Saving money tips and ideas.

[opiemaster]

Well I thought in this hard times that it would be neat to post how people have figured out to save money, I mean cash, not look for bargains, which that helps to, but its been covered in other topics.
Here's my 2 ways I do.

1. I never pay with exact change during the day when we are out shopping, (I.E, your groceries cost $35.48, give them $36.00.)
Take the access change and put in a mason jar. I put quarters separate from the other change as they add up quicker. Do this for a month and see how fats it starts building up and you wont even realize it. Just dont dip into it though and keep it from the kids.



2. The second thing I do, (which is hard with a debit card, or checking your balance on the computer) When you write a check, say for $22.50. In your check book register, wite it in for $23.00 (or sometimes a little more) and when you make a deposit round it DOWN. Say your paycheck is $378.50. Show it in your registry as $370.00. That way you are saving money, at the end of the month your statement will show how much you saved up. DONT spend it, just let it build. Thats how we used to pay for Xmas. By the end of the year sometimes we would have a smuch as $1000.00 extra!!



Anyway, that my ways, whats yours.

 

[PamsPride]

Have a garage sale.
Take kids clothes to the consignment store....one that pays you in cash.

 

[FarmerChick]

I never paid higher like that with shopping just to get change back,,,but hmm...good idea.... I just always put all spare change in a big cup.


My contribution is have some money (anything) automatically deposited from your paycheck into a savings acct. I just started with at Tony's work a bit ago. I have alot in there already and we have so little taken out of his paycheck but it adds up so fast!!!!

What is not seen and can be used, is saved faster than I would have thought! I wish I did this 15 years ago when he started...stupid me!



Also take advantage of every single benefit your company offers you. Tony's company matches 401K and all that......so if it is offered to you take it. Any free benefits etc. are just that --free money basically to you!

 

[onebuggirl]

I bake my own bread. THis summer I hope to can enough sauce, veggies,and fruits to last the winter. I also plan to do a lot of freezing. Since I have been making our own bread, meal planning, and only buying items on our list, we have cut down on our grocery bills by a lot. We also compost.

 

[enjoy the ride]

If you receive an increase in income, have a part or most of that increase sent to your savings- if you don't start spending the increase, you really won't miss it.
If you find a way to save on a bill, take some of that and put it into savings again.
Look for the best interest rate you can get on your savings account.

 

[freemotion]

This is something a friend does, not me....she loves to shop for clothes, loves fashion, and has a great eye for putting together outfits, etc. She also has an eye for amazing bargains. So she buys her clothes for next to nothing, wears them for a season, then takes the complete outfit to a consignment shop and actually gets more than she paid for it! This is because she puts the outfit together, rather than just a bag misc. clothing. The shop owner has customers on a waiting list for her outfits!

She also shops for some friends, like me. She will ask what I need, sizes, colors, etc, then when she finds things she brings me bags of stuff to try on. I choose what fits, pay her, and she returns the rest. She gets points on her credit cards towards cash, and since this has evolved into doing this for many people, she is in and out of the stores all the time with her lists. Or we go shopping together and she puts everything on her card and I pay her cash, which I prefer anyways. She pays the card off every month.

She and her dh are able to go on one or two very nice vacations a year based on the cash she brings in with her shopping. She is disabled, btw, and this is something she can do on the days when she is feeling up to it.

She just got me a $200 skirt and jacket for $20! Win-win!

 

[justusnak]

What we do is....when DH gets a rasise..never enough..LOL He will figure what that ammount will be per paycheck, and have half of that deposited in a saveings. We dont touch, or even LOOK into that saveings unless there is a REAL emergency...not like " oh thats a great sale price" emergency.LOL This past Christms, we were surprised to see over 1000.00 in that account. AND, we had taken 700 out last august for propane. It really works...dont look, you dont want it!

 

[PamsPride]

Our morgage payment is automatically taken out of our savings account that is at another bank so we have some of DH's paycheck deposited into that account every pay...but we have slightly more deposited than what our morgage is plus the two extra pays a year the amount still goes in so it adds up quickly. Then we do not touch the $$ in that account unless it is an emergency.

 

[dacjohns]

If you use credit cards pay them off each month.

Use credit cards that give you back something.

Pay everything you can with a credit card to maximize your return.

If you aren't disciplined enough to LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS then ignore all of the above except the first one.

 

[punkin]

This is something a friend does, not me....she loves to shop for clothes, loves fashion, and has a great eye for putting together outfits, etc. She also has an eye for amazing bargains. So she buys her clothes for next to nothing, wears them for a season, then takes the complete outfit to a consignment shop and actually gets more than she paid for it! This is because she puts the outfit together, rather than just a bag misc. clothing. The shop owner has customers on a waiting list for her outfits!

She also shops for some friends, like me. She will ask what I need, sizes, colors, etc, then when she finds things she brings me bags of stuff to try on. I choose what fits, pay her, and she returns the rest. She gets points on her credit cards towards cash, and since this has evolved into doing this for many people, she is in and out of the stores all the time with her lists. Or we go shopping together and she puts everything on her card and I pay her cash, which I prefer anyways. She pays the card off every month.

She and her dh are able to go on one or two very nice vacations a year based on the cash she brings in with her shopping. She is disabled, btw, and this is something she can do on the days when she is feeling up to it.

She just got me a $200 skirt and jacket for $20! Win-win!

Never thought about putting clothes together for a consignment shop. Makes sense, though. I'll do that for my spring "collection".