Ways To Save Money
What do you do to save money?
So… I was asked, "What do you do to save money?" Oh, my. Let me count the ways… no, I don’t think I can. There are so many ways to save money that I don’t think anyone could list them. Books and books have been written about them, web sites are filled with ideas, and now even "mainstream" media is touting their own advice, as generic and ho-hum as it might seem to those of us who have been
9 Ways To Save Money On Car Insurance
Ask someone how much it costs them each month to drive their car and they will likely quote their monthly loan payment. Most of us forget other expenses incurred such as maintenance, fuel and one of the biggest expenses, car insurance. Saving money on car insurance is a relatively quick way to lower the cost of your commute, and can be accomplished with a quick phone call to your insurer.
Photo by jboy daniel
Biggest Bang for Your Buck, or in this Case, Your Time
1. Increase your deductible. I only recommend this step if you have an adequate emergency fund in place to cover the cost of the deductible. While raising your deductible can significantly reduce your premiums, the last thing you want to happen is to go into debt after an accident to cover repairs.
2. Drop unnecessary coverage. Comprehensive or collision coverage for older vehicles may not make sense financially. Consider the annual cost to insure older vehicles compared to their potential sale value. It may be that it costs more to insure an older vehicle than it costs to replace one. On the other hand, if you have little savings, insurance may be a relatively inexpensive way to replace an asset worth a few thousand dollars.
3. Buy car insurance and homeowners insurance from the same provider. If you already have a homeowners policy in place, contact the insurer and ask if they offer auto insurance. Chances are you’ll receive a multi-policy discount for purchasing both from a single provider.
4. Shop around, and don’t be afraid to take your search online. Do a little comparison shopping by getting two or three quotes from multiple sources. Esurance.com is a great place to start your online search.
5. Inquire about other discounts. When discussing your policy quote with an insurer, specifically ask about any other discounts you may qualify for, such as low-mileage driving, the installation of car alarms or the successful completion of defensive-driving courses.
6. Look for group discounts. I received a small discount on my car insurance by signing up through a link provided by my credit union. The insurer partners with them to offer credit union members an opportunity to save through a group discount. Ask your employer, professional organization or financial institutions if they have any similar partnerships.
Keeping Auto Insurance Costs Low: Maintenance Mode
7. Maintain a clean driving record. One of the quickest ways to increase your car insurance costs is to have an accident or get a ticket for a moving violation. Tickets add points to your license and increase your insurance costs. Accidents increase your risk profile to current and potential insurers and increase premiums.
8. Clean up your credit report. Those not fond of the FICO score may find it objectionable that insurance companies use your score, in part, to determine your premium. However, statistics show a correlation between bad credit and a propensity to receive more tickets and be involved in a crash.
9. Drive “low-profile” cars. That is, drive cars that are not typically a target for thieves or radar guns. Annual reports are available that list the most popular stolen cars each year. Studies have also show certain models and colors are more likely to be stopped for speeding (red sports cars, for instance). In their prime, the two cars shown above would have definitely been high-profile cars.
Saving money on car insurance is a quick way to make a significant reduction in your monthly expenses. Shopping around for quotes and making a few phone calls could be well worth the effort, so I’d encourage you to make this a priority.
Post by Frugal Dad
Weekly Roundup: Vacation From Vacation Edition
Last week our family took our first trip to Disney World. It was a great time, and while I’d like to tell you about all the frugal lessons we learned, honestly, there is little frugal about Disney. We did learn a few tricks that could help shave money off our next trip (and I’ll share a few of those in a later post). My only complaint about vacationing at Disney is that I now need a vacation to recover from vacation! Lots of walking, not much relaxing.
The Frugal Roundup
Small Human Regrets. Here is a great piece on how to raise your children without regrets. (@Brip Blap)
Can America Learn to Save From a Dog? Just click the link. I don’t want to spoil it. (@Lazy Man and Money)
How To Handle Requests For Financial Advice. Flexo shares some insight into how he handles dishing out financial advice to friends. (@Consumerism Commentary)
Manage Your Money Challenge. Brad is running a new feature over at Enemy of Debt. Head over there and check it out and learn how to win some great prizes while you are at it. (@Enemy of Debt)
Best of the Rest
- Sometimes, The Best Lessons Learned In Life Are Learned the Hard Way
- 10 Ways to Save Money on a New Car
- Social Lending Arbitrage Steals My Attention
- Using the Library for Frugal Fun
Post by Frugal Dad
You Can Cut Your Grocery Bills in Half, But It Will Take Time
I just finished reading The Coupon Mom’s Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half and I must admit that I found it interesting enough to pull out a paper and pen to take notes.
