I just graduated from law school and am working at my first job. I am trying as hard as I can to pay back as much as I can on student loans ASAP. This has me trying to save money wherever I can. Here are some of the things I do:
At the beginning of the week, I map out my meals for the rest of the week. Then I grocery shop and only buy the stuff I need to make those meals. Otherwise, I end up buying a mishmash of food, half of which I don’t use. This way, if I know I’m going to eat beef stroganoff on Wednesday, I get the beef and the noodles and sour cream in one trip instead of three trips. It lacks surprise and/or excitement but I’m not wasting a lot of food each week like before. (And I admit…I do let myself buy some junk every so often.) But I don’t buy any TV dinners.
Typical not leaving lights on all over which is hard because I like my place really bright. I like the TV on even if it’s on mute. NO clue why I do that. But normal electricity things like turning my heat down at night, etc.
I pack my lunch. This is what prompted this thread - I was reading in MPSIMS about what everyone was eating for lunch and how they were waiting for payday next week. Here is the crazy thing - since I plan my meals, I usually have a great lunch packed, though admittedly, it is typically leftovers from dinner the night before. This cuts down on my $$ spent on going out to lunch and the calories.
I cut coupons when I find them for stuff I like.
Anyway! I’m just trying to figure out how I can save some money, even in small ways. I allow myself some spending money during the week but we’re talking 10-20 bucks. Movie, dinner out or something like that. How all do you save some money?
Well, I mostly save money in big ways, like repiping my house myself, maintaining my own car, etc. You’ve got most of the ones that I’m familiar with.
You might check out the motley fool at http://www.fool.com, and look for the board “Living below your means”. They have lots of good tips. Some of them are extreme, but you may find good stuff in there.
You’re on the right track with your meal planning.
Dining out can represent one of the largest chunk of unnecessary spending in a person’s expenditures.
Lasagna is one great way to make a dish that keeps on giving. Purchase a set of those semi-disposable plastic containers and portion out the lasagna when it has cooled. Freeze off the leftover amount for future use. I’ll see if I can’t post a lasagna recipe to my recipe thread soon. The disposable containers are a really good investment. They encourage you to bring things to work for lunch yet you don’t weep if they get thrown out or nicked by someone. Reuse the produce bags from the supermarket. Avoid the use of expensive zip-loc® sandwich bags.
Another great lunch and dinner economizer is to make a batch of rice and beans, a good chile verde or rojo and make a big batch of burritos. These too can be frozen without compromising too much of their quality. Chicken enchiladas are another dish to add to the list as well. A small amount of meat can feed an army. Spicy foods are your friend. They keep for much longer and are more satisfying as a meal. If you have an energy effecient refrigerator, keep it set at a very cold temperature. Your food will keep much longer and the energy bill is not that much higher.
I recommend getting a whole chicken and slow cooking it. Bone it out completely and then make some of it into a curry or enchiladas and the other part into a nice chicken salad for sandwiches during the work week. The stock will make for excellent gravy or soups too. Look for exceptional sales. In my neck of the woods we have Best Foods mayonnaise for $2.00 a quart and Foster Farms whole chicken for 69¢ a pound. You can bet that chicken is on the menu this week.
Always stock up on items that you know you will use. Look for really good deals on light bulbs and toilet paper for instance. Buy a large quantity on sale, they have no shelf life. Same with dish soap and laundry detergent. Stay away from granulated laundry soap as it hydrates (absorbs water from the air) and loses its effectiveness. The liquid will keep well and you can buy it in the large quantity size. If you do not have a coin operated laundry, dry your clothes on the poly or gentle cycle and they will not be damaged by the heat so much. Turn your jeans inside out when you wash them and they will not fade quite as fast. When you wash dishes, pour a little dish soap into a container and fill it with water. Dip your scrubber into that and wash your dishes. Most dish soaps are very concentrated and go a long way even when diluted. Be sure to buy quality products. Watered down economy grades rarely save you any money.
Other ways to save money are to have a change of clothes at home that are your ratty week end style of togs. Change into them immediately when you get home and reduce the wear and cleaning frequency of your work clothes.
Make a habit of throwing all of the change in your pockets at the end of each day into a jar. This gives you an emergency stash of mad money for when the need arises. Use things until they wear out completely instead of just when they are no longer pretty. Learn to reuse, refill and recycle objects. Whether it means using old envelopes for your grocery lists or whatever. Assiduous use of store coupons (as you already know) can add up to tremendous savings over the course of a year.
Turn your heat down at night and while you’re gone during the day.
Watch for bargain times for movies. The theatre around here has a Tuesday bargain day and shows particular movies at half price.
