Frugal Babe

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My Favorite Money-Saving Ideas

January 22, 2008 By Frugal Babe

No Credit Needed has posted a great list of “best money saving tips ever” from a range of bloggers.   If you have a great tip that isn’t on the list, send it his way.  

Here are my favorites – the things we do that I think really save us the most money and allow us to live below our means every month:

Mighty Bargain Hunter’s suggestion to buy used instead of new   We buy just about everything used.   Clothing, household stuff, cars, pets…  Our “new” shopping is pretty much limited to food, underwear, and socks.  

Beyond Broke’s suggestion that we stay home instead of going shopping   We have eliminated recreational shopping from our lives and I don’t miss it at all.

Seeking Contentment’s idea about using the library   This is a pretty easy one for me, since I work at the library four days a week.   I’m forever bringing stuff home, and I can’t remember the last time we went to the movies or bought a book.   Our entertainment budget is nearly zero, due mainly to the library and all the free things we can do outdoors, like disc golf, hiking, biking, etc.

Lazy Man’s suggestion that we pay ourselves first.   I eagerly anticipate every paycheck so that I can allocate fund to whichever savings account is currently at the top of the priority list.   Once that’s done, then I know what we have to live on – works much better than doing it the other way around.

And Brian’s Money suggestion that you start now.   When we first started our insurance agency five years ago, we were broker than broke.   We were going in the hole every month, and for a year, retirement savings got put on hold.   After a year, we were barely breaking even, but we decided that we better get back on the savings wagon.   We started with just $100 apiece into our IRAs every month.   We didn’t miss it.   So we gradually ramped it up.   We were still very poor and had credit card debt for about three more years.   It would have been so easy to postpone the IRA contributions a few more years, but I’m so glad we didn’t.

Without these money-saving tactics, I have no doubt that we would be struggling to make ends meet every month.   Thanks NCN for reposting this great list!

Filed Under: other bloggers 1 Comment

Comments

  1. Frugal Joel says

    January 23, 2008 at 7:20 pm

    I like some of the ideas here but i have to disagree with the funding the ira before paying of credit card debt part of it. Not only would the interest on the cards be costing you money but having high levels of credit debt also lowers your fico score so your getting a double whammy. High rates on old purchases and higher than usuall rates on any new credit purchases with new loans.

    my two cents.

    Reply

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