AdminHere are 50 ways to easily live below your means and stretch your spending dollars. I hope you like it. Here they are:
1. You are not likely to win the lottery. Stop buying the tickets and SAVE the money instead for a bigger return.
2. Learn to cook and eat in as often as you can.
3. Dine out by eating at a friend’s house, not a restaurant. Take turns hosting the dinner party or go potluck.
4. When dining out, choose a place with large enough portions to share or take home for another meal.
5. Dine with a salad bar and choose an entree that you can take home for lunch or dinner the next day.
6. Avoid overpriced appetizers.
7. Try restaurant.com to get a 2-for-1 gift certificate for a popular restaurant in your area.
8. Plan your daily or weekly errands to involve the least amount of driving. Don’t waste time or gas money going to the same area twice if you can avoid it.
9. Fluorescent lamps are more efficient than incandescent bulbs, and last six to ten times longer.
10. Use lower wattage light bulbs or energy efficient lights.
11. Use task lighting. Instead of lighting an entire room, put the light where you need it.
12. Turn off the lights when you leave the room.
13. Have a garage sale.
14. Have an online garage sale through eBay.com.
15. Bring your lunch to work.
16. Say “No” to vending machines.
17. Learn to drink water. Bring a water filter bottle from home from such devices as Filtrate (a water filtration system which includes the bottles)
18. Do you like bottled water? Save some bottles and refill them at home using a water filtration system for enormous weekly savings.
19. Buy a water filtration pitcher for your desk at work if a cooler is not available.
20. Quit smoking. A pack a day habit can add up to $1500 a year in some states. Cant quit than consider electronic cigarettes.
21. Quit drinking. Or have friends over for BYOB at home instead of going to a bar.
22. Read books from the library, not the bookstore.
23. Rent movies, don’t go to the theater.
24. Get movies from the library too!
25. If you go to the theater, make it a matinee.
26. Eat lunch before the movie, go to a matinee they are typically lower priced and you’ll be too full for the overpriced popcorn.
27. Lower your thermostat. A few degrees can make a big difference on your heating bill and may be unnoticeable to you.
28. Open your shades to heat your home by the sun.
29. Cover drafty windows with plastic for the winter or hot summer.
30. Change your furnace filter annually. It will run more efficiently.
31. Raise the temperature on your air conditioning. While the blast of cold air when you come in feels great, most people are comfortable in air conditioning that only 10-15 degrees cooler than outdoors.
32. Change your air conditioner filter annually to maximize efficiency.
33. Close your shades to keep your home cool.
34. Plant a shade tree to keep the sun off your house.
35. Consider camping for your next vacation.
36. Vacation during the off seasons.
37. Take advantage of vacation packages that are all inclusive.
38. Unless you plan on staying in your hotel room during your vacation, this is usually a place where you can got a little less expensive without suffering. All you need is a quiet room, comfortable bed and hot shower to enjoy your next vacation day.
39. Don’t even look at the room service menu. Go down to the restaurant to save an easy 20% of your bill.
40. Carpool to work.
41. Better yet, if possible walk or bike.
42. Learn to make expensive coffee drinks at home.
43. Skip dessert at a restaurant meal, lose a few pounds and save money!
44. Learn to make one really great cake, then offer to bring the birthday cake as your present.
45. Reevaluate your phone usage. Can you replace a monthly voice-mail charge with a $20 answering machine?
46. Drop Caller ID with a habit of screening your calls with the answering machine?
47. Take advantage of cell phone plans with free nights and weekends to make your social long distance calls.
48. Can you get your internet access cheaper?
49. Perhaps a cable modem, while more expensive than dial up, with save you the costs of an extra phone line. You could break even in the long run, and spend less time waiting for your pages to load.
50. When shopping, buy the size with the cheapest cost per ounce.
There are plenty more ways to make your spending dollar go further. All it takes is a little creativity and some thinking and you will soon be on your way to cutting your spending in unbelievable ways. gippro