Archive for the 'Money Saving Tips' Category

Cutting costs does not necessarily mean cutting lifestyle. If you are living on a budget, you need to get creative with your available discretionary funds. Here are a few ideas for living better without spending a lot of money.

1. A new mattress
Few things in life bring as much peace of mind and basic creature comfort as a good mattress. A quality mattress costs around $1000. Divide by the number of nights of good sleep, and you realize this is an incredible bargain.

2. Yoga
You don’t need to join an expensive gym to reap the rewards of yoga. Spend $20 or less on a yoga mat and try out a few poses you can easily find online. Used regularly, yoga can renew your life at no cost. Your vigor, flexibility, and sense of calm will be unparalleled by investing just a few minutes each day.

3. Learn a language
Buy an inexpensive electronic music player and borrow language CDs from your local library. Transfer the recordings to your portable player and then make listening to your lessons part of your normal routine. If you walk regularly, listen to your new language at the same time. I guarantee your errands will fly if you pretend everyone around you is French!

4. Drink tea
Tea is high in antioxidants and much cheaper per cup than coffee, even if you brew it at home. Tea costs pennies per cup and it is good for you. Give up that expensive coffee habit today and save big over the long run.

5. Read library books
Reading is a great way to expand your horizons but the cost of books can add up quickly. Not to mention the weight they add to any move. Save your dollars and check your reading material out of your local library. Just be sure to return your books on time and avoid late fees.

Credit Card debt can be a pain in the neck and with the holidays now behind us, I know I’m not the only one with a little holiday related debt. Sometimes it can be just too easy to swipe the credit cards and not worry about how you’re going to pay for that sweater for Mom or socks of the brother.

However, now that you’re in a little, or a lot, of debt doesn’t mean you have to be penalized for it. You could keep your debt on high interest credit cards or you could switch them over to a 0% APR credit card that allows you to transfer your balances free of charge. It’s a way for credit cards to get you to bring your debt to them and hopefully not pay it off, or at least use their card instead of a competitors.

So use that to your advantage. I recently happened across a website, quite randomly, at www.BalanceTransfer.cc. They’ve organized all the most current 0% APR credit card offers into a great, easily navigable page(s). They’ve even got a 0% credit card offer blog that can help explain some of the issues with gimmicks and help you save a lot of money in interest.

I’ve noticed also, and had some friends sign up for, discover card 0% intro APR deals that not only save them the pain of paying interest on high debt but also give a little back if they ever decide to manage their debt well and use the card to pay for common purchases (more on that to come).

I’ve used a chase credit card 0% intro APR card that seems to be a great deal but I’m also thinking about going with an American Express credit card because I’ve never had one before and have wanted to have an AE card on hand just in case I’m ever somewhere that I need to use one. Plus they’ve got that cool “blue” card that’s almost see through.

Anyway, the point is, you can save a lot of money if you transfer your credit card debt to a 0% APR credit card. Make sure you don’t have to pay any balance transfer fees (some will sock you $75 or more to just bring your money over), and you’ll be on your way to living debt free in no time.

Some people use sealing fans for show, others use them as a cool refreshing breeze in the summer heat. But did you know that have a ceiling fan running in the winter can keep your heating bill down?

Hot Air Rises. Why do you think you’re supposed to crawl along the ground in case of a fire in your house. The hot smokey air rises and you need to get under it to stay out of trouble for as long as possible. Well now you can put this life saving tip into your money saving tips category as well.

While you’re heating your house the hot air rises to the ceiling. That’s why a lot of homes have cooling units up above and hot air vents on the ground. If you have a ceiling fan you may want to think about turning it on while your heating your house, at a very low setting. That way you’ll keep the hot air circulating and heating up the room faster.

In the end you’ll save money because your furnace won’t have to run as long to keep you warm.

We recently wrote about how you can save money by sealing off rooms in your house from unwanted heating. Keeping heat from getting into rooms you don’t use just makes sense. Why waste the energy and the money.

But what about all the possible leaks you have in the rest of your house. You surely don’t need to be heating the biggest room of them all, the outside!

That’s right, leaks around your doors, your windows, and even in your walls can cause all sorts of unwanted heating to raise your energy bill and loose you some precious dollars.

You can read all about how to stop leaks and seal up your house over at energystar.gov’s sealing tips page.

Many people remember the great “re-gifting” episode on Seinfeld, with the label maker and Elaine. It was a funny episode and, what I thought at the time, killed the re-gifting.

Most people joke about the crazy uncle who re-gifts blatantly and you probably have joked about him before. But what’s so wrong with re-gifting.

