What worked for me
How being organized can save you money, and how saving money can keep you organized.
(Written by a non-clean freak, for the non clean freak, and the unorganized who wish to be organized.)
*I mean clean freak in a loving way. I envy the clean.
(Not all of these things are preached by Dave Ramsey, these are tips that I have accumulated from personal experience or around the web as well, compiled neatly in once place, just the things that have worked for me. I hope it helps someone else. But having that budget and encouragement from Dave Ramsey really jump started our excitement about saving money. )
Budget every penny! I am "the nerd" and have fun making it, and he edits.
Catch up on all bills, getting them all on the same cycle.
Dividing monthly bills into 4 payments and having them come out automatically every week. No more late fees, and worrying about the bills! They are paid! It is so wonderful. Kyle was sooooo joyed when the second week of this rolled around and he didn't have to think about all the bills, and which were do this week, if we would have enough, late fees. GOODBYE!
Being anal about the Electric bill! Seriously, we were using 10$ a day for a while, 70 a week, Now we use no more than 4$ a day.
Putting money into the ACCESSIBLE savings account every week.
Giving us both an allowance for spending. Usually I never have money unless its a gift, now we both have spending money and its guilt free spending.
Turn down the thermostat! And bundle up. Bringing down your temp by 2 degrees can make a world of difference. Drink hot fluids, bundle up and open your blinds during the day, which will help to naturally warm the house, less work on the heating system. At night you can bring it up a bit. I like the house at 69 degrees, During the day I have had it at 65 with the blinds open, and bundled up, then at night I bring it up the 67. Maybe you can't stand the cold, and I get that. Earlier in the pregnancy the slightest change in temp would give me the shivers and shakes, but now I am chilling in 65 degrees happily in my new fuzzy socks, sweater, and scarf sipping on some tea. Ooo yeah. Seriously, our bill went from 10 bucks a day to no more than 4. Top that!
Planning your meals a week ahead of time.
Pack his lunch. Do the math, at Kyle's work, I know lunch is about 6-7$ a day in the cafeteria. More if he goes out to get fast food plus the extra gas. Might as well pack it since you have a kid on the way. Learn to get into the habit. It is also a bit romantic for your significant other to leave little notes every once in a while, and a convenient way to get them to take their vitamins every day. Adults need them too! I pack it right in. I put it into one of my many saved grocery baggies every day.
Leaving the card at home. You heard me. Don't take it. Take that handy envelope pre-budgeted with "pocket money", and that's it for the week.
Buy the bigger bag. I don't care if the small one at the dollar store on the way home is more convenient. It is something like 1/6th of the dog food, for half the price of the big bag.
Use that power strip since you have it! Turn the switch off at night. We have the DVR in the wall so we still get our recordings.
Do laundry every day. Seriously, I should have been doing this a long time ago. It saves in the long run to span them out, instead of waiting for that one day of the week to do it all at once, which turns into a week of catch up and a month of catch up when your super busy, and you find yourself re-washing things that sat too long, putting it on a higher soil level, using more detergent, and hotter water. I know I am not the only one who gets stuck in this cycle.
Clean out the stupid fridge! How much food was forgotten because it was "hiding"? I read this awesome article on how simply being organized can save you a ton of money. I am one of those who likes organizing things, but I get easily discouraged and don't always stick with it if there is a lot of change going on that messes with my routine. Seems like there is always a ton of change that throws me off. But I read another article about the psychology of a habit, I am sure every one has heard some variant, but when you limit the amount of new habits you make at once, in 30 day increments, the good habits are easier to form and keep before you try to make room for more.
Change is a two person game. Especially if you are married or living with someone else. You can make all the good habits you want your own way, but if the other person doesn't commit, it probably wont work. Find a way to introduce new good habits in a way that will also work for your significant other. For example, my husband sticks to something if properly motivated. Once I started making dinner and having it hot and on the table for him every night when he comes home, he is not allowed to touch his dinner until he does his three chores, which take about 5 minutes. It has worked the past couple of months and now it is automatic because we stuck to it. If he wants food he has to clean the litter box, take out the trash, and scrub all the work grime off his hands and nails. Simply making sure those things are done every day saves money, we don't have to buy as much litter for example because it stays cleaner. At first when I got pregnant and it became his job it took a bit of nagging to get him to do it, and sometimes it would take an extra day.
Buy cans, or bulk of whatever it is you drink. Kyle was drinking 2 sodas from the gas station a day before we started budgeting. Sometimes three. He had his card on him, and he didn't realize how much they added up. That adds up to almost 100 bucks a month. When I get cans, they are cheaper and I can set his daily limit in the fridge. He still has his pocket allowance money, as do I, but once it is gone that's it. So he has moderated his behavior, and so have I. We think twice when we pass a fast food place now, because it comes out of our pocket money for the week.
