By now you've seen every blog post there is about how to save money. Like me, you've probably even cycled through the same money saving sites more than a few times. And, like me, the money saving habits you initially adopted are so second hat by now that you've probably forgotten that they're still saving you money.
At this point in my frugalness, I need to be reminded of those things. I need to be reminded that, even though I'm trying to save more money than I did last month, I'm still saving more money than I was last year.
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By taking lunch to work and only eating out once per month, we save about $250 a month.
The amounts we saved on each item wasn't huge, but they did start to add up when taken collectively:
On average, we saved about $80 a month making our own yogurt, nut butters, dressings, etc.
Again, the individual savings aren't huge, but knowing when a sale price isn't the best price is always helpful. And knowing when that can of albacore tuna (or box of spaghetti) is at its lowest price, is very handy when stocking up.
Also it's good to know which stores consistently have the best prices on specific items.
We buy bulk items once a quarter, maybe, but our monthly savings are around $45.
1 pound of dried beans equals about 4-16 oz cans of beans, and costs about as much as one can of organic beans. It's a bonus, too, in that it doesn't take as much room to store the 1 lb. of dried beans as it does 4 cans of not-dry beans.
We probably go through the equivalent of 10 cans of beans a month (possibly more in the winter).
We save about $11 / month by opting for dried beans over canned.
On a whim, a few years ago, I bought a Soap Nuts sample and gave it a try. Soap Nuts are the dried berry of the Sapindus / Western Soap Berry bush. The berries are natural surfactants. You put several dried berries (that look similar to horse chestnuts) into a small cotton bag and throw that into the wash with your laundry. There's no residue, no odor, and when combined with vinegar in the wash, your clothes come out looking and smelling clean.
I bought a 4 lb. bag of Soap Nuts for $41 about 3 years ago and still have 2 lbs. & we do 3-4 loads of laundry a week. Even if the Soap Nuts only lasted me 4 years, that's a cost of $10.25 / year. More likely, they'll last another 2+ years, at a cost $7.50 / year.
Before this, I was buying the 160+ oz Free & Clear liquid detergent for $14, about twice a year (costing me $28 a year or $2.34 / month).
The Soap Nuts cost me less than 65¢ a month—a savings of $1.69 / month, but the kicker for me was the fact that I didn't have to recycle any more plastic containers.
There's not a lot of savings here, since I usually only spent about $5 a month on the stuff, but it's $5 more in our pockets.
Like most people, we got fed up with our old Internet provider (cough: AT&T), who kept raising our rates while reducing our band width. We finally had enough when they wanted to up our rates to $75 a month (for Internet only) and reduce us to the second slowest speed they offered. They were trying to pressure us into one of their package deals and I'd just had enough.
We hopped over to Spectrum and for a year, got their intro rate of $35 / month for a much faster speed than AT&T was offering. Once the year was up, instead of doubling the monthly amount (like AT&T did), our charges went up only $10.
For the first year we saved $40 / month (or $480 for the year).
After that, we're still saving $30 / month.
(And most recently, AT&T tried to sell us on their new intro rate of $70 / month—for the same speed/bandwidth that Spectrum is giving us).
We also bought our modem (used), instead of renting it for a monthly fee. Buying it outright cost us $40. If we were to rent, it would cost us $10 / month. So that's another $10 / month in savings.
Initially, we fell for the "but the phone is way cheaper if we sign the 2-year contract" ploy. For 2, semi-new phones with 3 gigs of data we were paying around $140 / month. 4 years later, with the same phones and the same data plan, we're paying $82 / month.
I compared this to several discount service providers and the cost was comparable to their similar offerings. (I think Republic Wireless was the only one that was cheaper, but one of us would have had to buy a new phone in order to switch over).
We're reaching the point at which or phones are getting sluggish and we're having to delete some apps to make room for stuff, but honestly, that's okay. I don't need my phone to be a gaming system or a tv.
For now, we'll try to keep our 5 year old phones going, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for deals on newer phones that we can buy outright so we don't have to do any more contracts.
We're saving about $60 / month by keeping our old phones without a contract.
At this point in my frugalness, I need to be reminded of those things. I need to be reminded that, even though I'm trying to save more money than I did last month, I'm still saving more money than I was last year.
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10 Everyday Habits That are Saving Us Money:
1. Making coffee at home
Before we started making a concerted effort to budget, we'd been shelling out about $45 a week for our Grande-1-pump-vanilla Lattes. At $180 a month, that habit was definitely putting a dent in our budget.
