5 Simple ways I save money
By glblguy
Photo by: HowdeeDoodat
This is a guest post by Jaushwa who blogs about “his journey through money management and investing” at Krazology. If you enjoyed this article, make sure you head over and subscribe!
I wasn’t sure exactly what to write for this article. I take it as an honor to write on this blog and I wanted it to be good. Since many of the good topics are all ready covered so well, I decided to put in my own unique twist. I decided to write about what I personally do to save money in order to separate as far as possible the amount I earn and the amount I spend.
Fix Your Own Car
I was out today swapping my rear brake pads and rotors for a new set I bought online for about one third of what it would cost at the dealer. So the parts cost me less then a shop or stealership (what back yard mechanics like me call dealerships) would charge me. Instead of spending $70-$120 per hour for labor, I didn’t spend anything and learned some cool stuff too.
Buy a Used Vehicle With Low MPG
I’m in the process of this right now. I own a used BMW which I paid for in full when I bought it. I only get 20 mpg average though. I’m in the process right now of selling my Bimmer and buying something a little more economical, inexpensive but also a quality vehicle.
Do Not Pay Credit Card Interest
If you have credit card debt, transfer the balance to a card with a 0% introductory rate. Often this won’t cost you money, if it does, sit down and do the math to find out if the balance transfer is worth it in the long run. Of course this is assuming you won’t take advantage of this new found zero balance on your old credit card and decide to exercise your credit freedom.
This past year I paid off over 10K in credit card debt and didn’t pay a dime of interest. This may hurt your credit score a bit, but I’m not trying to make any large purchases in the near future. This gives me time for some credit repair.
Do It Yourself
If your making 20 dollars an hour and it’s going to cost you 50 dollars for Best Buy to install your new Ethernet card into your computer, spend an hour on the internet. Find out how to install it yourself, spend a half hour installing it and you just saved yourself 20 dollars. 1 ½ hours of your time equals 30 dollars, not spending fifty dollars equals 20 dollars saved. And next time, it will only take you ten minutes to install instead of 1 ½ hours. I pretty much live my life by this; especially with things I enjoy doing, like fixing my computer or working on my car.
Analyze Your Monthly Expenses
What can I do to minimize my monthly expenses? I recently decided to sell my current vehicle and purchase a more economical one in order to save over 100 dollars per month in gas. My girlfriend recently decided to downgrade her cable, saving her 20 dollars a month. Over the long haul this turns into thousands and reinvested into your retirement could turn that money into hundreds of thousands.
From Glblguy: What do you do to save money? Share your tips and tricks!
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:56 am
A few things I do:
Cut my own grass. Besides, I need the exercise.
Plan my own vacations. My experience is that most travel agents DO NOT find you the best deal. I’ve had to find it for them. They’re paid on the gross sale, anyone see a conflict of interest here?
Do my own home repairs. It’s a lot easier than you think and instruction is easy to find.
Stay away from temptation. For me, it’s everywhere, but mostly bookstores, computer stores, electronics stores, sporting goods stores…
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
Do it yourself is a great way to save money, and as pointed out an even greater way to learn in the process. I like the advise about cutting your own grass and needing the exercise. There are many books and web sites that have good information in helping you do almost anything. Even learning to be an effective financial adviser. When it comes to saving money we are more interested in our money than anyone we could hire.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 am
As we have just recently entered the world of getting control of our finances, one of the first things we done was to look for ways to save money. These are all great tips, some that we have used and discussed as well.
As was stated, there is value in learning the process as well. For example, if you research and install your own car stereo and absolutely love it, this could be a way to help a friend and earn some extra money.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Don’t forget to do monthly budgeting as well. It is part of saving money program. You will know before hand how much you are going to spend for the month plus some emergency standby. If you made it then you have some surplus to save.
Pay yourself first is also the first step.
Cheers
February 24th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Well, hello everybody.
This is my first time here and I just wanted to say first off that that was an excellent article and this is an excellent website. That being said, I have a big tip of my own that I use to save money everyday.
I don’t use any credit or check cards.
Simple as that. All the transaction I make, I do with either cash or checks. The only transactions I do electronically are bill payments, and funding my IRA/brokerage. I mean, getting cash is clearly a pain-in-the-butt. Who wants to go to the ATM all the time? So never using credit makes you think twice b4 purchasing. Because you know you’re about to run out of cash, and have to go back to the ATM.
Another thing I do, which has probably been talked about a lot already on this site, is paying myself first. Whenever I get $$, I always put as much as I possibly can (and never less than 15% of net) in a special account which I use to systematically fund my IRA/brokerage accounts; like, David Bach, Automatic Millionaire-style : )
February 25th, 2008 at 8:51 am
1) Eat at home – my wife, who stays at home, is an excellent cook, so this one is easy for us. Even if you use coupons or eat at cheap places, the cost of eating out is easily 5-10 times as much as the same meal at home. Of course there are health benefits, too.
2) Bring your lunch to work – When my wife and I were talking marriage, she asked why I never had any money. I looked at my bank account and realized that, among other money wasters, I was spending about $2-3K per year on lunches, $5 to $8 at a time. Now, either a sandwhich or good leftovers (see #1) is as good as a nice raise from the boss for me.
3) For entertainment, go where the bargans are, rather than choose the place then searching for the bargans. – That is, if you are determined to go to a movie and then you look for a coupon or a good deal, you may find one or you may not. However if your goal is just to go out with loved ones or friends and you aren’t set on one activity, search for deals and then choose from them. Not only is it far easier to do things cheaply (or free!) this way, it also forces you to broaden your experiences trying new things.
4) Go to church – Why is this on here? Often spending money is a search for fulfillment in your life. Rather than chasing after the wind, you should fill yourself up with what is truly important, and suddenly all the stuff you thought you you couldn’t live without buying or doing, you realize you can.
God bless,
Dan
November 1st, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Good point about analyzing expenses. It’s really the first step to finding out where your money is going and it can be shocking to find out what you’re really spending your money on.