Retrench!

[pegkerr]

Rob and I hold money meetings on every Monday night, and we're in the beginning process of trying to reexamine stuff. We're going to be looking anew at our insurance (I'm going to be trying to get quotes from several new companies), trying to come up with strategies to manage debt, etc.

I'm looking for ideas: Give me your best frugal tip, your favorite sneaky way of saving money. Or can you suggest some good web or LiveJournal resources for me?

Thanks!

Comments

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

I have no tips. But I will so be reading this thread for other people's! I need some myself!

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Using online billpay (if your bank gives it for free) makes it a little easier to pay the bills, and thus a little more likely that you will pay on time, avoiding late fees. (If you are a tidy organized person, ignore this hint.)

credit counseling tips

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I just added you to my reading list, and I was actually in "credit counseling" (arrgh) for a little while, so I thought are some of the tips I picked up might be of interest:

When going to the grocery store, go to the kitchen to find what you need beforehand and make out a list. In the store, buy only what's on your list and try to get in the checkout line before forty-five minutes have passed -- if people stay in the store longer than that, they tend to spend more money, buy more items on impulse and shop more slowly.

Same goes for going to the bookstore and CD store -- get what you came for, don't browse and don't make impulse buys. (This was a really hard one for me. If you have a lot of trouble doing this, leave your credit cards/check card behind when going to the bookstore and just take along your allotted spending money in cash.

Use only your bank's ATMs, even if it means you go a little bit out of your way (of course, if you have to drive five miles or something this obviously isn't cost-effective anymore) because you'll get charged ATM fees not only by the other bank (generally $1.25) but also by your bank (these can add up).

When paying down debts, there's a method called "step payment" -- say if you owe $100 to Credit Card Company X, $200 to Y and $150 to Z, and you pay them all $50 a month, you'll have paid off X in two months while you still owe money to Y and Z. Take the money you would have paid to X and add that to the minimum payments you're making to Y and Z -- this encourages you to pay off your debts faster because the more you pay off, the less time it takes (let me know if I didn't explain this very clearly; I have a dopey bar graph that lays it all out).

If you have a lot of trouble sticking to a daily budget, leave the credit and check cards at home and just carry enough money to get you through the day.

Some banks have a program where if your check is electronically deposited, they'll automatically take five or ten percent of it and drop it into the savings account for you -- painless and you don't even have to think about it. I highly recommend this.

When most people make out budgets, they're too austere and don't budget in for movies, entertainment, eating out etc. -- the best thing to do is to save all your receipts for a month and determine exactly where your money is going and how. Then you can cut back on excessive spending (say, if you eat out twice a week) and budget realistic spending (budgeting for a meal out every other week).

The credit counselor also told me the number one mistake people make when they try to save money is they "oversave" -- they transfer too much from the checking to savings account and then have to transfer money back, and get frustrated and stop saving altogether. It's better to put away a little every time you get paid, even if it doesn't seem like enough, rather than to oversave. Once the money goes into the savings account, it should stay there. You can ask the bank not to cover overdrafts from checking with savings money (which also makes you more careful about what you spend), not to issue ATM cards for the savings account, to request in-person withdrawals from the savings account, &c. The important thing about saving, she emphasized, is to really make a habit out of it -- until it's routine, something you don't even really think about.

Well, that's about all I can remember....hope that might be helpful!

A more homespun approach

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent resource learning how to save money in lots of little ways. There are a couple of articles on the biggies like insurance, but most of it is for saving a penny here and there.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

Adding to the grocery idea -- make a menu for your lunches and/or dinners. Instead of saying "oh, I'm out of pasta, I should get, hmm, three boxes" you'll be saying "I need one box for tuesday night's casserole". I've found it saves quite a bit if waste, AND I eat better.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

1. Shop in bulk. Join a club like Costcos or Sam's Club and shop only twice a month. Those random trips to the grocery store really can add up.

2. Make a list BEFORE you go to the store and stick to it.
3. Shop around for the best credit card rates and transfer balances often as you pay them down.
4. Refinance any auto loans by getting a quote from E-loan or another service. You'll almost always save money. These services can often beat bank loans.
5. We use Electric auto insurance which has done a great job but is lesser known. Local insurers or regional can usually beat the rate of national services.
6. Consolidate any small credit debt.

