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Small things you can do to save money


whomper
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Beetles are small....relatively speaking. Of course, I'm not sure about the saving money part. What's the payback period expected to be on that beast.

 

My payback comes every day when I feel mother earth's warm embrace, and I know that no bunnies or squirrels are choking on the noxious fumes of my exhaust.

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My payback comes every day when I feel mother earth's warm embrace, and I know that no bunnies or squirrels are choking on the noxious fumes of my exhaust.

 

And I thank you for that. Venison and Hare taste better when they live their life breathing fresh air. If only squirrels had more meat on their bones.

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My payback comes every day when I feel mother earth's warm embrace, and I know that no bunnies or squirrels are choking on the noxious fumes of my exhaust.

Don't worry, whenever I floor it in my gas guzzler, I scream TimC's name, my green friend Jeff curls up in the fetal position, and a baby seal is killed.

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quit smoking: $4.50 x 365 = $1642

 

pack lunch instead of buy: net saving of maybe $3 per day x 5 days x 50 weeks = $750

 

reduce our restaurant dinner dependence from 2 days to 1 per week : net effect probably $15-20 x 52 weeks = $780-1040

 

man, that could easily put around $3K in my pocket yearly.

 

multiply that by 16 years, and thats $48K....probably 2-3 semesters of college for my youngest kid.

 

fixed

Edited by CaP'N GRuNGe
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I have seen a few of you mention bringing lunch to work instead of going out and that would be a hugh savings for me if I did that. I work in NYC so eveything is expensive. I probably spend 50 a week on lunch so that would be in the 2600 range for a full year

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depressing thread :D

 

I thought just the opposite.

Brown bagging - used to eat out every day.

 

Drive the Honda a lot more and leave the Tahoe in the garage.

 

Eat out less as a family - the frequency of this one has me concerned for our restaurant owners/chefs.

 

Put new seals around external doors.

 

Keep the heat set a little lower and tell the wife and daughters to put on a sweater - we'll see how this on works out :wacko: Gotta find a t-stat with a password that only I know.

 

Buy less junk at the grocery store - stick to planned meals and healthy snacks.

 

Cheaper Friday date nights.

 

Plan errands better - my wife is now working full-time and now plans out her errands much better due to a lack of time. It saves a lot of money on gas.

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We've tracked our budget for some time now and noticed that the major thing that got out of hand was groceries. Primarily due to the fact that we didn't plan out the meals very well. Even now looking in the fridge that morning and seeing what veggies we need to use up and such rather than seeing what looked good at the store on the way home. We noticed this in July and set our goal to spend $1000 less dollars on groceries in the 2nd half of the year than the first.

 

My wife has typically brought her lunch from home and I eat at the restaurant, so that doesn't matter.

 

We're quitting our gym membership and working out at home.

 

The whole house fan we installed last year has saved us a ton on summer cooling bills. Global warming is saving us a ton on winter heating bills.

 

Contemplating taking my wife's Diesel Jetta off the grid by converting it and running it off the fryer oil we generate from the restaurant, but that will take some time to pay for itself. The good news is that we have a guy come to the restaurant once a week to put our oil through a very fancy filter to extend the life and I'm going to pay him a bit to filter the spent oil as well so she'll be using higher quality oil than the rest of the hippies and shouldn't come across some of the problems they tend to.

 

The biggest thing I'm doing is at work. I instituted a new plan to may managers called "$10 bills". Basically, the challenge is to look for as many $10 bills as they can virtually laying around the restaurant. If they find a place where we're needlessly spending $10 a day, that's over $3K a year, 10 things that we're spending $10 a week on is $5K. Things like that It's had amazing results so far. I can be easy to fall into a state of complacency about something that cost $10 when you're doing a few grand in sales each day, but they obviously add up.

 

Oh, and we added Netflix. The thought being we'll just go to the movies less often.

Edited by detlef
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We cut out Netflix. We just weren't using it. $18 * 12 = $216 year

 

Need to cut way back on eating out. Do it WAY too much. If I got serious could/should be able to cut out even $30 - $50 week = $1,560 - $2,600 year.

 

Already try telecommute 1 day a week. Would like to do 2 but don't think employer would go for that.

