Written by: Kim Sawyer

The other day, I read a Yahoo! news article about two kids (a 9 year old and a 7 year old) in Salt Lake City, UT, who are protesting the high gas prices because their cable was a casualty of budget-cutting.  Basically, the kids are upset because, “All of my mom’s monny goes to the gas tank!”  Of course, this is just one example of cutbacks a family has to make in their budget due to the economy being in such turmoil.

That Yahoo! news article got me thinking about other ways to save money in this horrible economy.  So, I googled the internet for different ways to save money and based on my findings, I’ve comprised a list that hopefully will be helpful.  I’m sure most of you have heard some, if not all, of these money saving tips, but just in case you haven’t, here they are again:

1. Don’t play the lottery. Just don’t do it. You might as well flush your dollars down the toilet. Save $50-$250 a year.
2. Go out to dinner only once a month instead of twice as this can save at least $500 a year.
3. Instead of buying expensive bottled water, use a water filtration system such as one from Brita or Pur. It turns your free tap water into the same pure water you’re buying at the store. Evian spring water, by comparison, costs approximaely $21.19 a gallon. And you thought gasoline was expensive!
4. Eat less red meat. Pasta and chicken are inexpensive and better for you. Three meatless meals a week can save your family over $500 a year.
5. Break the fast-food habit. You can easily spend over $40 a week at these places, which amounts to approximately $2,000 a year that you could be putting into a savings account.  
6. When shopping for the sack lunch or the kid’s lunches, those individually packed snacks and drinks look so convenient. Buy juice in bulk and use a thermos. Buy fruit and cheese in bulk, and use your Tupperware. Snack-size chips cost twice as much as filling a plastic bag from a big bag of chips. You get the idea.  You can save hundreds of dollars a year.
7. Every night, try to put all the change and dollar bills from your pocket or purse into a change jar. You can save quite a bit if you do this.  My husand and I do this and once when we cashed it in, it was over $300.
8. Popcorn is a very healthy and inexpensive snack. Not the microwave kind smothered in butter at a dollar a bag. Get a hot air popper and use the $1.50 a pound bags of corn. It’s as fast as a microwave and uses less electricity. You can save approximately $300 a year by doing this.
9. Save on gas. Drive smart, keep your speed down. Leave extra room between you and the car ahead of you. Smooth, lawful- speed driving will save you at least 3 mpg. Besides saving $200 a year in gasoline, there will be less wear and tear on your tires and brakes, and less chance of an accident or tickets causing higher insurance rates.

Well, that’s my list.  I’m sure you can come up with even better money saving tips.  Please share them here – it is greatly appreciated!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under Random Buzz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.