1. When you go out to a restaurant, order water and put the money saved from drink purchases into a piggy bank (transfer to a savings account when you get more than a few bucks).
My family did this for several years and we used the money for a trip to Disney World. My wife and I would occasionally throw in a few dollar bills (sometimes even $20′s), as well as our birthday, Christmas, and other monetary gifts. Over the course of a couple of years, we saved over $2,500!
2. Consider splitting an entree with your spouse and you’ll save calories and money. The food portions in most restaurants are huge and much more than most people need at a single sitting.
Again, put the money into a savings account and you’ll increase your wallet while decreasing your pants size.
3. Go on a 24 or 48 hour spending fast. Take a couple of days and resolve to spend no money whatsoever. Eat what’s in the pantry, or eat leftovers, take walks in the park, go fishing in a public lake with worms you dug up with the kids, play a game of tag in the yard, visit your public library, or visit some elderly people in a nursing home. The point is to NOT spend any money. Figure out how much you would have spent during your spending fast and deposit that amount into your savings account. Be honest!
4. Once you finish paying off a loan, continue making that same payment on other debt or into your savings account. You’re used to doing without that money anyway, so don’t change your well established habit of living without it!
5. If you’re paid bi-weekly, condition yourself to live on two paychecks per month. If you’re paid weekly, live on four paychecks per month. When an extra pay period hits in a month, put that entire check into savings. You’ll save over 7 percent of your income with this technique.
6. Clip coupons for more than just groceries. Check out Good Housekeeping’s list of available online coupons from companies like Target, Overstock.com, and Cafepress.com. Keep clipping for groceries of course, but don’t limit yourself to only groceries. Coupons are like cash in your pocket! Take it a step further and deposit your savings into your savings account.
There are opportunities to save money all around you and that savings is like cash in your pocket. Don’t let those opportunities pass you by.
[tags]coupons, savings, money[/tags]
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Thanks for the mention on the spending fast, Ron. Great ideas all around. I like the extra paycheck idea.
I love all of your suggestions! I do most of them now and they really work. Now what I really need help with is setting a budget and sticking to it!
Regarding groceries:
Try the store brand alternative first. Even with a coupon, the store brand is almost always cheaper. The only time a national brand is cheaper is when you have a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Every once in a while, the store brand is a dud, but for the most part, they’re nearly identical.
It’s about time I subscribed to your RSS feed. Duh!
OMG I need NEW and creative ways to save $$$. I have done all of these things at one time or another and need some new material! HELP!
I love coupons, but they drive me crazy…. clipping, sorting, filing, purging, clipping, sorting, filing, purging….. had to let this one go…. no one doubles anymore and coupons have just gotten harder and harder to use.
Ron 's reply:
August 15th, 2008
#Mr. Survival→
Hey, thanks for commenting! I wrote another post in May called 26 Ways to
Make Extra Money While Keeping Your Day Job
http://www.thewisdomjournal.com/Blog/make-extra-money-incom/
I’m working on another one in that same vein.
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