1000 Ways To Save…

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I love researching and finding new ways to stretch our hard earned dollars; its become somewhat of a hobby for me. Lately, as I’m searching online and researching, it seems that the majority of the info out there is so basic and repetitive! Sometimes I just want to be rude and say “Duh! Didn’t you already know that making a grocery list can save you money?” Its like these authors are insulting my intelligence and the intelligence of every other American out there. At the same time, I recognize that people live, work, and learn at varying levels. If very well may be possible that there may be someone out there who does not know that carpooling saves money. As a public school teacher, that does concern me a bit, but nevertheless, I need to be understanding of those folks who truly do need to hear the basics.

So what about those of us who are ready to move on? Who are ready to hear some new and fresh ideas? Who probably could use a few reminders about the power behind the basics, but still build on those basic skills with new challenges?

I’ve done a lot of researching and here is what I have decided: I am going to make my own list of ways to save money. I want this list to encompass more than just “use a list” type stuff. So, for the next ten days, I will be posting lists of 100 things at a time that will help you save money. All together, there will be 1000 ways at the end of the series.

Sound totally awesome? I think so! So let’s get started with day one of 1000 Ways To Save!

1. Pray! The more you acknowledge that God is the one in control of your finances, the more peace and wisdom you will receive! “For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless.” Prov. 2:6-7

2. Create a budget! If you already have a budget, give your budget a good squeeze! Nathan and I had to cut down our budget significantly this fall! Nate is now attending seminary and we are paying for it in cash. We are so pumped about this, and we know that without that budget, we would be in trouble. There are so many fabulous sites that can help you build a budget if you haven’t already. And really, if you are at all serious about saving money, you must use a budget.

If you already have a budget, look at it again. Find one thing you can reduce this month. Maybe you are going to cut down your cable service, (or cut it completely, we did and we love life without it!) Maybe you will reduce your grocery budget by $10-$20. Maybe you will cut your date night money and get creative with your dates. Maybe you want to challenge yourself to carpool for a week and see how that saves. Whatever it is, choose one thing, focus on it for this month. Revisit this cut at the end of the month and see what you think. Was it worth it? Could you cut more?  Make it a challenge to cut back on at least one thing a month. Even if that cutback is just $5-10, it’s still cutting back! $10 cut back every month for a year is $120! For us, that’s almost a month of groceries!

3. Learn from the finance greats! In my book, those greats are Dave Ramsey, Howard Dayton, and Larry Burkett! I also read several finance blogs and ebooks each week to increase my knowledge about saving money. Plus, these greats encourage me to stay the course! I don’t know about you, but I need all the encouragement I can get!

4. Find accountability! If you are married, you should be meeting with your spouse regularly to pray and talk over your finances. Those times are wonderful opportunities to communicate about the budget and any areas that you as a couple need to increase your financial discipline. I also seek outside accountability by posting how we did on this blog each month! Its intimidating and humbling, but oh so motivating! Find accountability with someone, pray together, and encourage one another.

5. Meal Plan! Again, this is basic. But if you are not already meal planning, you really must consider doing this. You plan your meals around what you have and what’s on sale and your grocery budget drops drastically. Denise at the Centsbile Sawyer has a great how to video you should watch if you haven’t already started this practice.

If you are already meal planning, just a reminder to start thinking about the ingredients you will need for holiday baking and cooking! Keep that in mind as you build your lists and find the best deals on those ingredients now so that you are ready in time for the holidays without stress and hopefully no last minute (aka expensive) stops to the store.

6. Cut your cable! Cutting our cable was one of the best decisions we ever made! The only thing I miss is John and Kate plus 8! Everything else, I don’t miss at all! We have our favorite tv show’s past episodes and watch those when we get the itch. Without cable we are more productive, spend more quality time together, use less energy to power the tv, and don’t battle the urge to spend when we don’t have to deal with all the ads and influences of commercials!

