For online purchases, I always check for coupons at www.retailmenot.com.
Drink less alcohol. Coincidentally I’ve just given myself a heart attack by checking my bank balance and thinking I’d been robbed, but then I remembered that since my last pay cheque I’ve had at least five nights out involving semi-heavy drinking and buying rounds. It really adds up.
Learn to cook well with whatever you have. Use up all your leftovers. Avoid throwing away food. Don’t be unnecessarily picky about use-by dates (learn which ones are unnecessary, though!). Freeze food in sensible portions. The night you think “Oh, I can’t be bothered/don’t have time to defrost that whole chicken/I’m eating at my parents’ tomorrow, I’ll just order a pizza” is a waste of money. Bag food in portions and you’ll be more likely to actually eat it instead of just watching it get freezer burn. Also, just eat less. This may not apply to you, but most of us really do eat more than we need, and we pay for every bit of it even as we moan about the weight we’re gaining.
Clean your clothes regularly. They’ll look better and last longer. When you do have to replace them, buy at the end of the season. Go to a “nice” area and look in charity shops (Goodwill?). When I was a student I had a really nice, really expensive coat I could not have afforded if the good housewives of West Hampstead hadn’t given them away to Cancer Research.
Buy quality. If necessary, go without for a while and save up so that you can buy the best you can reasonably expect to get. I saved up and paid £200 for my heavy leather boots instead of grabbing the ones going for £60. I still wear those boots most days in the winter. They’re eight years old and I haven’t even had to have them resoled yet.
Choose “Time-of-day” electricity rates, if available. We easily save $100/month or more by doing our laundry and running the pool in off-peak. For our rate, the off-peak power is basically free (1/7 the cost of on-peak).
Do your own repairs. I would say that this probably saves $5K/year. I do all the car/pool/home/computer repairs I can. Saving a single service call is worth over $100.
You can cut your shipping costs a lot for online purchases by going to places like digg.com and doing a search for shipping coupons.
Other ways I save money are to try to buy baby clothes at garage sales or use hand-me-downs from friends. If I buy new, I usually try to find a store that’s just opening or wait for sales. I always go in with a list, too, and a firm cut-off in my mind of how much I’m willing to shell out.
I mend most of my clothes when they get minor rips and tears in inconspicuous (did I spell that right?) places - hems, seams, inner lining, etc. I try very hard not to throw them away.
I make virtually all of the food I eat and try very hard not to purchase things marketed as snack items. I do snack, but it’s usually on fruit or nuts. I also buy meat and fish in bulk - we don’t eat much of it, so I just cut it up into recipe-sized or serving-sized pieces, then stick it in the freezer. I also stock up on lentils and rice, which we eat frequently, and make flatbread by hand (flatbreads like chapattis are a huge part of our diet). I also keep an eye out for deals on fruits & veggies at the local supermarket and try to shop at local farmer’s markets. One word of caution about those, though - there are yuppie farmer’s markets. You know, the ones in really upscale neighborhoods where everything is marketed as organic, pro-biotic, etc. I have no beef with such foods, but buying them in a farmer’s market located in a well-to-do area usually costs much more than just going to the farm.
Then there’s the obvious stuff - don’t put more on your credit card than you can pay back, if you can help it. I try to pay cash for groceries instead of use credit. When I do use credit, it’s on a low-interest, cashback Discover card, which I then use to get free gift certificates to places like Borders and Gap so I can get “free” books and clothes for the family. Cashback programs also come in handy on trips - you can get free rental cars sometimes or hotel deals, for example.
When it comes to goodwill purchases or trash finds be careful if you live in a big city. In NYC I am always hesitant to buy or use anything secondhand that cannot be run through a washer and dryer before bringing it into my home because bedbugs are making a big comeback here. I think at least a dozen times in the last 6 months we’ve seen furniture or other things that would come in handy but left it because it wouldn’t be worth a potential bedbug outbreak to have that particular piece of furniture.
There are two things. (1) Saving (2) Not spending.
For (1) part of my paycheck goes into a savings account. If I get a raise, I try to divert the whole raise to the savings account. This way I’m less tempted to elevate my spending to my elevated income.
