Saving Money - Part Two {Guest Post!!}

         I'm very excited to introduce you to my pal, Stephanie Ramsey.  (I call her "Ramsey" for obvious reasons.)  She is an amazing wife, loving mother to three boys (15, 12, and 9), and super talented nurse - not to mention a great friend!  She is wise in many areas, and since one of her specialties is saving dough I was thrilled when she offered to write a guest post here.  I think you are going to really enjoy reading her advice. 

Here she is with her beautiful family.  Thank you so much, Ramsey!  

 My friend Stephanie has graciously allowed me to share some thoughts on her blog, so today I’d like to share some more practical ideas and tips for spending less and saving more for your family. Costs seem to be creeping up on just about everything these days, and for most families, that means tightening up and paring down. It seems that our family has been in a perpetual state of trimming the fat, and as a result, I’ve picked up some ideas along the way that have worked well for us.

Date Nights and Family Time

          Okay, this is a big one in our house. My husband and I absolutely cherish any time we get alone together, but lack of childcare and concern about expense often take first priority. We’ve gotten creative to make sure that we have this necessary time as a couple, just to talk and recharge. One thing we like to do is set aside a special  “date night”, even if we aren’t leaving the house. We both put the date in our calendars, and after the kids have gone to bed, we’ll pop a bag of microwave popcorn and watch a $1.29 movie from the Redbox. This is a great way to stay in touch, have one on one time with my love, and NOT break the bank.

 We also plan for movie nights with the kids, and even though the routine is the same after all these years, they never tire of a $5 pizza and a free family flick from the library on Friday evenings. Our family also tries to take advantage of fun freebies around town. We’ve participated in lots of kids workshops at Michael’s stores, as well as Home Depot and Lowe’s. A great place to find info for free upcoming events is the weekend section in your local paper.

Restaurant Savings

          Eating out in our family is an occasional treat. With three starving boys, it can get pricey in a hurry. Factor in soft drinks for a family of five, and that’s a huge chunk of my grocery budget spent on a single meal! One way we’ve been able to enjoy a splurge every now and then is to use coupons for dining out and we take advantage of any special offers the restaurants offer. For example, most of our favorite places offer email deals just for signing up, and even free birthday treats and meals. We’ve gotten freebies for an entire birthday month, just for signing up with places like Panera, Texas Roadhouse, Chili’s, and Applebee’s.  I always make sure to also check the website for any savings offers before we head out to dine. Our family recently ate at Chili’s for dinner, and our check totaled $13.80. It was all thanks to a pair of free kids’ meal coupons, a free appetizer text I’d gotten on my phone, and our family’s willingness to skip expensive soft drinks in favor of water.

Grocery Savings

          Here’s the biggie where you will really be able to see tangible savings adding up quickly. The obvious way to save on groceries is coupons. There are great resources for printable coupons, as well as the trusted old standby, the Sunday paper. Try to pair sale items with your coupons, and if possible, a grocery store who doubles coupons, to maximize your savings. I recently had a receipt showing savings of nearly $4,000 in a single year by matching sales with coupons that were doubled. But you’re probably wondering how to save on things that you never really see coupons for, right?  Items like produce, or meat. Well, there are even ways to save on those things too. Aldi is fabulous for purchasing produce. They stock a respectable amount of organic fruits and veggies, but their weekly produce special prices simply can’t be beat. It isn’t often that you can pick up a whole bag of baby carrots for 49 cents, or a 3-pound bag of navel oranges for $1.99! As it gets closer to spring and summer, plan a visit to your local farmer’s market or produce stand to take advantage on excellent prices on in season produce. You’d be surprised at how much higher the quality is, and how much lower the price!

          It’s even possible to save money on your meat purchases, too. One way is to purchase meat in large bulk packs at warehouse clubs. If you have a large family, or a freezer to store items, you can take advantage of some real savings by buying the extra large family packs and dividing them into smaller bags. Meat at my local Sam’s Club or Costco is high quality, and often the price is dollars less per pound than the regular grocery store since the packages are so much larger. You can also find sales on meats that can be processed into a different cut for free by the meat department. I found top sirloin steaks at a great price at Publix recently, and had them ground (for free!) into ground sirloin for hamburgers and meatloaf.  I also like to purchase items like bread, buns and tortillas at the bakery thrift store and freeze them. These are expensive to buy in the grocery store, and a recent purchase for me included 3 loaves of whole wheat bread, 4 packs of tortillas, and 2 12-packs of sesame seed hamburger buns for $8. That’s a steal, folks!