7. Ladies, evaluate your beauty supply expenses! This is a HUGE industry in the US and so many of us purchase unnecessary products to improve our outward selves! Do you really need everything you have in your cupboards? How many colors of nail polish do you need? I have three basic colors I love and keep it at that. Do you need all that hair gunk? I use one high quality hair product in styling my hair. It costs more than the cheapy stuff, but it only takes a little drop each day because it works so well! Do you buy what’s cheap just because its cheap? Buy what works and make it last.

8. Purchase multipurpose make-up products! For example, I use a tinted moisturizer with SPF. Three in one! I have SPF chapstick with a bit of a gloss to it, three in one!

9. Stretch out the life of your products! I have very sensitive skin. I use body lotion daily and often! I was in the habit of applying body lotion post shower every day. I decided to cut that everyday down to 6 days a week and skip Saturdays. I still feel moisturized and have extended the life of my body lotion by 52 days by cutting just one day from my routine!

10. Be in the same room! If your family spends time in the same room, you cut down the need for additional lights to be on, additional heating or cooling, and you are together! Nate and I try to do this in the evenings when we are both home. During the summers, it may be wise to go opposite the sun to cut down on the need for additional cooling. In winter, you may want to follow the sun in your house for the lighting it provides.

11. For heaven’s sake, please don’t eat out! Why am I even saying this? Isn’t this the biggest “no duh” there is? If you want to save money, do not eat out. The amount of money you spend on food out is ridiculously high compared to eating a simple, healthy meal at home. I am still a believer in the occasional treat, but if you do go out, find a coupon! In desperate attempt to get customers to come in to their stores, restaurants are providing coupons of all sorts! Our community sends out bimonthly flyers with restaurant coupons inside and I save those puppies for when we go out.

12. Polish your shoes yourself to extend their life. I wrote about this topic before HERE and even included info on how you can polish your shoes with a banana.

13. Sign up for freebies! I have received countless freebies in the mail from tampons to granola bars, and from notepads to pillowcases! I have so many shampoo samples, I probably won’t have to buy shampoo until the new year! Freebies4mom.com is an excellent source for freebies.

14. Say No when you don’t have the cash. Dump that credit card and go all cash. It’s possible and so worth it. I wrote about saying no HERE.

15. Let it mellow. Some people are cool with this water saving technique, others are not. I do it, but Nathan does not. He has his own bathroom and I have mine, so it works. I have estimated the amount of water I’ve saved by “letting it mellow” and its about 6 gallons of water a day. That’s 2190 gallons a year! That’s worth it in my book.

16. Use a water saving jug in your toilet tank. We already have water saving toilets, but if you don’t, you may want to consider placing a water jug full of water to displace the water in your tank and cut down on the water used to flush your toilet.

17. Time your showers. I shoot for 5-6 minutes most mornings. Most days I am right on time!

18. Consider showering with cold water. Yikes! I’ve never done this, but Crystal over at money saving mom did when money was tight. I’ve thought about taking this on as a once a week challenge in November once heating becomes an issue again!

19. Know your brand of TP. I know my brands pretty well. I know how many squares it takes to take care of business. I’ve taught myself to count the squares so I don’t over use and waste TP. I used to go all spin crazy and yank off a huge amount! Since I’ve taught myself to limit, our TP lasts A LOT longer!

20. Squish the roll. I read this on a blog somewhere and I wish I knew where, because its a great tip. If you squish the roll so its a bit flatter, it doesn’t roll as easily and reminds you to use less and not go spin crazy.

21. Is single ply really saving you money? I don’t know. In our home, it goes so quickly. Do the math when shopping to see how many sheets per roll you are purchasing compared to double ply. I’m guessing its cheaper to spend $.50 more on double ply that lasts longer!

22. Unplug your cell phone charger, or any other charger for that matter when not in use. From my research, as much as 15% of our daily energy usage is attributed to our unused electronics and appliances just sitting there zapping up the energy.

