill anywhere because savings hardly makes a difference on 2 gallons). With gas ~$4 a gallon that’s 12c savings a gallon. I end up getting $20 off my bill every month or two.
Two next ones are covered under - Learn to cook
Eat at home. Going out and eating can end up costing a considerable amount as the year goes on. When you go out on occasion it doesn’t have to be excessive, you can a full meal tip including for $20 typically in places like TGIF (without going too fancy)
Bring lunch to work
Get out of all your debt. Only debt you should have is a mortgage which is essentially forced savings if you bought the right house.
Do It Yourself. Learn how to do things. Car repair, home repair, cooking, etc. Labor costs arent cheap.
Don’t have kids
Buy used instead of new if you can. Craigslist is your friend and many things are hardly effected by being pre-owned. Cars, electronics, sporting equipment, garage equipment, house equipment etc.
Use www.mint.com and download the AP. Best thing I’ve ever done. I’m always upto do on my finances and can easily see where my money has gone. All expanses are tracked instantly (credit/online/bills etc) the only thing you have to add are cash deals.
If you’re really anal - keep a spreadsheet of all expanses over $100 through the year (among another million things to track). That was you can quickly look over where all your money has gone at the end of the year, which things made you money, which things werent necessary and whether there is a big expanse you’re not keeping track off that is under $100 but adds up over the course of the year. (Clothes, daily coffee, etc)
Edit:
Rechargeable batteries all around the house.
Safety razor. One of the best investment I’ve done this year. Shaves better, blades cost nothing, will last a lifetime and Gillette prices are insane.
Credit union. Setup a Preferred Savings account if you have enough cash. Interest rate is higher.
Open a high yield savings account. I have one that I’m getting .9% interest. I use American Express, but there are others and the rates vary.
For savings, I have to put 3% of my check into my pension automatically. I also put 5% into deferred compensation. I also put 13% into my high yield savings and 4% into my regular SEFCU savings. Sometimes I play with the numbers but I make sure the total is 25%. I’d like to do more (SHOULD), and with my next raise I plan to increase.
The idea is that I contribute to things that I can’t just spend. The pension is permanent. Deferred comp investments are difficult to borrow against (emergency only) and the interest is paid back to me in the end. The high yield savings takes several days to wire so transferring when I want to buy something dumb without planning isn’t an option. My regular SEFCU savings is a matter of pure will lower but I hold off for a while then I have bonus loot come Christmas time or when I need to buy something unusually large.
I’m THE WORST at being cheap though. That needs a lot of work.
We pretty much do everything Tracey mentioned. That and also this year I sold my truck, got out of a $500 payment and bought the Subaru for cash. Now I have 3 cars and no payments, that feels soo good. Also bought a house so now I can have a decent write off on my taxes. Next up is this spring I’m adding natural gas forced air and getting away from my oil tank, oil is expensive.another thing I do it try to pay all my bills upfront, like for garbage pick up if you pay for the year in full you save 20% and then you don’t have to deal with the annoying payment of 30$ a month. I also try to stay at least 2-3 months ahead on all bills, it’s a little hard at first for a large bill like mortgage but it gives you a great and secure feeling knowing your good and can have that extra cash at any month. I also started a scrap metal pile instead of tossing it all out, I was very surprised at how much it piled up so quickly, couple extra bucks there. Most important tip= zero credit card debt.
Recently an older friend told me, “it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep”
One of the smartest things I’ve ever heard
rofl:rofl lmfao