Gather Little by Little

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Photo by: .Bala

Each Monday here on Gather Little by Little I write about topics and techniques for saving money. This article is part of that ongoing series called Monday Saving Monday.

Last week I decided to change things up a bit and instead of me sharing a money savings tip, I asked readers of Gather Little by Little to share theirs, and did they ever! Some blogged theirs and many others added comments, overall I received 41 tips for saving money. A sincere thanks to everyone that responded!

Here’s everyone tips pulled together into one big tips post!

• Emily shared the following: “Well, this isn’t a very healthy tip, but one thing way I like to save money when I go out to eat is to eat at a Mexican restaurant. I fill-up on the chips and salsa and then order a $2 quesadilla for my meal. (even when I spend more money on a meal, inevitably I’m already close to full anyway from all the chips!) I rarely spend more than just a few dollars if I get a drink plus tip. Like I said, it’s not very healthy to eat mostly chips and salsa for dinner, but it sure it GOOD! I’m also not afraid to eat dinner before I go out and then enjoy the chips and salsa as a “dessert.” So when my friends all get together, I’m the first to suggest Mexican!“
• The Personal Financier shared a post about Saving money by keeping your finances organized.
• Daniel shared 10 tips for saving a few dollars:
  1. Eat less prepared foods and make things from scratch. This is easier if one stays home while another works, but can be applied by everyone. For example, you can get 10 times the breakfasts out of oatmeal than you can out of cereals. Better for you, too. Frozen dinners vs. home made are similarly more costly.
  2. When you work, bring your lunch rather than eat out. You save $5 to $10 a day by doing this, which adds up to $35 a week, and $1,750 a year.
  3. Pay all of your bills on time and never overdraw your account. Those late fees and overdraft fees add up in a hurry.
  4. Shop for kid’s clothes both at thrift stores and garage sales. You can get amazingly high quality things barely worn for 5-10% of retail. This is especially true for little kids, who grow so fast used clothes are almost always barely worn.
  5. Entertainment discounts - Use coupons or an entertainment book to cut your overall entertainment bill in half without any sacrifice at all. This also encourages you to try different restaurants and entertainment options.
  6. Get DVDs at the library, not the video store. You can generally request titles and pick them up for your movie night. You can’t really beat free entertainment. As a bonus, you don’t feel guilty if you end up not watching all of a movie you don’t like. After all you didn’t pay for it, did you?
  7. Go to movie theaters which allow you to bring in snacks from outside. Just ask, a lot of them do now.
  8. Make coffee at home, don’t get it at Starbucks or even McDonalds. It’s pennies a cup versus dollars.
  9. Learn to like water.
  10. Eat less meat and cheese and more veggies.
• INDEBTNESS shared a post he had written about what to do with junk mail. While not directly related to money savings, it sure can reduce temptation in your life, which can certainly save money!
• Megan from Sermons in Stones shared a few tips via some articles from her blog: I See Big Money in Your Future!, Think before you buy, and “The power of impulse saving”.
• Keith from Spend on Life said: “Buy everything with cash. I love my debit card. It makes it easy to go about my business but I used to carry no cash, only my card. By switching to buying everything with cash, I am able to budget myself much easier. I know I have a certain amount in my wallet to last for a certain period of time and I can see it going down as I spend it.”
• Bob from ChristianPF.com shared this tip: “I think one of the things that has saved me the most money is being a do-it-yourselfer… There are so many things from building a headboard, to growing a garden, to doing your own car maintenance that can save you a ton of money. I also find that even as a beginner I can often do a better job than some people who I would pay to do the job.”
• Matt from freesand.com gave this tip on heating and cooling: “Save money on heat and AC by only heating/cooling the room you’re in with a window AC unit or space heater. It much cheaper to only heat/cool one room vs. your whole house. Window ACs are hard to move around so just put it in the room you spend the most time in during the warm months. My wife and I put one in our bedroom for those nights when it’s so hot you can’t get to sleep. For the winter we wear more clothes and sit under blankets, they’re much cheaper than heating the whole house (especially ours which leaks like a sieve).”
• Tonni from The Geezers on Talbot shares The truth about juice
• Kelli from money.co.uk gave us 3 easy money saving tips:
  1. I use my debit card more often
  2. Keep 20% of my salary away and forget about it. This has helped me a lot during emergencies.
  3. I prefer cooking at home rather than going to restaurants
• Trent Hamm from The Simple Dollar gave this great suggestion: “If you’re about to have a kid - especially if you’re going to have more than one - ask for some high-quality cloth diapers as baby shower gifts - we use bumGenius. A high quality cloth diaper is as easy to use as a disposable and reduces the cost per diaper use from about 20 cents to about half a cent. Since you’ll change a few thousand diapers on each child, that’s a whole lot of savings. Plus, the bumGenius diapers are high-quality enough that they have some online resell value after you’re done with kids.”
• Vincci from Pink Ponders shared a post about 10 tips she follows.
• Ms Money Savvy linked to 5 posts she wrote on various money saving topics: Six Ways to Save on Healthcare, Fabulous Yet Frugal Travel, Why Pay More if You Don’t Have to?, Just Ask!, and Five Ways to Save on Car Insurance
• Nicole from Breaking Even wrote a few posts during Earth week that she contributed: Your Complete Guide To Composting and Five Ways To Cut Down On Energy Use. She also said “I try to have whole commerce-free days where I don’t buy anything. I’ll be posting on that this weekend.”
• Foxie from Dreaming of Ferraris tells us to Focus On ‘Can,’ Not ‘Should’. Her post focuses more about the mentality of saving rather than specific tips. Good stuff!