23. Unplug your small appliances as well! Don’t keep that microwave plugged in all the time! You only use for a few minutes of the day! The same goes for your toaster! The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s website breaks down the average energy usage for electronics and appliances HERE.

24. Use power strips. Nathan and I put our tv, x-box, and dvd player on a power strip and its amazing the difference in energy savings. We did the same for all our computers and printers as well!

25. Use Coupons. This is another “no duh” right? It seems simple enough. But really be careful that you don’t buy something just because you have a coupon.

26. Vary your coupon sources. Coupons can be found in more than one place! The newspaper of course, online,  on tearpads or little dispensers in store aisles– grab multiples of these if you can, on the bottom of or back of receipts, from company survey sites, from All You magazine (read the October coupon list HERE) and on the inside of packaging!

27. Send your favorite companies compliment e-mails! I have done this before and recieved a plethera of coupons and freebies to “thank me for my time!” I have gotten free Annies Mac N’ Cheese, free juice, kotex coupons, and more!

28. Sign up for company/product e-newsletters! I do this using my “junk” e-mail address and get coupons, promotions, and recipes sent to my inbox daily! Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Naked Juice, TGI Fridays– all great options with nice rewards!

29. Use Adperk! Adperk.com is a website that rewards you for watching little ads with free magazine subscriptions. I have done this, and it is fabulous! I get Good Housekeeping thanks to them!

30. Cancel your paid-for magazine subscriptions. If you use adperk and freebies4mom.com, you will get several magazines for FREE! Why pay if you can get them free? I get Country Living, Decor, Metropolitan Home, and Good Housekeeping, and Hallmark ALL FOR FREE!

31. Take advantage of free church events. Church events depend on your church, but our home church had everything from picnics, to craft night, to tailgate parties for FREE! Free fun for the family, you can’t beat that!

32. Drink water. Nathan and I started doing this in August and it has been so helpful to keeping our budget down. I used to buy juice once a week, which added from $8-15 to my grocery bill! We are serious about keeping our grocery bill low. So water it is!

33. Use CFL light bulbs. We have slowly been replacing ours; those bulbs are pricey! I wait for sales and/or coupons and have been replacing the bulbs that we use the most first.

34. Got one of those ugly bathroom lighting fixtures with all those bulbs screwed into a metal bar type thing? We do! There is just way too much direct in your face lighting with those things. I unscrewed one light bulb on each fixture and it helped while also cutting back on energy use.

35. Utilize your dollar tree! I love dollar tree, its just awesome! Read about the best things to buy there HERE.

36. Married to a gamer or a gamer yourself? Try gamefly.com. Its like Netflix for video games and cost about $17 a month. When games cost $60+ a pop, this is a much cheaper alternative. Plus every month you use it, you build points towards being able to purchase used games.

37. Try Redbox! I have yet to do this, and there is one at our Wal-Mart. It costs just $1 to rent and quite frequently there are free redbox codes. Nicole over at Being Frugal Is Fabulous posts the free codes regularly.

38. Pop your own popcorn! It can be pricey to purchase those microwave popcorn bags. We have an electric popcorn popper that we got for our wedding. (They are about $10.) We bought a huge thing of popping corn at Costco 3 years ago for $6 and still have about half of it left! We pop the popcorn, but a little butter on top and salt, mmm! Or melt some marshmellows with butter and have sticky popcorn! Mmm! Its cheaper and healthier this way.

39. Check your local recycling bin regularly for abandoned coupons! I check the bins of our apartment complex, and its been awhile since I’ve found any, but at one time, I found three inserts!

40. Abandon your dryer! Check out what I discovered from consumerenergycenter.org!

“A dryer is typically the second-biggest electricity-using appliance after the refrigerator, costing about $85 to operate annually.

Over its expected lifetime of 18 years, the average clothes dryer will cost you approximately $1,530 to operate.”

WOW! Use a clothesline and or indoor hang dry! I use a drying rack, hangers above the shower, and the backs of our dining chairs to dry our clothes. It works!

