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Money Saving Mom

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Saving Families Money Since 2007

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 12, 2011 comment

Reader Tip: Save Money By Starching Shirts at Home

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Reader Tip: Save Money By Starching Shirts at Home

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Shauna sent in this interesting tip:

My husband wears a dress shirt every day of the work week, and after we married, I quickly realized how much he was spending on dry cleaning each month. After some online research (argostarch.com was helpful), I found that I could starch his shirts at home using this method:

1. Wash dress shirts in hot water. Do not dry.
2. Boil some water in the teapot.
3. Meanwhile, mix a half cup cornstarch with one cup cold water.
4. Mix the boiling water with the cornstarch mixture in a large bowl,
and then pour the whole thing in the washing machine (turned on to a
rinse and spin cycle only).
5. Add the freshly-washed shirts.
6. After the rinse and spin cycle is complete, hang the shirts up until
they are slightly damp and then iron.

Not only are we saving hundreds of dollars a year (We save approximately $2 per shirt and he wears five shirts per week which equals $10/week in savings or $520 in savings each year), this method seems to keep his shirts in better shape than dry cleaning does. Corn starch is also a safer, more natural choice over the chemicals used in dry cleaning.

I purchase my corn starch in a 35 oz. container at Sam’s Club for less than $3, and this lasts me several months.

-Shauna

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 11, 2011 comment

31 Weeks to a Better Grocery Budget: Using Coupons to Get Free Groceries

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31 Weeks to a Better Grocery Budget: Using Coupons to Get Free Groceries

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Here’s this week’s 31 Weeks to a Better Grocery Budget Video. Enjoy and my apologies ahead of time about the poor lighting/picture. We’ve been experimenting with different things as far as lighting goes and, so far, none of them are working. We’ll hopefully get the hang of this whole video blogging thing one of these days! 🙂

Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 11, 2011 comment

Reader Tip: Make Gluten-Free Flour Using Your Coffee Grinder

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Reader Tip: Make Gluten-Free Flour Using Your Coffee Grinder

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Michelle from The Willing Cook emailed in the following tip:

When my husband tested positive for a wheat allergy a few years, I thought about trying the pre-packaged flours, but couldn’t come to terms with the price. We decided to start experimenting with making our own wheat-free flours. Instead of investing in an actual grain mill, we had a small coffee bean grinder that we thought might work well for grinding up whole grains.

We first tried old-fashioned oats ground in our coffee grinder as a substitute for wheat flour in a dessert recipe. We were amazed at how well the substitution worked and how delicious the outcome was!

Next, we tried grinding white rice for breading on fish. The flavor and crispiness were great!

We have since ground brown rice, chickpeas, tapioca pearls, blanched almonds and even Rice Chex! An old dusty coffee bean grinder and a little experimenting opened a whole new world for our frugal allergy family.

While the coffee bean grinder has worked well for us, one of the drawbacks is that the grinder we use is only a 1/2 cup size. If you need a large quantity of flour, it’s a little time-consuming to only be able to grind a half cup at a time. Also, if you use the coffee bean grinder for coffee beans, as well, you’ll want to make sure that you clean it really well when switching between grinding coffee beans and grinding flour.

The savings in grinding your own flours versus purchasing them pre-ground are significant:

  • Old Fashioned Oats purchased at Aldi and ground yourself are around 47 to 80% less expensive than purchasing pre-packaged Oat Flour from Amazon.
  • Rice purchased at Aldi and ground yourself is around 50% less expensive than purchasing pre-packaged Rice Flour from Amazon.
  • Whole Chickpeas purchased at an Asian Grocer and ground yourself are around 90% less expensive than purchasing them pre-ground from Amazon.
Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 11, 2011 comment

9 Ways to Save in the United Kingdom

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9 Ways to Save in the United Kingdom

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Guest Post by Sarah Jones from Delivering Grace

The UK has been hit, like many other countries by the economic downturn. Here are some ways I’ve found to save:

1. Generic brands

Many of these are just as good as the more expensive names. Even the store economy brands are frequently reasonable quality. Look out for value chocolate digestives and canned tomatoes. There may be some that your family don’t appreciate but it is worth a try.

