8 Weeks of Saving More! Ways to Save (Week 2, Part 2)

I hope you've already read the "Ways to Save" post, Week 2, Part 1.  If not, click here to start with that.   Today I'm going to finish outlining the ways to save during our 8 week challenge.  At the end of this post, you should have several good ideas on how to start building your savings, and you'll be able to share with us which methods you've chosen (or if you've come up with your own; that's a-okay too!).

Isn't it funny how when you're studying or researching on a particular subject, information that you've never noticed just seems to start popping up everywhere?  That's the way it's been for me since beginning to write the material for this challenge.  Little quotes and savings tidbits are really jumping out at me.  In reviewing my book, 8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save, one concept stood out to me this past week and I came up with a new way of wording it.  Here it is:

By participating in the act of saving, and doing it at the beginning of your paycheck, not at the end, you are effectively paying yourself.  Now, please don't misunderstand me, I don't want you to go around shirking your responsibilities for your rent or mortgage, electricity, clothing, transportation, and childcare and tell everybody you're just paying yourself first.  You are still responsible for funding your life and your family's basic necessities.  When you start out saving first, it may be a small number, but you are doing it, and that's what counts.  One of my favorite role models, Holly Rigsby, has a great quote that says, "Little by little, a little becomes a lot."  This is just as true with your money as it is with anything else.  Exercise, laundry, chocolate...

Keep all of this in mind throughout the challenge.  Even if it looks small now, your savings will grow if you keep adding to it.  And even a little bit more money trumps no money, every time!

That's enough preaching from me!  Let's get to the remaining 4 tips, shall we?

Ways to Save

1. Christmas in June Savings (Chapter 7): I originally wrote this chapter in my book to detail how you can begin to stockpile savings in the summer to have plenty of cash to fund Christmas by the time Black Friday rolls around.  However, I also address what to do when January arrives.  You keep using this method and save up for an event or large purchase in June.  Let's say you're planning a vacation in June and would like to have $300 in spending money by that time.  You simply take that number and divide it by the number of months from now to June (six) and you end up with $50, the amount you need to set aside each month for the next six months.  Then, when June rolls around, you start again and save in the same manner for another event in December (could be Christmas or something else).
2. Buy It Used (Chapter 8):  With this savings method, you pick a category where you don't mind buying used items, but you save up the full amount needed to purchase the items.  Then, you purchase the item(s) and put the difference into your savings.  In the book, I use the example of buying used books.  I get books at thrift stores all the time that are so cheap.  When I pick up a book that is normally $10 or more, but I pay $1 for it, I could use this savings method by paying the difference of $9 into my savings.  You can save even more by choosing a different category, such as furniture.  The important part is to make sure you're saving the difference.
3. The $5 Ban (Chapter 9):  This one is really fun, but also requires some willpower to accomplish.  Basically, you set aside every $5 bill that comes into your hands.  You don't spend them, but put them in savings instead.  I did some research on Pinterest and found several examples of people who followed this "ban" over the course of a year.  Their savings at the end of a year ranged from $1300- $3000!  You can save so much using this technique!
4. Pantry Raid-n-Save (Chapter 10): This method works best when you have food in the house that needs to be used or you have a pantry that needs to be cleared.  What you do is raid your own kitchen for ingredients to put together simple meals, and skip out on grocery shopping for a week or so.  Instead, you save that money you would have spent on groceries for the week.  I know that right now, I could probably do this in my own kitchen.  We've got plenty of frozen foods on hand, as well as some lean meats like chicken, ready to be used in recipes.  And we're a big egg family around here.  Just last night, my husband made some egg "cupcakes" with some fresh mushrooms that needed to be used and some shredded cheddar.  I know they were delicious because I ended up eating 3 for dinner!

Ok, we've now covered all 8 of the savings tips in my book 8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save.  Of course, each of those tips are covered in its own chapter, so you get a lot more detail when you read the book.  Check it out on Amazon here.

It's time to make some decisions.  Which methods are you going to try during the Saving More Challenge?  That's what I want you to decide today.  

Week 2, Task 2: Read this post and read or review the previous post, which includes 4 other methods of saving.  Decide on 2-3 methods that will work for you and your family, and tweak them as needed.  Once you've decided, comment, comment, comment (!) below and let us know what you've decided.  I'll be posting my choices in the comments, as well.  

One other thing: get started with these as soon as possible!  Once you've got your plan of action, you might as well begin to execute it!

I know I've covered a lot of information in these last two posts, and now you've got some work to do.  It's time to SAVE!  More encouragement coming your way next week, but for now, I'll leave you with this cool quote I found by a famous person.  You may have heard of him: 

"Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left AFTER SAVING." - Warren Buffet

8 Weeks of Saving More! Ways to Save (Week 2, Part 1)

Hopefully last week, you did a little dreaming and finding your "why" for joining this challenge.  If you haven't done that yet, check out the first post in the challenge and be sure you complete both Week 1 tasks.  Also, be sure to share in the comments section!

