Money Saving Mom®

I'm so enjoying writing this series on ways we've saved over the past six years of our marriage–and especially during those early law school days. It's been good to review various ideas which have worked well for us and I'm hopeful you're being inspired at the same time. If you've missed the previous two installments of this series, you can read them here and here.

13) Switch to Basic H for household cleaning. Those who have known me for some time have already heard me sign the praises of Basic H.
It's an all-purpose, all-natural, non-toxic cleaner which you can use
in place of pretty much every other cleaner in your home.

I like
it not only because it is all-natural and doesn't contain the harmful
chemicals most cleaners do, but it's also incredibly frugal. One 16-oz.
bottle of concentrate costs around $12 and makes 48 gallons of
cleaner–enough to last us for at least 3-4 years. That's quite a deal!

Caveat:
I don't sell this product, nor do I make a penny off promoting it. I
just personally really like it and highly recommend it. If you are
interested in reading more about it or purchasing it, go here.

14) Utilize Craigslist. Over the years, we've saved hundreds of dollars by purchasing big tickets items off of Craigslist for pennies on the dollar. Among other things, we've purchased exercise equipment, a living room set, and our kitchen table through Craigslist.

As always, if you don't need the items in the first place and can't afford them, don't even begin looking at Craigslist. But if you're in the market for something and have the cash set aside for it, definitely check out Craigslist. If you're patient, you'll likely be able to score quite a bargain!

If you're new to Craigslist, Carrie has a great post here with tips for buying on Craigslist.

15) Use Skype for long-distance phone calls. If you have a headset and a high speed internet connection, you can use Skype and drastically reduce your long-distance phone bills.

You can make Skype-to-Skype phone calls completely free of charge to anywhere in the world. If you want to call from your computer to a landline, you can use the pay-as-you-go plan and it's only about $0.02/minute for phone calls to 35 different countries. Or, you can sign up for an unlimited monthly plan for $2.95-$9.95 per month.

When my husband was in law school, my sister and her husband were living in Taiwan, so Skype was wonderful! Not only could my sister and I talk anytime–so long as we were both on the computer–but it was free of charge!

Skype does have its drawbacks: sometimes the reception isn't that great or there's a delay, but for free, who can complain?

16) Barter! One of my favorite ways to save money and help others out in the process is to use the old-fashioned bartering system. From hair cuts to babysitting to car maintenance, we've bartered just about everything under the sun over the years.

Bartering works especially well when you're friends with other frugal folks who would rather swap time or expertise instead of spending money. Not only is it a great way to save money, it also fosters camaraderie and community among friends.

So think about what areas you are gifted in and what areas some of your friends might be gifted in and then see if they'd be up for swapping services or other things.

To be continued…

photo by Refracted Moments

As we talked about in Part 1 of this series, not all of these different ideas of ways to save $100 per year will work for everyone in every situation. I just share these as things which have worked for our family and allowed us to live through some very lean years without going into debt.

My hope in sharing these is not to make you feel you must also follow in our footsteps or adopt all of these practices, but I hope to inspire you to consider ways you might also cut expenses in order to stretch your hard-earned dollars further so you can pay off debt, live within your means, save money, and most importantly, give to others.

For us, that is our ultimate reason for saving money–so we can have more to share with others. We see money as something God has entrusted to us and we want to be wise stewards of what He has given us so we can not only take care of the needs of our own family, but so we can also effectively help and reach out to those in need.

And it's been so exciting for us to see our hard work and frugality pay off in the last few years as we've not only been able to have more wiggle room in our budget and the ability to save more for our future, but we're also able to share much more with others. Truly, "it is more blessed to give than to receive."

If you've been feeling like there's no way you are able to give and bless others in need in your current financial situation, perhaps some of these 100 Different Ways to Save $100 This Year will inspire you to creatively cut your living expenses so you can share with others as well!

With that said, here are some more things we did during our law school years which saved us at least $100 or more per year:

11) Cut out cell phones or ditch your land lines. For many people, a cell phone is considered a "necessity". I was there, too. I'd had a cell phone ever since I was 15 and had become accustomed to the convenience and sort of security it was. But when my husband and I sat down and mapped out our budget before we got married, I realized that cutting out my cell phone plan would save us a nice chunk of change each month.

And so we dropped it and I survived just fine. In fact, even in an unfamiliar town with unreliable vehicles for those first few years of our marriage, I never found myself stranded on the side of the road. Believe it or not, I only remember one time I ended up having to use a pay phone!

Now, for your situation, having a cell phone might truly be a necessity due to your job or other circumstances, however, I'd encourage you to consider how much of a necessity it is and whether you might be able to live without it or at least go with a pay-per-use plan instead of a monthly contract.

If you can't ditch the cell phone, consider ditching the land line, if you haven't already. Either way, it's almost assuredly gong to save you at least $100 per year.

12) Only have one vehicle. Once again, like cell phones, two (or more) vehicles is very much considered a "necessity" these days. However, I think it's all about perspective: if down-sizing to one vehicle meant you were able to save more money, stay out of debt, live on one income, etc. would you be willing to do it?

Early on in our marriage, our second vehicle died permanently and we couldn't afford to replace it, so we just made do with one vehicle for the next three years.

Honestly, we didn't really miss having two vehicles. I learned to love staying home and making my home a haven for my family. I learned to be creative and make the most of what we did have. Since we didn't have transportation during the day while Jesse was at work, I often hosted play dates or get-togethers at our house or we'd take long walks around our neighborhood, to the park, or to the library.

