Saving money

[FLBK7]

In other threads I've posted that I swear by my condo-sized stand-alone freezer. I take advantage of beef/chicken/pork sales and also the frozen veggies that we normally eat. The key is to label the food carefully and keep an inventory of what you have, using the oldest first, etc. I also clip coupons for things that we buy regularly, and occasionally for new products I want to try.

I check the supermarket sales online before making a grocery shopping trip, and plan out weekly menus depending on what's on sale and what I have on hand. I especially love my local supermarkets' "buy one get one free" offers. I also visit local ethnic supermarkets for great deals on meat. Last week I bought roughly 5 lbs. of New York Strip steaks at $4.99/lb. Choice meat too, not "unbranded."

We're in South Florida so we also make regular trips down south to buy fresh fruits and veggies at the farmers' markets. It's mango and avocado and lime season, so right now we're in heaven just about everyday.

And another way to save money, a fun way too, is by arranging regular get-togethers with girlfriends and giving each other pedicures. It's really not that hard to learn how to do it. If you've had a professional pedicure before and follow the step-by-steps found in many websites, you can easily do it yourself. We make a girls' day out of it, and we each save easily $30-$50 (cost of pedicure plus tip). We actually believe we get a better deal and our pedicures last longer because we use better products. Also, we are very careful to sterilize the foot whirpool bath between uses. Some of the cheap salons don't do that and people catch all kinds of skin and nail infections as a result.

Now if only we could learn as easily how to cut hair properly... I've had too many hair disasters with the cheap Supercuts or Hair Cuttery places, so now I pay my hairdresser whatever she asks, but man....... my hair looks so good, all the time.

[justplaintired]

I think the biggest thing we do is shop by a list. I keep track of what I need now, look thru local grocery ads and make a list. I tell my kids, we stick to this list, no extras, unless we find meat marked down.

Last week I went to Walmart for pet food and like someone else said in an earlier post, I now buy the larger bag, it cheaper and last longer, hate carrying the thing, but saves money, but anyway, I went to the grocery section and looked at the meats, I found Hillshire beef smoked sausage $1.00 a package, I bought all they had, 8 packs. It was dated for the next day, but we have a large deep freeze so it went in there. I only buy meat on sale or marked down for a fast sale, with a deep freeze it works great.

I kind of think it makes grocery shopping fun, if that's possible. I actually look forward to grocery ads now because that is my only shopping I do now. Have to keep our subscription to the local paper, for the garage sale ads and grocery ads, ours doesn't offer free online, it cost too.

For clothes, we go to garage sales or Goodwills or thrift stores. My kids don't mind and one man's junk is definitely another man's treasure.

We haven't gotten rid of dishnetwork yet. That will be next. We do have a family plan cell phone, $62 monthly, 2 phones, 450 min free nights and weekends. We did the minute phone but it was costing us more. We are on the cheapest DSL plan we can get. Home phone may go, haven't decided yet. We already set our thermostat way back in winter 58/65 and way high in summer, 78. Actually we have been able to have windows open this summer sometimes which is helping. I put the roll window chaulking on our windows in the winter, may do plastic this winter. Talked about an insert for our fireplace to help more with heating.

We eat more at home now. DH takes leftovers for lunch. My kids are picking up little jobs with Grandparents to earn their own spending money.

My boys have long hair it's their freedom of expression thing, so don't have to worry about hair cuts. I am not a stickler about my hair cuts so I go to Great Clips, Fiesta. Been dying the grey myself for awhile now to save money, I don't like it as well, but it saves money.

Now I am always thinking how can we save money and love hearing others ideas. It's a definite lifestyle change.

The biggest thing I wish I could do is quit smoking. My DH managed, I haven't been able to. I want to, but it's been so hard. I hate spending money on cigs when we are trying so hard to save money. I feel so guilty about that.

[twuoo]

To save on electric: get a programmable thermostat. I set mine to 84-86 during the day when I'm not at home (it's for the dogs really)...

Then I have a window a/c unit. I turn on the unit for the living room when I'm there.

Got an a/c for the bedroom. Keep the cental off or at 84-86 depending on humidity or if it's raining etc. Once I get to the bedroom, I just turn on the window a/c, turn on a fan to help circulate the air and close the door.

Even when you run your central a/c, you should use a fan of some sort to help circulate the air. It does make a difference, at least to me it does.

My neighbor and I are not close, but we do talk. I noticed that my wireless usb hub picked up their comcast signal. So I asked if I could pimp off their service and just pay them $15/month versus paying $60/month for myself. I gave them some goodies like a brand new printer, a nice one, not a cheapy one, and some other computer goodies. It was a win/win situation. My broadband is paid up for the year... Come January, I'll just write another check for them.

Pay as much of your car insurance as you can. I noticed that mine tags on a $3.00 monthlyservice charge just to do auto withdrawal That's $36/year! Shop around for car insurance. I recently did. I am currently paying around $140/m...and the second cheapest was $170/month. So I'm staying where I'm at!

I don't buy the big ol 50# bags of dog food, even though I have two dogs. I feel by the time I get to the bottom of the bag, it's probably all stale. I'll cut corners somewhere else.

This might be tacky, but I'm doing something similiar, just with much more expensive stuff. If you don't have alot of $$$....get yourself to the dollar store and buy the silver sunshades you put in your windshield to ward off heat. Stick that stuff up in your window where it gets the most sun exposure. If you don't want to look like a total hill billy, then get a really cheap white flat sheet. Cut the sheet to fit the area you need, then staple it on top of the silver sunshade. When you stick it in the window, nobody will notice it's all silver. And yes, the white will reflect the sun as will the sunshade behind it. Your room will be a tad darker though...lol...but it will also be a little cooler.

I got some stuff I'm using called Reflectix. It's from Home Depot or Lowes. But it's also about $1/foot.

When I use it, I noticed my room is at least 5-8 degrees cooler than last year when I didn't have the stuff. And using the same thermometer to measure.

Yup, dollar stores to buy everything conceivable that I use.

I buy 2nd hand clothes. Even stuff from TJMaxx or similar, on sale, is still much more expensive than 2nd hand clothes. Why pay $15 for an 'on sale' shirt when a similar shirt can be had for $3.00?

Refill your own ink cartridges. Print on draft when you can. I print 2 pages to a sheet of paper and try to print both sides when possible.

As far as cable/tv goes....I haven't had tv since March 2007 Had blockbuster online for a while, but they started to raise prices and change this and change that. So I cancelled in May.

I've been so busy, can't say I miss it.

Use dishwasher and clothes washer/dryer at night, when the temps are usually cooler. During the day, it heats up your house more.

[twuoo]

I want to add that my gas AND electric bill for june 3-july 3 is going to be $58! According to my bill analyzer, similiar sized homes in my area paid $159 for same time period and home type. This is for a 2100 sq/ft manufactured home with central air.

Yeah baby!

Granted, I did so some insulating since February of this year with the Reflectix stuff. I've only done about half my home. But when I look and compare bills since Feb to bills of last year. ALL my gas and elec bills have been lower, even though gas and electric prices have gone UP since last year.

I don't think I'm using less. My habits haven't changed much. I want to fool myself and say all the hard work I've done insulating the crawlspace so far has really paid off and will continue to for years to come!