Did you miss out on sharing your tip or tips last week? No problem, just add a comment below or write an article on your blog. I’ll be more than glad to continue adding your tips.

Photo by: echiner1

For those of you that have been reading my Sunday lyrics postings for while, will know that I am a huge fan of Casting Crowns. I’ve featured their music and lyrics here on Gather Little by Little a few times. I find their combination of vocals, music and meaningful lyrics to be the essence of my favorite Christian music.

The song and lyrics for this week is I am every man by Casting Crowns. The song reminds us that regardless of your situation, regardless of who you are and where you are in life, their is hope. Jesus is the hope, for every man, women, and child.

Below are the lyrics to I am every man from their album Altar and the Door and you can listen to the song here on YouTube.

I’m the man with all I’ve ever wanted
All the toys and playing games
I am the one who pours your coffee, corner booth each Saturday
I am your daughter’s favorite teacher
I am the leader of the band
I sit behind you in the bleachers
I am every man

I’m the coach of every winning team and still a loser in my mind
I am the soldier in the airport facing giants one more time
I am the woman shamed and haunted by the cry of unborn life
I’m every broken man, nervous child, lonely wife

Is there hope for every man
A solid place where we can stand
In this dry and weary land
Is there hope for every man
Is there love that never dies
Is there peace in troubled times
Someone help me understand
Is there hope for every man

Seems there’s just so many roads to travel, it’s hard to tell where they will lead
My life is scarred and my dreams unraveled
Now I’m scared to take the leap
If I could find someone to follow who knows my pain and feels the weight
The uncertainty of my tomorrow, the guilt and pain of yesterday

There is hope for every man
A solid place where we can stand
In this dry and weary land
There is hope for every man
There is Love that never dies
There is peace in troubled times
Will we help them understand?
Jesus is hope for every man

Photo by: jtstewart

The following is a guest post by That One Caveman from One Caveman’s Financial Journey, where he writes about his life, his family’s financial struggles and successes, and the various tools and tricks he employs to eliminate his debt. If you like what you read, make sure you head over and subscribe to his blog!

“I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other god but me.”

- Exodus 20:2-3 (New Living Translation)

For a country supposedly dominated by Christians, the United States of America is a decidedly polytheistic culture that rarely seems to even casually think about the “One God” we allegedly serve. In fact, we resemble ancient Greece far more than the monotheistic people we claim to be.

