How do you save money?

pjfan31

I like hearing how people save money. A while back, I heard some tips, and I've gone from spending every cent I earned, to saving. So here's what I do, (Keeping in mind, most of my income is disposable)

-Put $300 a fortnight into a high interest savings account
-put all my coins in a jar. It's amazing how quickly it adds up
-and about a month ago, I heard a tip to save every $5 note I got. So now I do that.

Hitch-Hiker

I still live at home, so I don't have bills and such. But whenever I do need to save a bit of extra money for whatever reason, I usually knock drinking on the head for a couple of weeks. Works wonders.

pjfan31

Hitch-Hiker wrote:

I still live at home, so I don't have bills and such. But whenever I do need to save a bit of extra money for whatever reason, I usually knock drinking on the head for a couple of weeks. Works wonders.

Hey hey, lets not get carried away here!!!!

Hitch-Hiker

It aint easy. Honestly though, it's amazing how much I spend on a weekend. If I go out Friday and Saturday night, I'll go through about 150 euro on drinks.

I've never tried the coin jar thing, but I know people who swear by it.

Thoughts_Arrive

Don't go JB Hi Fi every week buying cd's like I do.
Set aside an amount out of your pay and transfer into a saving account.
Once you save heaps open a term deposit account so you get high interest.
Limit junk food to once a week if that, cook at home.
Limit unnecessary items in the shopping basket/trolley,choose healthy, don't blow money on snacks, soft drinks and other crap.
Keep tyres inflated to correct PSI, saves fuel.
Put all silver coins in a jar, keeps your wallet thin and light.

I'm gonna save you fucker, not gonna loose you.

pjfan31

Thoughts_Arrive wrote:

Don't go JB Hi Fi every week buying cd's like I do.
Set aside an amount out of your pay and transfer into a saving account.
Once you save heaps open a term deposit account so you get high interest.
Limit junk food to once a week if that, cook at home.
Limit unnecessary items in the shopping basket/trolley,choose healthy, don't blow money on snacks, soft drinks and other crap.
Keep tyres inflated to correct PSI, saves fuel.

I'm gonna save you fucker, not gonna loose you.

Good tips there.

Thoughts_Arrive

Added;

Put all silver coins in a jar, keeps your wallet thin and light.

pjfan31

Thoughts_Arrive wrote:

Added;

Put all silver coins in a jar, keeps your wallet thin and light.

I put all coins in a jar. It was amazing, went out for a few beers last night. had 5 or 6, came home, $16 in coin, straight into the jar. Plus all my $5ers,

Thoughts_Arrive

I always pay buy credit card when shopping so my money jar takes ages to grow.
Been like 3-4 years and so far about $100 in silver coins.
I don't come home with much change after nights out, takes notes to pay for drinks these days. :?

redrock

Thoughts_Arrive wrote:

Limit unnecessary items in the shopping basket/trolley,choose healthy, don't blow money on snacks, soft drinks and other crap.

If you can, decide on a menu, make a list of what you need for this (+ 'home' necessities like toilet paper, etc), and go shopping with the list. Do not impulse buy. Not putting the 'oh look at that... looks good' or 'ooOOoo... on special.. that's a good buy - can't resist' type stuff in your trolley does help reduce shopping bills!

Don't forget you can also save on utilities. Don't waste water, electricity, heating. It does add up.

Also, if you use credit/store cards, pay up every month. Don't get interest charges... they are massive.

pjfan31

Thoughts_Arrive wrote:

I always pay buy credit card when shopping so my money jar takes ages to grow.
Been like 3-4 years and so far about $100 in silver coins.
I don't come home with much change after nights out, takes notes to pay for drinks these days. :?

YEh, but like last night, I it cost $5.60 for a pure blonde, so I was getting heaps of coin. I never ever pay in coin

Thoughts_Arrive

redrock wrote:

Thoughts_Arrive wrote:

Limit unnecessary items in the shopping basket/trolley,choose healthy, don't blow money on snacks, soft drinks and other crap.

