More Money Savings

One thing that I've learned through reading all the "tips and tricks" from others, is that, when saving money, not everything applies. So here are some tips that apply to us, hopefully some of them apply to you too!

**Lowest cell phone plan - Make sure that you're not spending more money that you have to. Check your bill and see if you can cut your minutes, text messages, etc.

**No home phone - For the most part, there's no reason to have a home phone. If you do need one, shop around and make sure you're getting the best plan. There is so much competition with plans, it's not worth it to stay with your current plan just for convenience.

**No cable TV - There are so many other things you can do with your time. Having a TV on can be distracting and dissuading. Sometimes I felt I "needed" to finish watching a TV show instead of finishing laundry or dusting the furniture. We've started collecting TV series DVDs so that the shows we love, we can watch anytime. It's much cheaper than cable. - Just to be fair, we haven't given it up yet, but I have a plan (in my budget) to cancel it in September.

**Budget - I've talked about this before, but I'll say it again, "If you don't know where you're money is going, you'll never get ahead."

**Give 10% - Giving to others is a wonderful way to save money. If you're focused on others, you don't need as much for yourself.

**Save 10% - Giving to yourself is important also. You have to save to get ahead. If you keep living paycheck to paycheck and have no way to deal with emergencies that come up, you'll just get into (more) debt.

**Lessen eating out - We're still working on this one, but I'm trying to get us down to just one meal out a month. The more you eat out (even fast food costs $3-10 per person) the more money you're wasting. I can make our meals at home for less than $1 to $2 per serving.

These final tips are more about being healthy than they are about saving money but I thought I would share anyway.

**No/less convenience food - Don't buy boxes, mixes, fresh or frozen doughs, or already made corn bread, oatmeal, cookies, tomato sauce/pizza sauce, bread, rolls, muffins, pizza dough. This can sometimes be more expensive because with coupons and sales processed, convenience foods can be next to nothing or even free. But it is healthier to know (and control) exactly what goes into what you're making.

**Make food from scratch - Use more fresh ingredients and whole foods. If the label has more than five ingredients or you cannot pronounce an ingredient on the label, the item is most likely not healthy and highly processed.

**Using organic - This is definitely far from saving money (as a note it is four times the price for organic milk than for non-organic milk), but eating less pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics is better for your body. It is more natural and healthier to eat certified organic food. Think about this, if you were making this food yourself in a garden or on a farm, would you use these things (pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics)?

Check back for more tips in the future.