For (2), I buy cheaper things. I only pay cash for cars, so I’m limited to a car that costs less than the cash I have available. If this means I have to wait a few months and save up, I’ll do that. I have found perfectly serviceable cars that have lasted for years and been reliable. They’re not beauties.
For other things, I will look for things on sale, but I won’t buy something just because it’s on sale. I have certain standards, and it has to meet the standards or I won’t buy it. I have screwed this up, but in general I follow it pretty well.
I don’t skimp on food, though. I’m kind of a picky eater. If I take a brownbag lunch, I very likely won’t eat it, and will have wasted both the cost of the food and my time. I would rather skip lunch than eat some soggy tuna sandwich. And generally I do skip lunch. Cheap foods are not really an option, because I will take one look and decide I’m not really that hungry.
I also do the shop-at-Goodwill thing. You can find good basic stuff there. The reason I do this is, if I’m looking for something in a particular color, and it’s not this year’s color, I will only find it at a resale shop. It seems that whenever I have a specific need, i.e., a tailored black shirt made out of cotton, it’s easier to find at a resale place.
On the other hand I have spent $300 on a scarf so obviously I don’t always adhere to frugal principles. (Scarf was worth it, though.)
No theatre movies. At 10 bucks a ticket plus or minus, even just the tickets add up. If you do go, go for matinee prices (though at the theatre near us it’s 9 vs 11 dollars, it’s still a bit of a savings).
And if you do go, take a big purse (or whatever) and bring your own snacks. I understand the economic model by which the theatres make most of their money on food vs. the tickets, but when this causes a matinee for a family of 4 to add up to 80 dollars, it’s well into unaffordable territory. Or skip snacks entirely.
Take your lunch to work. Even though food brought from home isn’t free, it’s almost certainly cheaper than anything you could buy at work.
Drink water vs. soda. Water is almost free at home, and generally at work also. If your water isn’t tasty and you prefer bottled, get a Brita filter or something and drink filtered water instead.
Concur on library books vs purchasing. I’ve even been known to wrap up a library book for gifting to my spouse - started doing that when we were looking at moving house and trying to get rid of excess clutter, but there was a book I knew he wanted to read. It shows the thought and effort, but no clutter!
I don’t know your exact situation, but you can save on gas by simply driving less. This may mean walking or biking places you would otherwise drive, or carpooling, or public transportation. Ideally, you’d also try to get a job closer to home, but right now is probably not the time to be looking to make that change.
On the beverage front, if you don’t like water, you can get tea (even good-quality tea) for a fraction of the cost of pop.
Store brands for things like paper products and health aids. I just bought the Kroger brand jar of multi-vitamins for half the price of Centrum and got 50 more tabs. Same ingredients. Generic drugs like naproxen instead of Aleve, etc. can save you a bundle. Store cereal is also a real bargain: Corn Bitz taste no different than Corn Chex and are far cheaper. One of the few store-brand items I don’t buy is popcorn. It’s usually filled with hulls and is real crap. I buy it in small quantities from the bulk bin at a local store.
One thing I don’t understand is why people will buy the premium brand of lunchmeat instead of the store brand. For $3.00/lb difference in price, there’s no appreciable difference in taste, yet I see people doing it all the time.
I also don’t understand why people would refuse to get a Safeway/Fred Meyer/Whatever discount card. You’d rather pay full price?
I’m all about giving the store brands a try, but I DO taste a significant difference in the premium brand of ham and the store brand. Since I can’t stand the taste of the store brand, it’s not a savings to purchase it. YM obviously V, though, and if you are happy with your store brand, I’m certainly not going to sneer at you for buying it.
Have you tried taking the tuna salad in one container, and bread or crackers in another container? I like tuna salad on crackers. If you generally don’t care for tuna sandwiches, even if they’re fresh, then this won’t work for you. I’ve also read recommendations that people pack the bread, the spread, and the filling separately, and assemble things at work. I used to keep a loaf of bread, some ham (yes, I like ham), and some mustard at work, in the little fridge we had there, and eat ham sandwiches every day for lunch. But if you know that you wouldn’t do such a thing, then again, it’s no savings.
