Save your savings

saving_money

I love the challenge of finding the best price on something I’m going to buy. I needed new light bulbs for my saltwater aquarium yesterday. The initial price I found was around $40.00 per bulb. After a 1/2 hour or so reading through some forums, I found a site that carried the same bulb for $26.00. That’s a savings of $14.00 per bulb. I needed 4 of them equating to an overall savings of $56.00!

Frugal family time at the national park

bridgeMe with my kids in Cataloochee Valley

Last Sunday afternoon, my wife and I decided we needed some quality family time together. We wanted to so something inexpensive with the kids. I pulled up Google and within a few minutes found a place in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park called Cataloochee. Turns out it’s only about 20 minutes from our house so we decided to give it a try.

25 uses for dryer sheets

Money Saving MondayWelcome again to Money Saving Monday here on Gather Little by Little. Here’s another list of creative uses for dyer sheets courtesy of my wife and her mom’s forums. As with my 15 uses for coffee filters, I don’t have the original source to site. Here’s 25 uses for dryer sheets:

  1. Dusting: used dryer sheets can knock the dust off nearly any surface, including furniture, blinds, car interiors, baseboards/molding. Also works for on saw dust and drywall compound.

Save money on insurance

insurance-logo

I’ve been with State Farm insurance for more than 23 years and I’ve even had the same agent. While I would consider myself very loyal to them, I still get quotes from other insurance companies just to make sure I’m still getting the best deal. Insurance is expensive, but fortunately also a very competitive industry. As with anything, it can pay to shop around.

A number of web-sites have emerged on the web that allow you to comparison shop your insurance. Once such company that I decided to try out is 01Insurance.com. 01Insurance states that they work with The Hartford, MetLife, Interboro Insurance, Travelers, Progressive, AIG, and GMAC Insurance.

15 Uses for Coffee Filters

coffee_filters

My wife is a member of a number of “Mom’s forums” on the internet and often is privy to all kinds of creative tips. She’ll occasionally send some over for me to use here on Gather Little by Little. She recently sent me 15 uses for coffee filters and thought I would share them with you. I’d site the original author, but unfortunately not sure who it is:

  1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.
  2. Clean windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so they’ll leave windows sparkling.

Deals of the day sites

woot

Like most of you, I love finding great deals. I’ve been a fan of Woot for a good two years and have bought a number of items from Woot.

Deals of the day sites like Woot that feature a single item for an incredibly low price really offer a significant and easy way to save some considerable cash. For example, I bought my wife a Pentax digital camera that Woot had on sale a week or so before Christmas. Using Woot, I saved myself more than $40.00.

Move to a rural area

Want a great money saving tip? Move to a rural area. I knew when we moved that it would save us money, but honestly it seems to be saving us more than I anticipated as we’ve had some unexpected savings. Here are just a few of the savings we’ve encountered so far:

  • Lower gas prices – Gas prices where we live now are on average about 20 cents less expensive per gallon. While we don’t drive a whole lot, the vehicles we do have don’t get great gas mileage.

Don't buy a dog

As many of you know, we recently moved to the mountains. When we lived in the city, we had two dogs: a 10 year old Golden Retriever and a Pomeranian. Both were outside dogs for the most part. Of course during the winter they spent the evenings in our garage with a heater. I am highly allergic to dogs, so unfortunately they couldn’t come inside. The retriever we bought as an outside dog. The Pomeranian we saved from death…but that’s another story.

That's our list and we're sticking to it

This article is part of an ongoing series called Money Saving Monday. Each Monday, I share tips and techniques you can use to start saving money.

Now that we’re getting settled into the new house we’ve begun to explore the area a bit and locate the various stores and restaurants, unfortunately the closest grocery store is 20 minutes away as is the closest decent hardware/home store. The least expensive grocery store is 25 minutes away.

We’ve been spoiled. In our old home, we were 5 minutes from three different grocery stores and about 10 minutes to two diffeent hardware/home stores. When we decided we needed something, we just hoped in the car real quick and went and got.

Package deals – a great way to save money

Last week I had to make phone calls to start our new power, phone, internet, and satellite television service. The power provider is a small rural utility cooperative founded as part of the New Deal’s Rural Electrification Administration. Phone service and DSL is provided by Bellsouth/ATT. I wasn’t sure of satellite options, but knew at least DirectTV and Dish Network were options.

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