Week 2 is here and it's time to get practical!  This is where we will decide the methods we will use to actually save.  I'm going to outline four methods today and the other four in Part 2, which will release later this week.  I encourage you to choose more than one method to try as you're working through the challenge, but no more than three.  I don't want you to be completely overwhelmed!  That would just give you reason to quit.  And you're not going to quit now!

Before we talk about these methods to save, I'd like to encourage you to read the corresponding chapters in my book 8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save.  As this is just a blog post, there is only so much I can write.  The book goes into great detail on each of the savings methods, which is why it makes the perfect companion to our challenge.  You can get it here on Amazon, and the best news is, it comes in paperback or ebook, your choice!

Again, the ways to save will be divided into two parts to prevent overwhelm.  Read through all of them, and make note of the 2 or 3 that seem doable to you.

Ways to Save

1. Grocery Shopping Savings (Chapter 3):  This savings technique is fairly straightforward.  Keep your grocery receipt and save the money your receipt claims you saved.  Do this every time you go to the store and add up the savings during the course of the month.  You'll be surprised at how quickly it adds up!
2. Habit-Building Savings (Chapter 4):  Are you trying to establish a healthy or positive habit?  Why not pay yourself for it?  Make a contract with yourself to pay into a savings jar or container each time you complete the habit.  You choose the habit you're working on and the rate of pay.  For example: "For the next month, I will pay myself .25 cents each time I drink 8 oz. of water."  See how easy that is?  Just make sure you do actually pay yourself!
3. Save Your Change (Chapter 5): This one is easy-peasy, but are we really using it to its full advantage?  Because you can't save your change if you don't have any.  And you won't have any if you only use your debit or credit card on the daily basis.  That means, you're going to have to use cash.  The easiest way to do this is to designate a category of your budget as a cash category.  For instance, I usually get cash for my discretionary money.  And then I make sure I use it, and dump the change into a piggy bank at the end of each day.  Call it old-fashioned, but saving change is one of the easiest and time-tested methods of saving up cash quickly.
4. Percentage Savings (Chapter 6): To try this savings method, you designate a percentage of your paycheck (or any check or income that comes into your hands) to go into savings.  The recommended amount to aim for is 10%, but many of us can't do that when we're just getting started.  So, start instead with 1% or 2% and increase the percentage as you become comfortable with this method.  The rule to remember is to pay yourself first, before you pay anything else.  Otherwise, even that 1-2% is going to disappear!

Those are the first 4 methods!  Look for Part 2 of Week 2 in just a few days where I'll outline the other 4 methods.  I encourage you to tweak these savings methods however you like to make it work for your life.  After all, it's your money!  No one gets to decide what to do with it but you and your family.  Make these methods work for you.

Week 2, Task 1: Read this post.  Start thinking about which of these tips will work for you as you begin this savings challenge and how you can make them your own.  If you have any questions or want to share with the group the methods you've chosen, comment below!

That's all I've got for you today!  Which of these methods above are your favorite?  I'd love to hear from you.

To Coupon or Not

This is Part 1 of my 3 part series called "Savings Superstars".  I am excited to hear feedback from this series and get some great ideas on how you save money in your life.  Please feel free to leave a comment below and get the conversation started!  I will respond to each comment as soon as I can.

Do you coupon?  Why or why not?

In my book, 8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save, I don't talk a lot about using coupons because, well, it's a book on creative saving and coupons are sorta not creative to me.  They've been around for a while and most people who claim to be any good at saving money have already mastered the art of using coupons.

I say most because I don't consider myself to be one of them.  I do believe in using coupons, but they don't control my grocery list like those people on TLC's "Extreme Couponing" show.  Those people seem to peruse their local stores' circulars and then match store and manufacturer coupons and generate a list of items to buy or get for free.

Here's what I don't like about that system:  so many of the food products are processed foods that I wouldn't really be buying for my family anyway, much less need multiples.  We buy a lot of produce every week, as well as milk, cheese, yogurt, and nuts.  Every once in a while, I'll come across coupons for those types of items, but not every week.

Another thing we don't do is plan our weekly meals around what's on sale or what items have coupons available.  We are a family that eats the majority of our meals at home.  We may have 3 meals that are either take-out or at a restaurant.  The rest of them we plan in advance and add the ingredients to our weekly grocery list.  And we buy the items we need whether or not they're on sale.  And whether or not we have coupons for them.

So, I consider myself an occasional coupon user.  Like this week, for instance, we needed laundry detergent.  We have a favorite brand, so I went online and printed off a $2.00 coupon.  Totally worth it because the detergent is going to be over $10 anyway.  Now, I know, some of you reading this are cringing because you would argue that I should be using that coupon on a much smaller size so my savings would be greater, but I would rather just buy the larger version and not have to restock for two months.  I guess this makes me a lazy coupon user.