All I can think of....hope it helps.

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

Depositing a certain amount directly into savings worked well for me when I was working with a monthly salary. What I could not see, I could not spend.

My dad is the cheapest man alive and while I don't really have too many tips, I can give you some of his:

- Shop in different places for different groceries. We have a discount grocery store (Aldi's) that he loves, but he will go to at least two more stores to get other bargain items.

- Buy things when they are on sale and freeze them. He will buy a whole pork loin when they are on sale, cut them down and put them in the freezer.

- Plan meals around sale items as opposed to planning meals first.

- Buy off-brand items. I never had an actual Dorito until I was a teenager.

- Shop exclusively in discount stores for clothes. Admittedly, there is nice stuff there.

- Never eat out.

What can I say, that's my dad.

[shellefly.livejournal.com]

J and I are doing the same thing. Here are some of the things we're working on:

Pay off the highest-interest debt first, pay minimums on other debt until the first one is paid.

Leave credit cards at home, don't keep them in your wallet.

Keep one credit card (for car rentals, emergencies) and get rid of the rest.

Give yourself a weekly allowance and make ALL of your fun expenditures (eating out, books, toys, movies) out of your allowance. Once you run out, that's it.

Plan your meals a week in advance so you know exactly what groceries to buy.

Clip coupons.

Decide which groceries you can buy generic and which you can't (for example, we can buy generic pasta but we both hate the taste of generic spaghetti sauce) and buy all the generics you can.

Buy meat in bulk (preferably from a butcher because it's usually cheaper and tastier) and freeze it.

Look at your monthly expenses and see if there are any you can get rid of or reduce - for example, J and I never watch TV so we got rid of everything except basic cable (we want to be able to watch the news if we need to) and saved $30/month.

Go to the library a lot if you have a good one, or even if you have a so-so one - now they carry audio books, music, videos and DVDs and they have great used book sales (at least the one around here does). Of course used book sales can be dangerous - but if you really want a book, you can spend your allowance on it. :)

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

If possible, don't use credit cards. Use cash. You'll spend less. Try to withdraw enough for the week at once. When you've run out of money, you can't spend any more. (I keep a small stash for emergencies.)

Use the library instead of buying books, which then need bookshelves.

Buy extra on sale if you know you'll use it, and have room to store it. Pasta was on sale this week, so I got more than I need. Plus, if you have a well-stocked pantry, you are prepared for a variety of emergencies, from blizzards to unexpected guests.

For clothes - Opitz in St Louis Park is worth checking out, otherwise, TJ Maxx and Marshalls. And, of course, yard sales.

www.twincitiesgasprices.com to find the best place to buy gas. If you can, fill up on Wednesday - gas prices tend to go up on Friday, at least around here.

Oh yes, get "The Tightwad Gazette" vols 1-3 from the library. Hundreds of very useful tips.

Google phrases like "frugal living", and you'll find sites galore. Just don't buy or subscribe to anything to save money.

If you want ideas for inexpensive cooking, let me know. I have lots of ideas and recipes.

[fangexploring.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with the suggestion to put aside some money first each month, then budget around what's left. That's probably the most effective way of saving money.

Also, I would suggest recording what you spend on and how much at the end of each day, put it in a table by items/categories, and add up for every month. This way you can tell where the money is going and whether it is being spent in the areas that you would like (compare with your own expectations and priorities).

And being in a habit makes a big difference. This may be hard, if you can question your purchases consistently (why? how much is it needed? is it worth the price?), then when it comes to larger purchases, makes it much easier to be cautious and thorough. Just another suggestion though.

These are probably too obvious and simple, but I hope they help anyway.

[perimyndith.livejournal.com]

1. Never shop without a goal in mind. If it's groceries, make a list of what you need ahead of time and stick to it. If it's clothes, make a list of what you need ahead of time and stick to it--and make a budget ahead of time, and stick to IT, too.

2. Avoid any place where you impulse buy: the bookstore, for example. I don't browse unless I have $10 in hand to spend on a book. I also should avoid fabric stores more often.

3. Budget, budget, budget. We started by recording every expense for 3 months in Quicken, analyzing our expenses, and making a budget for just about everything.

