What are some of your nifty money savers?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I personally have three. What are yours and how much do you save?

1.)I use one of those flavor injector needles and RIT clothing dye to refill my black ink cartridges for printer. Takes a few more seconds to dry, but works! Hundreds of dollars a year. (I print a lot)

2.) I cut my own hair and have become better than the people at the cheaper places, saves hundreds per year.

3.) For my germguardian air purifier, I buy a roll of best air carbon filters and a cheapo dupont hvac filter and cut them to size. (about $100 a year)
What are yours?

2

I save a ton by riding my bike instead of driving. I’ve never worked out the exact value, but compare the total cost of ownership of a car to, let’s say, $300 purchase price for the bike plus maybe $50-$70 of maintenance per year. Toss in the occasional bus ticket for when the bike won’t do, and call it a round Benjamin annually.

3

Car insurance. My state lets me insure myself, as a driver, and not my cars. $300/year for 15 cars and a dozen bikes.

Sweet! Couldn’t live anywhere else.

4

I am a master at getting free or very cheap travel. It isn’t that difficult to do. All it takes is a high credit score, no revolving balance and picking the right credit cards with the really good introductory offers. I happened to take a Frontier airlines flight a few weeks ago that gave out two round trip tickets to anywhere they fly in the U.S. for $69 if you signed up for their credit card in flight. There is not even a minimum spending requirement. You better bet your ass that I grabbed that one because I need to go to Phoenix in January and I can use the other ticket for something else.

Use them, pay them off right away, cancel them and repeat (contrary to popular belief, this tends to help rather than hurt your credit score as long as you do it correctly).

I have so many free plane tickets and hotel stays right now that I don’t even know what to do with them. You want to go to Las Vegas next weekend? Sure, all it costs is the “resort fee” for about $25 a night. The odd thing is that when you have exclusive credit cards, people give you even more free stuff if you just ask for it. It is often cheaper for me to travel somewhere else for a few days than it costs to stay home in the Boston area when I have time off.

5

Never buy anything made out of paper.

Use kitchen cleanup towels that can be laundered.

Use cloth napkins at table settings.

Get a bidet, or learn to sit on the edge of tub.

Use the blank backs of junk mail for note paper or computer printer paper.

Save at least $100 a year for each member of your household.

6

Spring Rewards, Groupon Plus, or any other similar cash back rewards programs. You just pay with a linked credit card and you either receive a percentage of the bill pack or else you’ll receive a certain dollar figure back after you spend a fixed amount. Both of these programs also give you rewards on the tip you add as well. For example, tonight with Groupon Plus, I went to a favorite bar, bought four $4 drinks for a tab of $16, added a $4 tip for a total of $20. With Groupon Plus, I’ll get 10% back in a couple days, so i’ll receive a $2 deposit.

7

Pfft. Just do handstands in the shower.

8

Plan well in advance about things that you will need, and buy them cheap straight from the factory. www.aliexpress.com is a great resource. (delivery may take six weeks or so.) Once you learn some of the factories and who is reliable you can get good deals off of ebay as well.

I even buy clothing and shoes this way. Granted, some items won’t fit correctly, but if all of them are 90% off, you still come out way ahead.

9

I am absolutely amazed at how much money people spend on vehicles. The following has saved me a boatload of money over the past 34 years:

  1. I only buy used, preferably 5 to 10 years old; I have never purchased a new car.
  2. I pay cash; I have never taken out a car loan.
  3. I only buy liability insurance; I have never purchased collision insurance.
  4. I do almost all the maintenance myself.
  5. I drive them 'till the wheels fall off. (My current daily driver is a 2002 Saturn with 252K miles.)
10

For me, it’s worth the extra $$ to have a vehicle that always starts and gets me where I want to go.

11

Not necessary to remove all clothing to use a bidet.

If you had poo on any other part of your body, would you just give it a quick swipe with a piece of paper and call it good enough?

12

Arriving home all hot and sweaty and want to turn on the air conditioner? No way. I strip down to undies and bra (or Tshirt), stand under a freezing cold shower for five minutes, and put on a large Tshirt without toweling dry. It keeps me much cooler, and doesn’t run up my electric bill.

13

If you use your tub as a bidet, where do you take a bath/shower?

14

Duh. That’s what the toilet is for.

15

Or the cesspool if temperatures permit.

16

^This, plus:
6) I buy used tires instead of new. I can get 75% tread tires for less than 25% of the cost of new tires (~$30 mounted, balanced and installed).
7) I get parts from the scrapyard, where possible and not a safety issue, or online. Local auto parts store is a last resort or if I need the part quickly.

Just a few weeks ago I replaced the catalytic converter on my daughter’s vehicle. The part was $150 online (I wouldn’t buy this type part used), came with a 5 year warranty and took about an hour to install. An independent shop would have charged $600-700, a dealer about double that. Instant savings of $450-1,000.

The above does require some mechanical knowledge. I was fortunate to have a dad who was a mechanic his entire life. You Tube and Google make things MUCH easier as well.

17

My 2002 Saturn just passed 280,000 miles. Now I know why they went out of business. Their owners never bought a replacement.

18

AGREE! I don’t want to worry about breakdowns, etc.

19

Use wish lists to shop, and let everything sit before you buy it. Not only does the urge to buy something generally dissipate within a few days, but putting something on a wish list can often give you the same gratification that you would get from actually buying it.

It’s amazing how many things I “really, really wanted” turn into “why did I even put that on my wish list?” after only a short period of time.

20

Nearly-new tires have saved me a lot of money. You can get tires that have seen maybe a few thousand miles for a fraction of the price of new ones.