Money-saving tips and strategies

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

Learn to cook for yourself. You will save a LOT of money this way. For the price of one Bacon Egg N' Cheese biscuit + coffee, I bought a pack of organic pancake mix, a small carton of milk, and some eggs. Just one batch of pancakes lasted for nearly a week! And I'm not even a quarter of the way done with the mix!

I cook my own lunch and dinner too, and eat the leftovers on the following days.

This is so true. Also, it's healthier to cook for yourself than it is to eat out.

I've talked about this before, but the thing that has helped my husband and me more than anything else we've done is paying for everything with cash. And I mean EVERYTHING (with the exception of power bills, phone bills, mortgage, etc., which we pay with checks). At first it was a little scary always carrying cash around, but after doing it for two years now I feel much more confident.

When you pay with cash, as opposed to a credit card or debit card, and you can actually see your little stash of money getting smaller with each purchase, trust me, you WILL spend less money than you do with plastic.

We have this whole sophisticated envelope system where, each payday, we stuff envelopes labeled "groceries," "gas," "haircuts," "clothing," etc. When we use all the money in the envelope, we don't spend any more in that category until the next pay period. Honestly, the first six months were the hardest, both psychologically and logistically, what with trying to figure out how much we really needed in each category.

Doing this, we have paid off ALL of our credit cards and a huge chunk of our other debts (way more than we would have paid off before going to this system). It's been really tough, but it's the best thing we ever did. Now, when I need to go to the dentist or whatever, I just go to the safe and pull out my little envelope labeled "dentist," which I have been putting money into every pay period for however many months, and off I go.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by ElectricSheep

I stick with my debit card as the deduction is immediate, and there is no fee through my bank. Before I even walk out the door, I make sure I know how much of my balance is available for me to spend. This includes deducting any pending debits (Checks, Charges) which have yet to impact my account. I don't factor pending deposits at all, since they are of no use until they actually clear.

Using my debit card also makes tracking expenses by category easier. My Bank (PNC) records the location of the purchase, so I don't have to worry if I lose a receipt; I can deduce what the category was based on where the purchase was made.

That's all very true. I'm just saying that for some people, being able to literally watch your money pile getting smaller with every purchase helps them to spend less money.

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Estimating a budget/category can be difficult for things you aren't explicitly billed for. I'm still gathering data before I can cut an accurate estimate of my monthly expenses per category. For example, I was budgeting about $100 ($25 per week) on gas. Looking back the past three months, I'm spending closer to $54 ($27 every two week) on gas.

It's THE most difficult thing about setting a budget, in my opinion, which is why it took us almost half a year to get our envelopes right so that we weren't running out mid-pay period with some of them and having money left over in others. Once we got it figured out, though, it was smooth sailing.

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I know one girl who is estimating that once she gets a car she'll spend $400 a month on Gas. I told her that was way overblowing that number, but she won't listen. At most, she'll likely spend $120 a month on gas.

That depends on what kind of car she gets and how much she drives. We spend $550 a month on gas, and that's just my car. My husband has a company car and the gas is on them, so we don't even have to pay for that.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It's a Toyota 4Runner, but I drive about 50 miles a day. So sad. So many books on tape.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Well, that's just to work and back. I'm always running around everywhere with kids.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

How did you decide to divide everything up? I mean, it took you only 6 months to know how much you needed?

Well, what we did was we estimated what we thought we were spending in each category and started with that figure, but for five or six months we kept running out of money in certain envelopes way too early and having money left over in others. We finally got it figured out, but there are still months when we run out of, say, grocery money before pay day. Now, we actually have a separate envelope for holiday meals that we use for Christmas and Thanksgiving, etc. when we know we're going to be spending more money on groceries. And also, we don't fund every envelope every month. Like that one, for instance. We put like $50 or $75 in it one time and just lock it away until we need to use it.

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Do you own credit card accounts? Do you use plastic at all?

Yes, we both have debit cards (I haven't used mine in almost a year, though) and we each have an American Express card, which I only use when I have to pay for something on Ebay or something like that.

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I am just curious if I should try it all again. I know I could save a LOT more money - I don't have a very expensive lifestyle. I just buy a bunch of BULLSHIT like yarn, cat toys, and uncessary clothing. (Also shoes and bags god i am so dumb)

Honestly, it's a complete pain in the ass to get the system set up and running properly. Once you've figured out how much you really need in each category it's easy, though. I would only recommend doing this if you're very undisciplined with money.

Oh, and we both have an envelope called "Don't Ask" which is basically spending money for stuff we don't budget in (cat toys, yarn, flower bulbs, etc.).

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