Whats your best money saving idea?
Question by Lioness: Whats your best money saving idea?
Just looking for some money saving ideas! Anything is great!
Best answer:
Answer by Amos
Get an alternate savings account that you cannot readily access. If you cannot readily access it, then you are less likely to spend on impulse.
If we are talking about saving cash only (i.e. not investing), there are 2 good options and a third ‘think about’.
- Get a linked savings account. The big international banks (ING, HSBC etc) do these. You set up regular money transfers to these from your general bank account (or even directly from your employer) and the money sits there and earns interest. If you want to transfer it out, it usually takes 2-3 days which means less impulse buying.
- Otherwise, you could go for a term deposit, where you give your money to the bank for a set period (minimum 3 months) and you get a fixed rate of interest for the term of the deposit. This money is much harder to get back before the end of the term and usually involves charges if you want to. So, this really stops you from impulse-buying.
The third option to ‘think about’ is to but precious metals (gold, in particular). Gold holds it’s value in the long term, cannot be used at your local store and takes effort to sell – so it is a way to save also.
What do you think? Answer below!
I use the “envelope system” and give myself a weekly budget for groceries, gas, clothing, entertainment, and coffee and water. I made a website about my money saving tips.. check it out!
http://hubpages.com/hub/Easy-Ways-to-Save-Money-Every-Week
I generally don’t wait until I run out of something to buy more, I wait for good sales and buy more than I need. I also don’t necessarily do all of my shopping in one place. There are 3 major supermarkets in my area, so I check their circulars to see what is on sale every week. One of the supermarkets usually has the best prices, but I’ll shop at 2 or 3 if the items I want are on sale or cheaper in different stores. It helps to check the circulars weekly so you know what a decent sale price is. Sometimes something is “on sale” but the price is still very high, and if you check the sales regularly you’ll know when you are getting a really good deal. This isn’t a good idea for perishable food, depending on how much freezer space you have, but for paper products, soap. pasta, canned goods, and things like that you can save a lot of money by doing this.
Also, I buy everything by credit card and get rewards on all of my credit cards. Since all the rewards programs are different and some have higher rewards for certain types of purchases (gas, office supplies, etc.), I have a number of different credit cards and use the one that pays the most cash back for the item I’m buying. You should be able to get a minimum of 1% cash back. Note that this is only a good idea if you pay your bills in full and on time every month to avoid interest – if you can’t do that, you are better off paying in cash and not using credit.
A good example is that Staples has a sale this week on printer paper, $3.99 with a $2.99 rebate (maximum of 2 for a rebate). They also had a coupon for 10% off that you can print from their website. It is only good on 1 item and 1 coupon per customer, so I went to 2 different stores. The rebate can be done online so you don’t have to pay for postage. My total cost for 2 packages of paper was $7.81, which will be reduced after the rebate to $1.83. I also get 5% cash back from my American Express business card for office supply store purchases (I don’t actually have a business, you can just use your own name as your business name), so I saved another $0.39, reducing my total cost to $1.44, which is an amazingly good deal. I already have about 5 packages of paper and might not use what I just bought for a year or so, but it doesn’t take up that much room and I will eventually use it. I did waste a little gas doing this, perhaps a dollar’s worth, but if I had planned things out better and combined it with another shopping trip that would have reduced the cost of the driving.
Do not charge, pay cash. You would save hundreds in interest payments
No fast food, no coffee to go, borrow books from the library, use coupons when shopping for food. Cook your own meals with enough left over to use for lunches, brown bag it.
Stay out of the malls, window shopping is dangerous.
If you must shop use a list and stick to it
Most important, draw up a budget
Do not overdraft your checking account and end up paying bank fees
Watch the pennies and the dollars are safe