Now it depends on what you’re re-gifting. If you’re re-gifting a gift that had sentimental value to the person who gave it to you in the first place, chances are you’re re-gifting wrongly. But what if you really don’t need the label maker. Giving that away to someone who does need it would be reducing not only the clutter in your house but the clutter in landfills and at the same time saving you money.

You don’t have to be ashamed of re-gifting if you do it properly. That’s where this article on re-gifting comes in handy. There are 12 easy tips to help you learn about proper re-gifting.

Here’s a quick little savings tip for all you coffee lovers out there.

Do you stop and get a cup of coffee everyday? Whether it be from Starbucks or McDonald’s all those coffees add up. If you get one cup of coffee every single day of the year, at an average price of $2 per cup, that’s 365 X 2 = $730. Now we know you won’t have a cup everyday, but wherever you get your coffee probably doesn’t cost $2 per cup either. We’re guessing it’s a little more.

Now lets say you instead buy a single coffee cup maker like the one pictured here for $35. Now you buy a pound of Starbucks coffee from your local grocery store, ground, at $12 per ground pound. We’ll now say you can get 30 cups of coffee out of a pound of coffee. Now 365 / 30 = 12.16, So you’ll need 13 bags at the most, 13 X 12 = $156 +35 = $191. 

That means you’ll save $730 - $191 = $539 a year if you just spend the money on a coffee maker.

With the rising costs involved in heating your home you’ll need to figure out as many ways as possible to cut that heating bill.

One way you can save on heating this year is by blocking off rooms that you aren’t using. Why heat a room if you’re never in it. It’s wasted BTU’s which translates into wasted money. Money you could be saving.

To fully block off a room that you never use in your house from sucking up extra energy and raising your heating bill this year you’ll need to first close off any vents in the room. Chances are a little heat will still leak into the room but that’s good, you don’t want to turn it into an ice box.

Next remember to close the door and keep the door closed. Opening and closing a door to a room you never use would really make that a room you do use and it would be pointless to apply this money saving method to that room. But if you don’t use the room you can close the door and even throw a towel down on the floor to stop air from leaking in and out. That’ll keep the heat out and reduce the space you need to heat.

You’ll have to make sure you aren’t doing this in a bathroom you don’t use. I’m unsure if the pipes would really freeze but you can never be too careful. Check with a plumber before closing off rooms with pipes.

Getting a Holiday Bonus this year? Here are 5 places you can spend it that might actually make you wealthier. It’s money you weren’t expecting, so why blow it on something that you’re not going to care about in 3 months. Try these.

1. Pay off a Credit Card
2. Put it in a CD, rates are rising and why not take advantage of free money
3. Open a Stock trading account and learn about stock investing, even $500 can help you get started.
4. Open an IRA account to save for retirement
5. Use it as your Gas fund, only for powering your vehicle

Wanna save a little change on your electricity bill. I’ve written about it before in an energy saving and money saving post. But people never seem to listen. Now that there’s cold weather blanketing most of the United States, and oil prices set to rise. We can all use a little savings tips here and there.

I’ll bring it up again here as I did in that last post but you can save money by using compact flourescent lightbulbs. There has to be at least 5 lightbulbs in your house that you can replace, and we’re guessing a lot more.

Where a sweater and set your thermostat 2 degrees lower. This can save you bundles over the long haul. Now of course if there are health issues that keep you from doing this we don’t encourage you to start using this money saving tip, but if you’ve checked with your doctor and you can set your thermostat lower than you normally do. Do it.

If you aren’t home, keep your temperature way down.

Also, turn off lights when you’re not in a room, or other appliances, especially the TV. With the winter here we watch a lot of TV and even turning the TV off to make a sandwhich or run to the restroom can save you bundles over the course of a season or even a year!

Unplugging unused appliances like DVD players or microwaves or radios, can all save you money in the long run. Using a surge protector in these cases will help because constantly pluggin in and unplugging can cause unwanted sparks, especially in dry winter weather, so do this with caution as well.

But hitting the off button on the stereo you aren’t using for the DVD player is as good as anything and should be done.

Hopefully you’ll be able to save bundles of money and energy during the winter months that you can use to take a much needed vacation to Hawaii.

technorati tags:Money, Saving, Tips, Energy

So I guess I should just fill out those junk mail credit card applicaitons and then throw them away. Rambling News just pointed us to a crazy bit of information about what some credit card companies will accept.

He reported that 3 of 5 credit card companies accepted simply torn up and taped back together applications. More than half! And from big name credit card companies, not just these off the wall, shady mc shadsters.

You should read the rest of the article over at Rambling News about what these companies will accept and why, and then do as he says and buy a shredder.

technorati tags:Credit, Card, Companies, Applications