Money Saving Tips

Bring your lunch and snacks with you. You don't have to buy food at the mall or elsewhere just because it is lunchtime. I reuse gift bags to pack a small, discreet lunch for the family. Use the money on something you will remember instead of food court food that is forgotten as soon as it is finished. Your home packed food is likely to be healthier too.

Have a jar and everyday place all your change in it. Interest right now on savings is not very good but if you save enough, roll into a short term CD. You never miss this money. This money saved pays for our vacations each year.

If you would like to pay 30 bucks for 60 bucks worth of food a month, check out http://angelfoodministries.com. There are no qualifications and everyone can participate.

You don't need land to garden. Buy plant pots at garage sales and have a container garden. Anything you grow saves you money at the store.

Barter services. My hubby is a mechanic and one of our friends is an electrician. Hubby worked on his car and friend hooked up sheds and lagoon to main box. No money involved..each person buys the needed items and service is performed for free.

Save all leftover veggies in freezer bags and freeze. Save all meat stocks and freeze in old ice cube trays. Place frozen cubes in labeled freezer bags. Cold weather rolls around and you have all the ingredients for fresh soups in your freezer. I also save scraps of leftover meats for this purpose.

Find older tupperware to store dry goods in and place in freezer..works well for flours, bulk yeast and other items..they do not get buggy.

If you don't have new windows in your house, buy car window tint and apply to your windows inside. This really reduces the heat in your home in the summer and can be taken off the windows for fall and winter when you want the suns heat and stored away for next spring and summer.

Invest in a good crock pot and a toaster oven. The oven is never on at my house in the summer. Use your grill or smoker outside with wood..not charcoal or propane. Cook more than needed and freeze for a later date.

About cutting the dryer softner sheets in halves or quarters. Quit buying them and buy a jug of laundry softner. Wet a washrag and put some softner of it. Toss into the dryer with your clothes. Works better than the softner sheets and a heck of a lot cheaper.

For laundry stain removal, buy some Ivory bar soap and rub on stains. Let set a few minutes and toss into washer. Works great.

Good treatment for dogs regarding fleas and ticks...buy Seven dust, put in a shaker bottle and sprinkle on your dog and rub in. Use any tear free shampoo for bathing your pets.

If you have ants in your house, locate where they are getting in and spray hot sauce or sprikle cayenne powder by doors, steps, etc. They hate hot stuff.

Use frozen fruit juice concentrates instead of buying the ready-to-drink half-gallon containers. My kids love Welch's passionfruit, which costs $2.50 in the dairy case and $1.14 in the frozen aisle.

Don't send your kids to a Private college, statistic have shown that the college your child attend does not factor into their success later on in life. So to speak a kid going to a State school have the same chance as a kid going to Harvard, except the 500k student loan you have to pay off.

Of course this does not apply to schools like MIT and Caltech, if you got into those schools you are pretty much guarantee a job of at least 1 million a year, usually works for NASA or Lockheath and Martin.

More money saving tips, if you got insurance that gives you an option of going oversea for surgery, JUMP ON IT!!!!! The doctors there is not 3rd world trained (India is the world leader in this area).. they are U.S educated and without all the B.S health care red tape like we have. They can do any surgery for 1/6 of the cost of the U.S and you get to see a different country. When I blew my ACL out during bootcamp they sent me back here to have surgery, cost me 49k for an ACL, when I could've gone to India and have it done for 5k.


Man Another one! Drug (antibiotic,painkiller) can be use without any side effect 1-2years after they expire (the date on the bottle). My uncle told me this, and no he is not some wack job, he is the head of Surgery at Kaiser hospital in C.A.

I know this isn't available to everyone.......but we've started shopping in an Asian market.

Their overhead must be amazingly low, because we are finding crazy crazy deals on food - especially fruits and vegetables. "Ethnic" stores have a lot of good deals, but the packaging, and, like I said, the overhead, might not be as nice. I personally don't get how I can buy a huge bag of cinnamon for probably 1/4 of the price I get it in a regular grocery store (for a tiny glass jar!). And the price of rice is amazing!

Most banks offer free checking accounts now. And if you shop around, you may find one that offers free checks for life too.

Many banks here offer "gifts" for opening a new account, so take advantage of that. If you don't like the current gift, you can ask about others they might have that you can choose from.

Also, some banks give you some life insurance as part of having an account with them. The insurance may only be $1000, it could help your family in the case of your death. So it could pay you (or your family) to have an account at every bank in town.

Baking soda and white vinegar clear out your drains pretty good use that in my husband's bathroom a lot. Little freaky at first when it foams up then down the drain it goes just rinse down with some hot water.

Something else I read in "Don't Throw It Out" is to rotate household items. for example,when you put away clean plates,put the clean ones on the bottom of the stack. that way the dishes are used evenly & last longer.
great book!

Rotate your canned food/pantry items as well, that way you use the oldest first and they don't go out of date.

Don't overlook clearance party goods.

I always watch the deep discount bins and snag up anything that is .05 or .10, in reguards to plates, cups and napkins.

We use them everyday (who cares if they have a character on them and say Happy Birthday, right!) and when the grandbabies come over, they think it is the neatest thing!!!

I shop for birthdays and Christmas the same way year round. I have found items after Christmas or after season for 80% off and then just put them in plastic bins to give away the following year. And I don't buy junk, I have found some awesome things such as designer scarfs, leather wallets, etc for under $10.

I learned something from a customer I used to have. He managed one of the mom & pop motels in town, and he told me that they used Ivory Soap as the bar soap in their rooms, as he had discovered that other brands of soap clogged the drains in the rooms faster, and after switching to Ivory Soap the clogging problems became fewer in frequency.

