Saving Money

Saving Money was Originally Posted on November 8, 2010 by lavarock

In previous blogs I have written about saving money. Briefly, here are a few ways I try not to pay too much for items.

I look for travel bargains when flying and renting cars. I have been known to drive hours to save hundreds of dollars on a flight. My recent trip to Florida had me renting a car, yet I found a deal that dropped the cost more than half of what others were normally paying even on a discount rental. A starting place for bargains is Travel.Yahoo.Com and then Kayak.Com and other sites. Florida visitors should search the internet fro the “Orlando Magic Card”.

I have changed bulbs in the house to CFL’s. They use lots less power and can last longer than regular bulbs. They need special recycling however, a hidden feature is while saving you money and they also generate lots less heat.

When possible I use a microwave oven to cook and heat items.

Our weather is quite nice here in the islands and I keep the windows open year round. On really cold winter nights (when the nighttime temps drop down into the 60’s) I do close them sometimes! I should note that I also live at a nice comfortable elevation. It is possible here to have very cold and damp weather here and a number of people have fireplaces and long johns! We have not yet had our first snow of the season, but it is approaching soon.

The weather also allows us to place laundry on the line to dry. We can have that line under the eaves of the house if we thing it will rain.

I choose Safeway here as my often-used supermarket because they often have sales on items I need most often. It turns out my price-point for a frozen food is about 21 cents an ounce. That unit cost allows me to look for bargains and then decide if, at that price, I want to eat the particular item. It sounds strange, yet is quite simple to do. For example, Marie Callanders dinners are often on sale every three weeks. I wait until the price drops to about 21 cents an ounce and then buy them. The same works for soda. I drink Coke and Pepsi when they are on sale, but they have to drop down to less than 2 cents an ounce to compete with what turns out to be a great tasting cola sold under the Safeway brand.

By now most people know that few cars need high-test gasoline. Most will operate with the cheapest gasoline from the cheapest retailer. Most of the gasoline comes from the same processors and there are few additives allowed in gas. Thus many name brand companies have their own name for the same additives. You should follow a tanker truck from station to station and then it is more obvious that the same fuel is delivered all over under vastly different prices. A good way to find your cheapest price for gasoline is http://gasbuddy.com

I use voice over IP for phone calls. I have had some challenges, yet have paid next to nothing for long distance over the years. It used to be a big deal when MCI charged 10 cents a minute. Now if you pay more than 2 cents a minute to call most of the world, you are paying too much. The use of Packet8, Vonage, Magic Jack and others helps people save. With Packet8.net I was paying under $250 a year for unlimited long distance.

If you are computer-savvy you might investigate Google Voice where you can get a great phone service with voice mail and call blocking all for free. You initiate outbound calls on a website and Google pays for the calls. Using a compatible cell phone allows you to make free calls though Skype (a Google company now). If you use Skype and a cell phone, you can call internationally for cents a minute compared with higher costs through the cell phone provider.

It doesn’t really save me money, but I am in a location that does not work well for radio station coverage. I use Winamp to stream music to my PC. You can also visit Shoutcast.Com and click to listen to free music.

I am a long time listener and proponent of Clark Howard and often listen to him on my PC. You can go to ClarkHoward.Com for a live link or watch his show on the HLN TV network.

The sites Bankrate.Com and CardWeb.Com (it links to CardTrak.Com) help you find the best credit card, CD, checking and savings rates.

If you are a frequent airline flier, then wing it over to FlyerTalk.Com and check out what is happening with your favorite airline. You can also visit the oddly named S.P.A.M. forum (sites with points and alternative miles). The S.P.A.M. forum often lists special deals and is where I was able to find out about the Chase credit card with British Air that gave me 100,000 miles for almost no work at all. Please note that FlyerTalk has some specific guidelines and is geared towards frequent fliers. They prefer you to sign up and read the FAQs and read previous posts and understand how the site works. With the high traffic on the site, there are many posts, which may already answer your questions. Yes, you can even find out which seats get served first in First Class on a plane.

Speaking of seats, this will not save you money directly, yet will help your comfort is SeatGuru.com. It tells you which airline seats are the best and helps you avoid choosing a seat with no recline situated next to the galley or bathroom. Thus you avoid extra traffic and noise and isn’t THAT worth something?

Like many farms, I gather rainwater for plant irrigation. You can too with a bit of work and your plants will be the better for it.

If you buy medicine in stores, do you buy generic? If so, do you shop around for the same ingredient in the cheapest form? Yes, you can buy Dramamine, but the same ingredient is in many other products, often at massive discount over the name brands.

I know many people buy supermarket products with clipped ads, yet those ads are usually for name-brands and the generics may be still cheaper. Granted, some generic products may differ in taste, but at least try the items. Many stores offer a money-back guarantee for their store brands.

I use COSTCO often too. Although you pay for a membership, my breakeven point for the cost occurs quickly. Here COSTCO saves us so much on the cost of gasoline that a few fillips will offset the cost of membership. I also have a COSTCO branded Amex card for even more money back each year.

For those who don’t mind doing their own taxes, TaxCut and other products can help you save over a paid prepared service. I have used software for my taxes almost every year for decades.

When you look at these items above, they really are not rocket science, just based upon the idea that you should not have to pay more than what you have to. Just one or two of the above suggestions could easily save you $100 a year! My savings on COSTCO gas can easily be 50 cents a gallon over the station just down the street from them. I see people getting gas there and wonder why they don’t drive 100 yards further. It’s the same gas, yet they might save $4 a fillup. With a trip there every week, they could pay off the membership in a month or two. Then they realize savings on other products they are buying. Granted, most people don’t need giant boxes of items, yet paper goods like paper towels will last forever and can be stored easily. Then again, an extra freezer could also be a great money saver!