One of my biggest goals for the year is to pay down my debt and stop spending money. My philosophy is buy for need versus want. Before any purchase I think to myself do I really need this. Most of the time I put it back and find that I don't miss not having it. If I don't NEED it, I don't buy it.
I have also found simple ways to save a little money every week that add up to $1,000 per year savings. I found easy alternatives to buying things that I found I can get for free. Yes free! Who doesn't like free stuff?
Coffee. I used to have a serious Dunkin coffee habit. Every morning I bought a medium coffee and sometimes also bought a breakfast sandwich or donut. Even just the cost of coffee, now over $2 for a medium cup is $14 a week. I have cut weekday Dunkin out and drink the office coffee. I only like flavored coffee so I buy French Vanilla CoffeeMate for $2 and it lasts me about two weeks. I do splurge on the weekends and get my Dunkin fix. I think that's a fair trade and still allow myself a treat so I am not completely depriving myself. Saving $2 a day doesn't seem like much but it adds up. This change in coffee habit saves me $10 a week which turns into a yearly savings of $520 a year.
Movies. Way back when, I used to go to the movies on a pretty regular basis, at least once a month. I would also rent a movie almost every weekend. When Redbox came out I was excited to rent movies for just a buck. Of course half the time I would return it a day or two late. I'm not a late nighter anymore so most of the time it takes me a couple nights to see a complete movie. Because it's just a dollar I would generally get two movies and then returning a day late means every weekend I was spending $4 on movies. I have discovered that our local library has a collection of movies to rent for free. They have an entire children's collection, a DVD collection and now a BluRay collection. Now the kids get some library time to read some books, do puzzles and play on the computer, then we check out movies. Generally two kids movies and a movie for me and my husband which would be $3 to $6 at Redbox. We get them for a whole week and they are free! So at $4 a week, I am now saving $208 per year.
Books. I have also just joined a book club and rather then buying the book I am utiziling the library as well. Plus I use the library time with the kids to spend a half hour for reading time for myself while they are playing or reading. We read one book a month which would cost $15 to 25 per month to buy. Renting from the library saves me another $277 to $300 per year.
So little sacrifices that I don't even miss, add up to big savings. I still drink coffee every day and we still rent movies every weekend, but I save about $1,000 per year by drinking office coffee and renting books and movies from the library.
Jan
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