Everything I own was purchased used,
- I leverage my property through the use of my labor.
- I learned to fly by helping someone restore an airplane (who in turn taught me to fly). I also joined a flying club to get cheap use of an airplane.
- My garage was completely rebuilt for less than $5,000 because I recycled doors given to me and made my own windows. It turned out the custom built trusses were cheaper than off the shelf trusses.
- All the plumbing in my basement was redone for the cost of the pipe etc
- I keep shopping lists of bulk items and split the cost of a Sam’s club membership with a friend (you’d be surprised what is and isn’t a bargain at these clubs).
Basically everything that costs money is given serious thought.
Somewhat counter intuitive, but I don’t spend singles, $5 or $10 bills. I throw them into the sock drawer at the end of the day. Not only does this give me money to add to a savings account regularly, but also if you are breaking a $20, you think far more about buying that coffee or candy bar than you would if you were only using the dollar bills you already had in change.
I do this as well - a signifcant portion of my pay is diverted via automatic direct deposit to ING. Thus, I simply get used to living as if I was poorer than I am.
Living below your means, rather than above them, is key to savings. Fail to live below your means, and all the coupon-clipping in the world will not help; do so, and you can happily buy the premium lunchmeat if you want.
I thrift.
Salvation Army, Goodwill, other thrift stores. I hardly ever buy new clothing (with the exception of underwear) or shoes. (not only 'cause I’m both poor and cheap, but I prefer the variety available over buying new. BTW, have you SEEN the price of UNDERWEAR lately??? I may have to rethink that exception ;)). Same for furniture and other household goods.
I’m typing on a lovely, huge, solid wood computer hutch which I got for $120 at a thrift store. (most I’ve EVER paid for anything from a thrift store, but more than worth it). Sitting on a nice cushy chair I paid $10 for. (how I could afford the relatively new computer I’m using)
Our popcorn popper is a Wearever Popcorn Pumper I got for $6.
My office quality paper shreader was $5.
Most of my several hundred hardcover books were bought used/at thrift stores for a buck or 2.
The 2 white wicker chairs on my balcony, one a rocker, bought at different times, cost a grand total of $30 or so (and the outdoor matching cushions were another $3)
I buy almost all my DVDs for $3 a pop at the pawn shop and all 5 of our guitars came from there as well.
Etc…It adds up.
I scavenge.
My couch? I actually picked it up off the side of the road several yrs ago. Someone had held a yard sale and dumped what was left…I drove by it 3 times before I got out and looked and said, “man, this is a NICE couch!” and took it home, washed the cushion covers and steam cleaned the body just in case. Still have it and love it.
My son’s dresser was salvaged from beside a dumpster.
My big living room ottoman was left in the hall by someone moving out of a building where we rented studio space…I snatched it up and recovered it. Also got my entertainment center that way.
My massive (as in, about 5X5, solid wood/doubles as a wall) bookshelf began life as an old, doorless wardrobe left by a previous owner in the basement of a house we rented once. We wrestled it up the stairs with the help of 3 friends, added shelves, and painted it.
You get the idea.
No, I’m not proud. 
(seems the dumpster-diving, scavenging gene passed on to my son…he is great at finding cool stuff. Our turntable? A Pioneer he picked up from the side of the road out of a pile of “junk”. Works perfectly! Even the needle was like new. 
)
I buy certain foods in bulk, both because it’s cheaper and to avoid the packaging.
Oatmeal, rice and other whole grains, flours, spices.
And we’re vegetarian, so no milk or meat…I can buy lots of fresh produce and whole grains and even some things like Garden Burgers and rice milk and still save money.
I cancelled the cable and use Netflix. (looking to buy a Wii soon so we can watch on the TV as well as the computers).
No special features on the home phone…we have an answering machine and I can deal with not knowing who is calling until I answer it.
I paid off my car early.