Buy your clothes at a consignment shop (you’d be surprised what you can find.) I get much nicer clothes than I normally would be able to afford cause I buy at consignment shops. Go to the ones in wealthier neighborhoods.
Do you have a bulk foods store around? The kind where you can actually buy just one ounce of cinnamon, if that’s all you need? Use them. Example: I don’t have to spend 5 on rice if all I need is one cup for .40.
Can you carpool?
Check those annoying flyers and newspaper things they always stick in your mailbox. You know, the “Community Coupons” ones. I’m always surprised at the restaurants, auto shops and stuff that put coupons in those things. Use 'em!
Rent your videos from the public library - cheaper if not free sometimes.
I am really impressed with the things you have all mentioned. I would really like to try the lasagna thing. I’ve been thinking about it lately but have no clue how to make lasagna so I’ve put it off.
I do throw my change into a jar. I’ve been kind of impressed at how quickly that stuff adds up.
Zenster, can you post a recipe for the burritos along with the lasagna?
I did the chicken thing. I eat a lot of chicken breasts so I buy them on the bone, remove the bones, make stock and freeze it, along with the meat I removed from the bones. Then I freeze the breasts. I’ve also started buying chicken thighs for some recipes.
I’ll check out the local library for movies and try to start reading the books that are there instead of purchasing them. Time to check out the local movie listings, too.
Here are some of the recipes from my recipe thread. All of them are very economical and nutritous. I’ll see about posting a lasagna recipe in the next few days.
(email me if any of the links don’t work. The boards are too slow for me to verify them all right now.)
Here is the rice for the burritos:
[li]Spanish Rice[/li]Seasoned Rice
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
Here are the beans:
[li]Mexican Style Beans[/li]Chili Beans
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
This is a traditional Mexican chili:
[li]Chili de Guaillo[/li]Authentic Old Style Mexican Chili
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
This is a fabulous filling for burritos, enchiladas or tacos:
[li]Carne de Res[/li]Shredded Mexican Beef
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
This is a killer filling for burritos or tacos:
[li]Carnitas[/li]Crispy Mexican Style Pork
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
You can make a quart of this for a dollar or two:
[sup]KEEPS FOR ABOUT 1 WEEK[/SUP]
[li]Pico de Gallo[/li]Mexican Hot Pepper Relish
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
You can make a quart of this also for a dollar or two:
[sup]KEEPS FOR ABOUT 1 WEEK[/SUP]
[li]Salsa Casera[/li]Seranno Chilie Salsa
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
This is a real crowd pleaser:
[li]Chicken Enchiladas[/li]Mexican Main Course
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
This is what to do with your chicken broth:
[li]** Sopa De Arroz Con Pollo**[/li]Chicken and Rice Soup
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
This is a super economical breakfast dish:
[li]**Bixemad **[/li]Danish Hash
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
Chicken thighs & legs are WAY cheaper than chicken breasts, and they make better stock. Boned and de-boned chicken breasts cost the same (at least where I live) when you are just comparing the pounds of meat you get (ie, if boneless breasts are $3.79/lb, and bone-in breasts are $3.29/lb, by the time you remove the bone and just weigh the meat it costs about the same as buying 'em boneless from the start.) So my advice - buy thighs & legs and make the stock from them, and if you really want to live high on the hog and eat chicken breasts, just get the boneless ones.
Either way, buying the whole bird is cheaper, so maybe just go that route.
Other food ideas: Beans & Rice cost next to nothing, and can be really good. Saute an onion and some garlic, throw a can of beans in (drained) or some cooked dry beans, throw in a can of corn, a couple dollops of salsa or hot sauce, and the juice of 1/2 a lime. Add a lot of cumin, too. Saute it up until it’s hot, serve over rice with cheese. Makes a whole protein so it’s nutritious, it costs next to nothing, especially if you use bulk dry beans and bulk rice, and it tastes GREAT. My favorite is to douse it with green Tabasco. Yummmm!
This is also a great recipe for using up leftover bits and pieces of stuff. You can add almost anything to the beans - beer, red wine, leftover meat or fish, veggies that need to be used up, etc. It always turns out great!
Central heating on a timer switch: Don’t heat a room you aren’t using. It sounds obvious, but it’s actually quite easy to leave the living room heater on high when you go to bed so that when the heat comes on in the morning (assuming your heating is on a timer switch) you’re heating the living room instead of just the bedroom.
Central heating on a thermostat: Turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees.
Clothes drying: Dry them on a rack over a heater rather than in the tumble dryer. Dry them outside if you possibly can.
