Easy Ways To Save Money.

This is post that Eric would be proud of.

Jordon Cooper linked to a MSN (they’re still around) article entitled 10 Easy Ways to Save $500 or More. Some of the ideas are really legit and we are even practicing a few of them. I thought it might be a cool little thing to do on the blog. Give a few of my “money-saving” tips. Some people think of me as a tight-wad. Which I don’t really understand because some of my other friends would think of me as an excessive materialist. A label that I would probably agree with. It’s not that I don’t like to spend money. It’s just that if I do actually spend money, I do it on things that I enjoy and that are quality and that will last as opposed to transient trends or cheap stuff.

This is why I don’t buy a lot of clothes. And when I do, I buy solid color shirts and nice jeans. Then wearing the jeans 6 out of the 7 days. Gross right? But what I don’t spend on clothes I spend on tech stuff. I guess I learned this from my parents. Where growing up I wore off brand shoes and clothing, ate generic store brand cereal and poptarts, and kept my old shampoo bottles so that I could refill them with the 5 gallon bucket of shampoo that my parents special ordered from a beauty salon supply store. But what my parents saved by being excessively frugal in those areas afforded them the luxury of having a beach house. It all evens out in the end. So this is no way bragging. We just bought a Vespa afterall. It’s just a few of the ways that Anna and I have chosen to save money in certain areas so that we can use it in other areas. I’m convinced the only reason we have the nice things that we have (house, computers, scooter, cameras, dog(?), etc) is because we’re both penny pinchers in the areas below. And because I’m lucky enough to have a wife who doesn’t care about “things” as much as she cares about us.

Anyway . . . my list.

Be Selective In Your Clothing Purchases: This is the easiest one for me. While the others are much more of a challenge. Try to by clothes that aren’t “trendy” and fashionable for a season. If you shop like that, you’re constantly having to buy a new wardrobe every 4-6 months. Which most of can usually never afford. So we end up buying a “trendy” purse, shirt, pair of jeans, and/or shoes every now and then. A couple of years later we look like a fashion timeline of outdated fashions. Still rocking the Louie V from 5 years ago. Or still believing Birkenstocks are going to come back in style. We end up having a hodge podge collection of outdated stuff that was trendy a couple of seasons ago. This is the thing I’ve learned about fashion. It’s extremely transient. What is cool today will be lame tomorrow. And I know fashion is lame. But let’s be honest, 95% of us want to look half way stylish and nice when we go out. So my recommendation . . . stick to the basics. Stick to what always works. Whether it’s 1980 or 2020. For me, it’s nice jeans and solid colored shirts. Or basic, simple stripes. Or solid color button ups. In this way, I only spend $100 every 6 months or so. I’ll go out and buy some new solid colored shirts and a new pair of jeans to replace the ones with the holes in the knee. And I’m certainly not trying to brag, but I always feel “stylish”. And I do it on less than $250 a year. It also helps to buy things at the end of a season. By your winter clothes at the beginning of the Spring when all of the winter stuff goes on sale. It sits in your closet for 8 months but it’s a whole lot nicer paying $14 for a sweater as opposed to $60. Same for summer clothes. By bathing suits, sandals, and shorts at the end of the summer. For women . . . I’m not sure what to tell you! But again, I think basics and solids are hard to go wrong with.

Conserve Energy: Anna will probably divorce me for this at some point because of my constant nagging. But turn off the lights when you leave the room. Turn off the television and radios when you leave the house. If you’re gone on vacation, turn your air off and your hot water heater down. Try changing the air temperature by just 2 degrees in the winter and the summer and you’ll easily shave $25 off your monthly bill. Wear sweat pants and long sleeves in your house in the winter and knock it down another 2 degrees and you can $400 in one winter. Change out a few light bulbs and you save another $100 or so.

Cut Back On Entertainment: This one is hard for me because I like television, music, movies, and concerts. But if you only go to 2 concerts a year as opposed to 10, you can save another $400. Try renting your DVDs instead of buying them. Most of us buy DVDs on a whim because we like the movie and then rarely ever watch them again. We usually spend between $15-20 on them. But we could rent them 3-4 times for that amount. Try limiting what you see in the theaters. And ultimately, just cut back on media in general. Anna and I went without any television, cable, or satellite for our first year of marriage. Instead we opted for coffee houses, Yahtzee & Backgammon, actual conversation, and movies cuddled in bed. Which is a much better posture than sitting on separate couches anyway. Even now . . . just get basic cable (8 channels) for $15 as opposed to the expanded package for $60+ and you can save another $600. Even if the show you love only comes on cable, you’re still cheaper buying the season on iTunes than you are going with satellite or expanded cable. And music, movies, and television are easy to if you believe in piracy . . . ahem . . . I mean open-source.

Food & Drink: This one is the hardest one for me/us. Us on the food. Me on the drink. We eat out a lot. And every time we do usually spend $20-25 easily. Getting rid of just one of those meals a week saves us $1200 a year! Considering that most times I’ll drink a couple of beers. That adds in as much as $10. Choosing to drink water over a soft drink will save you $150 a year just by substituting 2 soft drinks a week. And sharing meals cuts the price in half. That’s what we call easy math.

These are just a few of the ways that we try to save money so that we can spend/give it in other areas. I recognize that one mans frugality is another man’s excess. I know it’s all about perspective. There are many things that we still buy that we think are frugal but others would think are excessive. And vice versa. This is just an exercise at thinking about what we spend money on and why we do it.

So if you made it this far? What tips do you have? What are areas/ways that you try to save money?

BTW – I think the world would be a whole better place if everyone practiced #2 on their list (wink wink).