2. Late shopping

There are reductions through the day on products with “sell by” dates for that day. The percentage reduction increases as the day goes on. The reductions are marked with special labels, usually yellow.

3. Economy stores

Aldi, Lidls, Netto. I only regularly use Lidls. Lidls are good for cleaning products, bread mixes and chocolate. I find that the economy stores don’t sell everything I need, especially for baking, so I tend to go to them about once a month and do a big shop of the items with the greatest saving.

4. Store reward cards and points

Many stores have these. Tesco Clubcard has points which are usually worth four times the face value mainly for treats. Zoos and other days out have queues of people clutching their Tesco vouchers. The points have to be redeemed for specific vouchers in advance. Nectar points (Sainsburys plus a few other stores) are similar although generally less good value for days out.

There are said to be thousands of pounds in various reward card points that are never spent. The best coupons often come with mailings from store reward cards, often money off or more points off basic items such as dairy products or fruit and vegetables. Stores tend to be strict about only accepting in-date coupons for precise items.

5. Store clubs

Both Tescos and Boots have baby clubs. These clubs send mailings with coupons off nappies and wipes. They have particularly good introductory offers. Tescos also have a group of parents testing baby products and completing surveys again for Clubcard points. The baby products tested are sent out free.

6. Farm shops

In my experience, the further from the main road and the more tatty the shop the better the reductions! The other advantage of farm shops is that the money goes straight to the farmer not to some middle man.

7. Markets

They can have value fruit and vegetables.

8. Cloth nappies (diapers in the US)

Councils have a big push on cloth nappies as they have targets for reducing the volume going to landfill. Many councils offer substantial discounts on cloth nappies. My local council gave us a coupon to the value of £40 off cloth nappies.

9. Using the washing line

A very British habit!

Sarah Jones is a wife and mother of five who lives in England. She blogs at Delivering Grace.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 11, 2011 comment

Reader Tip: Save Money by Buying Higher Octane Fuel

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Reader Tip: Save Money by Buying Higher Octane Fuel

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In Part 1 of the 15 Ways to Save Money on Gasoline article, I suggested buying lower octane fuel as a way to save money. Well, Kristen would disagree with me and it looks like she’s done her research to back that up. Here’s what she emailed in:

We’ve heard that by upgrading your fuel octane lever, you can get better gas mileage. Since one of our vehicles is a truck, we are always looking for ways to cut back on our gas costs. We actually spent a month calculating the miles we got at octane level 87 and 89. We found that while 89 was on average $0.03 more per gallon, we actually get better gas mileage with it.

My husband gets 11.6 miles per gallon on our truck with 87 and 12.6 miles per gallon with 89. We have a 26-gallon tank, so basically we get one more mile per gallon when using 89. That means we get 26 extra miles per fill-up! Looking at our mpg, we save about two gallons’ worth of gas each time we fill up (the amount will vary depending on gas prices; it’s anywhere from $6-$8 per trip).

For example:

26 gallons at $3.50 per gallon of 87 = 301.6 miles for $91.00 ($0.302 cents per mile)
26 gallons at $3.60 per gallon of 89 = 327.6 miles $93.60 ($0.286 cents per mile)

This might not sound like much, but when you purchase 100+ gallons of fuel per month, it adds up quickly. Depending upon gas prices and mileage, we will save at least $100 to $120 per year by using higher octane fuel.

–Kristen

I’m curious: have any of the rest of you calculated whether or not you save money by buying higher octane fuel?

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 9, 2011 comment

How do you save $100? Share your tip and possibly be featured in my book!

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How do you save $100? Share your tip and possibly be featured in my book!

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

I’m putting the final touches on my manuscript before it heads to the publisher for edits and I’d love to have you help me out. I’m looking for specific, practical ways that you save at least $100 per year.

I’m not looking for generic tips like “we use coupons”; I’m looking for tips like “We buy our eye glasses through ZenniOptical.com for $12 per pair instead of paying at least $150 per pair to buy them locally.”

Fill out the form here to submit your tip. The more creative and well-written your tip, the better chance you have of it making it into my book!

If your tip is something I’ve not already written about in the book and I end up using it, I’ll give you credit and send you a free copy of the book when it’s published. Please note that all submissions will be subject to editing.

If I don’t end up having space to use your tip in the book, I may use it on my blog in the future.