I take mass transit rather than drive whenever I can (esp. to go downtown for school or anything else…I buy a pass and save on gas, PARKING, and aggrivation)
I also do all my banking with a credit union (checking, savings, loans, credit card). The rates and fees (if any) are less and the service MUCH better, ime. Plus I’m not supporting the big banks and all THAT mess. :rolleyes:
Library, half.com. I’ll only buy books from a book store if it’s from my favorite author. Then sometimes I’ll try and pop it onto half.com the next day to recoup some of the money.
Make my own iced tea. I’m almost to the point where I don’t even bother with the sugar or lemon to make it healthy, but it costs about $4 for iced tea for me for months on end. It’s so easy to do - no excuses. It also saves me because now I won’t buy soda, I use that instead.
I’m not a foody, and I try to separate meals I want to make that I enjoy (like a pot roast with trimmings) vs shoving food in my mouth to not be hungry (which is practically all of my meals) so I have tons of rice, frozen cheap vegitables, and chicken for those meals.
If you have to throw something away because it’s expired you failed big time in planning (well, unless it’s something really odd). I’ll make meatloaf, which needs 1 egg. Then after the meatloaf is consumed with the eggs make french toast, scrambled eggs, and fried egg sandwiches till their gone. That’s like 2 weeks worth of food (and all that cholesterol!)
I don’t because of this message board, and the concerns about privacy that various posters right here raised. Besides, where I shop doesn’t give me any extra savings for a card, just points (which are useful, but I’m sure take a long time to build to anything significant, even if it’s the only place I really shop at).
As for lunches, I tried the brown bag thing during my contract tenure. I really did. But after 21 weeks of sandwiches three days a week, I just couldn’t take it anymore. It got to the point where I’d just stare at the sandwich no matter how hungry I was, choke it down, and nearly gag, because I just could not take eating one more sandwich. Not even switching filling 16 or 17 weeks in really helped. So now I’m spending more for lunch, but it’s worth it, because I think it’ll be a long time before I can even consider eating another sandwich without my appetite shutting down.
Just wanted to add (sorry…I am scum :o) I WISH I could garden…I am used to having a big vegetable garden and it is a great way to save money. I left it out because I currently have only a balcony with a Northern exposure…it is full of plants, hanging, on trellises, in pots, but we simply don’t get enough LIGHT to grow even lettuces or tomatoes well, I tried. 
Going to look into finding a community garden in our area, since I really miss it and also spend a LOT on produce I can grown better and cheaper myself.
Also, re’ going to the theater to see movies (something I rarely do, even as a film student, due to cost) I joined a MeetUp group a few yrs back devoted to those who enjoy movies and members get together to go see films regularly. I’ve gotten to go see several for FREE, usually because we get passes to advance screenings (Public Enemies and Thirst are a few I attended this way). It’s fun and if you don’t mind having to get there early and wait in line sometimes, a good bet for getting free tickets (AND getting to see films before the general public :))
Oh, and I use my Fred Myer card. I get about $30 back 4 times a yr. Privacy? I got nothin’ to hide.
I’ve done that too, but my brother said razors on Ebay are starting to be filled with cheap chinese/hong kong knockoffs rather than the higher quality name brand stuff. I avoid electronics almost entirely on ebay because of the issue of knockoffs.
Privacy? You mean, like your phone number and email? I’ve been using these cards for at least 20 years and have had no problems that I’m aware of, and certainly none that affect me in the least.
I don’t refuse (I have one for each of the 2 major local supermarket chains), and both have addresses and phone numbers for me that are insanely out of date. But I practically never shop at the major supermarkets, because I find much better prices either at Costco or any of the numerous wonderful ethnic markets. And for the latter, no cards are needed (or even exist, for that matter). I get better quality food there for less money.
I save money in many of the ways already mentioned (I think none of our furniture was bought full-price; it’s all either been handed down, or bought via Craigslist, or heavily discounted). But the biggest everyday way is that we don’t buy much processed food at all, and the vast majority of our cooking is from scratch. (We try to be good about bringing leftover dinner to work for lunch the next day, too.) And we don’t tend to buy random coffees, sodas, snacks, etc. away from home on a regular basis.