Entries Tagged 'Frugality' ↓

At the DMH household, we swapped out all of our regular incandescent light bulbs with the hot new squiggly compact flourescent lightbulbs. Did you know that replacing a 60 watt bulb with a 13 watt bulb can save you around $30 over the lifetime of the bulb? Yep, it clearly pays for itself and you use less electricity to boot. And the bulbs burn cooler and last longer.

That factoid, and many other money hacks, are available at this week’s Carnival of Money Hacks hosted by Moolanomy. Incidentally, that factoid was provided by GE Lighting in their Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb (CFL) FAQ.

Having a tough time saving? Consider a shopping fast one of these weekends. A shopping fast is where you agree, for one weekend, not to spend any money whatsoever. For one weekend a month, don’t spend any money and live off the stuff you already have. This includes no heading off to the mall and no going to the local watering hole for a burger and a beer.

No spend doesn’t mean you can’t watch TV because electricity costs money or skip showers because water isn’t free, I just mean that you should restrict yourself from participating in the consumerism of America in the sense that you won’t buy clothes or electronics or even fast food. Skip it all, just for one weekend. Do it every single month and you’ll save yourself some considerable cash.

Ever see someone pull out a notebook at the gas station? They’re recording how much gasoline they just purchased and calculating their fuel efficiency for the last tank. If you think they’re just stathounds who love to crunch numbers, think again. Tracking your car’s fuel efficiency is a great way to spot potential problems. If your car usually gets 25 miles to the gallon and you’re starting to see that slip, it might be a sign that your car is in need of some kind of servicing. Perhaps you need an oil change or a new air filter, or even a tune-up.

Be sure to account for seasonal changes such as increased use of air conditioning and your driving patterns. If your mileage increases, perhaps you did a long haul trek the last time and got higher MPG because of an abundance of highway driving. Ultimately, it’ll help in figuring out whether the increase or decrease is real or merely the result of a change in driving patterns.

It will also be useful in figuring out your car’s cost per mile driven, which can be useful for many other applications.

If gas prices have gotten you down, here’s a quick and easy way to ensure you get the maximum fuel efficiency out of your car with only a little extra effort: check your tire’s air pressure every week. This simple act, and ensuring your pressure is up to specification, can improve your fuel efficiency by a few percentage points and thus save you real money for very little extra effort.

To do this, you should get an air pump or find a gas station with free air as well as a good tire gauge. The pencil-type gauges often aren’t the best because they’re inaccurate but you can get a cheap tire gauge at your local auto parts store. Then, check your tire pressure each week and ensure it’s inflated up to the specification on the tire itself. Ignore any other spec (such as in the car’s manual), the tire will tell you what to keep it at.

You can over-inflate the tire by a pound or two (psi) if you want greater fuel mileage but that will reduce the life of the tire and reduce traction, so it’s not advised. The money you save on fuel by overinflation will be offset by the need for new tires.

The allure of cashback on all of your purchases is very tempting, unless you can’t keep track of all of your purchase and find yourself strapped for cash on paydays. One of the easiest and most old fashioned ways to get your spending in check is to always pay in cash. Credit cards, like casino chips, abstract away money and so it makes spending so much easier. A $5 cup of coffee isn’t that expensive if it’s just a swipe of the plastic. The cost hits a little closer to home if you have to pull out Mr. Lincoln and see his smirking little face leave your hands.

Another benefit, beside the immediate pain, is that you probably only carry so much cash on you. You won’t be able to spend $200 in one shot unless you actively plan to spend the $200 beforehand and get the cash. This separates the decision to spend and the decision to withdraw money and that extra step may curb your spending just a little bit.

Lastly, this won’t be some magic anti-spending bullet. You can always withdraw hundreds of dollars and leave it in your wallet, but at least you’ll have to actively make that decision.

Kroger and Sears (and Kmart and Lands’ End) have decided to offer bonuses for customers who bring in their stimulus checks into stores and put it towards gift cards. Unfortunately the closest Krogers is nearly 40 miles away but we do have a Sears right next door, but we don’t shop their often. However, with an automatic 10% discount onto a gift card that never expires!

