As financial slowdown drags on, tips to save money continue to have real relevance for most families. Even if you are fortunate enough to still have a job, your spending habits have likely changed from a few years ago, as everyone has been sensitized to the possibility that cash may be tight for a while yet. I’ve compiled a list of save money tips in the areas of shopping, your finances, and ways to save money by modifying your lifestyle slightly. I hope these help. Feel free to email this list to a friend, and if you have a handy tip for saving money that you’d like to share, I’m sure that all of the regular readers of SaveMoneyTips.org would appreciate it if you would leave it in the comments. Thanks for visiting, and good luck with your efforts to spend less in 2011!
Shopping Saving Money Tips
1) Don’t ever–ever!–make any unplanned purchases at the mall. Shopping may be a form of recreation but making purchases can be downright self-destructive, especially if it’s on an impulse. Family budgeting is vital, and this is your opportunity to impress on your kids just how important saving is.
2) When shopping for groceries, you can save a lot of money by buying generic or store brands, rather than premium branded products, unless coupons save you enough on the premium brands to make them worthwhile. The quality with generics, whether we’re talking saving on coffee, vitamins, orange juice or 100 other items, is usually every bit as good as it is with premium brands, and as you can live without the fancy packaging, using substitutes for expensive retail products is a great tip.
3) It is hardly ever worth it to purchase an extended warranty. Especially when it comes to big-ticket electronics items, have you ever noticed how hard the retailer pushes you to purchase the extended warranty on this rapidly depreciating purchase you have just made? Do you think he does that to help you save money in the long run? They do it because it’s a lucrative source of income, for the retailer! Don’t confuse extended warranties with saving for the future; shop for the best deal–you’ll still have a basic warranty.
4) Take a good hard look at everything you and your children have in their closets that you haven’t worn for more than a year, and sell it on eBay or have a garage sale to sell it. Make some extra money, and you’ll have a little cash you can save.
5) Especially for big ticket items, don’t ever buy new if you can help it. You know very well that eBay, Craigslist and 100 other sites on the Internet are places where people sell items in like-new condition at substantial discounts compared to retail stores. And here is a special save money tip: never buy a current-model-year car that is brand new! At the very least wait until you can purchase a new vehicle from a clearance of last year’s models. A much, much better tip to save however is to simply buy a car that has been well taken care of that is a couple of years old; it will have already taken a big depreciation hit.
6) If you live in North America get an Entertainment coupon book, and use it to save on restaurants, groceries, travel, car maintenance, movie tickets and a whole lot more. Just a few purchases during the year will pay for the book, and it shouldn’t be too hard to reduce your overall spending by hundreds of dollars if you keep the book in your car. Here’s a save money tip however: don’t try to use every coupon in the book! Just use coupons for items you plan to purchase anyway.
7) When it comes to purchasing expensive software you can often save a lot of money by going with open source software instead. It’s easier than ever before to save on free software whose functionality is every bit as good as packages such as Office or Photoshop. Using software such as Google Docs or GIMP respectively is a great way to save plenty of money without missing any of the tools you need to get things done.
8)Here’s a tip for saving on food. Buy a cookbook with recipes you are really excited about. Better yet, bookmark 10 websites with recipes that you know you’ll really try. The way to save money by avoiding restaurants is not to feel deprived because you never go out, but to celebrate cooking food that you and your family love at home, maybe even together.
9) Use online coupons from any on of the myriad save money websites online. Talk about an effective budgeting tool. Before you buy anything, type the name of the product and the word ‘coupons’ into your favorite search engine to see what savings are being offered by the manufacturer or different retailers online. You’ll be surprised at how much money you can save, and how little time it takes to do so. Normally we’re talking about a lot more than 50 cents or a dollar-give it a try!
10) Don’t just save patiently, be proactive and sign up for ebates.com and use it aggressively. It’s different than saving money with online coupons, as ebates helps you save money by getting cash back on purchases. At last check they had 1,200 online retailers, most of whom you will know. Even when the cash savings are less than 10%, the selection of retailers is so comprehensive that even saving small amounts of money on a regular basis will really add up.
Financial Saving Money Tips
11) Do the math and refinance your mortgage if it makes sense. Interest rates approached forty-year lows in 2010; depending on when you read this they will have most likely risen by some amount, but an excellent saving money tip is to lock in a low interest rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage if you have not yet done so.
12) Pay off your credit cards, starting with the cards with the highest interest rates, just as soon as you can. Simply servicing the debt that you carry each month is costing you money, so you should focus on paying down those cards even before you work on increasing the balance of your savings account. And here’s a related credit card saving money tip: simply call your credit card company and ask for a lower interest rate. Believe it or not this can actually work if you are persistent and ask to speak with someone empowered to do this for you, implying that you will cancel your card if they won’t. Credit card companies will often do this to keep your business, and you have nothing to lose by trying.
