Sunday, November 30, 2008

Big and small ways to save money

We just finished watching 60 minutes, which ended with Andy Rooney's take on ways to save money in this economy. He gave examples from his own life, including taking rolls from restaurants for breakfast, wearing the same shirt three days in a row before washing it, making his own coffee, shining his own shoes, taking the bus instead of driving, etc. These are some interesting suggestions from an eccentric old man. We always find him amusing.
So I thought I would share some big and small ways our family saves money.

Big ways:
  1. We bought a house that actually cost much less than the price range we thought we could afford. This saves us hundreds each month.
  2. We have no car payments and therefore no full car insurance coverage. I learned a lesson from the Borcherts, and it was a hard lesson to learn: that a car's purpose is just to get you from point A to point B, and that a car is no reflection on you. A car that looks bad or has a few minor problems is not automatically unreliable.
  3. We haven't bought all new furniture for our house. Probably 90% of the furniture in our house is used or hand-me-downs from family. No, it doesn't look that great, and it's not perfectly coordinated. But is it really practical to buy new furniture for your kids to spill drinks on, spit up on, or worse?
  4. We pay every credit card off every month. Honestly the only credit card we have is Kohl's, and we only use it if it will... take a guess... right. Save us money.
  5. We're content to stay a step behind on everything technology-related. Cell phones, mp3 players, tvs, digital cameras, etc are improving so rapidly, that you can save a lot of money by buying the hot items several months/years later.

Small ways:

  1. When we eat out, which we try to keep to three or four times a month, we always order water for everyone in our family. This probably saves us around $7-$8 including tax and tip. (We also take advantage of free kid stuff, like at Eat N Park, a kid can eat a free salad bar with an adult purchase of a salad bar. Also, they have free baby food. This may be the best kids' deal in town...)
  2. I don't use coupons. I've found that when I use coupons, I buy things that I wouldn't buy otherwise, actually costing me more money.
  3. We buy Angel Food every month. It comes with a variety of food, and the basic box is $30 which is supposed to feed a family of four for a week. There are lots of add-on box options, and we often get the chicken or beef packages.
  4. We pay our bills online and on time to save money on postage and late fees.
  5. We are cheap gift givers. Rarely do we spend more than $20 on a gift.
  6. I usually buy generic products (diapers, cereal, paper products, etc.)
  7. We buy a few, quality clothes items for ourselves. The boys wear almost all hand-me-downs.

If you have any suggestions on how you save money, I'd love to hear them!

3 comments:

Ryan Hope said...

My suggestion on how to save money is to Tithe!! Tithe the entire 10% (or more) and do it regularly. I admit that I didn't do this for awhile and I always worried about money. For the past I don't even know how many years I have been tithing regularly and I never have money worries!! I know of TWO people who had tithed, tried to pay their bills but didn't seem to have enough money, so they went back and added more to their giving and tada, they had enough money to pay their bills out of the same check! Yay God!

timollie said...

Heather, I've been lurking for a while, I admit... and I'm so thankful to read your blog today!
Thank you for mentioning Angel Food - I had never heard of this organization, and I'm really interested after looking at the link you provided :)
~Mollie A.

Shari said...

I shop at Aldis regularly. I can get a week's worth of food there for all three of us for a third of what I would have paid at Giant Eagle.

I also started buying turkey burger instead of beef. When you cook it up and put spices on it, you can't really tell the difference. It's not only cheaper to buy, but it's better for you, too.