Thanks so much for helping me out with this. I can’t wait to see what brilliant ideas you share!

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 9, 2011 comment

Super Saving Saturday

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Super Saving Saturday

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It was a busy week around here with the garage sale, family in from out of town and — of course! — working on finishing up the book manuscript.

The garage sale ended up being our best sale we’ve ever had; the traffic was amazing! I’m not sure what to attribute it to. We usually have great sales, but this was fantastic. We are blessed to have a good location, the weather was great and we had a lot of great stuff to sell between the six families who contributed stuff. We also followed all the tips I shared last year for having a successful garage sale.

Truth be told, I only probably spent half a day all combined helping to run the sale, since everyone else pitched in, too. (One of the blessings of having a multi-family sale is that there are lots of hands to help out!) I’m so thrilled to have the clutter cleaned out of my house and love the motivation a garage sale always gives me to clear it out!

In book news, God brought an incredible literary agent to me last week (it’s a long story how that all came to be!). Sarah was willing to take me on as her client this late in the game and it’s been a huge blessing to me. She has years of professional editing experience with large publishing houses and she’s been helping me revamp my manuscript to make it ten times better than I could have made it on my own.

I’m beyond grateful to her and all the hours she’s putting in to make this manuscript the best that it can be before I turn it into the publisher. I’m learning so much through the process and am indebted to her help. By the way, if anyone needs a good literary agent, I’d be glad to hook you up! 🙂

As far as grocery shopping, we bought lots of fruit at Aldi and bread at Dollar Tree and that was it. We’re continuing to eat up our extras from the freezer and pantry and stick with simple meals. So far, it’s working well!

Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 7, 2011 comment

How to Cloth Diaper for Practically Free

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How to Cloth Diaper for Practically Free

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

If the cost of diapers is eating at your budget but the cost of investing in cloth diapers seems too expensive, you’ll definitely want to check out this post from Cotton Babies on How to Cloth Diaper for Practically Free:

Over the weekend, a customer shared with us this news report from Manhattan’s NY1: High Cost Of Diapers Forces Some Parents Into Risky Practices. It breaks my heart because I personally know what it feels like to have to choose food OR diapers. When my husband and I started Cotton Babies, we were living on $30 a week for groceries plus a WIC check. That certainly wasn’t enough to buy a cloth diaper stash and it didn’t buy very many disposable diapers either. Thankfully, we were given three months of diaper service at one of my baby showers and then a friend gave me her stash of prefolds and diaper covers. Without those gifts though, we would have been looking for information about how to diaper your baby when you can’t afford disposables OR cloth diapers.

Read the full post.

There are many ideas and links shared in the post including a link on How to Start Cloth Diapering for Only $20.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 6, 2011 comment

Q&A: How do you get stuff for free at drugstores?

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Q&A: How do you get stuff for free at drugstores?

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Lynn-Ann emailed in a great question this morning:

As I’ve received your e-mail updates, I’ve been a bit frustrated about the ECB/RR stuff. I will share with you what I mean: in the April 4, 2011 e-mail you share the following:

Buy 1 Colgate Maxfresh, MaxWhite or MaxClean Toothpaste at $2.99, Get $3 Register Rewards
Use $0.35/1 coupon from the 4/3 SmartSource insert
Free plus overage after coupon and Register Rewards

I get so excited when I see FREE. But basically it isn’t free when I go to the register and check out is it? Since I still have to pay for the toothpaste at $2.99 and of course I can use the $0.35/1 coupon, but I basically pay the difference, because I don’t even get the Register Rewards til after my purchase is complete. Correct?

-Lynn-Ann, Kansas City, KS

Hi, Lynn-Ann!

Many times, it’s a little confusing when you first begin the drugstore game because you have to outlay cash in order to start getting free groceries and household items. However, once you invest $10 or so and start building up some Register Rewards or ECBs, then you can just use these instead of cash to pay for your groceries/household items. And you just keep rolling these and rolling these and rolling these! Meaning, you pay for your order with the ECBs or Register Rewards you earned from the last transaction instead of paying with cash.