13) This is a pretty obvious tip for saving money but you should never be paying yearly fees for the privilege of using a credit card company’s card. Do yourself a favor and go with a credit card with no annual fee; this small step could save you $50 or $75 per year or more.
14) You can also save money each month by reducing the interest rate on your home equity credit line. You might have a little less leverage than you would with a credit card company but it is not unheard of for a bank to help you save in this way.
15) Take an hour or two to research your banking options and consider opening an account with a bank that does not charge you service and maintenance fees, especially on checking accounts. In fact, if you do the legwork chances are you will find interest-bearing checking accounts. The return on this hour you invest could be huge if you look at the years of fees you could be avoiding in this way.
16) If you have whole life insurance or some other form of permanent life insurance, do yourself a favor and go with term life insurance instead. With term life you will pay a small fraction on premium amounts each month, compared with permanent insurance. With this money you can create your own investment portfolio or simply save it. Too often we are swayed by life insurance salesman who convinced us that having a “full-service” policy that insures us and also functions on some level as an investment account is the best way to go. Very few unbiased financial advisors agree with this idea. Unless you have a complicated financial situation, a cheap term life policy will save you a lot of money over the duration of the policy. This is another example of where taking a couple of hours of action will actually save you money every single month for years.
17) Did you know that for a given life insurance policy you will pay less simply by making annual premium payments? If you’re making monthly payments right now seriously consider saving money by switching to one payment per year.
18) Get familiar with the ATM usage policies your bank. This tip could save you $100 or more per year. Does your bank charge for ATM withdrawals from other financial institutions? Do you know? Even if it’s only two or three dollars, getting charged for withdrawals you make from a random ATM when you are in a hurry can really add up. If your bank doesn’t offer free ATM usage from any ATM machine, and it’s not convenient for you to go to your own bank’s ATMs every time, consider asking your bank to help you save money by adding this feature to your account, or consider changing banks. Also, if you travel internationally, you can save on hefty bank charges on ATM withdrawals around the world ($3 to $5 per withdrawal, or more!) by asking your bank to waive them.
Lifestyle Saving Money Tips
19) If you have a backyard that is large enough, why not start a vegetable garden? In addition to it being an enjoyable hobby, everything that you harvest represents a savings to you, and as an added benefit you can ensure that it is healthy and organic, having grown it yourself.
20) Make use of your public library. You may not even be aware that your library offers a lot more than books: easy and free access to the Internet, newspapers, magazines as well as movies and CDs. Many larger public libraries also offer educational courses, guest speakers and social meet-ups built around different subjects.
21) Walk. Especially if you live in an urban or suburban area, there will be times where rather than making a five or 10 minute drive to run an errand you could instead take 20 minutes or a half an hour to walk to a given location. Does this sound like a waste of time? Why not call it a low intensity workout instead? Obviously you will save money on gas and wear and tear on your vehicle, but in the long run even moderate exercise four or five times a week will add up to weight loss and a healthier lifestyle. Don’t kid yourself: being healthier will save you money, and avoiding ailments by taking care of yourself is one of the best ways to save money and increase the quality and duration of your life. Lower your bills by feeling better: it’s a win-win.
22) Do you have an extra bedroom or a basement that you could convert to a bedroom? Perhaps the kids have left the nest and you still share that four- or five-bedroom home with your spouse. Rather than trying to find a cheaper place to live, consider getting a roommate to help you reduce spending not only on your rent or mortgage, but help you save on utilities, cable bill, and other miscellaneous expenses. The chemistry has to be right of course, but if you get the right person it can actually enhance your living situation as well as save you a lot of money.
23) Here is a saving money tip that will not work for everyone: if you are retired or approaching retirement looking into options for retiring in a cheaper location overseas. While this may seem like a drastic step to take, you should compare what it will cost you to live in the United States or Europe (or wherever you might be from in the “developed world”) with what you will pay for a very acceptable standard of living in expat enclaves around the world. Of course you will want to visit a few times before you commit, but the fact is that there are dozens of places in Mexico, Central America, South America and even attractive places in Southeast Asia such as Bali and Chiang Mai whose affordability will take your breath away. If you can have a maid, a swimming pool and a dozen other things that you probably won’t be able to afford on your fixed retirement income back home, why subject yourself to “just getting by” on Social Security, perhaps a small pension, and investment income in the “developed world”? You won’t only save money with a lower cost of living, most people who take expat plunge are of the (informed) opinion that their quality of life is much higher than it would have been back home. The internet and improved communications mean that you won’t be isolated like you would have been years ago, and you’ll appreciate the warmer weather and a hundred other things too!