You get what you pay for. Spend a little extra for the things where quality matters so that you don't have to keep replacing it. No, I am not saying to go get a Star Bucks because it is better quality. You know darn well what I mean.
NEGOTIATE. Whether it is buying a present at the store that is just a tad over budget, or your internet bill. We were a bit late doing our Christmas presents this year because to catch up on all of our bills, we had to sacrifice for a few weeks, Once they were caught up we were able to budget our presents, though a bit late. I walked into this shop, it helps that it was a non-corp business, and I found the perfect gift for my mom and step father who happen to love the same thing. I have 20 bucks budgeted per person, and what I wanted to get as a combined present for both of them cost 59 bucks. I walked up to the cashier and said that I could only buy it if it were 40$. I had a budget to stick to. I started offering to pre-order things for gifts for next weeks budget, and the guy just gave me the deal without any real hassle. I saved quite a bit too. Then I called up our internet provider, and our cable provider and told them I was paying too much and was putting my foot down. They threw me deals. It was magical. That saves us a ton in the long run for sure!
Read your labels. This is actually a tip from my mother in law. I am not just talking about food here, look at your medicine bottles, and look at the active ingredients. Don't buy cold medicine, it is a waste. Go get a basic antihistamine, it will relieve your symptoms at a quarter of the cost for 60 pills instead of only 12 or however many those boxes of meds cost.
Don't get sick in the first place. Kyle and I used to get sick every time the season changed, it would start with a simple sinus infection and then would spiral into bronchitis, laryngitis or whatever happened to be going around from our weakened immune system. Then we started taking echinacea, also courtesy of my mother in law,every time we felt sick. We would take like 4 the day we felt sick and then one a day until we were sure we had dodged it. It's been about two years since we have been seriously ill now from something of that nature and it has saved us a lot in the long run. We used to try everything to feel better, and bought much more than we ever needed. So take some echinacea when you feel something coming on and skip the cold all together. LOL now when Kyle sneezes I run to the medicine cabinet, fully stocked with echinacea, and make him take it immediately. Plus it is all natural! Those beautiful pink cone flowers are good for more than their looks.
FREEZE leftovers. It turns out having a full freezer helps lock in the temperature and saves electricity, plus when you are in a rush and haven't gone to get the bread on your list for lunch, that leftover soup is ready to go. Getting him to eat it is another thing entirely, but you packed it and did your job! Some things you cook too can be applied to other meals, like the leftover veggies in the bottom of your baked chicken pan. Freeze the veggies, and juice, and throw it on top of some rice another day for lunch.
Make some extra cash. Do some blogging and hook it up to adsense. It is magical. Do the fancy dance around some link-to's by having a ton of blogs, all linked to each other or at least back to your main source of income (my art site is mine), and it will generate traffic. It takes time to get followers, but I have already been quoted on multiple blogs. Its in the works here. Turn your hobbies into money.
De-clutter. You don't even have to go through the trouble of a yard sale, and storing everything until spring, simply go through everything in your house and donate the stuff you don't use and have no intention of using. Turn all of your hangers the opposite way in the closet and by the end of the year, what isn't turned around GOES. You can sell or donate them, or give them to a friend in need but get the clutter out. I mentioned an article that I read about where they talked about how being organized can save you money. I realized that one of my main motivational problems was that I had stuff everywhere, and it felt like as soon as I would get it cleaned, clutter was everywhere again. So many things that we just don't have a place for or use, and is always in the way. They pile up, and can make the daily cleaning process daunting. So I finally went through every closet in the house, since I was running out of space for things, which was half my problem. I looked at organizational stuff on pinterest and learned a ton of useful ways to use some things I would usually never use or throw away. Like the weird hangers that pants come on, you can break those off the hangers and use them as bag clips. Woot! I used empty egg cartons for my clutter drawers, gave everything a place. Still have a lot to do, but every little thing has been the momentum I need to get into organizational shape! I haven't gotten myself paint yet, still saving so I can get canvases too, and new brushes. But I am making this really cool wall border for the baby room out of toilet paper rolls. Sounds terrible, but go ahead and look at it on pinterest. It is really cool and eco-friendly fun. I will post pics when I am done.
