Posted on 11/15/2008 9:26:50 AM PST by RKBA Democrat
This is not a flame, but you can find yourself suddenly unemployed, like I did. SO FAR, you have managed to pay your bills. That was true of me, as well, until last month. I lost my job at the end of May, and haven't been able to find another one. Health problems caused the job loss, and they've complicated the job hunt, since not all of my problems were diagnosed at the beginning of this whole process. I'm in need of surgery to correct one of them, and who knows what the docs will find after that problem is finally eliminated.
IOW, do what you can to cut expenses, and spend the savings on reducing your debt load. Just turning down the thermostat could help. It won't solve all your problems, but $30 or $40 a month applied to bills that don't keep getting larger each month and you could find yourself sitting pretty before too long.
Wish I'd thought of that a year or so ago.
already do 75% of these identified ‘savers’
Get a magicjack (www.magicjack.com)
Cost me 50$ first year
20$ a year thereafter
Free calls from my computer to usa and canada
can be used on any other computer too for free
102: STAY OUT OF THE STOCK MARKET!
I decided to get my feet wet and put a little money back into an Energy mutual fund that had been down 56% this year.
Big mistake. It’s down another 12% in one week and looks like it could go much lower. They’re talking oil at $30/barrel before long.
I’ve read serious analyses that predict the Dow dropping to 3000 or lower in the next year or two.
Excellent !
As well know who profits from every dollar you spend !
Shop Conservative is a double edged effort !
Shop for gifts at local pawn shops.
Stop paying for premium movie channels on cable. Use the $1 DVD rental machines at the grocery stores.
Get on a fixed monthly payment plan with your power company. Saves money and helps with budgeting each month.
Install dimmer switches on all your lights and switch to the CFL bulbs where you can. These two steps will save you more on electricity than anything else you can do. Our electrician told us about this and he was right.
Clip coupons but only for items you really use regularly, like cereal. Use coupon websites like CouponMom to get more coupons. Use those grocery store savings club cards too.
Anything sold in sealed containers can be bought in quantity when it is on sale. I buy the big plastic cans of Folger's Coffee when they are on sale for $5.99. Their Black Silk coffee is great.
Go to yard sales and consignment sales for everything for small children. They don't know from labels and new/used. I almost never bought anything new for my kids when they were small. I bought my daughter a used dollhouse for $10 that she still plays with today. My kids' favorite thing was getting a $1 grab bag with a whole bunch of old Happy Meal toys. These are great to collect and pull out on long car and plane trips to keep your little ones occupied.
Get your kids to participate in local consignment sales and let them keep the profit. They learn about recycling and prioritizing their stuff, and they are usually more frugal with "their own money" than they are with allowances that they don't earn. Keeps the volume of clutter down too.
Bring your own candy to the movies and don't buy drinks. Walgreen's often sells movie-size boxes of candy for $1.
If you like a glass of wine with dinner, buy the new wines in a box. You get the equivalent of 3-4 bottles of wine for $15-20. Stock up when they go on sale. You get a nice wine for less than $1 a glass. "Black Box" and "FishEye" are two of my favorites.
If you have a Trader Joe's nearby, their frozen pot stickers are amazingly cheap and good. A bag costs about $2.50 and can feed 4 as an entree or 6-8 as an appetizer. My kids love them. I serve them with homemade fried rice.
Serve one meatless meal each week. I make veggie lasagna with the pre-cooked noodles, cheese ravioli, potato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc. Once in a while I make breakfast for dinner with pancakes and bacon.
Buy a cheap waffle iron and make your own waffles, and freeze the extra. Never buy frozen waffles or pancakes.
Make your own Rice Krispie bars for snacks, kids' lunches, etc.
Just air up your tires first, then all these other things will fall into place..........I have now returned control of your keyboard
“And when I was a teen, it was $0.17 a gallon in the Los Angeles area.”
It was $0.139 when I was in high school in L.A., good thing because my street racing hot rod only got about 4 miles per gallon!
Not a chance. That would mean I would have to watch network TV and I refuse. The only thing worth watching is on cable.
Shower with a friend female friend that is no Spam and beans before hand.
I know what you mean. I’ve been trying to save on our heat bill but when my nose got cold and I know of no other way to warm it other than turning up the heat, I turned up the heat. This is ridiculous. Get rid of Democrats!!!
Wow, this is a great list. Heck .. it all adds up.
I used to think my grandparents frugality was silly until I was the beneficiary of their thrift and careful planning. They started out with absolutely nothing and left their children/grandchildren a very nice inheritance.
Financial principals have not changed over the years. If people spend more they earn it eventually catches up with them. That is what we are facing right now. There is nothing wrong with the fru fru if you can honestly afford it but when you look at how much of your labor you have to give up just to enjoy junk with zero return you might look at it differently.
If you have never read the Tightwad Gazette then you don’t know what the purpose of them cutting every unnecessary expense they could was about. The author was a young mother of six who wanted to stay home with her children and be able to eventually purchase an old farmhouse on her husbands lower to average salary. They also wanted to fill that home with antiques. She and her family were able to meet that goal without going into debt.
Awesome list ! We have been cutting expenses for years and you have a lot of our methods here as well. One thing that saved us big time was cutting back on just paper towels. We purchased some really good quality kitchen towels and dinner napkins that are all white and we nuke em in bleach and hot water when we wash the whites........
No paper towels in our home.
Many other things we do so I will add a list later today regarding our efforts. Such as if you have a cell phone , get your neighbors on your family plan and get cheaper rates. Sat radio like XM is family plan as well, we have six cars.....:o) We just park em in extended family and neighbors driveways....:o) Same with sharing a WiFi signal with a booster that will let neighbors pay one fee and share the costs.......:o)
Many frugal fiscal fiasco's out there for families and friends that will save us cash.
One more effort we planned for and do all the time. We save big time , invest part of our money and place a lot of it in a safe deposit box. During Obama's regime we will tax shelter as much as possible and live off cash in hand. We'll try and break him and his seditious socialist handlers a dime at a time !
Thanks for the great thread !
Stay safe !
I've decided we're more important than farmers or even the auto industry because our government is perfectly willing to use us to prop up farmers and big business.
They don't care if businesses like ours go out of business. They will when there's nothing left but big business.
After losing my job in 2006 and finding I was worth precious little to the job world in spite of a ton of experience, I took a chance on a socking big student loan and went back for job retraining. It looked to be a bad gamble, when 4 months after graduating at the top of my class the only "employment" I could find was an unpaid internship. Fortunately I start a new job on Monday.
Best wishes to you in improving your situation.
Does this mean using your cell phone for your internet connection? If you have DSL, you have a land line, no? I am thinking of goi the other old fashioned way - land ne only. Call every 6 months to ‘drop’ it, and you’ll find they’ll practically pay you to keep it.
Except that #9 cancels out #8.
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