The money saving variations we've tried:
- Buying name-brand single serve capsules (for our hand-me-down Nespresso machine)
- [Costs about 85¢ per 1.2 oz shot of espresso with milk]—about $100 / month
- Buying compatible brand single serve capsules
- [Costs about 65¢ per 1.2 oz shot of espresso with milk]—about $78 / month
- Using reusable capsules and our favorite coffee
- [Costs about 42¢ per 1.2 oz shot of espresso with milk]—about $50 / month
- Making cold brew concentrate in a mason jar
- [Costs about 31¢ per cup of concentrate / 4¢ per oz]—about $5 / month without milk -or- $20 / month with milk
At minimum, we saved $80 a month, but when we threw the reusable capsules and the cold brew into the mix, our savings jumped closer to $100 a month.
2. Eating Out Less & Taking lunches to work
Only one of us has a job outside the home, but we were still spending an average of $12 a day on lunches out (sometimes more). By packing lunches and making sure there is something to snack on throughout the day, we avoid that extra cost. And by planning meals based on what's on sale this week, I can cut those costs even further. $240 a month on lunches was taking a hefty bite out of the budget.
Along the same lines, we were ordering pizza or getting hamburgers at least once a week when I didn't feel like cooking—easily spending $150 a month on that.
By taking lunch to work and only eating out once per month, we save about $250 a month.
3. Making Food from Scratch
I've always been a cook and a baker, but when we started our budgeting journey, I decided I'd try to make more things from scratch instead of buying ready-made at the grocery store. Initially, I just made bread and granola, but the more I got into it, the more I branched out. I started making yogurt, kombucha, nut butters, nut milks, hummus, tahini, salad dressings, sauces etc.The amounts we saved on each item wasn't huge, but they did start to add up when taken collectively:
- Homemade granola: saved about $10 / month
- Homemade bread: saved about $7 / month
- Homemade yogurt / skyr: saved about $22 / month
- Homemade almond butter: saved about $8 / month
- Homemade hummus: saved about $10 / month
- Homemade kombucha: saved about $15 / month
- Homemade salad dressings & marinades: saved about $8 / month
On average, we saved about $80 a month making our own yogurt, nut butters, dressings, etc.
4. Keeping a price book, so I know when things are good deals & can stock up
Again, the individual savings aren't huge, but knowing when a sale price isn't the best price is always helpful. And knowing when that can of albacore tuna (or box of spaghetti) is at its lowest price, is very handy when stocking up.
Also it's good to know which stores consistently have the best prices on specific items.
5. Buying certain items in bulk
We don't go crazy with the bulk buying, mainly because we don't have a lot of room to store stuff. We do, however, selectively bulk buy things that we use a lot of. Things like:- Toilet paper
- [saving us about $20+ / month]
- Organic flour
- [saving us about $6 / month]
- Brown rice
- [saving us $5 / month]
- Granola bars
- [saving us $8 / month]
- Raw Honey / Maple syrup
- [saving us $6 / month]
We buy bulk items once a quarter, maybe, but our monthly savings are around $45.
6. Buying dried beans instead of canned
Sounds kind of goofy to buy dried beans over canned beans. Especially when canned beans can be pretty cheap (ie: 50¢ for a can of generic black beans). But when buying organic beans, the price jumps a bit. I generally buy organic dried black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, and garbanzo beans.1 pound of dried beans equals about 4-16 oz cans of beans, and costs about as much as one can of organic beans. It's a bonus, too, in that it doesn't take as much room to store the 1 lb. of dried beans as it does 4 cans of not-dry beans.
We probably go through the equivalent of 10 cans of beans a month (possibly more in the winter).
We save about $11 / month by opting for dried beans over canned.
7. Using Soap Nuts Instead of Laundry Detergent
We tried our hand at making our own laundry detergents, and while it did save us money over the store bought versions, we found we had to run the laundry twice (at times) to get the detergent to actually dissolve and not cake up on our clothes.On a whim, a few years ago, I bought a Soap Nuts sample and gave it a try. Soap Nuts are the dried berry of the Sapindus / Western Soap Berry bush. The berries are natural surfactants. You put several dried berries (that look similar to horse chestnuts) into a small cotton bag and throw that into the wash with your laundry. There's no residue, no odor, and when combined with vinegar in the wash, your clothes come out looking and smelling clean.