The ancient Greeks lived their lives ruled by arrogant and bored gods who rested upon Mount Olympus and who occasionally came down among the people to stir up trouble and make mischief. These immortals controlled the day-to-day actions of their pawns in the world and would regularly withhold blessings if something in their temple wasn’t up to their exacting standards. Each had his own distinctive personality, specialized skills, and notable predilections; to the Greeks, these gods were real beings, not just abstractions or ideas.

The modern American probably doesn’t believe that these beings still sit upon Mount Olympus, but don’t for a second consider that it is because we’ve become more sophisticated or knowledgeable as a species. No, we stopped believing in those gods only because we found new and more curious ones to have faith in. Mount Olympus was replaced by the tall, steel crags of the towers of Wall Street; Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, Athena and all the other lesser gods were supplanted by Buffett, Trump, Oprah, and Gates, among others; and the almighty Zeus has transformed into his modern-day form known as Bernanke. And where ambrosia used to keep the gods alive, our modern gods now consume endless amounts of the nectar known by the names of Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, and the ever-popular Benjamin.

These gods and their day-to-day actions drive our lives through unseen transactions, uncaring corporations, uncontrolled spending, and unintended consequences. The gods and their little games have brought us the rollercoaster rides known as the “Enron accounting scandal,” the “tech bubble,” and the “sub-prime mortgage debacle.” And what’s surprising to note is that even though these gods we have chosen have brought us nothing but pain, suffering, shrinking retirement accounts, and debt up to our noses, we continue to worship these fickle lords in the hope that one day they will show us favor yet again. It makes about as much sense as begging to Zeus day after day to bring rain in the middle of a 5-year drought.

And not only have we replaced our gods with money and money movers; we also traded our heroes for the same. We, the little people, no longer need Heracles to fight for us since we have Capital One in our wallets protecting us from the Nordic raiders. When the bi-weekly salary harvest falls short, we can always call upon the gods of plastic to pay for our addictions of choice. We chase money and debt like they’re our best friends while ignoring what really matters.

America is owned, controlled, enslaved, abused, and confused by the ever-less-almighty dollar.

So what happened to “You must not have any other god but me.”? Why does he enter the picture only for one hour in one day each week or so? Why do we only show up just to pay a minor tribute to him in the currency of our other gods?

Is it that we only concerned in what we can see and touch and have lost our capacity to believe in what we cannot quantify? We willingly give away our money to hare-brained schemes in futile attempts to get rich quick, we spend our life savings on gas for our fuel-unconscious SUVs, and we toil for endless hours in the rat race only to come out behind. We waste our lives and our money on things that don’t matter, but when we’re faced with the one rule God thought was so important that he listed it first we fall flat on our faces.

Our priorities have been confused and shuffled behind our backs and we are none the wiser. We allowed the Wall Street Journal to take the place of our Bible and the annual reports of Berkshire Hathaway to be our guiding sermon series. Matthew 6:24 reminds us that we cannot serve both God and money and it’s clear we’ve made our choice. Our treasures are stored in our 401(k) where compounding interest means more than interest in God’s plan.

Maybe it’s time that we take a much-needed step back and examine ourselves closely. Can we honestly call ourselves Christian if we can’t handle having just one god and that one being the One God? We could be dangerously close to crossing the unseen threshold from which we may not be allowed to return; we could fall into permanent disfavor and yet we continue to test God’s patience. We need to take an inventory of our remaining redeeming qualities and let them be our focus. If we continue to allow Yen, Euros, and Dollars to guide our every action, we will eventually be held accountable for our failure to live up to God’s plan and our refusal to live by God’s rules.

We have invited that fateful golden calf to return and rule over us again. If we are to return to blessability, we will have to abandon our false gods and allow God to be our One again. We must leave our polytheistic tendencies at the base of our modern-day Mount Olympus and instead worship the One who inscribed his rules on stone tables at the summit of Mount Sinai.