Furgal Ways for my Family

[FindingFrugal]

Please list some of the products, services or processes you use within you family to save significant money. I'll list three tools I use that have propelled my savings:

1. YNAB.com Do yourself a favor and learn how to budget intuitively with this amazing software program. Through it's 4 rules, my emergency fund has sky-rocked and my debt is now just a mortgage which will be paid off in less then 5 years (it is a 30 year conventional that started in 2008...28 years left!!).

2. Snowball debt calculator - Become debt free at WhatsTheCost.com - this is the BEST debt snowball calculator I've found. Coincide this with with YNAB and change your life. Seriously.

3. E-mealz - a meal planning resource for busy moms and frugal family cooks. Once you've been on YNAB and gotten your debt payoff plan together using the debt snowball calculator, you'll note that one of your biggest spending categories is food. E-mealz takes "coupon clipping" to the next level. It is highly rated and advertised at Dave Ramsey Homepage - daveramsey.com and has cut my food category in half.

OK......these are the 3 tools that have changed my family's financial situation. Please post your replies and tell me about what tools or methods you use to save money.

BTW, I'm just sharing....I do NOT benefit from posting these wonderful websites.

[Angela123]

The latest thing I have done to save my family money, is to buy my groceries online from a major supermarket. I save about $50 per week, because I'm not impulse buying, I check the cupboards/fridge/freezer to see if I actually need a product as I'm not good with lists,and would often have 10 cans of soup etc as I couldn't remember if I needed it. I also don't have the kids nagging me for this and that.
Works for me

[Pam]

I save money by using coupons. I love when it is B!G! free and I have coupons to match. If it is not on sale I usually don't buy it unless I really need it.

[jennster]

Those are Great websites. Thank you. I love Dave Ramsey!

Some of the things we do to save money are... We don't go out we stay in and play board games, watch movies, go to the pool,ect. This saves on gas and other expenses.

We make cold dishes for breakfast and lunch and I only cook on the stove for dinner. Our Gas bill is only about $25/Month.

I went and bought a bunch of child safety plugs and put them in every outlet, We unplug the microwave,toaster,ect. If we are not using it we unplug it. My Electric bill is anywhere from $30-50/Month.

We are smokers so we started rolling our own cigarrettes instead of buying them we were spending about $400/Month for both of our habit and now we spend about $40/Month. It is a bad habit but a hard one to quit.

[cabaret]

We are doing a good bit. You can check out my blog for some of the ways we are cutting costs like swapping to Internet for TV and Movie watching and turning off the cable. That alone saved us $100 a month and we are doing it all legally.

Other things we are doing are:

Rolling our own cigarettes or pipe smoking.
Making our own laundry soap mix.
Using places like paperbackswap.com for our reading entertainment.
Taking advantage of freebie sites that offer full sized items we use.
Home gardening for some of our vegetables.
Making our own organic and safe all purpose cleaning product
We only eat out once a week and only if it falls under certain budget criteria.
Sticking to a budget.
Prepaid cell phone plans that I can earn free minutes for through online programs.
Buying any small appliances, pots, pans, etc from the thrift store since our local one offers a warranty.

Those are just a few of the things we are doing and that is before the major budget overhaul I plan on doing in a few days.

[cori]

I save money by:
- stopping buying dvd, books and magazines : I borrow everything at the multimedia library.
- making my own cleaning products with white vinegar and bicarbonate soda
- exchanging favors (cooking for my neighbor / baby-sitting)
- bringing lunch at work

[Victoira]

I became so good at finding samples, coupons and freebies for things I actually need that I made my own site. Ive did pretty well for myself with some of the stuff. The things I mostly look for nowadays are diaper coupons or samples since they cost a fortune.

[jfeets726]

Wow, great tips everyone. Our biggest moneysaving steps involves using coupons at the grocery store, planning out our meals more and not driving unless we need to.

[Jennifer.Navi]

I love Mint.com, it helps manage my finances relatively easily and also offers lots of savings solutions. Seeing my budget every month is a good way to keep me in line, which isn't always easy. I can be a bad spender.!!

[MsMotivated]

Having a family of five children requires budgeting and I don't know what I will do without it. Here's a list of some of the things that I do to save money:

1). I do most of my shopping (school shopping, health & beauty products, household, toiletries, clothing, gifts, giftcards, etc) online which allows me to earn a percentage of my money back depending on how much I spend. It isn't a huge amount however, I've been averaging between $25-$50 per month for the slow months. Now that it's back to school time & holidays are approaching, I'm expecting much more. Click HERE for the free website. This website also gives members a substantial amount of coupons. These small amounts help with gas money and any extra curricular activity fees for the children at school. Shopping online helps me NOT to impulse buy as well; I already know what I'm looking for, find the best deal, purchase and be done with it.

2). I unplug all of my appliances and only plug them up when I get ready to use them. This includes the washer & dryer as I only do wash on Saturdays & Sundays. I have seen a huge change in my gas & electric bill over a one year period of time.

3). I also put my appliances that are in one area all on one power strip. This way when I leave the house or when I'm done with those appliances/electronics, I can just shut the switch off/unplug the power strip.

4). I'm a serial coupon clipper. I get coupons out of the Sunday's paper and I always search online for coupons of items that I use the most. I also get coupons from the free website I use to do my shopping online.

5). I plan my dinner list on a weekly basis which will helps me utilize all of my goods at home, instead of planning at the last minute and wanting to cook something that will require me to have to go and buy other ingredients.

6). Cooking in a crockpot helps cut down on using many different appliances to cook, thus saving on my gas/electric bill. It also saves on time for cooking when I have busy schedule with the kids.