Yes, you usually can’t get your order total down completely to $0.00 — though I’ve done it before! — but you can get it pretty close. Back when we lived where there was a CVS store, I was able to get thousands of dollars worth of groceries and household items over the course of two years and spent less than $75 out-of-pocket for everything. I typically paid around $3 out of pocket for every $100 worth of purchases because I was rolling ECB’s from my previous transaction.

For example, this week at CVS, you could do something like this:

Transaction #1:
Buy 2 GUM Eez-Thru Flossers (75-150 ct) at $2, Get $2 ECBs (Limit 2)
Use 2 $0.75/1 printable
You’ll spend $2.50 plus tax after the coupon and you’ll have $4 in ECBs to spend on your next transaction.

Take that $4 in ECBs and use it to do a second transaction.

Transaction #2:
Buy 2 Oral-B Manual Toothbrush (1 ct) at $2.99
Buy 1 Crest or Oral-B Pro-Health at $3.49
Use $1/1 Crest coupon from the 4/3 P&G insert
Use 2 $2/1 Oral-B coupons from the 4/3 P&G insert
Use $4 ECBs earned from Transaction #1
You’ll spend only $0.47 plus tax out of pocket and you’ll then get back $4.48 in ECBs.

So, for an initial monetary invstment of $3 plus tax, you’ll have purchased five items and have $4.48 in ECBs leftover.

You can do another transaction to purchase ECB deals you’ve still not done for the week yet (like a second Oral-B — it’s a limit of two — or the Complete Contact Solution). Or, you can just hang onto the $4.48 in ECBs and use them for the ECB deals next week.

Walgreens is a bit more complicated, in my opinion, and it’s harder to get your totals down to under $1 — especially with the tax we have here in Kansas! But you can still significantly lower your totals by using Register Rewards from previous transactions to take off most of what you owe.

For more information, be sure to read Walgreens 101 and CVS 101 where I explain more in-depth how to maximize the mileage of your money at both of these stores.

OVER-SPENDING EVERY SINGLE MONTH?Grab these FREE Budgeting Sheets!

Click here to download!
Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 5, 2011 comment

My free Target Beauty Bag arrived!

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My free Target Beauty Bag arrived!

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I know, I know, it’s silly that I still get so excited about freebies. But it’s true: I did a little happy dance when my box containing my free Target Beauty Bag arrived.

Not only was there a cute little Target cosmetics bag, there were four samples in it, a free tube of Neutrogena naturals lip balm and $25 worth of Target beauty coupons.

Yay for freebies!

Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 4, 2011 comment

“$50 here and $75 there adds up fast…”

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“$50 here and $75 there adds up fast…”

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An encouraging story from Terri:

My husband and I read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover in March of 2009. I absolutely loved the book as it started us on our journey to becoming debt free in a year.

Our goal was to pay off a student loan, home equity loan, and to get my husband a used car since his 15-year-old SUV was on it’s last leg. It was about $25,000 worth of debt and we were looking at used cars in the $10,000 price range.

We started by:

  • Making sure our allowances for our taxes were correct so that we were getting the maximum amount back per paycheck
  • Temporarily discontinuing contributions to our 401K and the kids college funds
  • Cutting back on eating out
  • Using coupons

I realized that in one month I spent $600 at Target! It was not all at once but $50 dollars here and $75 dollars there, it added up fast. After that discovery we really only bought necessities when shopping.

We started using Mint.com to keep track of our spending habits. Once we figured out where all the money was going, and stopped our other contributions we came up with an extra $2000-$3000 per month to go toward debt.

We paid off both loans one year later on February 22, 2010, and two months later we paid $11,000 in cash for my husband’s Mazda RX-8. Handing over the check was pretty scary but it felt awesome!

We continued to save the following year and now have $25,000 in our savings account for emergencies, and no debt except the house. We have also been able to increase our tithing at church. We have almost given more to church the past three months than we did all of last year at church. It feels wonderful!

Our next goal to to save for retirement by increasing our contributions to 15%. Everything that is leftover will go toward the kids college and pay off the mortgage.  I would also love to be able to start helping more people in need now that we have our act together. I would love to give that big tip to a single mother who is a waitress or give a $100 bill to a stranger in need on the street.

It is amazing to me that when we were not managing our money well, we wanted to go out and spend it.  In contrast, now that we have money set aside, we do not want to spend any of it!