41. Walk. Duh. Sorry, gas is liquid gold these days and if we think of it that way, we will walk more.

42. Carpool with friends when running errands. Everyone thinks of carpooling to work, but what about all the other stuff? I know of some ladies who do their grocery shopping and other errands together to cut down on gas and to also keep them on top of what needs to get done. If you know you have to have all your errands ready and figured out every Tuesday, you’re going to be more diligent in your preparation!

43. Cancel that gym membership and run! We did that, and it’s saving us $636/year! Running is free! All you need is a pair of shoes.

44. Ditch the expensive cleaning products and get back to the basics. Why do people need swiffers? Doesn’t a damp rag work just as well? Why do people spend so much on green cleaning products when they could make them themselves? Read more about making your own green cleaning kit HERE!

45. Befriend your IKEA if you have one close by! I love this store. There are so many inexpensive and green products at this store for your home! I bought gorgeous bags of potpourri there for just $.25 on clearance!

46. Take advantage of craft store make and takes! My local craft warehouse has a free make and take project every Saturday! I go quite often and its super fun and I get a little craft out of it! Michaels and Joanns may do this as well depending on your store. Ask and see!

47. Reuse grocery sacks for garbage bags. We do this and it probably saves us as much as $80 a year. We also use smaller bags or produce bags for our bathroom garbage. Its free and its good for the planet!

48. Keep those car windows rolled up during the summer! Read more HERE!

49. Drive like a grandma! Yes, I did just say that, sorry grandma. But its true! Driving slower, coasting to stops and slower acceleration will save you gas!

50. Break those dishwasher detergent balls in half! This I realize, may be dependent upon your dishwasher, but you can use half as much soap and still have clean dishes. I do this and have found that there is a lot less residue on the dishes.

51. Make your own cards! Don’t think your crafty? Suck it up! cards cost as much as a gift these days! Read some of my frugal card making tips HERE.

52. Get creative in the kitchen! Don’t have an ingredient? Think outside the box! I wants made Cheerios treats because I didn’t have rice krispies!

53. Use Allrecipes.com. Crystal at moneysavingmom.com taught me about this. Its a site where you type in the ingredients you have and recipes pop up for you using those ingredients. I think its fabulous!

54. Recycle gift wrap. Never, I mean never throw away a gift bag! You can reuse that! Keep in mind too that bags you think could only be a baby bag or wedding bag can sometimes be tweaked with ribbon and tissue paper to fit other occasions.

55. Shop yard sales! Its fun, really! My very urban/very uppity Portland friend recently went to an estate sale and purchased tool boxes and organizers for dirt cheap. He was pumped about it when he told me. I remember thinking, if he can shop at yardsales, anyone can!!

56. Bundle up! When my husband complains about the temp during the colder months, I just smile and say bundle up! Keep that thermostat low in the winter and high in the summers. It stinks, but it saves!

57. Use MyPoints.com! I am way pumped about this because all I do is read the e-mails and fill out the little onsite click-it-once surveys and I already have 3,300 points! I’m saving those points up for a gift card I really want! Mypoints has a ton of wonderful gift cards you can claim once you build points up. Interested? I can refer you!

58. Be careful with E-bay. We all know its easy to get caught up in the bidding war and spend more than we wanted to. But, you need to consider the shipping when bidding as well. Also, I purchased a poster for my classroom over the summer thinking I was getting a good deal. When I went to the teacher store, they had that same poster for $1 less plus I got a 10% discount as an educator! Do your research before you buy!

59. Sell your books. Are you really going to read that again? Is that book really relevant to your job anymore? Purge it! I use half.com and cash4books.net to help me and I’ve made $52 this month alone! Interested in cash4books? I can refer you!

60. Keep your pantry organized. Its easy for stuff to get lost in there, keep it organized! I also like to take an inventory of what I’ve got each month so I know what items I should be looking for on sale.