Turn the TV right off at the TV itself, or the mains plug, not just at the remote control. Standby still uses electricity - nearly as much as leaving the TV on.
Fruit and Vegetables in season are much, much cheaper than they are out of season. I caught my partner buying grapes at £7 a kilo last year, and I nearly had a bloody fit. (I know, he’s a grown man, and it’s his own money, but if he’s going to waste it, I want him to have made an informed decision to waste it)
Find out where the cheap stores are and use them. Avoid false economy - if it looks like it’s going to fall apart in five minutes, it’s not a bargain.
You might want to check out your health food store to do some “emergency” pantry stocking. They usually sell things in bulk so you only buy the quantities you need. With some basics like dried beans, pasta, rice, etc. you can add some extras like dried tomatoes, cans of artichoke hearts, dried 'shrooms and such. You can make quick, killer meals for pennies; just buy fresh veggies and you’re good to go. It really helps combat food blahs.
Hit garage sales. Every single decorative glass jar in my pantry (housing the rice, beans, pasta, etc.) I bought for practically nothing at garage sales. Same with other incidental household items.
Combine errands. Plan a little so you don’t retrace routes; saves gas and frustration.
Don’t have the time to look right now, but there is (or was) a great little publication called The Tightwad Gazette. Those folks really know how to get the most out of money!
Okay, this first tip is strictly for the viciously stingy or the pathetically broke.
When you go to the grocery store to buy, say, apples? Put the apples in one of those plastic bags they provide, and then put that in another bag, and another … In other words, double- or triple-bag your fruits and veggies, and then, when you get home, save those bags and use them for food-storage bags (instead of buying Ziplocs, which I think are expensive). I also re-use yogurt containers and the like instead of tupperware.
Know when it’s time to to throw these things away, though - like when they’re full of holes – or you could end up with ptomaine poisoning.
I’m with those who advocate chicken thighs instead of breasts. You can get boned thighs at my store for about 1/4 of the cost of breasts, and if you’re making soup or curry or a casserole or something, they’re perfectly fine. Soups in general are cheap to make.
Also, have you thought about checking the temp. your water-heater is set at? Ours was at something like 160. We knocked it down to 130 and saved quite a bit of money on our electricity bill.
Take your credit cards, destroy the high-interest ones, and freeze the one remaining in water. Keep it frozen in your freezer, only breaking it out when you absolutely have to.
Carry as little money with you as possible. It’s kind of self-evident, but you can’t spend money if it’s not in your pocket. My biggest problem is that I got into the habit some years ago of always carrying $80 - $200 in cash with me. Needless to say, I always spent it. Magazines were my biggest cash waster. Now, I hardly ever buy them. I consider them to be kind of a waste of money. Most of them are online anyway, so what’s the point? (Assuming you have Internet access at work.)
Turn the heat down two to four degrees cooler than you normally like it. Wear a sweater and keep a blanket handy.
You can use a Ziploc type bag, just wash them like any other container. We only do that for pre-cooked, fresh fruit/veggies, no meats, cheeses, or dairy.
Reuse aluminum foil, wash carefully and try not to crinkle it to much, when the pieces are too small to use, wash once more and add to the recycle bin.
Really check the cents per ounce on some items. I have actually seen prices for 8 oz cans of tomatoes cheaper than the 20-30 oz versions.
Turn off / reduce use of high watt items. You can leave a 75 watt bulb on all day and it costs you three cents. Hair dryers, curling irons, toasters, some microwaves, electric space heaters, electric clothes dryer, the TV can be expensive.
Get a hot water heater blanket (really important if you have a electric water heater)
Cook in bulk like Zenster says. Like the Lasagna you can make a large pan of Baked Macaroni & Cheese.
If you use ground meat, extend it with bread crumbs, wheat germ, etc… (If your bread gets stale, don’t throw it away, let it dry completely and make bread crumb.
[li]Lasagna[/li]Pasta Casserole
[sup]Submitted by Zenster[/sup]
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only tightwad here who reuses his produce storage bags from the supermarket. It’s not that Zip-Locs are too expensive, it’s just that I refuse to throw away something that’s perfectly usable. To me, that is a crime against nature. I have seen so many people that I know throw away perfectly edible food and all sorts of containers just because they can’t be bothered with the effort to reuse them.
Most of the theatre circuits have mystrey shopper programs. Basically you go to the movies and then fill out a report on the theatre (clean, fast service, did the concession person suggestive sell etc). They reimburse you for the ticket price and the money spent at the concession counter. Sweet Deal!
Just look up the web pages for the circuits in your area.