4. Online Billpay is great. We use it in combination with TWO checking accounts and two savinges accounts: (1) Checking account for all standard, set monthly bills, to which we autodeposit the correct amount of money for those bills. This means that if we budget $100 extra to the credit card bill, it will BE THERE to be paid. We do not have an ATM card for this account. (2) long-term savings "for major life emergencies." Money does not come out of this account except in case of emergency. (3) short term savings, for vacations, sudden expenses (car repair, etc). (4) checking account for all non-set bills into which remaining income is deposited.

[aerden.livejournal.com]

One thing I heard about was paying half the monthly amount due on outstanding bills every two weeks, instead of once a month. There are 26 weeks in a year, so you wind up paying slightly more off in a year than you would have, if you paid only the specified monthly amount.

If there is a Foley's near you, it might actually be useful to have their credit card. They have their Red Apple sales, with coupons in the newspaper. But they also send special coupons to their cardholders for even larger discounts. My mother was once able to buy a $70 blouse for $9 there.

If you go to Barnes & Noble, buy from their Bargain Book racks. A lot of those books were published by B&N, but they also have books published by 'brand-name' publishing companies. Avoid their coffee shop, because you will be tempted to spend money there!

If something like Pasta-Roni goes on sale every couple of weeks, don't buy it again until you have used up what you bought, the previous sale.

You can buy actually nice business suits at thrift stores, such as Goodwill. They often get donations from places like Lord & Taylor's, which have special arrangements with Goodwill. I once bought a nice business suit there for $5, and it lasted me for several years.

Clip coupons from the newspaper. It's amazing how much you can save.

Get the MovieWatcher card--but don't buy movie theatre concessions, even with the discount coupons they give you. If possible, eat before you go see the movie--a snack of some sort, even if you are going out to dinner after the movie.

Chantal

[kate_nepveu]

One thing I heard about was paying half the monthly amount due on outstanding bills every two weeks, instead of once a month.

We have this on our mortgage, which reduces the overall life significantly because not as much interest accumulates in the two weeks between payments.

Doesn't help with money-in-pocket now, but it might be of interest to other people.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Supermarket coupons have never done me any good -- they tend to be on things I don't buy. Frozen tacos, say, or pudding mix. When I costed out the time I was spending to clip the pertinent ones, sort them, and check them in the supermarket for expiration dates, it wasn't a good investment.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

If you're going to shop for clothes at garage sales or secondhand stores, get in the habit of keeping a tape measure with you. Know the measurements of the people you shop for, not just their sizes. Used clothing often has size tags removed (especially for kids, who can be especially intolerant of scratchiness.)

[(Anonymous)]

I think the two most important, easiest to adjust to things, are:
don't use your credit cards; and stay out of the grocery store.
When our girls were young we lived in the woods 15 miles from the nearest store, owned one car, and were living on a school teacher's salary. I grocery shopped twice a month, made my own bread, jam, doughnuts, cakes, cookies, and virtually all meals from scratch. Those things take less time than you think. We moved to town when the girls were in their early teens. Our grocery bill doubled. If you run to the store to pick up a couple of cans of tomato sauce, you'll end up spending money on impulse items.

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

Here's one tip I haven't seen. I found it in a library book, I think.

When headed for the grocery store, carry (in a zip-lock bag with the coupons, in my case) a _small_ notebook. Each of the (say, ten or twelve) commonest food purchases gets a page. Even if one doesn't actually _buy_ the grapefruit juice when it is $3.79/half gallon, jot the price down. Make notes over time (it only took a few weeks for this to start helping me) and one gets a sense of when a special is only a few cents off and when it is a bargain. When the grapefruit juice is two for four dollars, I stock up.

Best thing about the notebook is, I don't have to use it every single time, or even keep it strictly up to date. It's just a ballpark, to help me remember what I've paid (or refused to pay) for things in the past.