Snack bags are awesome. So we keep accumulating bags of chips, and nuts, wasabi peas, dried fruits, and such. Snacks were something I never even kept around before. Pregnancy changed that because I get hungry so frequently. I try to stick to things that can be used in recipes too though, and other things are given to us. But anyway, I accidentally bought the wrong size plastic bags at the grocery, instead of something a sandwich could fit into, I wound up with these tiny snack bags. At first, I could not imagine what on earth I could do with them. But then, I started putting those weird leftover snacks into them for Kyle to take for work, and for myself to eat in the house, and it helped me portion how large my snacks are. I am no longer grabbing the whole bag of dried cranberries, I grab a small pre-portioned size thing of it, and I am done when it is empty. I sometimes don't know when to stop eating if I have the whole bag in front of me. I am an all- American girl for sure. Now I am pro- snack, and Kyle loves having a variety of things in his lunch bag. The tiny little snack bags also make those giant bags of chips last longer.
Convenient, shmeeement. Sodas at the station, popcorn at the movies, that present online which costs double due to shipping, those pre-made and easily disposable diapers that require no washing, those baby wipes that are already wet, those chemical cleaners pre-mixed with a name brand, those boxes of hamburger helper instead of getting the noodles and seasonings yourself that would last many more meals in the long run. These just a few examples of frivolous things that we have taken into our daily routines because they are faster. I dare you to compare your spending habits to those of Europe, (who happens to have a positive savings rate while America has a negative savings rate). I was reading some comments on a blog about cloth vs disposable diapers, and this British lady was talking about how frivolous and stupid Americans are about babies. In the UK most people use cloth diapers, and instead of baby wipes, they wash their babies bum in the sink, and make rags out of old shirts.
I think she had a point. And she added that it was cruel to get something that absorbs more on purpose, because that means your going to let your baby sit in their own filth as long as it is not leaking. What is more comfortable about that?
Side note- rant
In high school I took a health class, and we were going over toxic shock syndrome, Once upon a time TSS was common because tampons were made to be so absorbent that women would wear them until they leaked, and by the time that happened they had TSS. I bring this up because it is what people seem to do with diapers.
Did you know that having a clean home is Biblical? Girder your Loins was saying more than be hygienic. It says to be prepared for when Jesus shows up at your door. I can't get that scripture out of my head and I think it's Gods way of telling me that cleaning your home and being organized is important in so many ways. It effects how we interact with people who come over, how we feel about our selves, self worth, it influences our finances, and so much more. It is hard for me to say "Sure you can crash on my couch!" when my couch is a disaster zone. So get organized, YOUR WAY. I think I spent too long trying to do it everyone else's way, and it just wasn't working more me. Do it however keeps you motivated, and you will see the effects of it seep into every other aspect of your life. Don't think that I am some organized clean freak preaching to you about cleaning. Often I look up stuff about organization and it is all written by people who have never seemed to struggle with it, who can afford 50 sorting bins and cute baskets at 12 bucks a piece. It is something they do naturally. But for some of us it doesn't come so naturally, and it is something we have to learn. I feel like now that I am having a baby I have to turn into the perfect parent in 9 months, and now I am 3 months away and no where close to ready for this baby. I have so many bad habits to work on and change. I am however blessed with a man who has always been open to new ideas, willing to try new things, and wants to better himself with me.
Bottom Line:
That extra money added up so much that we can put 125$ a week into savings, Kyle was scared to save 25 a week when we started. But once we got going and he saw how much extra we had after all the bills are paid, and we both get allowances for whatever we want, giving, and everything we need... we have money leftover AFTER ALL THAT to save toward the big ticket items we want! It's magical. Maybe this stuff is nothing new for you. But we got into a lot of bad habits, and bad spending habits and never learned to save money. Thanks to Dave Ramsey we are learning, and now member of FPU, and we hope that others out there can benefit as well.
"Budgeting" sounds terrifying. It seems so big, and hard, and it sounds like Atkins for your cash. But its really not. It is more like just deciding ahead of time what your going to do with it, so you aren't wondering at the end of the week where the money went before you could get what you really wanted. Seriously, try it.
We were at the gas station after going to the grocery, Kyle went in and I stayed in the car, and he took a while, he came back and said that he got into a conversation with the guy working there who was really struggling financially, and also has a baby on the way. Kyle told him about Dave Ramsey, and how budgeting has quickly changed his life once he committed to it. The guy working there got so excited, and we budgeted an extra 10 bucks to bring the guy a copy of the book the next time we go to the grocery and stop at that gas station.
Dave Ramsey is about more than just budgeting. He gets down to the core of our spending problems, and once he teaches us how to accumulate money, he teaches us how to make it grow and encourages you to spend it right. And you can call him on his show every day and ask him for advice. He is everyone's personal money trainer there for you every day, and you also get to hear people thank him every day for his teachings and encouragement.
Do you have any money saving tips? I know there are a lot out there, but these are the ones that I found that really worked for me. What works for you?
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