I bought a 4 lb. bag of Soap Nuts for $41 about 3 years ago and still have 2 lbs. & we do 3-4 loads of laundry a week. Even if the Soap Nuts only lasted me 4 years, that's a cost of $10.25 / year. More likely, they'll last another 2+ years, at a cost $7.50 / year.
Before this, I was buying the 160+ oz Free & Clear liquid detergent for $14, about twice a year (costing me $28 a year or $2.34 / month).
The Soap Nuts cost me less than 65¢ a month—a savings of $1.69 / month, but the kicker for me was the fact that I didn't have to recycle any more plastic containers.
8. No longer buying / drinking soda
We weren't big soda drinkers to begin with, but when there was a buy one-get one sale at the grocery store, I'd always get some to have on hand. We basically stopped buying soda and have opted for water, the occasional juice, tea, or coffee.There's not a lot of savings here, since I usually only spent about $5 a month on the stuff, but it's $5 more in our pockets.
9. We switched to a cheaper Internet provider & bought our modem
Like most people, we got fed up with our old Internet provider (cough: AT&T), who kept raising our rates while reducing our band width. We finally had enough when they wanted to up our rates to $75 a month (for Internet only) and reduce us to the second slowest speed they offered. They were trying to pressure us into one of their package deals and I'd just had enough.
We hopped over to Spectrum and for a year, got their intro rate of $35 / month for a much faster speed than AT&T was offering. Once the year was up, instead of doubling the monthly amount (like AT&T did), our charges went up only $10.
For the first year we saved $40 / month (or $480 for the year).
After that, we're still saving $30 / month.
(And most recently, AT&T tried to sell us on their new intro rate of $70 / month—for the same speed/bandwidth that Spectrum is giving us).
We also bought our modem (used), instead of renting it for a monthly fee. Buying it outright cost us $40. If we were to rent, it would cost us $10 / month. So that's another $10 / month in savings.
10. Keeping our older cell phones longer, so we don't have a contract
Initially, we fell for the "but the phone is way cheaper if we sign the 2-year contract" ploy. For 2, semi-new phones with 3 gigs of data we were paying around $140 / month. 4 years later, with the same phones and the same data plan, we're paying $82 / month.
I compared this to several discount service providers and the cost was comparable to their similar offerings. (I think Republic Wireless was the only one that was cheaper, but one of us would have had to buy a new phone in order to switch over).
We're reaching the point at which or phones are getting sluggish and we're having to delete some apps to make room for stuff, but honestly, that's okay. I don't need my phone to be a gaming system or a tv.
For now, we'll try to keep our 5 year old phones going, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for deals on newer phones that we can buy outright so we don't have to do any more contracts.
We're saving about $60 / month by keeping our old phones without a contract.
Those 10 things alone save us almost $600 / month over what we had been spending.
But I'm constantly looking for other ways to cut costs and pinch pennies, because inevitably, other expenses arise.
Other stuff we do:
- Put our spare change into a piggy bank (seriously)
- Eat less meat. We were never big meat eaters, but we would have chicken or hamburgers once a week. Now we eat meat maybe once a month (maybe).
- Use rebate apps like Ibotta and Checkout 51, plus other receipt apps (like Receipt Pal, Receipt Hog, and Fetch) that give points toward Amazon gift cards.
- Do the occasional review or survey for Amazon gift cards
- Use rewards credit cards
- When possible, we fix things ourselves
- Mend our own clothes, including re-soling shoes
- I replaced the circuit board in our $800+ oven. It cost us $100 but saved us from having to buy a whole new oven
- I replaced the handle on the microwave for $12
- I replaced the circuit board on the dishwasher for $40, saving us from having to buy a new dishwasher
- I took apart the dryer when it stopped drying, replaced a couple of really inexpensive parts and it works like new again
- & then there was the shower pan...
- We've paid off our car & keep it maintained
- Grow our own food (& have friends who grow their own food, so we can swap)
- We always buy things on sale, on clearance, or with promo codes
- Buy clothes 2nd hand (or with Kohl's cash gifted to us)
- Switched out Standard and Fluorescent light bulbs for LEDs
- Stream music, TV, and movies via Netflix and Amazon (instead of having cable or buying music)
- We don't have a land line
- Keep the a/c on the warmer side and the heat on the cooler side
- I've set the bills to auto-pay, so I don't incur late fees.
- We pay all but 2 of our bills online, saving us the cost of stamps (& given the number of bills we have, that's probably in the neighborhood of $10 / month).
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