Question of the Day, Friday, March 18

Good morning!   And Happy Friday!   I am so ready for the weekend!

What do you do to save money?

I am saving all my dollar bills this year. So far, I'm up to $81. I save all my change, separating the pennies from the other coins. We use coupons whenever we can. We don't go to restaurants that often and try to stay away from fast food places. We have a set budget for groceries and (so far) I've managed to stay within that budget amount (most of our groceries are cat supplies and water).

How about you?

We save all our change too, it's amazing how much it adds up, over 500.00 in two years.I buy all my cat food at Walmart, cheapest in town, and wait for sales elsewhere for food and cat litter. We don't take vacations, can't with our animals, but take 'mini' trips around our own state and neighboring ones.We wait for sales on big purchase items and building materials, we have found that sooner or later places like Menards have everything on sale  that we need. We pay off our credit card every month to avoid interest, and worked hard years ago to remodel and 'flip' houses to pay off our mortgage and get a little nest egg. I sure couldn't work that hard now, and most of the young people I know today would rather keep using that credit cared,  pay a mortgage for 30 years and totally ignore me when i ask how much they spend at Starbucks in a month. My daughter and her husband buy at least one 5.00 coffee a day, mostly two, that's at the minimum 10.00/day or 300.00 a month! That would buy me a LOT of cat food, which I suppose they think I spend way too much on. Priorities!     

I buy the Sunday paper and cut the coupons. I wait for the sale ads to come out before visiting the grocery. I always make sure I am not hungry when I have to grocery shop. Its adds to the things in the cart. :lol3: I shop for everything I can in the dollar stores locally. I save pennies. One of our checks does by direct deposit to the saving account. I can always withdraw, if necessary, but try not to. I shop in the local hospice thrift store. I keep our clothing in good repair, mending things if necessary to prolong the life. We only have one credit card, which we use to pay for everything we can. Then when the statement comes, we pay in full. They reward us with up to $300 a year in bonus bucks.

I cut our directv bill in half by taking off a lot of the networks. I got my daughter a trac phone instead of AT&T iPhone . I switched to purina muse instead of blue buffalo dry cat food and to tidy cats litter. Open a window rather than turn on the air conditioning. Use coupon in the muse cat food $3 off. I save my change in a jar & cash it in. Make the kids eat in the cafeteria at school instead of the snack bar. My teen works for some of her own expenses.

Lately nothing. It's going out faster than it is coming in. New garage doors and door openers are next up on the list.

I try to shop sensibly for household and food items. I shop at WalMart or other discount stores. I do not buy new clothes very often for myself. We do as many household projects as we can ourselves. We know our limits though. :lol3: We buy new cars, but then drive them until they die.

We splurge on going out to eat, good wine and whiskey and weekends away. I like nice purses too. :lol3:

We both grew up in households where money was extremely tight and there was no money for any extras and splurges. Because of this, we do splurge at times because you need to live and enjoy yourselves occasionally.

I use coupons. I get a lot of stuff like toilet paper, paper towels, etc through my subscribe and save from Amazon. This saves money but it also saves time, gas ( UPS and the USPS pay for the gas ) and aggravation because I don't have to stand on line at Wal Mart (aka the evil empire). I also get some cat food this way.

I also do surveys online for money. I ended up getting a 5 cubic foot chest freezer from Sam's for $0.00 out of pocket by paying with survey money and using a gift card that they gave me for renewing my membership which I would have done anyway. The freezer is in DD's dorm room but I let her know that when she's done with school, that baby is MINE. 

I also got her mini fridge the same way but I think it might have cost me $20.00. 

Our local grocery store, Publix, has BOGO items every week which I often pair with coupons. They let you use 2 coupons with BOGO so I get a lot of deals like that. 

I use Swagbucks as my home page. They pay you bucks for things like surfing the web, surveys, polls, etc.. the bucks can be redeemed for merchandise and gift cards from MANY retailers like WM, Home Depot, Amazon, Paypal, etc. These gift cards have paid for many a Christmas and birthday gift in my house. 

We save our change also. We haven't cashed it in well over a year so I bet there is several hundred $$$ in there.  Maybe we'll keep on until we get married and use it towards the honeymoon 

I'm not much of a coupon user.  Most are NOT useful for a family of only 2.  However, I do make use of certain web sites that offer discounts or perks.  For instance, my payroll company (ADP) has a corporate perk shopping site.  So, if for instance I'm shopping at Kohl's  I log in through that site first and it will give me extra discounts to save up for future shopping. I also sign up for nearly every store I shop in regularly to make sure I'm receiving all discounts available.  I almost never buy clothing full price although shoes are another story because I have problems with my feet.  The sneakers I wear rarely go on sale so I suck that up.

We also grew up with not a lot of money to throw around at all and my mom was queen of smart shopping.  I am not quite as good as her because thankfully I don't have to be at this stage of life but, I still enjoy a bargain and would rather save than spend whenever possible.  

How did I forget to mention Ebates??? If you shop online you must use ebates!  I just got back over $16 from booking the hotel for DD's birthday through Expedia and getting to them from using the link on Ebates. It's incredibly easy and they pay through Paypal. 

Whenever I shop online, I check to see if they Ebates has them as a partner. If they do, I follow the link and make my purchase. Ebates sends me an email afterwards telling me how much I am getting back based on what the percentage is that is offered for that store. VERY easy money!!    

blueyedgirl5946 said:

I always make sure I am not hungry when I have to grocery shop. Its adds to the things in the cart. :lol3:

Click to expand...