I am so looking forward to see what this year brings. We have been blessed by God beyond belief. It truly is amazing.

Terri is 36 and a stay at home mom to her two wonderful kids. Her husband is 43 the Senior Director for a Computer Consulting firm. Terri likes to make a little extra money every now and then by subbing at her children’s old preschool and picking up an occasional data entry project for her husbands company.

Do you have a story to share about your financial journey which would encourage other readers and give them hope? Email it to me and I’ll consider posting it.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 4, 2011 comment

How to work from home as a transcriptionist

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How to work from home as a transcriptionist

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Guest post by April

Hundreds of thousands of people are searching for a legitimate way to earn an income from home. Sadly, an overwhelming majority of what they run into is a scam, produces minuscule amounts of money or requires a considerable investment in training programs and/or years of experience.

Home-based transcription is a work-at-home job which allows people to make a real living without special education or experience required. Granted, just like any real job, it takes practice and study to become efficient, but the pay and flexibility of the job can be very rewarding.

I began my own transcription career at age 18. My mom was a small town court reporter from North Carolina and she taught me how to create legal documents. I was able to use the knowledge she gave me to start my own business as a legal transcriptionist.

I quickly discovered that the field of home-based transcription had many available opportunities. It wasn’t just for people with a medical certification, or even just for those with legal training. There were great general transcription positions available open to anyone with a strong work ethic, speedy typing, and good grammar and spelling abilities. Before I knew it, I had several different companies willing to provide me with work!

This proved to be a tremendous blessing for my family. It financially supported us through three years of my husband’s education and an additional two years through some pretty huge life changes. I took my job with me from North Carolina to California and back again to North Carolina, and was even able to work while caring for two precious babies.

Interested in working from home as a transcriptionist? Here are some qualifications needed:

1. Fast Typer: As a transcriptionist, you specialize in converting audio that you hear into specially formatted documents called transcripts. While you have a foot pedal to start and stop the audio when you need to, you will still need an absolute minimum typing speed of 60 words per minute, by hiring company standardsand to make the job worth your time and energy. If you’re not already a fast typist, don’t worry! Practice is all it takes to get your speed up.

2. Skilled Writer: Proper grammar usage, spelling and punctuation are very important in translating the spoken word to written. You can change the meaning completely by simply misplacing a period or comma. If you need to brush up on your writing skills, I recommend reviewing the guidelines and taking the quizzes by The Basic Elements of English Grammar Guide – University of Calgary.

3. Detailed Reseacher: As a transcriptionist, you are frequently exposed to new ideas, people, places and words you’ve not heard of before. This is a fun part about the job, but it can also be challenging to understand and spell correctly unless you’re skilled at researching.

You can expect to be paid anywhere from $6 to $60 per hour. When I first started and was learning the ropes, I was able to make about $12-$15 per hour. Knowing what I know now, and having increased my typing speed to 90-100 WPM, I am able to make about $25-$30 per hour. The more you practice and work on improving, generally, the more you’re going to make.

Steps of action to starting out as a transcriptionist:

  • Create a winning resume and cover letter.
  • Make sure you have the tools necessary to perform your work. Many companies require you to type a small transcript as part of your employment application, so it’s best to be ready before applying.
  • Start applying to any and all transcription companies you can. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear back regarding your first few applications. I applied to nearly 60 companies before I was hired. Once you’ve got your foot in the door, it’s often easier to be accepted by more companies.

Working as a transcriptionist does take a lot of work and discipline, but it’s also a super, straightforward way to earn income from home with refreshingly honest wages for your valuable time and effort.

Happily married and delighted to be the stay-at-home mom of three munchkins (so far), April still enjoys transcribing part-time in addition to caring for her home and family. For more information on getting started as a transcriptionist, get her Home-Based Transcriptionist ebook.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Apr 2, 2011 comment

Financial “help” from a 3-year-old

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Financial “help” from a 3-year-old

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Earlier this week, I discovered my business debit card all cut up.

Upon investigation, Kaitlynn (3) confessed to the deed. However, as soon as she admitted she was the culprit she said matter-of-factly, “But I thought we were supposed to cut up credit cards!”

Sounds like we might have a Dave Ramsey Jr. living at our house! 🙂