Here’s a few very easy and important ways that you can save money.
Saving money through Smart Driving
Drive with gas efficiency in mind. This doesn’t mean that you need to drive slow, but make a conscience effort to avoid aggressive driving as it wastes gas. It can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town. Sensible driving is also safer for you and others, so you may save more than gas money. At highway speeds, a good way to look at it is for each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.25 per gallon for gas. Unless your in a rush, try and keep your highway speed between 40mph and 55mph. Speeds above 55mph can decrease your gas mileage by more than 20% due to wind resistance.
Also, turn the car off at longer lights and train crossings. For new cars, any pause longer than 10secs is wasting gas to idle. For older cars, it can be as high as 30 secs (most lights are longer than this).
Energy Savings
I try to save energy around the house with CFL’s, programmable thermostats and proper insulation.
A CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) can save over $30 in electricity costs over the lamp’s lifetime in comparison to an incandescent lamp. Not only can you save money using CFL’s, but it also can save 2000 times its own weight in greenhouse gases (so you can save money and feel like you’re making a smart environmental decision all at the same time).
If you live in an older home, insulating your home’s attic is often one of the least costly and most effective ways to lower your energy bill. Your home will be warmer in winter and cooler and more comfortable in summer.
Weather stripping and caulking your home will not only keep the elements out, but it will help reduce your energy costs. Check for drafts around the doors and window. Weather strips at the base of the door are damaged easily so they should be checked.
If you can afford it, replace those old windows for high-efficiency ones. They are much more efficient as they have a special insulating gas injected between the two panes. They can also keep the hot heat out of the house in those blazing summer times. So really, they are energy-saver year round.
Save Money using Reward Programs
There are many business offering points cards or rewards cards. Whether it’s the grocery store you shop at, your favourite department store or the gas station that is often the most convient. I think that they offer these for at least 2 reasons. One reason would be to keep you loyal and returning as a customer, the other is that they can track your spending habits and market to you the products that they think you’ll be interested in (or sell your data to other companies that will do the same). At first, I objected to this, after all I didn’t really want ‘Big Brother’ watching me spend my hard earned cash. Eventually though, I realized that it didn’t really matter that some marketing company knows that like Pringles and prefer skim milk. So I use a points/cashback based credit card that gives me the best return for my spending. In addition, when purchasing items online, I check for cash back online rewards in addition to using my credit card.
Smart Food Choices
Over the course of a year, it’s amazing how much money people spend on eating out, and one of the places you are most likely to spend a lot of money is on lunch at work.
That’s why you should bring your lunch to work, and save money.
If you go to a fast food restaurant for lunch, chances are you’re going to spend between $6 and $10 a day, which over the course of a year will probably add up to between $1,500 and $2,500 per year. If you go some place a little more upscale, you can expect to pay $12 to $20 per day, which adds up to $3,000 to $5,000 per year.
I prepare my lunches in bulk and store them in individual plastic/glass containers. I cook at home whenever possible as eating out is both expensive and tends to be a less healthy alternative.
Smart Buying Habits
Buy when things are on sale or clearance. Seasonal items can often be bought at a fraction of the cost at the end of the season. A lot of items can be bought at a dollar or bargain store cheaper then at Wal-Mart or other big stores. Some items I regularly buy sell for $3-5 at for example at Wal-Mart but can be bought for $1 and sometimes its better quality
When buying consumer items, I try to separate what I ‘need’ versus what I ‘want’. When I find something that I need, then I do comparison shopping or wait until it goes on sale. It`s usually pretty rare that you need something immediately, so wait for sales and read many reviews, you can minimize the chances that you’ll waste money on something that will disappoint or not measure up.
Adjust your outlook on saving money
Saving money is very much mental. It’s easy to take coins from your pocket or your purse and drop them into a jar or a piggy bank. It’s harder to take $100 every month out of your checking account and post it to a savings account. The most difficult thing to do, however, is to say ‘NO” to something that you “WANT.” Yet this is exactly where saving money begins.
Good money management is an acquired skill. As you go forward with the process of saving money, you need to have a positive attitude which is often what will keep you and your family headed in the right direction. If you think you can’t save, then you probably won’t. Be determined and stay positive about saving. As you see your savings mount up, this will become easier and easier. Being happy in life is far better than buying item after item. Having an inner peace is better than having a house filled with “things”. This does not mean that you can’t enjoy some of the finer things in life; it just means learning how to be happy with yourself and not “things”.
Get out of debt
Pay off credit cards. Pay off cars. If you’re leasing a car and you can’t write it off as a business expense, it can be argued that you’re not using your money wisely. Consolidate debt if you have a high credit card balance. Debt Consolidation loan is a personal loan that allows you to consolidate many other debts into one.
Your Debt Consolidation loan may have a lower interest rate than the rate you are paying on credit cards, so the loan should reduce your interest payments and help you eliminate your credit card debt and you should be able to reduce your total monthly payments.
Track your expenses and create a budget
Keep a record of your expenses and take a critical look at how much you make and how much you spend. It’s crucial to take a critical look at your expenses. Write down everything you spend your money on for a month and try to be as detailed as possible and track all of your small purchases. Assign each purchase or expenditure a category such as: Rent, Car insurance, Car payments, Phone Bill, Cable Bill, Utilities, Gas, Food, Entertainment, etc. Then Break expenses into two categories, fixed and variable. Fixed expenses are those that stay relatively the same each month and are required parts of your way of living. They included expenses such as your mortgage or rent, car payments, cable and/or internet service, trash pickup, credit card payments and so on.
Variable expenses will change from month to month and include items such as groceries, gasoline, entertainment, eating out and gifts to name a few. This category will be important when making adjustments.