Being that the book is written by a woman claiming to be The Coupon Mom I thought it would focus exclusively on how to clip, organize and utilize coupons. While coupons are certainly discussed and detailed throughout the first few chapters and sprinkled elsewhere throughout the book I was pleased by the wide range of cost cutting topics discussed.
The book is broken down into twenty-one chapters ranging from learning how to become a strategic shopper to learning where to shop and how to save on specific items. Individual chapters are dedicated to techniques for saving money on snacks, dairy, produce, meat, organics and non-grocery items. Nelson also details how to save money at various stores, like wholesale clubs, grocery stores and drug stores.
As a varsity shopper I found the actual coupon clipping portion of the book a bit of a bore. I know how to match coupons with sales in order to get the most bang for my dollar. However, if you are a busy or rookie shopper, (Nelson describes the differences between these three types in chapter two of her book), then you would certainly want to focus on those chapters.
While Nelson provides a ton of ways to save money I think her biggest money savings tips come from her do-it-yourself approach to food and food preparation. For example, she writes about making her own chicken stock, baby food, yogurt and even soy milk. She discusses baking loaves of banana bread so her kids can eat it for breakfast on mornings when they run late.
Nelson also spends a good deal of time describing the five minute rule, which in essence states that you should avoid cooked, washed, chopped, peeled products if you can perform the same task; washing, cooking, chopping and peeling in less than five minutes. While I agree with this approach in part I do not follow it as a whole. For example, while I buy, wash and chop whole heads of romaine lettuce I tend to buy shredded carrots rather than buying them whole and shredding them myself.
Why the different approach to similar produce? Well, I buy whole heads of romaine because I find the lettuce remains fresh longer in the fridge than pre-washed, pre-cut bags. On the other hand I eat carrots so quickly that they never get a chance to go bad in my fridge. Are shredded carrots more expensive? Without a doubt. I already wash and chop lettuce when I come home from the grocery store so why not wash and shred carrots too?
A similar approach can be applied to snacks. Why buy boxed cookies and brownies when you can purchase brownie mix on sale and bake them yourself? With this approach you’ll certainly pay far less for snacks than buying full priced cookies right off the shelf.
While it seems like a no-brainer many of these savings techniques will take more time out of your already busy schedule. Mixing a batch of brownies only takes a few minutes, but it certainly takes a few minutes more than throwing snack food directly into your shopping cart.
Since I consider myself a do-it-yourselfer I really enjoyed reading this book. Nelson certainly opened my eyes to a bunch of new ideas, for example rather than buying overpriced turkey meat from the deli counter, I now plan to bake and grill extra chicken so that I can cut it up for chicken salad and sandwich wraps that I can eat throughout the week. Similarly I might consider using leftover chicken parts to make my own chicken stock.
While the goal of this book is to save money I also believe it will allow my husband and I to eat healthier. By preparing more of our food we can decide on the ingredients, we can avoid sodium and preservative-heavy deli meat in favor of simple baked chicken with our own combination of seasonings.
I really enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it to anyone looking to save on their grocery bills. I plan to write more about it in the next few days.
* - I recieved a free copy of this book to review.
A Spend, Spend, Spend Frame of Mind
I typically concentrate on a million and one ways to save money, but lately I’ve found myself in a spend, spend, spend frame of mind. After nearly nine years of living in a sixty year old house, with sixty year old bathrooms I really want to remodel.
We have old-school bathrooms, you know the kind with tiny tiles on the floors and mid-sized tiles half-way up the walls and all around the shower. To be perfectly honest the bathrooms have never looked clean. Even when we first moved in there was a certain amount of dirt and sediment in between the cracks that I just couldn’t scrub away.
Now here we are nearly nine years later and I’m afraid to say the bathrooms are an absolute mess. While I clean the rest of the house from top to bottom I absolutely hate cleaning in between those tiny tiles. I hate it so much that I’ve practically stopped cleaning them all together.
