Monthly Archives: November 2008
Save money with these little changes (you’ll hardly notice, I promise)
Photo by photo-clips.com
With the holidays fast approaching, everyone is looking for ways to pick up a little extra money. What if I told you that you could save an extra $50-$100 a month with just a few little changes that you’ll hardly notice? You’d be crazy not to try it, right?
Here are the little ways that I save money every month.
Use just a little less.
Toothpaste, laundry detergent, dishwashing soap, shampoo and conditioner. The instructions on all of these items often suggest using more than you actually need. Try cutting the amount you use. You most likely won’t notice a difference except in the amount of time the items last.
Wear it once more.
I wear pants a couple times before I wash them, and I sometimes wear tops twice. We also hang towels to dry in the morning and reuse them throughout the week. If you or your spouse works in a labor-intensive or outdoor job that causes your clothes to get pretty dirty, this probably isn’t for you. But if you work in the home or in an office job, your clothes probably don’t require washing after every single wear.
If you throw them into a basket they’ll get wrinkled and smelly, of course. Rehang them in your closet. When it’s time to rewear an item, I often throw it into the dryer for 5 or 10 minutes on fluff to refresh it a bit. It’s usually good as new.
Eat a little less.
Do you find yourself throwing out leftovers at the end of the week? Are you snacking throughout the day out of boredom rather than hunger? If you cook only what you’ll eat, and eat only when you’re hungry, you’ll reduce your grocery costs and maybe your waistline, too.
Even better: designate one or two nights a week as “leftovers night.” You can clear out your fridge, and you won’t have to buy food to cook that night.
Buy generics.
Most of them are exactly the same as the name brands. I promise.
Stop paying for what you don’t need.
Are you watching all the channels included in your cable package? Do you lose unused cell phone minutes at the end of the month? Are you overinsured? Check into all of these services and policies to make sure your paying for only what you use and only what you need.
Use the library.
We used to waste a ton of money buying books and renting movies. Now we use the local and university library instead for free. Even if they don’t have the book or movie we want, we can usually borrow it from another library with the interlibrary loan program.
What about you? What little changes have you made to save money?
October budget round up & November goals
Another month of spending more than we earned. Sigh. We were a total of $93 over budget for this month.
We started the month with a trip to Seattle. We bought our plane tickets months ago. For this month, we budgeted for gas to drive to and from the airport, parking, boarding costs for the dog, and meals on the run at the airport. We did a pretty good job of staying on budget for the trip, but we struggled to get back on track after we got back.
The result was an out of control $125 overage in our food budget. Part of the problem is that I knocked the budget down about $50 from our normal monthly food budget to account for vacation spending in other areas. Then we ate out a handful of times, including a pretty expensive sushi meal for my birthday. Those meals out really add up.
There’s good news, too, though. We were on track in all other spending categories. We were even under budget in a couple, which made up for about $32 of our out of control food spending.
The bottom line is that we spent $93 more than we made this month. Not good. We managed to reach our monthly goals for savings and debt payments, but my goal is to make sure that our output, including debt and savings, is less than or equal to our income. In that respect, we failed this month. :(
For November, my obvious goal is to make sure we’re not spending more than we make. Eventually, I’d like to get to a point where we’re under budget consistently and sending that extra money to savings and debt. We have a long way to go before we get there, though.
This month will also mark my final credit card payment (yay!). That’s one bill I’m looking forward to paying this month.
I’m still waiting to hear from Chase about my personal student loan consolidation. Once my credit card is paid off, I’ll start focusing on paying off my student loans. Hopefully the consolidation will go through, which will lower my interest rate and minimum payment and make it possible for me to pay off the debt sooner.
We’re beginning our Christmas shopping, so I moved some funds around from other areas to give us some extra “spending” money to put toward gifts. We’ll have to keep everything else pretty tight to meet our goals. We’re shopping for our five nieces and nephews and our parents. For our nieces and nephews, I redeemed MyPoints for a $50 Amazon gift card. I’ll use that to shop for toys. We’re buying a number of small gifts to make a gift basket for our parents, so we’ll be spreading those purchases out throughout November and December.
How did you do this month?
$1 tarts and votives at Yankee Candle
Now through Tuesday, you can use this link to get Yankee Candle tarts and votives for $1 each. As I’ve explained before, tarts and votives are a good opportunity to try a variety of scents. Even at the regular price, they cost just as much as the larger Yankee Candles per hour of burn time. Unfortunately, at the regular price of $1.99 each they’re pretty overpriced for candles. I usually stock up during these sales.