Looking for a cheap and easy glass / general cleaner - I use approximately one cup of Parsons Sudsy Ammonia to about one one quart of water. (If you have one of the one quart hand sprayers, put in one cup of the ammonia, and then fill to the 32 ounce level - give it a little shake to mix, and you're good to go). Has a kind of strong odor, but cleans as well as the blue stuff!

If you hate to iron like me...
Don't buy Downy Wrinkle Release Spray. Make your own:
Buy generic liquid fabric softener (preferably the kind without added color) and mix with water. 1 part liquid fabric softener to 4 parts water in a spray bottle. SO much cheaper than buying the Downy stuff.

If you buy detangling spray for your child's hair (or yours), you can make your own using 1 part regular hair conditioner and 4 parts water in a spray bottle. Shake well.

About house cooling. If you live where its hot during the day and cool at night, its cheaper to draw in cool night air than to air condition.

The old fashioned way was to throw open the windows at night, if the natural breeze isn't enough, to put an outward blowing box fan in a window on the downwind side of the house.

A less casual way of doing this is to install a "whole house fan". It requires a hole in the ceiling, and an apppriate fan installed permanently over the hole, wired to a switch. When the outside air is cooler than the inside air, open a bunch of windows a crack, then turn on the fan. It sucks hot air out of the house and blows it into the attic, and out the attic vents. So it gets the hot air out of the house, and out of the attic too.

The original style for these fans was a 3 foot by 3 foot monster that beat the air and made quite a racket. Also, these had no cover over the top so in the winter warm air rose through the hole and chilled the house.

There is a modern improvement on the theme, and the one I have is Tamarack. It uses twin high speed 10 inch aerodynamically designed fans that move more air for less noise. Also, the device includes insulated doors that automatically open and close when the fan is switched. The doors solve the problem of chilling the house in winter.

I've had mine for about 6 years and I love it. It isn't suitable for all houses or all locales.

If you have an old house with plaster walls, do NOT rip out the plaster and replace it with drywall. Lath and plaster walls have a bigger thermal mass than drywall does. What that means is that you can chill those walls with cool night air, and the walls will chill the house during the day as it gets warm outside. "Cold Soaking" doesn't work nearly as well with drywall. Also, a house with plaster walls is quieter than a house with drywall.

We always cary a small cooler in the car with frozen water bottles for ice and a few bottles of tea or soda incase we need a drink when we are out, also use it if we purchase ice cream or frozen foods.

When using liquid items with a pump sprays (hairspray, butter, salad dressings, etc), I always, always open up the empty bottle, and pour into the new bottle the little that is always left that the pump hose doesn't reach.

I was taught at a very young age that even a "little" wastfulness adds up to A LOT over time.

Same with bottles of catsup, shampoo, conditioners.....when it is "empty", turn the bottle over for a few hours....there's usually enough there for at least another burger or two, or shower or two!!

* Cook! The more convienient food is, the more expensive it is. Look at Jello pudding cups. Make a big batch of soup or pasta salad & you can eat off it for a week. If you have a willing friend or neighbor you can each make a big batch of something and split the results for variety. Pack the kid's lunches.
* Quit buying single sodas, quit smoking - that pack of cigarettes= a gallon of gas. Actually just cut convienience stores out of your life as much as possible.
* Chart your "extra" spending for a week. For most people it's a big yikes.
* Take care of your car. Rotate the tires every other oil change or so. Change the oil & don't let things go. My boyfriend knew he had bad wheel bearings & let it go. Next thing he knew he had a $2000 repair bill...Broken axle, two new wheels, two new tires etc. etc.
* Should you pay your car off, continue making the payment - into your savings account! You'll have money for repairs or other emergencies - plus next time you buy you can pay cash or at least put a bunch down.
* Pay extra on your mortgage especially at the beginning to cut down your interest.

Here is a quick money saving tip I learned from one of my favorite chefs (Nigella Lawson) while living in England. If a recipe calls for separating eggs and only using one part of the egg -the yolk or the white- put the other part into a freezer bag and tuck it in the freezer to use at another time.

When it's time for a new washer, buy a front-loader.

They're much cheaper now than when they first came out, they use much less water and power than a top loader, and they clean much better. They also spin better, so clothes don't need as much time in the dryer.

Also, I haven't sent anything to the drycleaner since having one--it washes silk and woollens like a dream, and our king-size duvet fits in as well.

I went to the health food store this morning. automatic 20 cents off per green bag i used. (not the color, the environmentally friendly variety) not a lot of money but i am a believer in every little bit helps.

I save a bit by having a "lunch buddy" at work.

We eat together often - used to do restaurants until we both noticed how much money we were blowing on nothing.

We decided to share "lunch duty."

Each of us brings a "double lunch" one day a week. That way each of us gets a day off from packing a lunch and we get to taste someone else's food!

It helps keep the brown-bag boredom at bay and helps keep us out of the restaurants.

ORGANIZE things!!!

If you don't know what you have or where it is, you'll buy more or forget what you have and it'll go bad.

I buy organizing things like bins, containers, etc. at garage sales and try to clean out things frequently. Just this morning I found some shade hangers in a drawer that I was going to go to Kmart and buy today, so that saved me a couple of bucks!

A bread-maker is a wonderful appliance.

I got one nearly new from a thrift store for $8 and make delicious, healthy bread every other day for about 50 cents a loaf, versus nearly $4 for the gruesome shop-bought stuff that has a shelf-life of two weeks because of all the preservatives.