[haniaw.livejournal.com]

The most important tip that I've ever heard (and I've heard it from almost all reputable financial advisors) is to "pay yourself first". What most people do wrong is try to pay all the bills and then use what's left over to try and save something. There is usually not much left and therefore you never end up saving anything. The key is to determine a reasonable amount that you can afford to take off the top and put that in your savings account before you do anything else. For example, my payroll gets automatically deposited into my checking account every two weeks on a Thursday. I have set up an automatic transfer using online banking that moves $xxx on the Monday following the payroll deposit into my savings account. This way I never have to remember to do anything and if I never see the money, then I can't miss it. You should re-evaluate the amount regularly once your debts are reduced and increase the transfer amount appropriately.

...Hania

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You've brought up "manage debt" and "saving money." Maybe consider which of these is the more important, and prioritize from there.

K. [does it help to think about what the fish *aren't* saying?]

Cash!

[qwerty88.livejournal.com]

We take out a set amount of money from our bank machine on Friday. We don't get any more money until the next Friday. I find that I notice the cash disappearing, and with a credit card I don't notice. It means Thursday is often a meatless pasta dinner.

Some of my friends prefer only using credit cards actually because then they see exactly what they spent the money on. However, that's after the fact...

Bringing lunch to work is a huge savings.

And of course, there is the paying yourself first. We're putting away the difference between what would be our mortgage payment and what we're paying in rent towards our downpayment fund, and that comes out automatically on the Monday after we get paid. And when we got raises, the extra went into that too, so we weren't tempted to increase our expenditures by those extra few dollars a week.

If we needed to cut back, I'd be looking at our weekly meal out, my book buying habit, and our extended tv cable bill. If all else fails, I remind myself that when I was a student, I lived on $700 a month and didn't feel deprived, so surely the two of us can manage on the budget we've set ourselves.

[silverkel.livejournal.com]

A few tips I've picked up.

Get the Sunday paper. For 1.50 you get loads of coupons and also 'flyers.' Now most people think these are a pain, but supermarkets (Wal-Mart, Dillons/Krogers etc) will honor any price in those ads that they carry. (This only applies for exact prices. 2 for 4 or 1.79 etc. It's not for buy one get one free stuff.) Take those with you and circle what you need then price match it if it is cheaper.

Also, keeping just the amount of cash you need on hand is a great idea. Put the rest in the bank. I put my large amounts of money into savings and withdrawal once a month for rent/car/insurance etc and then just put a small amount into checking so I don't spend on impulse. It's a pain going into the bank as much as I do, but the money gets put away and I have lots of money to spend when I need it.

Negotiate. Usually if you ask in advance places will waive late fee's if they know the payment is coming and it shows when you say it will. Also, if you are honest they are more willing to work with you. An old credit card of mine lowered my interest rate because I asked.

Every two months I go through a shelf cleaning. Which means except for things like milk, eggs etc, I do not grocery shop until I have eaten almost everything on the shelves. Then anything that I just never have the interest to eat I go ahead and donate to the food pantry. Then I know not to buy that thing next time. Then I cross that item off my shopping list. Things I end up eating more of I buy more next time in teh store and the others less. This makes my shopping more effienct.

Also, things like cheese can be frozen so if you get a good deal (a block for 1.25 around here is a good special for Kraft) buy a couple then throw on in the fridge to defrost when needed instead of running out and going to the store and buying it for three dollars. It adds up.

Okay, I'm done rambling. Just ask my friends. I'm strange. I'm frugil and love to shop. I rarely spend more then a few dollars on clothing and have a fabulous wardrobe. Remember, if you are not sure, walk away. You do not need it.

Debt Stacking

[nyx-wench.livejournal.com]

This is a method to pay off debts faster. You have credit card X, Y, Z.
X has a high balance, Y is the next highest, Z is the least but has a high interest rate. Instead of sending the minimum plus a little more to each, you send the minimum due to the ones with the least amount due or the least interest rate. Send the minimum and anything you can spare to the one with the high interest rate. Once you pay off that one you move on to the next one with the high balance/interest rate.

Money As She Is Saved

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I have a black plastic box (it held a friend's ashes, and somehow I ended up with it...) that I toss all my loose change every night - except for quarters. They get saved for laundry.

I really enjoy hitting places like Saver's & the like for stuff - after a few years of this I realized I'd become a cheap sum'bitch, and enjoyed it...

Of course I probably should buy a real "interview suit", and that I'd want to get from a "real" store.