Money Saving Ideas

[kstaven]

Quote:
Five years working in south/central america gave me a real wake up. One other thing we need to relearn is how to work as a family and as a community. Bartering skills, as well as goods, saves a ton of money!

 

[Stumpy]

"Really? So do you have to pay for each and every pc you connect to your internet connection?"

No, but I am not supposed to knowingly share my service with any other household.

"There's all kinds of unsecured wireless networks throughout town, finding them is no problem."

That's not the case in my area either. If I had a neighbor, I would have a secure network.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Linda - Great story about your grands. I think we have so much to learn from those who came before us and I enjoyed learning about yours. Like you, I have a few of my grandmother's tools and equipment. Sometimes they just work better!

Laura - Your story reminded me. Yes, stores dump stuff all the time. The son of good friends of ours works at one of the big chain drug/convenience stores. Recently, they decided to get rid of their entire sewing section. They were going to toss out everything, but he brought home a chunk of it and we got to pick through it. I came away with thread, needles, pins, measuring tape, scissors, plus some shoe polishing supplies. Between us, we took less than a 10th of what was there and the rest was donated by my friend to her church's missions group. It all went to good use, but otherwise would have been in the trash! We are such a wasteful society!

 

[BowChickaBowMow]

Quote:
My brother used to work for a home improvement chain store (not the orange one) and part of his job was to set up window displays.... when they changed them out... all items had to be put in the trash... HAD to be. They couldn't set them off to the side of the dumpster.... they couldn't take anything home.. they couldn't donate (would be perfect items for Habitat for Humanity RESALE stores) it all had to go in the dumpster. He was so disappointed about it. Very wasteful!

 

[sunnychooks]

I was paying my monthly bills last night and as I was opening up a new roll of 42 cent stamps I realized that I could be paying bills online and saving the postage. When I figured out what I would be saving, it came to almost $70 a year!
Guess how I'll be paying bills next month!

When I consider I'll be buying less checks to pay those bills with, the savings will be even more.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Quote:
You know, that's just wrong. In fact, I could go even as far as to say that, IMO, it's immoral. There is just no reason I can think of that makes that OK when there are so many other options. I know that the orange place let's folks put bids on items that they no longer need for display. A friend of mine got a nice wall unit that way. And, if they didn't want to do that, they could certainly do as you suggested and donate to the Habitat for Humanity resale store.

Not only do I make it a personal goal to buy as little with packaging as possible, I recycle as much of my stuff as possible. Although the city gives us two oversized trash cans, this family of four fills less than half of a can on a weekly basis. Everything else is recycled, given away, or put in the compost pile. Why can't businesses do the same, especially when there are good organizations that will take that stuff, offer it to someone for less than retail, who will then take the proceeds and provide a good, safe home for someone who needs it? It just seems to me that everyone wins that way and no one wins the other way.

 

[UNCLEG]

Great Ideas, the only thing I can add is, if you are planning on building a new home, look at the old fashioned building styles. Choose a style that will use your climate to your advantage and pay close attention to the placement of home on your property to take adavantage of natural shade or sunlight through out the year. I live in the South so we chose a plan with big windows, 9 and 12 foot ceilings, inset porches very high and steep roof line and house is approximately 4 ft off the ground, all designed to take advantage of the limited breezes and keep the summer heat above the living area. Winters are not bad either so extra insulation makes up for the high ceilings so its not bad to heat either. We stopped running aircondition last month and knocked $40.00 off bill. The funny thing is we built it this way to be prepared for the occassional hurricane and being with out power for a week or so, had no idea it would become a way of life.

 

[Beekissed]

What we do to save money:

Work from home as a medical transcriber...no gas needed!

Burn wood. No air conditioning, fans work great.

Big garden, can, freeze and juice everything.

Make our own bread, always.

No cable, satellite, etc. TV, VCR, DVD is just fine and one can get great movies from the library.

Limit eating out to once a month, they don't have anything better than what I can create in my own kitchen.

Make my own laundry detergent. Use dryer balls instead of fabric softener.

Raise bees, never buy sugar again, sell the rest. (That's in the planning stage)

Scrounge for free stuff at all times. We just mulched all our flower beds and garden paths with wood chips dumped by the local utility company by the roadside. The list is endless of the items I have gotten for free this year alone!

Recycle newspapers into garden, firestarters, etc.

Get great magazines from the library for free.

Become a member of a great forum like this and use the ideas that folks talk about!

Subscribe to Countryside magazine for all the other wonderful ideas that folks have.

Use government beef for winter food supply.

Shop for clothing at second hand shops, salvation army, yard sales, etc.

We eat no dairy, meats, eggs from the store. We drink water, or our own fruit juice, at all times.

No cell phones, no credit cards, no new cars (the money you save not paying for full coverage insurance and interest on a loan will pay to repair a car you bought for cash.)

Tithe as much as you can.

Portion control for us and animals alike. The humans aren't the only ones having obesity problems in this nation. It seems like everyone's pets are overfed, leading to health problems and vet bills.

Eat healthy, mostly raw fruits and vegetables, work hard, play hard, laugh alot, hug alot and save a lot of money on hospital bills and medicines.

Pray a lot, develop a good friendship with God, have faith that he will take care of you...then let go of the worries about money!

 

[Skyesrocket]

So many good ideas!
I decided that three acres of yard is way too much for us. With the price of gas to cut the grass and the amount of time it takes every week it just doesn't make sense to me anymore.
I have goats and horses and am putting up electric fencing on the big areas that we only go on when it's time to cut the grass. They will enjoy the extra grazing areas and I can rotate them so it doesn't get beat down. I fenced in an area last year in front of their pasture and it still looks great. I just don't put the horses out there when the ground is wet.

 

[masschix]

I've spent the last hour and a half reading all of this thread. What wonderful ideas that everyone has, that will be adopted by our family. This summer alone, we have made some real adjustments to our lifestyle to help save $$$. I will be giving up the riding lawn mower to a Hand Push Reel Mower, line dry everything (inside the house on the rainy days), wash dishes by hand (haven't used the dishwasher in 2 weeks), rolled up $34 of pennies for gas, put in a very large garden (using up 1/4 of our lawn - less mowing), started raising chickens for eggs, bundle up on those cold nights, conserve energy where ever possible, use online bill paying services (saves on stamps, running to the post office, and on checks), cut our own wood for burning this coming season vs. buying cord wood already cut, etc......

This has to be one of my absolutely favorite threads yet. THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR THEIR INPUT!!!!!! KEEP IT GOING!!!!!