Easy Ways to Save Money

I figured we could start a thread on ways to save money easily. I stress the word EASY. For example, making and preparing your own food doesn’t qualify because that involves actually shopping and cooking and effort.

Here are 3 of mine:

1- Make and bring your own coffee and drinks. You make coffee anyway in the morning, so just bring enough for the rest of the day with you. I love Snapple, but at 1.25-1.79 a bottle depending where I purchase it, it adds up. So I use Crystal Lite and bring it with me. I save even more money when I use the supermarket brand of instant iced tea.
If you want to be super cheap, screw regular coffee and use caffeine tabs. Walgreen’s brand of NoDoz is 6.99 for 200 tabs which is 400 cups of coffee.

2- Join Costco. You’ll save money on food and other items like crazy, regardless of whether you’re single or have a family. A few examples include: the savings on cartons of 1/2 and 1/2 alone pay for the yearly $50 membership fee; I saved $80 on contacts; fish oil and Rogaine are unbelievably cheap.

3- Drink before you go out to a nightspot. You can start drinking right before leaving (if the place is closeby) or if the place is farther away start drinking right before arriving at the club OR in the car after you’ve parked.
Not only do you save money, but you can also easily taper off the alcohol as the night goes on. I start drinking a lot of water 1/2 way through the night, so by the time its time to go home, my buzz is wearing off or gone. Plus all the water keeps me hydrated and lessens the possibility of hangovers.

Let’s hear some of yours

give up caffeene and coffee

you dont need either (no matter how much you think you do)

Store your money in the freezer, where do you think they came up with “cold, hard, cash” anyway?

:wink:

Ditch your cell phone plan.

Disconnect the cable.

Carry a cooler and a shovel in your trunk at all times. Whenever you see roadkill just stop and pick it up. Free protein.

  1. Drive slower. Rabbit starts and high speeds will use more gas; not too mention the occasional speeding tickets. For short to medium distances, the time difference for your trip is usually less than 10 minutes.

  2. Use Ebay. A lot of stuff can be had for a fraction of it’s usual retail price. You can also sell some of your old, unused stuff. Unfortunately, doesn’t work so well for weight training equipment, because shipping costs kill you. But if you can find a local seller, great deals can be had.

  3. Don’t tithe.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Store your money in the freezer, where do you think they came up with “cold, hard, cash” anyway?

;)[/quote]

I’ve heard stories of compulsive shoppers that have resorted to freezing their credit cards in blocks of ice in the freezer to try to stem their behavior.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Store your money in the freezer, where do you think they came up with “cold, hard, cash” anyway?

;)[/quote]

Just like William Jefferson

Don’t date. Get a prostitute when the need arises. It’s cheaper in the long run :wink:

A “friend” of mine had to borrow $50.00 last week to put gas in his car and get some food. As he was leaving, he was complaining about how much a tin of CHEWING TOBACCO costs him (I think it was $7.00 or something).

Well, DUH!

Spring water about here goes for $1.19 more or less per gallon. We have these locations around here where you can bring an empty jug and fill it for $.25. Ig you drink a gallon per day, that’s a savings of $5.50 per week.

Dunkin Donuts coffee costs something like $2.90 per Large coffee. Cumberland Farms (convenience store chain) sells an Extra Large for $1.54. You don’t leave a tip and you usually actually GET WHAT YOU ASKED FOR (unlike being “waited on”)!

[quote]Tithonus81 wrote:
I’ve heard stories of compulsive shoppers that have resorted to freezing their credit cards in blocks of ice in the freezer to try to stem their behavior.[/quote]

I know someone who did this.

Quit your gym membership.

Here’s a few off the top of my head:

  1. Use the library.

  2. Get a filter and drink tap water.

  3. Never buy drinks as restaurants (with a few exceptions).

Stop carrying your debit and credit cards with you everywhere. Take out a certain amount of cash, and that’s all you have when you go through your day.

Turn off the air conditioning in your car (roll the windows down instead) – you will see a definite improvement in your gas mileage.

Sorry, but cooking and preparing your own food is probably the easiest way to save money. The best way to do that is double cook supper and pack the leftovers as lunch.

When eating out, split meals. Most restaurant’s servings are massive. Instead of ordering 2 meals, order one and split it. Don’t do this on a first date, but it works great when married. Saves money and calories.

If you absolutely must have a cell phone, get the cheapest plan and cheapest phone available. Do you really need 1500 minutes a month? And who cares if you can get e-mail and the latest .50 cent video on your phone?

Use craigslist.com instead of Ebay.

Never buy expensive shoes, watches, tires or protein powder. The cheaper versions will do the exact same thing.

Take your old stuff to a consignment store. You might make some money from that old sweater you were going to throw away.

If possible live close to where you work and ride a bike or walk to work. Savings include insurance gas and maitenance.

If you are a CostCo or Sam’s Club member buy the $20 bucket(5lb) of whey protein powder to use for upping your daily protein intake.

[quote]AgentOrange wrote:

Turn off the air conditioning in your car (roll the windows down instead) – you will see a definite improvement in your gas mileage.
[/quote]

Not necessarily. My Scion xB gets WORSE mileage with the windows down. It creates a TON of drag.

[quote]4est wrote:
Don’t date. Get a prostitute when the need arises. It’s cheaper in the long run ;)[/quote]

Funny, I have 2-3 friends that live by this advice

[quote]PGJ wrote:

Never buy expensive shoes, watches, tires or protein powder. The cheaper versions will do the exact same thing.[/quote]

I’m gonna have to argue this one! I’ll give you watches and protein powder, but the other two hells no! You need a good pair of shoes, you feet spine and knees depend on that. Go ahead and get your Wal-Mart brand, but you’ll be paying much more to fix your instep, back pain, and knee joints later on.

Tires are something else not to skimp on, that’s like paying a cheap surgeon. For one thing, tires that are more expensive last longer, generally guaranteed for 50,000 miles verse no guarantee and generally, out of cheap tires you’ll get a max of 30,000 miles SAFELY! If you are driving around on bald tires, I’ll smack you b/c when you blow a tire and crash I’ll laugh and say I told you so. Not to mention with cheap tires best of luck getting any decent foul weather traction.

So in a few less words, skimp on these two now, and you’ll be paying more later on.

[quote]4est wrote:
AgentOrange wrote:

Turn off the air conditioning in your car (roll the windows down instead) – you will see a definite improvement in your gas mileage.

Not necessarily. My Scion xB gets WORSE mileage with the windows down. It creates a TON of drag.

[/quote]

At highway speeds (excess of 45-50mph depending on your car) you get better MPG with the A/C on. At slower speeds you get better MPG with the windows down.

[quote]PGJ wrote:
Never buy expensive shoes, watches, tires or protein powder. The cheaper versions will do the exact same thing.

[/quote]

…and never know what real luxuries are. Dude, a cheap watch will break quickly, cheap tires wear faster than a better brand, or even blow, and cheap protein is just a gimmick and tons of abdominal gas in a bucket. Seriosly are you that cheap??