There is no truer statement :nod:

Saving money is hard when your kitties are sick! But I do save change (most of it anyway). I need to get better at this saving money thing though. Some things I try to do is follow my list as religiously as possible (ie no extra stuff not on the list). I try to buy things when they're on sale. Two for ones are the best! They do that with roasts and what-not sometimes. I also do comparison shopping for all my cat food, litter, etc. I buy most of it online (because free shipping after $49 which is SO easy with five cats and two dogs) and generally have four tabs open at the same time. I also try to find the best prices for medication for my kitties. I've finally gone all-generic on my own meds (they're FREE now, yay!). I clip my cats nails myself. I'm also brushing their teeth now to help prevent costly dental work down the line. Oh, and got them health insurance (yes, I'm filing that under "saving money down the line").

I live frugally but I don't have any specific things that I do.  I don't use coupons since it's just me.  Also the Kroger store brands are good and they are generally at least as cheap as if not cheaper than the national brand with a coupon.  I guess the main thing that I do is decide what I will be eating the next week by what is on sale.  I also buy produce in the summer from a real farmer's market.  We have some 'farmers markets' here that are really part of a high end set up in the Short North, everything there is really over priced.  I go to one that is in a small town a few miles outside of Columbus.  It is on my side of town so it really isn't that far.

I do love Starbucks vanilla lattes but I restrict myself to just one a week usually sometimes over the weekend.  I have tried making them at home but I just can't get them right.  I think a really nice and expensive espresso machine is needed to get them right.

Budget, budget, and budget some more.  A rare trick, when what comes in so very nearly equals what must go out.  However...I comparison shop like a madwoman.  I plan way ahead on meals and catch things on sale.  i coupon at several sites when they have something that I can really use.  I save change, on the rare occasions that I use cash.  I shop thrift stores and order second hand books from Thriftbooks online (LIFESAVER!).  I use things until they are well and truly used up.  I recycle thing.  The glass cannisters in my kitchen that hold my rice and beans are jars that I saved and then painted the lids.  I prioritize and have schooled myself to patience when saving for a big item (and for me, a big item is anything over $25.00...that takes planning and saving).  I cut my water heater off when I'm not actually using it (that saves about 20% on my electric bill, heating water is exorbitant), and during the spring and fall I rarely use my central heat and air unit.

I hate paying full price for things if I don't have to - especially clothes and jewellery supplies. I buy in sales whenever I can, and make use of sites like Groupon and Topcashback. I use coupons too, but we don't have anything like the number you do in America, and major dietary restrictions make coupons much less useful.

I buy cat food in bulk from Zooplus, and use as many deals/offers there as I can.

I buy digital albums instead of cds as they're generally a lot cheaper. I'll also buy extra items instead of paying for postage - I really resent paying for postage when I could be paying for items.

I comparison shop online a lot too, and I NEVER pay for a brand name alone (I have several pairs of sheepskin boots, but I'd never pay the extra to get Uggs or Emus - why the hell should I pay for a brand name? All I care about is having warm(er) feet :lol3: ).

I'm a very weird mix, as I can be a total shopaholic, but hate spending money at the same time

I cut coupons; mostly ones printed from the internet.  I also use an app on my phone that gives me cash back.  I do buy some generic things; but others I can tell the difference too much with the generics.  

We've been eating out (or getting takeout I should say) too much on the weekends.  

very carefully budget, always looking for/finding new ways to cut costs/expenses, reduce the disposables i use, use everything up as much as possible, meal planning as well as planning inexpensive meals, and stick to my list when doing the shopping.

like @Donutte, i've started brushing all three of my cats teeth. our jaspurr has one tooth that had some irritation on the gums above it that the vet said didn't seem to be causing my boy any discomfort, but that we'd keep an eye on it. that, and the girls are very young still, so it's better to get them into the habit of tooth brushing daily now. all three cats absolutely love the cet poultry flavor toothpaste! in fact, deedee had the finger toothbrush in her mouth one evening and was running with it growling, with punkin closely following her -- punkin wanted that toothbrush too! i carefully wash it after each use, but i think the poultry flavor from the toothpaste lingers on/in it. i also see this tooth brushing as gonna save money down the line.

there are so many things i do to help save/cut back on expenses.

We cook every night, don't have cable, use coupons, buy generics, and don't go out much. Also when we do go on trips we will take the cheapest flights even if they're at terrible times or at airports far away.

I found I've saved a lot of money since I moved here about 18 months ago. It's an hour round trip to my nearest supermarket so I can't just pop out and get something. Not having any shops within walking distance has stopped me making impulse buys. Now if I go shopping it's with a shopping list and a handful of coupons.

Since I no longer own a car (my 1991 Escort bit the dust 15 months ago), I do a lot of walking around town,and in the city park. People always seem to drop change a lot, and I scoop it up, and put it in a large oversized jar that was once used for pickles. so far, I have saved up about $550 doing this, over a period of 13 1/2 months. I also use coupons, ans since I turned 40 some time ago, I find I just don't have the desire to buy impulsively anymore, which I consider to be a huge plus. I was quite reckless with my money in my 20's, but I'm the exact opposite now: my little sister calls me Mr. Frugal. And that's okay! I kind of like being known for that.