10 Ways
to Save $500 or More
Raises are hard to come by at many jobs this
year, so don't wait for the boss to be struck by the sudden realization that
you're valuable. Give yourself a raise by spending less of your hard-earned
cash.
Following any one of these tips can save you as
much as $500 per year. Some of them can save you more. If you do all 10, you'll
save at least $5,000 a year. That's a heck of a lot more than the measly 3
percent increase that your employer is likely to hand out. And the best part
about it is that you don't have to smile and say "thank you."
1. Drive less. With gas
hovering around $3 per gallon, you don't have to cut back on much mileage to
save $500 in a year. You'll save that much in gas alone if you drive a car that
gets 15 miles per gallon, just 50 fewer miles per week. When you divide it by 50
weeks, 2,500 miles in a year isn't much. If you have a 25-mile commute,
persuading the boss to allow telecommuting one day a week, or squeezing 40 hours
of work into four days will definitely put you ahead about $500 per year.
If that doesn't work for you, there are other
options. The cutback doesn't have to be extreme. Trimming a couple of
unnecessary short hops out of your routine is enough to hit the target.
Encouraging the kids to take the school bus instead of schlepping them in the
car, or consolidating three trips to the grocery store into one weekly excursion
may do the trick. Vacationing at the lake instead of driving the family to
Florida will certainly hit the goal.
2. Bring your own stimulant. Stop buying coffee at the chichi coffee joint down
the street from work. Either bringing coffee from home in a thermos or brewing
it in the break room will actually improve the quality of your morning shot of
energy, as well as cut its cost dramatically. You can get 40 cups of coffee from
a pound of beans. Even the gourmet ones can be purchased for $4 per pound. If
you're spending $2 per day on coffee -- easy to do in most workplaces -- you'll
go from spending $500 a year to about $25 by making your own.
Save even more by taking cans of soda or bottled
water to work instead of buying them out of the vending machine. Bottled water
sells for 14 cents a bottle at a big-box grocery store, and soda is 16 cents a
can (less for off-brands). Compare that to the 75 cents or more that you'll
spend at the machine, and it's a no-brainer. You can go even further by cleaning
your small plastic water bottles and replenishing them with drinking water from
a gallon jug. (It's an environmentally friendly move, too.)
3.
Conserve energy.
Dad was right. Turn off the TV when you leave the room. Using less energy is a
painless way to save. Heat and air conditioning are the largest home energy
hogs. The U.S. Department of Energy points out that during each 24-hour period,
you will save about 3 percent on your energy bill for every 1 degree that you
lower the thermostat setting (or, conversely, raise it when air conditioning is
the big cost).
For example, let's say you normally keep your
thermostat set at 73 degrees in summer. If you raise it to 76 degrees, you will
save about 9 percent (3 degrees times 3 percent), or 9 cents for every dollar
you spend on air conditioning costs. If you're spending $2,000 per year, that
small change will save you $180. Buy a programmable thermostat, and turn the
system up 10 degrees during the day when no one's home, and you'll save much
more.
Here are some other quick and easy fixes for
savings that add up to an additional $400: Switch to U.S. Energy Star-approved
light bulbs and save $60 a year. Running a 32-inch TV four hours a day costs $3
per month, but many families use the TV for background noise, letting it play
24/7. You can save more than $200 a year just by turning off the TV when
nobody's watching it. Washing clothes in cold water is good for another $60 a
year, and powering down your computer at night saves $70.
4. Dig gardening.
Not only does gardening burn lots of calories, but also a nice yard adds value
to the house. If you do it all yourself, it's pure profit. Assuming a modest
savings of $300 per summer for mowing your own grass and another $200 for such
related expenses as applying your own weed killer and fertilizer, a $500 savings
is easily attained.
Bonus idea: Assign jobs like shoveling, raking
and car washing to Junior, who's always good for hitting you up for money. While
you might shell out $200 for him to do these chores, it's a savings, considering
that you were going to give him the money whether he worked for it or not.
5. Go small or pet-free.
Fido and Tabby are lovable, but they can cost a bundle. Pawprints
and Purrs, an animal adoption agency based in Keithville, La., tells its clients
to expect to pay these annual costs of pet ownership: cat, $640; small dog,
$780; medium dog, $1,115; large dog, $1,500. Obviously, smaller is cheaper. The
difference between a large dog and a small one is $720 per year -- that's a lot
of kibble.
6. Don't flush money down the commode.
No-name-brand toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, paper cups, plastic wrap,
plastic bags, etc., are all available at half the price of similar name-brand
products when you buy them in bulk.
You don't even have to wait for a sale. Such
stores as Wal-Mart, Kmart, Costco and Sam's Club offer these items all the time
at bulk rates.
