Money Saving Talk

It is imperative in this day and age that we all buckle down and look for ways to save money. Even if you currently have a fulltime job it would be prudent to do a once over on your spending habits and check you budget to see if there are a few areas that you can save in. Most people are hesitant about giving up things to save money, not because they don’t want to save money but because they don’t want to give up their lifestyle. Which is understandable, no one likes to feel as though they have to do without.

To help ease that fear here you are going to find three tips that will help you save money, and you will only notice the plus in your checking account and not the minus in your daily life. These are three tips that anyone and everyone should be seeing if they can incorporate into their life.

Tip One: Eliminate Needless Driving to Save on Gas

While gas prices are lower then what they were a year ago, it won’t hurt for you to decrease the amount of driving you are doing. Yes, I said tips on saving money that you won’t notice so ask yourself how many trips you make in a day. If you are doing a lot of back and forth maybe it is time for you to look and see if there is a way that you can combine your trips out into one or two a day. If you have to go to the grocery store, and the movie rental place and the post office and pick up your kids from school see if you can make it a big loop so that you are hitting all of those places on the same drive.

Tip Two: Water Conservation to Save Money and the Environment

Do you realize that if could just cut two minutes out of our shower each day that we would save enough money to keep the Great Lakes filled with water each and every day? Not to mention the money you are going to be saving on your water bill and your heating bill. It may not seem like much but it will make a big difference in the end. Here are the facts, and how these were calculated can be found here at http://www.atsecosolutions.com/saveonshowering.html. Here are the numbers:

* Cost of electricity: $0.0944 per kWh
* Multiplied by the cost to heat one liter $0.1313685
* This gives us a heating cost per liter $0.0130054 (or a little more than one cent).
* Add the cost of water $0.0030274
* Total cost of one liter of shower water $0.0160328

Which means that if you decreased the amount of water you used in the shower you could save an average of 1.19 per shower. Doesn’t seem like much but if you shower every day and there are four people in your family you save 142.80 per month or 1713.60 per year!

Tip Three: Eat at Home More

There is nothing like a night out with your family. I mean that in two ways, the enjoyment of being with your family sharing a good meal laughing and no one has to clean up afterward. The second way I mean that is that it can certainly do a number of the pocket book. Depending on where you live, the average night out to dinner for a family of four can run anywhere from $45 – $80. That is one meal for each of you. Where as if you took that money and went to the store and bought the food and made it yourself, that is enough money to buy almost a week’s worth of groceries. Eating at home more is more cost effective, allows for better quality time for the family and nine times out of ten… offers you better cooked food. Cut out one meal a week that you eat out and you are saving that $45 – $80, remember you have already gone grocery shopping. That can equal $180 a month (on the low side) and $2160 a year!

Taking a look at the three tips, even if you estimate on the low side you can save a little over $4000 a year! I promise you will not even notice that you are making these money saving changes.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Every day we hear more depressing news about the current global economic situation. More and more people are losing their jobs and their homes, and still the experts tell us there is worse to come. However, while governments concentrate on pouring billions, and even trillions, into the economy to save us from financial meltdown, there is much that we can be doing on an individual and much smaller level to put our own finances into order.

There are many simple, practical cost-saving measures that every household can adopt which can make a dramatic difference to the domestic finances without having a real impact on a family’s standard of living. Obvious measures include shopping in the sales, buying own-store products rather than branded goods, taking advantage of discounts and deals and borrowing rather than buying where at all possible. However, we can also take a more creative approach to saving money – for example, by asking for a discount where it has not been offered, or by planning ahead and buying strategically.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
In straitened times, many shop keepers would prefer a sale at a slightly lower price than no sale at all. This is a perfect time to hone your negotiation and bartering skills. Even if the price does not seem excessive, swallow your pride and ask for a discount. Always be polite, and never become confrontational or aggressive, even if the manager has to be called. Adopting a pleasant approach will make people want to help you and will increase your chances of success.

Other tactics you could use to secure that discount are:
1. The “Good cop/bad cop” routine. Tell the clerk that you will need to discuss it with your spouse because it is more money than you really wanted to pay. At this stage, the shop keeper will probably reduce the price rather than let you out of the shop without making the purchase.
2. Ask them to match the price you have seen in another store. The manager will usually readily agree to this, and may even add in a further discount as a gesture of goodwill.
3. Keep hold of all out-of-date coupons as these can sometimes be accepted up to 6 months after the have officially expired. It’s worth a chance, and you have nothing to lose!
4. Try to make a deal if a straight-forward discount is rejected. For example, offer a proportion of the money up front instead of paying in monthly installments, or try to negotiate an additional warranty or free batteries (or anything!) for the product if no discount is forthcoming.

A disciplined approach to shopping
The number one rule of saving money is only to buy things that you actually need and can use. It sounds obvious, but is actually very difficult to achieve. Who can say they have never bought an item of clothing simply because it was a ‘steal’, only for it to remain unworn in the back of the wardrobe for ever after? Don’t be a sales victim – make sure you win the shopping game. Buying things purely because they are reduced in price leads to overspending and a cluttered house. Reduce the temptation to impulse buy by setting a firm limit on your spending budget before you leave the house.

One great way to save time, money and last-minute panics, is to buy suitable presents when you see them at a good price and keep them for the appropriate occasion. Make a chart before you begin shopping and buy only what you need for each person. Not only will this help you keep track of what you have bought, but will also help you locate these carefully selected items when the appropriate occasion comes round. Keep the items in a special drawer or closet and enjoy the satisfaction of simply taking them out during the year as required.

The relief of avoiding those last minute panics (when you know you simply cannot leave the shop until you have bought something!), combined with the joy of knowing you have made real savings, makes this a great system to try.

These ideas, combined with more conventional cost-saving measures, can have a real and beneficial effect on the family finances. They also create the feeling of satisfaction that comes from knowing that, by using your brain, you have managed to save money where other people might have paid the full price.