I either need to bring in a cleaning service to fix the problem or simply remodel the bathrooms. We really don’t have the money to spend on a remodel at this exact moment in time. We spent quite a lot of money at the end of last year between the holidays, vacations and refinancing our mortgage, so I know I really need to buckle down and focus on building back my little nest egg.
I wonder if the mere fact that I shouldn’t spend any money is what’s driving me to want to spend. I know at the end of the day I should buy a whole bunch of vinegar and just spray down the showers. I know that I should dedicate a few hours to cleaning out the grout work. I know that I should do all of these things, but regardless of what I should be doing I’m still in a spend, spend, spend frame of mind.
Frugal Savings with Credit Cards
This is a guest post from Mr Credit Card. He recently interviewed me about my past experience with bankruptcy and payday loans
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While many folks save money with coupons, especially in their grocery shopping, today, I’m going to show some novel ways to saving money with credit cards. But first, let’s get this out of the way. Many folks have got into debt with credit cards and regard them with a degree of suspicion. If carrying a credit card causes you to overspend, then please do not carry one. But if you can manage credit cards, here is a list of ways to save money with them. These are techniques I use myself.
Saving Money on Groceries - For most folks, store coupons and manufacturers are the staples to saving huge amounts on grocery shopping in the supermarket. Stacking the coupons together will save you even more money. Using them at the right time saves even more. You can also obviously join discount warehouses like Costco or BJs. Utilizing all of these methods allow you to save money year after year on your food supplies. But there is another thing you could do, and that is do use cash back credit cards when you pay your grocery bills to earn rebates and hence lower your cost even more. Most cash rebate credit cards pay you 1% rebates for every dollar that you spend on the card. But the better ones pay more than 1% on grocery and supermarket shopping and you can take advantage of it.
Saving on gasoline - Busy moms are always driving their kids to school, camps, games and play dates. With the price of gasoline going up again, finding ways to save on gas will help in the long run. One of the things that many people are not aware of is that many of us are probably using a higher grade of gasoline at the pump that we probably need. At the pump, you will notice that there is regular gasoline (87 octane), premium (89) and super premium (92). In the old days, premium gasoline helped prevent “knocking” which is the term for a mini-explosion in the engine when it was not supposed to do that. But many modern engines are made to run just fine on regular gasoline. Yet I see many folks using “premium” gasoline because they think it is good for the engine. Most of the time, that is not true. The best way to find out is to simply check the owners handbook. Use the correct grade of gasoline will save you lots of money in the long run.
Another way to save money is obviously to use a gas credit card that pays you more than 1% cash rebates for every dollar that you spend on the pump. Doing this also saves you money in the long run.
Annual Vacation Savings - I have always found that I tend to go over my budget for my family vacations because so many unexpected events crop up. Over the years, I have experimented with various ways to save money on my vacations and here are some tips I’ve picked up.
Plan way ahead - You could be lucky to get last minute deals. But chances are that the last minute deals are not the ones you want. The hotel is really cheap is not exactly at the place you want to stay. The cheap flights may have too many stopovers. Plan as long as a year ahead.
Use reward points or frequent flier points - Using frequent flier points or reward points is one of the surest ways to save money on your vacation. There is some legwork that you have to do to make use of it properly. You have to calculate how many points you need for either an airline ticket or hotel stays and plan in advance to accumulate those points.
Research Airline Alliances to get the most bang for the buck in your air miles - Most airlines are part of an alliance which would allow you to use their points on a partners airlines. Some airlines will require points for certain flights. You should definitely do the research and make the best use of your frequent flier miles if you have one.
Sign up for frequent guest program and take advantage of deals - Here is how this works. Let’s say you decide to book a hotel stay at the Hyatt. You should immediately join their frequent guest program. The reason is that frequent guest programs have perks like giving you a $100 food and beverage voucher for your hotel stay. During my last hotel stay, I got a $150 F&B voucher.
Consider attending a time-share presentation for a low hotel rate - Many hotels are also in the time share business. Once in a while, hotels offer great rates for stays in exchange that you attend a time share presentation. During the two or three hour presentation, they will try to sell you a timeshare. But you can politely decline and enjoy your stay at dirt cheap rates. You are weak minded and easily influenced by sales pitches, then this is not for you. For if you are sure you will not fall for it, it is a great way to save money on your vacation.