For instance, you can buy 15,000 sheets of toilet
paper for about $15, compared to the 4,224 sheets of the "squeezably soft"
variety that routinely sells for $9 in a 12-pack. Big-name plastic wrap is 10
times more expensive than the big-box variety -- 0.04 cents per square foot
versus 0.004 cents per square foot. Commercial laundry detergent is 34 cents per
pound, versus a small box of familiar-name powder at $2.10 per pound.
Of course, bulk buying requires having some cash
on hand, transportation to carry large quantities and big enough storage space
for these items. If you can manage those basic requirements, buying big can be a
tremendous deal and easily cut costs by $500 per year. But remember, putting
these purchases on your credit card defeats the purpose.
7. Limit media.
A cost that didn't exist at all for most people a decade ago has morphed into a
major expense. The average monthly cable bill, excluding Internet access and
other extras, now runs about $52, according to Kagan Research, which monitors
the broadcasting industry. (With high-speed Web access included in the mix, the
average cable bill rises to nearly $73.) The average satellite bill is $59. Look
hard at what you are spending for television, phone and Internet. If you are
like the rest of us, cutting $50 a month out of this category is a slam dunk.
Here are some suggestions.
Who watches 300 channels anyway? The easiest way
to cut costs: Just take a deep breath and cancel everything but the basic plan.
Most cable companies have a very limited plan for $10 or $15 per month that
offers local channels and a few other networks. If you have satellite, the basic
plan, including local channels, will cost you about $25. If you want to watch a
movie or an HBO series now and then, rent it -- you'll still come out way ahead.
If you have greater than average do-it-yourself
skills, consider installing an antenna and capturing high-definition television
signals over the air. An antenna isn't your father's rabbit ears -- you get no
snow and reception that's probably clearer than your cable or satellite
provides. And best of all, it's free. A page on the National Association of
Broadcasters'
Web site lists the stations you can
expect to receive. In most cities, that's all the networks plus PBS. In rural
areas, you might get less, but that's changing quickly.
CNET offers a great set of
instructions for setting it up, and calls it a three-hour project.
Next, examine your phone service -- particularly
your cell. What kind of user are you? If your phone's for short calls only --
"I'm on my way home now, dear" -- consider a pay-as-you-go plan like Virgin
Mobile. It has cool phones, and, for a total of $80 per year, you can make those
kinds of calls and have peace of mind. It's a big bargain.
Family plans are another possibility. Nobody
checks your DNA, and Sprint Nextel doesn't even require sharers to be in the
same area code. Four people on the same plan will cost about $25 each. Calls
after 7 p.m. and during weekends are free, so the small prime-time minute
allocation goes a long way. You just can't chat endlessly during regular
business hours with these plans.
If you are paying more for home phone service
than about $50 per month for both unlimited local and long-distance, you're
missing the boat. Check out plans offered by MCI, Trinsic or PowerNet Global.
For those with high-speed Internet service, the
cheapest phone option is probably an Internet-based phone service like Vonage or
others offered by cable or phone companies. These aren't subject to the same
taxes that wired phone lines are, so for less than $20 a month, you can get 500
minutes of service with lots of features, including voice mail.
There are drawbacks. One is that a 911 operator
won't be able to locate the origin of a call on one of these lines. Another is
that if your Internet is down, so is your phone.
8. Sign up for tax-advantaged plans at work.
The possibilities include education, health, transportation and child care
savings accounts. If you're in the 25-percent tax bracket, you'll be $500 ahead
once you spend $2,000 in pretax dollars on these necessities. If your company
doesn't offer these plans, ask for them to be added. It's a cost-free benefit
that even the smallest and most cash-strapped employer can offer.
9. Eat in.
Replace one $20 trip per week to McDonald's with a large $7 carryout pizza from
any of the billions of cheap pizza places in every city. Better yet, buy pizza
at the grocery store.
10. Don't bank on it.
Pay credit card bills in full as soon as possible, and take advantage of free
bill pay.
The real savings can be had by avoiding credit
card debt and paying off what you've accumulated as quickly as possible. For
instance, if you owe $4,000 on a card charging you 18 percent interest, and you
pay three times the minimum payment every month, or $300, you'll pay off the
card in 15 months and spend about $500 in interest. If you spread the cost out
and pay $200 per month -- still twice the minimum payment -- you'll pay off the
bill in 24 months and pay out $4,800 in total -- $800 in interest. If you can
bite the bullet and pay as much as $400 each month, the debt will be gone in
less than a year and you'll save between $100 and $700 in interest over the
other options.
Saving money doesn't have to take an ugly bite
out of your lifestyle. Once you put these strategies in place, you won't feel
pinched, because you're not giving up much at all.
By Jennie L. Phipps
Bankrate.com
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