Money Saving Tips

[Smokey B]

I'm always a big fan of cutting costs on many unwanted expenses. The
more tips on how you can save, the better everything else is!

Here are some of the following ones I'm actually using, and the amount
of money I've been saving is incredible. They're mostly random ideas
and they're not in any particular order.

1. Obviously, setup a budget. Thanks to you guys, I love using
expensr for that purpose. Just by visually seeing what you spent,
helps you quickly pick out all the little things that add up quickly.
2. This one is a combo:
A) Once I had all my financial affairs properly filter out, I started
to follow the rule of 60, 10, 10 ,10 and of course, 10! Basically
take 60% of your monthly paycheque and budget that out for all your
expenses. Rent, Transportion, Groceries, etc. Next, 10% should go
into your retirement savings, you're gonna need that cash! 10% Should
go into long term savings. This is emergency money in case everything
goes wrong and you need quick access to real money. 10% more should
go into short term savings, say 1 to 6 months worth of savings, then
you'd be surprised what toys you can afford! Then last 10% should be
your fun money! Enjoy life while you can ;) Of course, this won't
work for everyone, so feel free to shuffle the numbers around until
they do, just stick with em once you do. Sometimes you can even cut
out the short term savings for now until you can fit it in.
B) For part two, this is integrated with expensr. I removed all the
categories and changed them all to Expense, Retirement, Long Term
Savings and Short Term Savings. Using their budget tool, I just set
in the limit to each of their respective percentage. Now I can get a
visual look and/or warning to see if I'm not following my own advice!

3. I stopped buying books and got myself a library card. I noticed
I've been speanding upwards to $200 a month on books, when I can
easily get most of these from the library. Sure, I don't get to own
each copy, but that's a sacrefice I'm willing to make. If the book is
absolutely amazing, then I still may buy it, but at least I get a free
sneak preview.

4. Cut out that coffee. Actually, I drink tea, but I would head to
the coffee shop every morning and after lunch. That's $1.50 a tea and
$3.00 a day. That's upwards to $60 month! (I know, I'm a math
genius.) What do I discover though? A box of tea for $3.00 total
that will last me the entire month! Cha-ching! More savings for me.

5. Bag your lunch. Of course, that's pretty obvious too, but I've
quickly discovered that the price of one take out lunch can easily
feed you for a week and still be pretty delicious.

6. Cancel your cable. I had the super deluxe cable package, just for
the shear fact of status, of having all those channels. Well, ya know
what, there's nothing on TV!!! I find I just flip though all the
channels the same way I did with a lower package. Even the movie
channels sucked because they were usually playing crappy movies. So,
I really didn't cancel my cable, but I drop the extreme package and
also a $50 expense.

7. Oh yeah! Pay off that debt! Sacrifice a few months of not having
much fun and pay more than the minimun payment on any debt you have.
Get rid of it. All those micro-payments add up and you'll notice the
differnece once you're not paying them anymore! This one is the most
important one of them all. So what can you do in these next few
months without going out, or watching tv/movies? Get outside! Take a
walk! Call a friend and play some catch. Being outside is one of the
best time wasters. Suddenly you'll have tons of extra dough and
you're being physically active, but that's another life hack we'll
have to talk about in another chapter ;)

[Gina Trapani @ Lifehacker]

Smokey this is a great post. I'd like to post it to Lifehacker.com.
Mind if I quote you?

--
Gina Trapani
Editor
http://lifehacker.com

Order Lifehacker the book:
http://lifehackerbook.com

[Smokey B]

Hey Gina,

Feel free to use this post as you like. I don't mind being quoted at
all :)

On Oct 2, 7:51 pm, "Gina Trapani @ Lifehacker"

<lifehacker.edi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Smokey this is a great post. I'd like to post it to Lifehacker.com.
> Mind if I quote you?
>

> Editorhttp://lifehacker.com

[samhealer]

Gina (and Smokey, of course)
I notice you haven't posted it to the site yet. Maybe you could also
advertise the group again with this post?
Shows that suggestions are being read, listened to, etc.

Just a thought

Sam

> > Order Lifehacker the book:http://lifehackerbook.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Gina Trapani @ Lifehacker]

On 10/5/07, samhealer <samh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I notice you haven't posted it to the site yet. Maybe you could also
> advertise the group again with this post?

Good idea. I'm queuing up this post for tomorrow, and will re-mention
the group in the post. Thanks Sam and Smokey. :)

--
Gina Trapani
Editor

[dave...@gmail.com]

One money-saving hack I really like is doing a simple web search for
"›web site name‹ coupon code" when you're about to make an online
purchase. I find that over 50% of the time I find a site that has a
valid coupon code that I can apply to my purchase and save a few
bucks. I just did that with an order from yesasia.com and got $5 off
my order, and when I signed up for my iStockPhoto.com account, I found
links that gave me a bunch of free photo downloads and 20% off my
purchase of credits.

Regarding cancel the cable, I've found that most of the major network
shows this season are available for streaming via their web sites. If
you just have a show or two that you're interested in, you can easily
get away with simply watching it online.

[ed samir fonseca]

Retailmenot.com is especially good for that :)