With Sears, you need to bring in your stimulus check and must purchase the full value of the check. You will get 10% added onto the total value so a $300 check becomes a $330 gift card, a $600 check becomes a $660 gift card, etc. The promotion will last from May 14th to July 19th, 2008.

With Krogers, you bring in your tax refund or stimulus check in and can buy gift cards in $300, $600, and $1200 increments, with the balance of the check returned to the customer as cash. The difference with Krogers is that they will take tax refund checks as well, not just stimulus checks, but they will only do it in the prescribed increments.

FiveCentNickel also notified me that Suburban Wife discovered you don’t even need the physical check since many people opted for direct deposit, you can just go into a Krogers and buy the gift card in those increments with cash, credit card, or personal check. If you use a cashback rewards credit card, you can get an even bigger discount!

I love using services like Kayak.com, Travelocity, or Expedia to search for the best airline rates across various airlines but I’ve found one simple hack that can save you a quick $5 on your airfare. When airlines list their fares on those sites, the sites often add on a $5 surcharge for their own profits, and it’s $5 you can save if you go to the airlines directly!

This trick may not always work because sometimes airlines reserve a pool of tickets specifically for those sites, or external partners, so you may not find the same tickets available on the airline sites themselves. If you do find them, you can usually save yourself that little surcharge!

Buying used is a great way to save money and there are plenty of things I would never purchase brand new simply because there is little difference between new and used in those categories. Prime examples of these are books and movies, a used book is as good as a new book (check for missing pages!) and a used DVD is as good as a new DVD (check for scratches!), but there are plenty of things I would never buy used.

These items fall into three categories:

• Unable to verify quality of used, and,
• Too personal an item, and,
• Not worth the effort.

Unable to verify quality of used

This used to be a problem attributed to used cars and the whole stereotype of a used car salesmen but recently fixed as dealerships have “certified pre-owned” and other verification protocols. I don’t like buying something where the quality and durability can’t be easily verified and this applies to many things but more notably large appliances or electronics. If the cost savings is significant, I’ll still consider it but I generally don’t want to purchase an expensive used item with a history I’m completely ignorant of. Perhaps if I know my friend is an audiophile and very meticulous in upkeep, I’ll buy it from them. If it’s some random person on Craigslist, I’m not going to do it.

Too personal an item

It’s the old mantra of don’t buy used underwear or used mattresses because they’re simply too personal. I also avoid things that are an every-day type of item, I put mattresses and underwear into that category. I think everyone can identify with this category of “can’t be bought used” without further explanation.

Not worth the effort

Time is money! The difference in cost between new and used underwear, if you can even find used underwear, is negligible and the difference between new and used mattresses is simply not worth the effort it takes to find and haul a mattress. Used cars are great because the time expended is worth the amount of money you might save by buying used and used DVDs are great because the time expended is worth the money. Don’t spend hours and hours searching for something just to save a few dollars, spend that time elsewhere.

When it comes to drugs, it’s almost always about the active ingredients. I used to buy Claritin to help combat my allergies until I discovered that the product was essentially Loratadine, an anti-histamine, plus Pseudoephedrine Sulfate, a decongestant. All I needed to do was buy generic Loratadine and an OTC Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed!) product and I was getting the same drugs for a fraction of the cost. There is no evidence that brand name drugs are any better than generics and no evidence that generics have more side effects than brand name drugs, they are essentially identical.

So, save a few dollars by reviewing the active ingredients on your drugs and finding a generic that has the same active ingredients!

A great way to shave a few percentage points off your purchase is to purchase from a store located in a state that charges no sales tax. This is feasible in states that border those that don’t charge sales tax, such as those states bordering Delaware like Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; but not so feasible for states that don’t (Hawaii, Alaska!). For people in those states, I’d recommend shopping online where sales tax is currently not being collected.

Here is a list of states that don’t charge sales tax:

• Alaska
• Delaware
• Montana - exceptions in some tourist destinations
• New Hampshire
• Oregon