I received a printable coupon to take advantage of this deal in the store because I’m signed up for Yankee Candle’s mailing list. If you’re a candle person, I suggest you sign yourself up. They send deals like this one every few months.
If you didn’t receive this coupon in your inbox, you can take advantage of this deal online using the link above. The discount should automatically be applied to tarts and votives in your order. If not, use the coupon code XF810TS. Unfortunately, their shipping rates are a little high (flat rate $6 for orders up to $100), but if you plan to stock up on a lot of tarts it might be worth it even with the shipping.
Tarts and votives make a wonderful addition to Christmas gift baskets. Enjoy!
Victoria’s Secret bras for cheap
I’ve admitted before that I love to shop at Victoria’s Secret for bras. I can’t afford the high prices there, though. So how do I fund my Victoria’s Secret habit? I wait for deals like the one Thrifty Mama posted yesterday.
Using the coupon codes at Thrifty Mama, I got two bras and a pair of underwear for about $20 including shipping! My total before coupons was almost $60. And that’s with the sale price for the bras. I think retail value for this order without the sale would have been over $100.
Thrifty Mama suggests going with the 2/$40 bras, but the deal will work with more expensive bras, too. It’ll just be a couple dollars more. I bought he 2/$44 bras, and it worked fine. She also gives a specific item number for black panties, but the deal will work for any style of cotton panties as long as they’re a plain color (white, black, ivory, buff, or whisper pink).
These deals only come once or twice a year, so I suggest you hurry before it expires!
Menu Plan Monday & Grocery Round Up – 11/2-11/7
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After cutting back last week to try to stay within budget, we found that we needed to buy more this week to make up for some of the staples we left out of our last shopping trip. We ended up spending $62, and we’re not done yet. There are still a couple things we need to pick up at Costco tomorrow.
Part of the problem is that we cut our leftovers/sandwiches night out this week. Tony is on a fall break and will be home all next week, and we decided to make some special meals with pricier ingredients, including two types of meat. The result was a pricier week for groceries.
The good news is our Costco purchases will last throughout the month, so that money technically will be distributed throughout our grocery budget. Oh well. We’ll cut down to the bare minimum next week to make up for it and balance out the budget. That’s why I operate on a monthly budget instead of a weekly budget.
In other good news, I found out today that my reusable grocery bags will pay for themselves. Our cashier informed us that we earn 50 bonus rewards points each shopping trip for every reusable shopping bag we bring to the store with us. That’s on top of the rewards points we earn for our regular shopping (usually 500-1000 per week). Once we reach 5000 points, we can redeem them for $5 off our groceries.
I’m glad I know that now. I don’t think our cashier credited us with those points last week. Now that I know, I can be sure to remind our cashier to add those points.
We bring 5 reusable grocery bags for each trip, so we earn 250 bonus points a week. We paid about $5 for our reusable grocery bags, so it’ll be about 5 months before they pay for themselves in bonus points. We like that the reusable bags are better for the environment and reduce the grocery bag clutter in our kitchen. If they’ll eventually pay for themselves then that’s even better!
Last week I redeemed 5000 points on a week when we were struggling to maintain our monthly budget. I plan to save my rewards points for those weeks at the end of the month when we can really use a few bucks off our groceries to stay within budget.
On to our $60 menu plan for the week:
Saturday: Roasted pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes and baked apples
Sunday: BBQ pulled pork sandwiches (made with leftover tenderloin) and roasted potatoes
Monday: Italian grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup
Tuesday: Grilled steaks, creamed spinach, and baked potatoes
Wednesday: Chicken and broccoli stir fry with rice
Thursday: Potato soup (recipe below)
Friday: Homemade pizza
Mom’s Potato Soup recipe
3 pounds large russet potatoes, peeled and diced
½ an onion, diced
1 quart of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of butter
1/2 cup of shredded cheese
1 cup milk
Sour cream (optional)
Chopped chives (optional)
Crumpled bacon (optional)
Cover the potatoes and onion in chicken stock and boil until fork tender. Boil until stock reduces and becomes starchy (about 20 minutes).
Add butter, cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Add milk. Heat through to warm milk, but do not boil. Garnish with cheese, sour cream, chives and bacon.
Make sure you check out OrgJunkie for more menu plans!