61. Grow it! I am horrible about this. I don’t garden. At all. I’m awful. But there are others who are! Check out this great post about creating an edible garden HERE at beingfrugal.net!

62. Use online banking. Do the math, if envelopes cost $.03 each, checks $.02 each (I use carbon copy checks and pay for them, if you use free checks, it’s even better!) and stamps are $.42 each, each time you send a bill, you are spending $.47! I send 10 bills a month! Thats $4.70 I keep in my pockets!

63. Use moneysavingmom.com! Crystal keeps you posted on deals, coupons, sales, and freebies like no one else out there! She also posts inspiring posts with such great encouragement! She has links to great coupon sites as well. Use this resource! It will save you money!

64. Reduce your car insurance coverage. I called my insurance agent, (who I just love by the way!) and we found a couple ways to lower my premium without breaking the bank on deductibles. I’m saving $40 a year now and in 3 years, I will lower my coverage even more because my car will 10 years old then. Talk to your agent, see what they can do for you!

65. Please have renters insurance! I know someone who suffered a huge loss and didn’t have a way to recover it due to a lack of renters insurance! I pay just $11/month and it is a joy to know I’m covered!

66. Prepare for the Holidays early! I am a big advocate for this, read my post HERE!

67. Pay insurance annually if you can. It usually saves you money on processing costs.

68. Pack your own lunch! This another no brainer in my book, but it is amazing to me how many of my coworkers don’t do this. It is so much cheaper!!! I like knowing too that I am getting a healthy meal to get me through the day as well.

69. Do you need a home phone and a cell phone? It depends on your family and your needs. We just have cells, and that works for us! We cut our home phone and save $33 a month!

70. Do you need to get that warranty on your car? When we bought our little Mazda three years ago this December, we didn’t realize that we didn’t really need that warranty. It was $1500 and everything that happened to the car was not covered by the warranty!

71. Dish scrubber looking shabby? Run it through the dishwasher once and that should clean it up and extend its life a bit.

72. Do you really need to buy photoshop? Picasa is free and works great! I use it for all our photo needs!

73. Watch your portion size at meals. Overeating is so totally unhealthy for you and bad for your budget. Cut that meal in half and save the rest for lunch tomorrow! My mom always reminds me that God made our stomachs big enough to hold about a cup of food at a time!

74. Re-use junk envelopes. You know when you get that junk mail with the free envelopes provided? Chuck the junk but keep the envelope! I use mine to help organize coupons and even to send other mail. I tape over the pre-printed stuff.

75. Have one family bookkeeper. This is a Larry Burkett tip that I love. This way, there aren’t two check book registers floating around and overspending! I do the record keeping, we both make financial decisions together.

76. Set goals. Our goal is to be debt free by December 2010! Its hard, but I cannot wait! We also set smaller goals each month to keep us going towards that big goal. Set goals with your spouse or accountability partner each month!

77.Decorate with a minimal style. Any decorating style can be made minimalistic. I have a contemporary rustic style, yet my style is still minimalistic. Its simple, warm, and un-cluttered. The less stuff you accumulate means less stuff to purchase, maintain, and have space for. I love THIS POST Nicole did about her decor.

78. Love it, use it, or ditch it! If you don’t just love something and you don’t really use it, then why are you keeping it? Go through each room of your home and take a deep and thoughtful look at what you have. If it’s role in your life is just “stuff” get rid of it. Sell it in a yardsale, on craigslist, on e-bay, or donate for a tax deduction! Just get it out of your house!

79. For some reason need a pregnancy test? Buy one at the Dollar Tree! Those little babies work and I have friends who can attest to that! I like the idea that if I’m thinking I may want to test, but am not sure, I can go spend $1, and not feel guilty when I was totally overreacting and wrong.

80. Have a baby? Breast feed if you can! I have heard countless stories about women who love to breast feed their little ones and how powerful of an experience it is–plus it saves money! I have also heard many women talk about how difficult it was and how they just had to switch to bottles. If you can’t breastfeed and are low income, look into the WIC program. You receive all kinds of assistance including formula! Click HERE for more info.