Give air miles to your spouse - Many frequent flier program have programs where you get bonus miles for simply giving your miles away. Hence, one way to earn extra miles is to actually give them to your spouse or partner and get bonus miles.
Credit Card churning - Another way to save money is to get bonus miles by applying for new airline miles credit cards since they tend to give generous bonus (up to 30,000 miles) for new applicants. In fact, if your spouse or partner also apply for one each, then you can effectively get 2 free tickets simply from bonus miles. Your credit score might dip a bit, but if you are not in the market for a loan or mortgage in the next couple of years, then this is a great way to get miles and save money.
There are lots of other ways to save money with credit cards but I’ll stop here. Hopefully, you can implement some of these strategies together with you other money saving techniques and get more bang for the buck.
This guest article was written by Mr Credit Card and says, “If you are looking for a credit card, you should consider checking his list of best credit card offers and deals.”
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10 Non-Secrets About Grocery Shopping That Anyone Can Do
Last Sunday I went grocery shopping, one of the best tips I got from my mother was to take a calculator with me. There are two reasons, one, to keep myself on budget and two, for figuring out cost per… whatever. As I walk around the store and pick up items I enter them into my calculator and round up to the nearest dollar when I do (I’d rather be over than under).
Secret #2 is to make sure that I jot down on a piece a paper (back of a junk mail envelope) a list of food that I need to buy. I also include junk food as well and exactly what I am going to buy so that I don’t get carried away. Did you know that shopping without a list can cost you up to 40% more with the impulse buys that are picked up?
Secret #3 is cutting back on red meat will also save me money at the check out. I have increased my chicken intake to save money and with thanksgiving around the corner, there will be good turkey sales coming up after the holiday that can be frozen for the year.
Secret #4 that has been around for a long time is to cook from scratch. When you buy prepared items, you are not only paying for the ingredients but also for the time they took to prepare it. So make it yourself, start with small, easy recipes to build up your confidence and work it into your schedule.
Secret #5 involves freezing the extra, especially on a good bulk deal. Separate your food into easy to thaw serving sizes, this stops you from having to re-freeze anything or the need to use it all before it spoils. Freezing the extra is also commonly used for making vegetable stew. After a dinner, dump all your extra vegetables into a container in the freezer and you have a homemade vegetable stew ready for with out my hassle.
Secret #6 is becoming more common, buying generic is one of the simple ways to save money. Many times the store brand is made by the name brand companies and in some cases the store brand has a better quality than the name brand. Personally, I like the store brand tissues to blow my nose because they are softer and thicker.
Secret #7 is about eating less to save money on food. It is interesting to watch myself stretch the food when the cupboards are getting bare, but eat like a hog when they are full. Because of this, I need to retrain my brain to make the food last as long as possible so I am more consistent.
And by eating less, I am not only able to maintain a better weight, but also able to stretch the amount of time I go in between shopping trips - from 6 weeks to 8-9 weeks.
Secret #8 is about snacking and fillers, like fruits, vegetables and soups. These are cheaper to eat for meals and and in between meals, plus they’re better for your health. This year we have frozen home-made soup put away for the winter - beef stew and chicken noodle
Secret #9 is to grow a garden and save yourself the cost of buying it, more often than not you will have enough food for your family and extra to give (or sell) to others.
And don’t forget, Secret #10, that there are alternative locations to buy food that may be cheaper like farmer’s markets or ethnic grocery stores.
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Saving on Moving Expenses
Image via hjl
I had a reader write and ask about saving money on moving expenses, specifically on a moving truck. I haven’t used a moving truck in over 10 years, and to be honest, we were college students and didn’t have a whole lot of belongings to transport. So I thought I would turn it over to my readers and see if you had any brilliant tips to help Wendy out.
Have you found a good deal on a moving truck or do you have any other general ways to save money when you are moving. Let us know in the comments. Thanks in advance!
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Simple Ways To Save Money On Electric Bill
Me and Sean give tips on how to save money on your electric bill and as well save the environment.
How to Save Money on Your Car Insurance Premium
www.ehow.com Save money on your car insurance premium. Are you looking for some easy ways to save money on your car insurance premium? Anybody can save money on their car insurance premium by following a few simple techniques.