Money-saving tips

So my sister-inlaw ( i think thats what she would be, she is my brother-inlaws wife) anyway she has a blog and she posted about money-saving. She has two kids and one on the way. I figured that i should prob. look into this money-saving thing being we are going to be adding a new set of feet in our house soon. I am really bad at money saving so is david, its just been us for so long that we just buy whatever we want whenever we want it.. So i starting looking around the web. I found some tips that i think are handy.. feel free to add a comment with other ideas and tips. i will update this when i find other things i think are neat ways to save money...




Make your own gifts instead of buying stuff from the store. You can make food mixes, candles, bread, cookies, soap, and all kinds of other things at home quite easily and inexpensively. These make spectacular gifts for others because they involve your homemade touch, plus quite often they’re consumable, meaning they don’t wind up filling someone’s closet with junk. Even better - include a personal handwritten note with the gift. This will make it even more special than anything you could possibly buy down at the mall, plus it saves you money.

Master the thirty day rule. Whenever you’re considering making an unnecessary purchase, wait thirty days and then ask yourself if you still want that item. Quite often, you’ll find that the urge to buy has passed and you’ll have saved yourself some money by simply waiting. If you want, you can even keep a “thirty day list” where you write down the item and the day you’ll reconsider it, but I prefer just to keep this one in my head - that way, I often just forget about the unimportant things.

Don’t spend big money entertaining your children. Most children, especially young ones, can be entertained very cheaply. Buy them an end roll of newspaper from your local paper and let their creativity run wild. Make a game out of ordinary stuff around the house, like tossing pennies into a jar, even. Realize that what your children want most of all is your time, not your stuff, and you’ll find money in your pocket and joy in your heart.

Make a quadruple batch of a casserole. Casseroles are nice, easy dishes to prepare, but on busy nights, it’s often still easier to just order some take-out or eat out or just plop a prepackaged meal in the oven. Instead, the next time you make a casserole, make four batches of it and put the other three in the freezer. Then, the next time you need a quick meal for the family, grab one of those batches and just heat it up - easy as can be. Even better, doing this allows you to buy the ingredients in bulk, making each casserole cheaper than it would be ordinarily - and far, far cheaper than eating out or trying a prepackaged meal.

Challenge yourself to try making your own things. homemade breadmaking actually much cheaper, healthier, and tastier than buying a loaf from the store.

Do holiday shopping right after the holidays. Most people use this technique for Christmas, but it works for every holiday. Wait until about two days after a holiday, then go out shopping for items you need that are themed for that day. Get a Mother’s Day card for next year the day after Mother’s Day. Get Easter egg decorating kits the day after Easter. Get wrapping paper and cards and such the day after Christmas. The discounts are tremendous, and you can just put this stuff in the closet until next year, saving you a bundle.

Create a visual reminder of your debt. Basically, just make a giant progress bar that starts with the amount of debt you have and ends with zero. Each time you pay down a little bit, fill in a little more of that progress bar. Keep this reminder in a place where you’ll see it often, and keep filling it in regularly. It keeps your eyes on the prize and leads you straight to debt freedom.

Invest in a deep freezer. A deep freezer, after the initial investment, is a great bargain. You can use it to store all sorts of bulk foods, which enables you to pay less per pound of it at the market. Even better, you can store lots of meals prepared in advance, enabling you to just go home and pop something homemade (and cheap) in the oven.

Start a garden. Gardening is an inexpensive hobby if you have a yard. Just rent a tiller, till up a patch, plant some plants, keep it weeded, and you’ll have a very inexpensive hobby that produces a huge amount of vegetables for you to eat at the end of the season. I like planting a bunch of tomato plants, keeping them cared for, then enjoying a huge flood of tomatoes at the end of the summer. We like to eat them fresh, can them, and make tomato juice, sauce, paste, ketchup, pasta sauce, and pizza sauce. Delicious (and very inexpensive)!

Make your own items instead of buying them. make own laundry detergent and my own Goo-Gone, for starters. also like making Glade, Windex, and Soft Scrub. In both cases, it’s way cheaper than buying the commercial version. Hunt around for recipes - it’s amazing how many things you can make at home in just a few minutes that saves a ton of money compared to the commercial version.

Agree to limit gift giving. At Christmas our extended family and we go overboard when it comes to gift giving. Agree in advance to limit the gifts and save everybody some money.

Host a toys party. Kids might play with toys for a little while, and then get bored with them. But they're perfectly good toys. To prevent waste, and to save money on getting new toys, invite some friends, family and neighbors to a toys party, asking everyone to bring good toys that they're willing to exchange. Have some food, play games, think up different ways to exchange the toys, and leave with a whole new set of toys, without spending a dime.

Exchange a box with friends. When you notice your kids not playing with toys, just put it in a box in your closet. Ask your close friends to do the same. When the boxes are full, exchange them.

Plan out a weekly menu. This is the best way to ensure that your list is complete, and that you have enough to serve your family dinner for the week. You can plan a weekly menu and then duplicate it for the next week — this way you can shop for two weeks at once. Be sure to plan a leftovers night.

Make a pantry checklist. Make a checklist of everything you normally stock in your pantry. Keep it posted on the pantry. Put a slash next to each item for the number of items you have (if you have two cans of stewed tomatoes, put two slashes). Then, when you use something, turn the slash into an X. This makes it much easier when it comes time to make your list.

Keep your receipts, then enter into a spreadsheet. This will be your price list. Use it so you know when bulk or sale items are a good deal. It's also a great way to comparison shop between stores — buy your baking goods in Store A but your fresh fruits in Store B. The spreadsheet can also serve as a checklist to use when you're compiling your shopping list.

Cut dryer sheets in half to double the value of each box.

Buy your winter clothes at the end of winter/beginning of spring. Buy summer clothing at the end of summer/beginning of fall.
Shop at discount stores like TjMax and Ross.

Start a blog and put Adsense on it. You might only earn 4 cents a week, but it’s something.