Thrifty Thursday: Easy ways to save money each month
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It’s Thrifty Thursday so that is a good time to talk about ways that you can save a few bucks each month!! Honestly, one of the easiest way to save is to pay attention to how much you spend. I can tell you that when I stop paying attention before I know it I have blown thru a hundred bucks and wonder what happened to it!
So lets get down to business. Whether it’s spending less, or just having the actual ability to sock cash away and not spend it, this seems to be a never-ending quest. There are several ways to save, both by spending less and saving more.
Pay for things in cash
There’s an old saying of “Out of sight, out of mind.” There’s truth in that, as it’s really easy to not think about the money you’re spending when you swipe a debit card or credit card every time you go out. Spend cash, and you’ll be a lot more conscious of your spending. I keep a plastic envelope (found at Target in the dollar spot) that I keep my spending money in. Once it’s gone that is it. I don’t use my debit card for my free money or I will over spend every single month. Set an amount for yourself and stick to it, you will notice the difference!
Save Your Change
To go along with paying for things in cash, save the coin change that you get. I keep about $0.65 in coin change in my wallet, and put the rest away every day. In one month, I was able to save close to $70 with little to no real effort.
Along the same line, have a savings account tied to your checking account and transfer the odd cents every day. The money will pile up in no time.
Set a Budget
Personally, I set a budget of ‘fun money’ every month. And that amount varies by what’s happening at home. Once I spend that $25 or $30, I’m done buying random stuff for the month. It is amazing how creative you can get when you try to find fun things to do on the cheap! Out of boredom my husband and I used to run up to Walmart to grab a few things and then end up spending $100 on nothing! We don’t do that anymore at all, we plan a day that we will have time to go do something and then figure out what we can do without spending much money. It really is all in the planning!
Cut back on the splurges
I love to get specialty iced coffee. However, the price keeps inching up, going higher and higher. Cutting out even one of these coffees a week can save $20 or more a month. That’s extra money that you won’t even notice. I used to drink a McDonalds Vanilla Iced Coffee every single day, that got super expensive so I went on a quest to make my own iced coffee. I personally found that I LOVE Baileys Vanilla creamer and every morning I now make myself my own coffee saving well over $40 per month right there!! Now Mickey Dee’s doesn’t even compare!!
Do you just have to have your daily coffee? Try duplicating it at home, you might be surprised at how much cheaper it really is!
Take advantage of Loyalty Programs
Many stores have loyalty programs. A sandwich shop might give a free sub after you purchase 10, Beall’s Outlet give you $5 after you spend $50.00 many other stores do the same. Starbucks gives you a free food item or coffee drink after 12 purchases, when using their card. Winn Dixie has a fuel perks program where you will earn money off your gas purchase if you purchase certain items. If these are things you’re going to buy anyway, you might as well take advantage of what’s offered by using a rewards card! I know of MANY people on our coupon chat page that pay just a dollar or two per gallon of gas when they fill up because of fuel perks that they have earned from Winn Dixie, multiply that by 20 gallons of gas and that is a HUGE savings each month!!
Pay Your Bills on Time
Pay your rent, your mortgage, your utilities, and your car payment on time. I recognize that this seems like common sense, but really, you can save quite a bit. Our local utility company has a 10% late fee surcharge. My bill runs about $125/mo, and my late fee would be $12. On months that I was really strapped for cash, I would often pay my electric, phone, cell phone at the very last minute before the cut off, but the bottom line is that you have to pay it anyways, and by doing it that way you end up paying an additional $10 or so on each one! Once you get into that cycle it is very hard to get out of it and before you know it you are paying $20 – $50 more per month in late charges. Try to bite the bullet and get back on track and pay your bills before the late charge kicks in, it will take off a lot of stress and make it easier to manage your bills.
Pay attention to what you pay out
See where you can cut expenses. Do you really need Hulu Plus, and Netflix? And Cable? And then you’re renting movies from Redbox, too? Do you still have a landline phone, and do you really need it? If your kids don’t have cellphones, or you work from home, sure. But if no one’s using it, get rid of it! I’m sure if you look through your bills, you’ll notice all kinds of little things that can be eliminated.
Also, once per year I call my satellite company, cell phone and internet and tell them that I am considering cancelling my service and moving to their competitor since my bill is too high. EVERY SINGLE YEAR I get some kind of discount on my bill, some may only be for a six or ten month period, but others are a permanent discount. It is absolutely worth making a list of all of your bills and take one day to make your rounds calling each of them to see if you can score a discount. You could save $50 or more per month!!
I hope some of these suggestions help you save a few bucks each month. With just a little bit of care, you can save a fair amount of money, quickly and easily.
Please let me know what you think of this new addition to the blog! I am going to be adding a few elements each week based on the requests that I see frequently on our chat page! Speaking of which, make sure you check in on our facebook fan page or our facebook chat page to say hi and hang out with all of your coupon freak friends! We are having a blast over there!
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