If you can, decide on a menu, make a list of what you need for this (+ 'home' necessities like toilet paper, etc), and go shopping with the list. Do not impulse buy. Not putting the 'oh look at that... looks good' or 'ooOOoo... on special.. that's a good buy - can't resist' type stuff in your trolley does help reduce shopping bills!

Don't forget you can also save on utilities. Don't waste water, electricity, heating. It does add up.

Also, if you use credit/store cards, pay up every month. Don't get interest charges... they are massive.

Don't shop when hungry, makes you overload on items you don't need.
Don't fall for items on special that you normally do not buy, people (I've done it before) stock up and then the items don't get used/eaten and you throw it out, I got 4 jars of pasta sauce probably gone past use by now.
I throw money into my credit card account almost weekly.
If you haven't got the money sitting in a savings account and have money owing on credit card you shouldn't have a credit card.

Digital Twilight

I watch a lot of films so i joined LoveFilm.

www.lovefilm.com

Its a postal dvd rental company. I pay £13 a month for 2 dvd at a time and as many as i can watch in a month. Saved me a lot of money not buying dvds also i have got too see a lot more films that way.

lukin2006

It's not always easy to save when you have a mortgage, combined with all the other bills.

-brown bag it to work
-used to buy 2-3 coffee's a day more on the weekend
-drive 2 beater cars, seriously cheaper to make repairs than car payments
-set aside a percentage of my income to go into a saving account, rrsp's and an account for vacation
-when doing groceries we use the sale flyers, can save some serious $$$$
- and just being cautious with money

but it's not easy thats for sure.

Get_Right

automatic savings contribution based upon retirement goals
I dont even know its gone-its automatically transferred to my saving account with each paycheck

and
cut back on the rock and roll shows!

mbangel10

One of the easiest ways to save money is to pay off your car and continue driving it. I drive a 2000 CR-V... paid it off 5 years ago and instead of worrying about a car payment I bank $250.00 per pay check. At 26 checks per year, that's $6500 that is going to me instead of a car loan.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is leasing a vehicle and trading it in every 3 years for a shiny new one... it's just throwing away a ton of money.

WaveCameCrashin

You should check out Ny times best seller "Financial Peace" by Dave Ramsey
It's a simple yet life changing guide that will show you how to:
1.Get out of debt and stay out
2.Use the principle of contentment guide to finacial
decision making
3.Build your own emergrncy fund
4.Communicate about money with your spouse
5.Instill good money habits in your children
6.How to deal with debt after a divorce or the death of a spouse
7.Manage your money as a single or a single parent
8.Get on a budget and stay on it ( The envelope method works great)

All in all it's a really good book and it's an easy read. He also has a sydicated talk show. He was also at one time in his 20's and 1.2 million in debt and got out of it by using the principals he teaches. you can catch him on the Fox business network also.

Digital Twilight

Give up on being a Pearl Jam fan

WaveCameCrashin

Digital Twilight wrote:

Give up on being a Pearl Jam fan [/quot

you got that right bro. or going to see them anywhere that's not in your home town.

redrock

Thoughts_Arrive wrote:

I throw money into my credit card account almost weekly.

I don't. I pay on time, but not in advance. This can give you up to six weeks free credit on your purchases. My money stays in the bank and earns interest until it's time to pay.

mookeywrench

so to summarize all these responses:

Don't Spend Frivilously

Earn Interest

No Debt Beyond 21 Days

JOEJOEJOE

Eat at home as much as possible, you save the cost of a tip, sales tax and expensive soft drinks/beer/etc.

Eat out only for social occassions, not just because you are too lazy to cook!

If you have a good group of friends, Plan more social activities at people's homes.

Only buy clothes when they are on sale (on offer).

