5 (Easy) Ways I Save Money Without "Going Without"

While the economy has been getting steadily worse in the last few weeks, many of us have done our best to scrimp and save anywhere that we can.

The key to saving a little extra money is not necessarily giving up on the things we love to buy, but finding ways to get those things that may seem a little foreign to us (at first). I’d like to show you a few ways that I save money everyday, without “going without”.

1) Music
My entire day is centered around music, but a few years back I realized that it was getting very expensive for me to buy the music I liked in stores (and I don’t advocate stealing music online).
This is going to seem like such a silly thing for those of you who already do it, but to those of you that don’t: “Stop buying CDs at Retail Stores!”

• The average CD is costing you an extra $5 each.
  
• The extra raw materials used are hurting the enviroment
• Bands today would rather you buy their CD over the Internet (It’s Much easier on them…believe me).
• You save Gas

Start purchasing your Music on Itunes, Rhapsody, or any of the other great services that are popping up online. It may be intimidating to use these services at first, but the monetary savings will be huge.

2) Phone Service
Ditch the Home Phone. I know I am going to have alot of people disagree with me on this one, but I promise you that this one tip has saved me a fortune. Phone Bills will make you Poor…and fast. I recommend getting a cell phone for each person in your house and being done with it. There are some amazing cellphone plans out there right now and there is absolutely no excuse if you’re still paying for long-distance.
If you do need some sort of phone line at home I would suggest learning about Skype. The cool thing about Skype is that it uses your internet connection to provide you with super cheap phone service.

3) Groceries
Here’s something that Grocery Store owners know that you don’t: Impulse buys make up between 50-70% of your total purchases when you go to the grocery store. For some people, that’s ok because that’s how they like to shop. For most of us, however, this is a great area for us to save a few bucks.

One Solution is to practice “Once-a-Month-Shopping”. It take a lot of planning, but it saves you alot of money if you do it right. If your interested in learning how to get started with “Once-a-Month-Shopping”, check out the article that the Get Rich Slowly blog did on it (Read it Here).

4) Manage Your Credit Cards Better
Credits cards are evil. I recommend getting one for emergencies and online purchases, but that’s it. Do not….I repeat….DO NOT…..have more than one credit card. There are a few things you need to know if you use a credit card (that most people don’t). If your educated about how credit cards work, then you’ll never let it get out of hand.


5) Chart Your Spending
I’m not talking about keeping a ledger in your check book (That’s Beginner’s Stuff!….but a good start). I’m talking about really managing and understanding how you spend your money. In was using a service called Wesabe to manage my money (Click to Learn more about Wesabe), but when I moved recently, Wesabe didn’t work as well with my new bank.

Now I just use a custom Excel Sheet to track my bills and total monthly expenditures. It’s amazing to see how much money you spend on certain things over the course of the year. If you’re curious about how I set my Excel Sheet up, send me a comment and I show you how. It took us five minutes to set up and it’s been a priceless source of information for us.

Technorati Tags: money, saving, finance, tips, phone service, music, groceries

Tags: finance, groceries, Money, music, phone service, save