By only having one vehicle, we saved quite a bit of money–not only on gas, upkeep of a vehicle, and insurance costs, but we also saved money because we did a lot less running around. And, let me tell you, staying home most of the time is one very easy way to spend less money!

Have you ditched your cell phone(s) or landlines or cut back to only having one vehicle? If so, I'd love to hear about your experiences in this regard and how it has worked for your family.

photo by Refracted Moments

Guest post by J.D. Roth from Get Rich Slowly

Five years ago, I had over $35,000 in consumer debt. I was living paycheck-to-paycheck even though I had a decent salary. Since then, I've managed to turn things around, and am now debt-free except for my mortgage. I've even begun to save some money!

I didn't get out of debt overnight, though. It took a lot of work. I clipped coupons, I bought from thrift stores, and I sold a lot of stuff at garage sales. I learned how to be frugal. But I also learned how to save my money in a bank–something I had never done before. I'm here today to encourage you to save, too, and to show you two great ways to do it.

Rewards checking

Right now, the best interest rates in the U.S. can actually be found through special rewards checking accounts at local banks and credit unions. Different banks have different names for this service. Where I live, one credit union calls it a Fusion Checking Account and offers a 4.25% APY. Another simply calls it Rewards Checking and offers 3.75% APY. Other banks around the country are currently offering up to 6.01% APY.

Obviously, these rates are fantastic. There aren't many places you can earn a guaranteed 6% return on your money. Unfortunately, there are a few catches. These rewards checking accounts usually come with some combination of the following limitations:

• You must receive your monthly statement electronically–not via snail mail.
• You must log into your account at least once per month.
• You must make a certain number (generally around 12) debit card purchases. (ATM withdrawals do not count toward this number.)
• You must make at least one electronic transaction each month. These include automatic payments to your utilities, for example, or a direct deposit.
• The rate only applies to the first $30,000 (or so) in your account. (The cap at some banks is $10,000; at others, it's $100,000.) The portion in your account above the cap only earns a tiny return.

If you use your debit card often, a rewards checking account makes a lot of sense. You can read more about these accounts at My Money Blog. Better yet, here's a huge list of rewards checking accounts by state. (Those listed with a red asterisk are available nationwide.)

Online savings

Another great option is to open a high-yield online savings account. This is the route I chose for my savings.

For me, the advantage of an online savings account is that the money is completely separate from my everyday checking. If I want to access the cash, I have to go through the process of transferring it from the online account to my local bank. This may seem like a hassle, but in this case that's good; it prevents me from spending the money recklessly. Another advantage is the ability to set up automatic monthly deposits, which helps me to save on "autopilot".

The bank I chose was ING Direct, which is very popular with the readers of my personal finance blog. Its rates are generally modest, but the customer service is excellent. Best of all, ING Direct allows me to set up multiple accounts. I have one account to save for emergencies, one to save for a new car, one to save for Christmas, and one to save for vacation–and I can track them all from the same screen.

ING Direct is not the only option, though. There are many great online banks with good interest rates, which you can research in this list of the best savings accounts.

I am a huge fan of clipping coupons, shopping at thrift stores, and learning to make your own food. These things save money and offer a great deal of satisfaction. But I've also discovered that it pays to keep my savings someplace that will pay me interest.

For more information about saving and investing, visit Get Rich Slowly, where you can read about topics like how to get out of debt, how to earn extra money, and how to save at the supermarket!

Whew! I'm done and by some sheer miracle (or was it the motivation of blogging about it?!), I actually finished everything on my to-do list! I also took a quick inventory and realized that I now have 17 dinners in the freezer for after the baby is born. Yay!

I was really impressed with how this mini meatloaf recipe turned out. I used ground chicken instead of ground beef since I had picked some up a few weeks ago on a good mark-down sale. They turned out quite yummy and I will definitely be making this recipe again. I think it will be perfect to have in the freezer for quick dinners.

(Pizza dough–ready to stick in the freezer.)

I also made up a loaf of our favorite whole-wheat bread which I'll slice and freeze to use later, a loaf of our very favorite banana bread recipe to take to a get-together later this week, and a double-batch of pizza dough to stick in the freezer. I just divided the pizza dough into meal-size portions and froze it in individual freezer bags. When we're ready to use it, we can just pull it out in the morning and by mid-afternoon, it's thawed and ready to be rolled out into pizza crust.

(Banana bread–yummy!)

Thanks for following along today and for your encouraging comments. I don't know if I'll be up to another Baking Day before our baby arrives so I was very glad to have done this today. Having our freezer stocked with easy meals and snacks helps save me so much time and money!

Here's a picture of the the final fruits of our Baking Day today:

And now I'm off to finish cleaning up the kitchen and put my feet up for awhile!

Did you do any baking today or this week? If so, you are welcome to post about it on your blog and leave your direct link below so we can come by and check out what's cooking at your house!

(The girls in their jammies helping me make green smoothies for breakfast.)

I woke up with some extra energy today and decided to declare it a Baking Day! At 33 weeks pregnant, I'm keeping it simple today. I am not completely sure how much I'll be able to do before running out of stamina but here's my proposed to-do baking list:

Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins
Cranberry Muffins
Pumpkin Waffles
Mini Meatloaves
Banana Bread
Pizza dough
Homemade bread

I could add about 10 more things to the list but I'm trying to be realistic here! I'll keep you apprised of my progress and share the recipes and pictures as we go throughout the day. We'd love to have you join us, too! I'll post a Mr. Linky up at the end of today so you can share about any baking you do as well.