I want to know how you use coupons in your life.  Are you like me and use them sporadically when you stumble upon them?  Maybe you don't use them at all because you don't have the time to search for them.  Could you rival one of the people on "Extreme Couponing" because you're a master at getting items dirt cheap and even free?  Where do you fall on this spectrum?

Also, I'd love to hear from those of you who use coupons to plan your meals.  Are you able to find good value coupons on fresh produce and dairy on a weekly basis?  I'd also like to know what some of your favorite, low cost meals are that you make for your family.

With this blog post, I'm definitely hoping to get a conversation started, so here's what I'm asking you to do: please leave your comment below and I will respond.

To Coupon or Not...that is the question.  And, GO!

Spring Sale (Don't Miss It!)

My Spring Break has officially begun!

I don't know about you, but spring makes me happy.  I love looking at trees that have been barren all winter and watch them slowly erupt in buds of new life.  I love how the grass that has been brown starts turning that beautiful, vibrant green.

This year, I'm determined to do some deep spring cleaning.  Do you have any special plans for springtime?

I wanted to let you know about a very special sale that is taking place during my spring break.  For the dates of March 20-26th, the eBook version of 8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save is going to be just $1.99!!  For less than a cost of a Big Mac, you can purchase this awesome resource that will save you money.  To access the Amazon product page, click here.

I am certain that just by reading the first few chapters, you will save at least 4 times the cost of this resource.  And that's if you purchased it at full retail price of $9.99!

Here is a description of 8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save:

"Are you ready to start living your dreams?  Wouldn't it be nice to have the money to fund them?  What if you're not a natural saver or your income is limited?

8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save will walk you through fun, innovative tips to inspire new savings habits that you will want to use the rest of your life. Written by a resourceful and innovative mom, wife, and teacher, Kristin King has researched, tested, and lived each one of the tips she shares with you.

Here's what this book will do for you:

- Enhance your ability to think creatively when it comes to saving money
- Provide you with the tools you need to fund your dreams, even if you have a low income
- Empower you to save, even if you've been a "spender" all your life
- Help you increase your savings, whether a little or lot, through fun and unusual tips
- Facilitate and establish habits of a lifetime saver by taking the tips and making them work for you and your family
- Give you three surefire action tips at the end of each chapter to get you on the fast track to great savings

If you're ready to get serious about your financial future, 8 (Really Creative) Ways to Save (plus three bonus chapters with additional tips) will jumpstart your savings habits so you can fully fund your wildest dreams!"

Remember, this sale only lasts Sunday-Saturday, March 20-26th, so make sure you download your copy soon!

I can't wait to hear how this book helps you become an expert and creative saver!

Again, here's the link to the Amazon product page.

Happy reading and happy saving, dear friends!

Tools to Help You Save

What if saving money could be infinitely easier with the use of a few tools?  I believe it can be, and there are certainly tools out there that won't cost you an arm and a leg, but will actually help you save in the long run!

Today I'm going to talk about two of my favorites.  The first one is something my son and I recently discovered while shopping at one of my favorite discount stores.

He and I were shopping on Monday, and of course, we had to visit the toy section.  My son is very patient while I look at housewares and shoes, but only if I allow him to browse and choose one small item from the toy section.  On this day, he had chosen his item and we were getting ready to leave the toy section when I stumbled upon this cool bank:

What I was instantly attracted to was the visual aspect of seeing how much we've deposited into the bank.  I have always been a visually motivated gal, so this bank is too cool!  It has a sensor that recognizes what type of coin is being dropped through the slot and adds it to the balance every time I use it.  The winning factor for me is that I got to take it home for $5.99.  As you can see, I already have more deposited into the bank than I paid for it!

Of course, I'll still have to wrap the coins when it's time to turn them into bills, but I think the motivation of seeing this number go up on the bank will help me use it often!

The second tool I love to use, pretty much on a daily basis, is my envelope system from Dave Ramsey.  I'm quite fond of my teal wallet-like envelope holder which came with the Financial Peace University Home Study Kit.  If you've never been to Dave Ramsey's site, I encourage you to check it out immediately (www.daveramsey.com).  His site will blow you away with the sheer volume of money resources available to you.  His online store has FPU and other books for purchase. You don't have to purchase the entire study kit.  You can actually purchase an envelope holder by itself.  There's an entire section in his store dedicated to the envelope system!

My husband and I each get a set amount of "mad money" each week.  Basically this is our money to blow on whatever we'd like.  I think Jamie usually spends his on work lunches with his buddies and I usually spend mine on coffee.  However, what I love about my mad money is that if I have any leftover from the previous week, I just add it to my new amount and it grows really fast that way.  I keep my mad money in my envelope holder.  And every time I pull it out to pay, people always ask me what it is or comment on how cool it is.  It's a great tool to get people thinking about using cold, hard cash again.

These are two tools that are consistently helping me save more money.  Now it's your turn.  In the comments below or on my Facebook post, tell me about your favorite tools that help you save money.  Happy Saving, Friend!