“Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.” (Quote possibly originating from Maela.)
Another way to save money in the food department is to take a look at what you are drinking and make some healthy adjustments. People in America drink way too many soft drinks, and soft drinks are nothing but flavored, carbonated water, usually sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (very bad for you), often with phosphoric acid, with caffeine thrown in just to add insult to injury. And don’t get me started on aspartame/NutraSweet/whatever they are changing its name to so you won’t know you are ingesting poison.
Instead, save yourself money and try something different. Water is great! If you can’t consume sugar because of diabetes or some similar difficulty, you are better off drinking water than drinking beverages with artificial sweeteners.
Or try tea. Remember when we were all told that tea was bad for us? Nutritionists and scientists have done a 180 on that one. Oh, and it doesn’t matter whether you like black or green tea—they both have great health benefits. Which makes sense, since they are all made from the same plant. Tea has no calories or sugar, but it tastes great and is very good for you. Read the rest of this entry »
A great way to save money, improve your health, and possibly even lose weight is to cook at home rather than eating fast food or dining out. There are many excellent, delicious, and healthy meals you can make for very little money. Even if you don’t think you have many cooking skills, there are a lot of meals that are easy to make.
Yes, I know how much easier it is to go out and pay someone else to fix your food. But when money is tight, for the price of a fast food meal or a meal at even a moderately priced restaurant, you can buy enough food to fix several meals at home. Even if you can only cook simple meals, simple meals can be quite tasty. Read the rest of this entry »
This one is very simple. A lot of us buy a lot of things on impulse, only to later wonder why we bought it, or to not use it or eat it after all, and then we realize it was just a waste of money. Multiply these impulse purchases by however many times you make them and by the dollar(s) they cost, and they can add up quickly.
Let’s say you make impulse purchases of $3 to $5 or $10 five times a week. Averaging that out, it could add up to $30 or more a week spent on items or food you really didn’t want or need.
So here’s the technique to practice. Set yourself a threshold amount of money. Anything that costs more than that, you wait a certain period of time (the cooling-off period) before you allow yourself to buy it.
One purpose of this technique is to prevent impulse purchases. If even some portion of your money is spent on impulse purchases, giving yourself a cooling off period can keep you from making a number of those purchases. By giving yourself a cooling-off period, you give yourself a chance to evaluate whether you really need that item. You might end up amazed at how many things you do not purchase simply because you waited. Read the rest of this entry »
I had a dream Friday morning about being in the future. In this future, humanity had gotten its act together and had arrived at a place of peace, harmony, and wisdom, such that we were no longer trying to coerce each other or force each other into thinking or believing or being certain ways. We also had interstellar travel, and I had been sent to another planet as an envoy to present our offer of friendship and help. Read the rest of this entry »
Although it can be satisfying to have a large video collection, most people don’t ever watch a movie again after purchasing it. That constitutes a waste of money—sometimes, a lot of money. I have seen struggling young couples with children to care for who have trouble making ends meet, yet they own hundreds of DVDs. At $20 to $30 or more per DVD, that adds up pretty quickly to thousands of dollars they could have better spent on other things.
What can you do instead? In order from least costly to most costly, you can
This is the second entry in my series on ways to save money. Unlike the first entry, which proposed that you stop subscribing to television service, this one is much easier to do. Join your local freecycle group.
A freecycle group is a group of people who very simply do one of two things: They offer items for free, or they ask for items for free. Because of its nature, although all groups fall under the umbrella of the national Freecycle.org group, each freecycle group has to be local.
I have gotten rid of CD cases, DVD cases, supplements, partially used shampoos, and a host of other things that I might otherwise have had to throw out. Although I rarely am on the asking end, and although I have had much less success getting items I ask for, many people get exactly what they want. I’ve seen people ask for cell phones, computers, and even cars.
Read the rest of this entry »
With a life-long interest in diet (as in what we eat) and nutrition, I like to keep up with the latest thinking on what foods are considered best for us. My mother was an early adopter of Adele Davis’s books, so I was raised on whole grains, whole foods, and not a lot of sugar, soda (soft drinks), white bread, or other such foods.
Recently, I’ve been reading SuperFoods Rx, and like it very well indeed. There’s a lot of information packed into that book, organized in a very nice, clean way; however, although there is a one-page summary of the ideas in the book, it isn’t as complete as I would have liked it to be. So I made my own one-page summary that shows all the foods and their sidekicks, arranged by food type, with recommended servings per day as well as serving sizes. Although the print is quite small (so I could fit it all on one page), it is quite useful to have it on my refrigerator for reference.
When I was a child, we didn’t have much money. Invention being the daughter of necessity, we learned early that one must “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without,” as the old folk saying goes. Although my finances got easier, many of my thrifty habits remained (though my natural generosity tends to take a bite out of my finances when I am doing well).
In these times, every little bit helps, and so I am going to share some of my tips on how to cut back your costs. I have a lot of them—65 on my list, and I’m not done listing everything. I’m not simply going to give you a list, however, but am instead going to have a separate post for each item on the list so I can discuss it a little bit, say why it works or how it works, perhaps give instructions if it is something along the lines of reusing something for a new purpose (“repurposing,” as it is known in the corporate world), and even, if you don’t mind, sharing a bit of the philosophy behind the item.
Some of the ideas I will be sharing with you will simply involve changing habits—doing something differently than you have before. Some will involve buying things in different ways. Others will involve not buying something entirely. It is of course completely up to you whether you choose to take one, some, or all of these ideas and make them your own. All I ask is that you read through them with a neutral eye. If you find one you like, consider making it a goal to incorporate that idea into your life.
Ways to Save Money #1: Cancel Your Television Service
Television does not exist to entertain us; it exists to sell to us. (Commercialism by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen)
In some ways, there isn’t a priority to these ideas, but idea number one is so important in so many other ways than saving money that I am sharing it first. It is also going to be an idea that many people will resist, so I am throwing it out there first so that you have a chance to mull it over, maybe do a little research yourself, perhaps give it a try for a month and see how you do with it. Read the rest of this entry »