81. Planning a trip to Disneyland? You can get free admission on your birthday!!  We took a trip to CA for 8 days and visited 4 major theme parks and the zoo for less than $1200 for two people for all expenses! Read about free b-day admission HERE. Read about our trip and how we did it HERE.

82. Other b-day freebies! Heather at freebies4mom.com has a motherlist of all the awesome freebies available to you on your b-day! I have signed up for a few and am looking forward to it!

83. Do you have your fridge turned up too high? If you do, try to lower a notch on the temperature gauge and watch the energy savings!

84. Pack that freezer! A full freezer takes less energy to keep cold. If you don’t have a lot of stuff, fill up some water bottles and put them in there!

85. Love jar candles but hate the price? Before you burn them, stick them in the freezer for 24 hours and their lives will be extended! I’ve done this and two of my most favorite candles I burn all the time are barely half way down after a year!

86. Sorry Fido! One thing you may have noticed is that Nate and I do not have pets. Too pricey! Vet bills, food, leashes, fees from the apartment, plus all the extra goodies you need. Not my thing. Plus, I like my clean apartment!  It saves to not have pets!!

87. Browse the free list on craigslist frequently! There are all sorts of goodies on the free page! I know someone who got a free swingset for their kids off of a free craigslist ad!

88. Sell your stuff on craigslist. I have done this countless times, and I love the fact that there is no fee. We have supplemented our income during tough times using this service!

89. Use less laundry soap! You don’t need all that the package suggests! Think about it; you use it up faster and have to buy it sooner– its all about marketing my friends!

90. Use dryer sheets? Cut them into halves, thirds, or even quarters! They still work just as well! Make them last longer!

91. Got an oil stain? Use dawn dish soap to get it out! Get it wet, rub some dawn into the stain, let it sit overnight and wash it! Don’t dry it until you are sure the stain came out!

92. Make your own pillows using old sheets! Check out Nicole’s post HERE!

93. Got yucky old towels? Give them a thorough washing, (I like to throw in some good bleach) and then cut them up to be used as cleaning rags!

94. Cheap romance tip! Instead of buying your loved one flowers, purchase rose petals and strew them out in the room, on the dining table, in the tub, where ever your loved one would like it best! Petals cost about $4 a box, cheaper than flowers. Better yet! Go to a friend with roses in their garden and ask to remove petals from the roses that are dying off a bit. Free and oh so nice!

95. Try powdered milk. I’m thinking about doing this myself. I’ve heard its yucky to just drink straight up, but for baking, or cooking, I’ve heard it works great! I use milk for cooking and baking a lot and I think this would help our budget!

96. Be smart about soap. Foaming soap dispensers use less soap! My school district just switched all the soap dispensers at our school for this reason. Also, instead of buying a new bottle of soap each time, reuse the bottle and buy a large container of hand soap. I got a HUGE container of soap at Target on sale for $2.66! Much cheaper than spend $2 every time I need hand soap!

97.Recycle bits of old crayons! I love this idea and am going to try this for my classroom! Take the old bits and pieces of crayons. Melt them in your oven inside a muffin tin. When they cool off, you have these cool shaped mega crayons!

98. Don’t let that paper go to waste! You know that half sheet of paper that’s left once you cut out your printable coupons? Well, that piece is about the right size for a grocery list! Or a meal plan to post on the fridge! Don’t toss it, use it! That’s good paper!

99. Don’t preheat!If you can help it, don’t preheat the oven. Your food can cook in the oven while it heats up. No need to waste that energy.

100. Cook your own beans instead of buying canned. This is another tip I’d like to try. Canned beans are cheap. Dry beans are DIRT cheap! Click HERE for a great how-to.

There is the first 100!! Check back on the next NINE DAYS to read the other 900! This is a challenge and a joy for me– I get to share what I’ve learned, and research even more!

Let me know what you think and share any ideas you have for the next 900!

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