If planning a trip, consider the cost....spending $1,000 to travel somewhere to see a band is a bit absurd if you are trying to save money or get out of debt.

Finally, remember that the cost of debt is very expensive. If you rack-up $5,000 of debt, the annual interest on said debt could be $1,000....its as if you are paying a 20% surcharge for your debt-financed purchases.

florence151

Stopped smoking about 4 years ago and saved over $7,000.00. Using that for the summer PJ tour in Europe.

mickeyrat

what is this "money" that you speak of? :shock:

dimitrispearljam

stay all day in..need 5000euros for this euro tour...

AtlantaJammer

Ive helped out a bunch of people by telling them they should do something Ive been doing for almost 10 years now. I get direct deposit for my pachecks. I get $150 deposited into a savings account and the rest into my checking. Thats $7,800 a year for me. You can do less or more depnding... After just a few weeks, you dont even miss that extra money, cause you dont really see it. Ya get? I also, refuse to use any of the money I get deposited into my savings unless its for vacations. Or if its an absolute emergency, which fortunately I havent had to yet. Should give it a try...

ZiggyStar

Buy red wine by the carton
Buy beer when it's on special
Buy my weed in large sizes
See movies on cheap Tuesday for $9
Download music, movies and software

decides2dream

AtlantaJammer wrote:

Ive helped out a bunch of people by telling them they should do something Ive been doing for almost 10 years now. I get direct deposit for my pachecks. I get $150 deposited into a savings account and the rest into my checking. Thats $7,800 a year for me. You can do less or more depnding... After just a few weeks, you dont even miss that extra money, cause you dont really see it. Ya get? I also, refuse to use any of the money I get deposited into my savings unless its for vacations. Or if its an absolute emergency, which fortunately I havent had to yet. Should give it a try...

auto-saving is such a great, fairly painless idea. when it gets deducted automatically/immediately, you don't even miss it. my husband and i both contribute 15% of our gross pay to our 401Ks thru auto-payment direct from our paychecks. so, don't really even 'see' it thus, don't miss it. paychecks get direct deposited so that they earn interest immediately. we use credit for almost all purchases so that is like getting an interest-free loan every month, while our money sits in our account earning interest until we pay our bill, in full, each month. i now keep very accurate records of our expenditures, our monthly outlays...to see exactly where our $$$ is going and where we can conserve or splurge. we recently went over our budget fully, made some significant changes to save more and will go over the budget say ever 6 months or so to track if we are on target for our goals. and sure, we've cut back considerably on many luxuries, and others...simply scaled back a bit. as with anything, it's all about balance.

know1

pjfan31 wrote:

I like hearing how people save money. A while back, I heard some tips, and I've gone from spending every cent I earned, to saving. So here's what I do, (Keeping in mind, most of my income is disposable)

-Put $300 a fortnight into a high interest savings account
-put all my coins in a jar. It's amazing how quickly it adds up
-and about a month ago, I heard a tip to save every $5 note I got. So now I do that.

There is one simple, correct answer for this and it only has one word: BUDGET.

Simply put, "spend" your money (including accounting for savings) on paper at the beginning of the month and stick to it. For big expenses that come up once a year - just "spend" that money each month - i.e. put it away and don't touch it - and then you have it when that expense comes due.

Another example - I drive a paid for car, but I "spend" a car payment to myself each month so I can buy the next one in cash.

iluvcats

I brew my own coffee, use online coupons when I buy shoes online, don't buy a new car, and check dvds for free from the library. I was dying my own hair and it started getting brassy again. Last month, I got my roots touched up (really looked great) and a hair cut for $63 plus tip at my local "Hair Cuttery."

facepollution

It's shocking how you can spend money on seemingly nothing, but it all adds up. I worked out that I was spending £15 a month on diet coke from the vending machine at work! I've cut my spending down considerably over the last few months, I almost forgot what it was like to be able to pay for something with money I actually had, rather than just throwing it on the credit card.