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I thought just the opposite.

Brown bagging - used to eat out every day.

 

Drive the Honda a lot more and leave the Tahoe in the garage.

 

Eat out less as a family - the frequency of this one has me concerned for our restaurant owners/chefs.

 

Put new seals around external doors.

 

Keep the heat set a little lower and tell the wife and daughters to put on a sweater - we'll see how this on works out :wacko: Gotta find a t-stat with a password that only I know.

 

Buy less junk at the grocery store - stick to planned meals and healthy snacks.

 

Cheaper Friday date nights.

 

Plan errands better - my wife is now working full-time and now plans out her errands much better due to a lack of time. It saves a lot of money on gas.

 

good pt Jimmy ..we are now forced to do many things we probably should have from the beginning

 

I meant depressing in the sense , it feels like we have no safety net and that we are on our way to bread lines ( exxageration but i think you know what i meant )

Edited by isleseeya
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Besides Atomic's electric car adventure, is anyone actually driving less, or in some other way using less gasoline than they have in the previous year or two?

:wacko: PSU Lions started using the similar approach I used since I moved here - using a commuter bus to get to work.

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Besides Atomic's electric car adventure, is anyone actually driving less, or in some other way using less gasoline than they have in the previous year or two?

 

 

Instead of replacing the old truck with a newer one, I kept it (12 years old and 180K miles) and bought a motorcycle instead. Cheaper gas, maintenance, insurance, etc. Down here in GA I can ride pretty much year-round, and the savings doesn't even take into account the "fun factor".

 

And you wouldn't believe how many people down here are buying scooters now. We're starting to see them everywhere, and with every type of rider from yuppie-looking guys to mid-30's looking women.

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Besides Atomic's electric car adventure, is anyone actually driving less, or in some other way using less gasoline than they have in the previous year or two?

Sort of but just a little. My daughter and her friend work about a half mile out of my way. They used to take turns driving to work. Now, so long as they get up about 15 minutes early, I drive them to work and pick them up on the way home. The problem is going home as I don't always get out of work when I plan on getting out so when that happens my boy is forced to drive about one mile out of his way, (it takes more time than that mile should take), and he picks them up on his way home. I also car pool on Monday and Friday with one of my guys. I would do this more but he does not go home on Tues, W, Thurs, right after work.

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Finally turned on the heat today for the first time this season when it got down to 50 degrees in the house.

 

Big budget changes:

 

1. Postponing the bath remodel that was to start in Dec.

2. I bought a ski pass but my husband didn't-discount ended last week so bought the

pass. If it was this week, I'd would not have purchased it based on the stock market decline.

3. Only I am going back to see family over Thanksgiving, so hubby not going, and I'm sure he

is quite fine missing out on the in-laws. My mom is 80 years old and I have never seen my two

grand nephews who are 2 and 4, so I feel a need to go.

4. Indefinetly postponing a trip to Europe or New Zealand which we were going to take in '09 or '10 to celebrate my

50th b-day and our 25th anniversary which happened this year.

5. Indefinetly postponing replacingn my husband's alsmot 13 year old car.

 

Smaller things:

1. Eating vegetarian twice a week. Just bought a case of Top Ramen-haven't had that for dinner regularly since

hubby was going to school, and I started my business with negative cash flow 25 years ago. We add peas and

hard boiled eggs to it to make a makeshift meal. Also bought a case of black beans for bean burritos.

Trying to get back under $100 a week in groceries.

2. Dogs are going from a grain free kibble at $42 a bag food to Kirkland brand which isn't a half bad food. Hopefully we don't

make it up on the backside with increased vet bills going from less healthy food. Savings will be about $300 a year.

3. Drinking less beer.

4. Now that we have the heat on we are turning the thermostat to 55 at night. We used to do that but last 10 years we've kept it

at 65 twenty four hours a day. We've never used the air conditioner since it doesn't really work.

 

One of the biggest changes I've made, which I discovered earlier this summer, is shopping at Goodwill. I have bought name brand designer clothes for $5-8. We live in an affluent community so the good there are pretty good. I just got Jamie Sodok golf shirts which retail for $90, for $5 a piece.

I got a $250 leather jacket for $15.

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