          I’ll leave you with one last idea for saving money. My hubby and I decided a couple of years ago that in addition to the “emergency fund” we’ve managed to sock away in savings, it would be comforting to have a cash “rainy day fund” on hand. I found a great idea on Pinterest for a 52-week savings challenge. We got a small plastic shoe box, printed out the challenge, and taped it on the side. It is a savings plan, where you deposit incrementally, for each week of the year. For example, on week 1, you would deposit $1. Week 2’s deposit would be $2, and so on. The maximum weekly deposit is the last week, when you will deposit $52. At the end of the 52 weeks, you will have saved $1378 cash! We both participated last year, adding in our weekly amounts, as well as any pocket change or random money we found in the dryer.  By November, we had enough to pay almost every penny of a week long family trip to Disney World!

          

Saving Money

Today begins a little series I'm calling the Saving Series.  So far I've planned to write on saving money, saving time, and saving space.  If any other savings topics come to mind I may write on those also.  (You can always send me your ideas.)  To start things out I thought we'd discuss saving money.  I hope you find something helpful in this series, maybe even several somethings.  Share this post with someone if you think it might be of use, and as always, I welcome your feedback.

There are several things my honey and I always talk about at the start of every year.  We talk about our schedule, our goals, and our finances.  Each and every January since we have been married we discuss these three things (and usually others).  The start of a new year is, to us, the perfect time to make changes that need to be made and to start fresh on things - especially things we'd like to do a little better on.  We recently began working on a new budget - vowing once again to become debt free.  Of all our years, this one seems to be the hardest.  We have accumulated a very large amount of medical bills and it's going to be a big mountain to climb.  We are determined to work through them all (what choice do we have, right??) and to do so we are tightening our belts, once again.  

Here are some things we have come up with that might help you find ways to save too.  

• Do an insurance check-up and compare rates with other companies.  We just did this and we were shocked at how much we were able to save!  We called an insurance company and had them quote us the very same auto insurance policy we currently had.  We were able to save $200 a month!  We couldn't believe it!  AND,  a couple of weeks later we received a check in the mail for $180.  It was a refund on our home owner's insurance.  Because we had moved our auto insurance to the same company that already insured our home we received a multi-line discount which resulted in a refund for overpayment on our home owner's premium!  Check your policies, compare rates, and while you're at it ask yourself if you really need medical coverage on your auto insurance, or towing insurance, or rental car.  Look closely at your policy.  There may be things on there you have double coverage for or things you would prefer to self insure.  

• Eat at home.  This one is pretty simple.  Pack lunch/dinner for whoever goes to work, pack a little sandwich for when you and the kiddos are out running errands, keep granola bars and apples in the car, etc.  Avoid restaurants as much as possible and you will definitely see savings in your budget.  Make a menu plan for your week so you won't be tempted at the last minute to order pizza.  Pack a little picnic lunch for when you and the kids have a full day away from home.  Save going to restaurants for very special occasions only.  This is one our family is going to work very hard on.  We are in our busy season now - soccer, co-op, archery, sewing lessons, music lessons, AWANA, etc. - but we are going to try really hard to plan ahead and not eat out.  A trip to McDonalds for us is easily $40 or more, and a nicer restaurant would be at least double.  If we do that even once a week, just do the math.  We are going to have to pretty much bring food everywhere we go since our kids are always hungry and I'm going to have to make sure I put something in the crock-pot for Sundays but it will be worth it since we will certainly be able to see a difference in our finances.   

Lately I've made a lot of this

and packed it up in these.

• Eat homemade food.  If you look in my pantry and fridge right now you might say there's nothing here to eat.  Our kids sometimes say it, we've even had a house guest say it.  However, it's not true.  You won't see much in the way of chips, cookies, canned biscuits, frozen pizza, and other pre-packaged foods but there is food here!  In my fridge there are a lot of eggs.  There is plenty of flour, sugar, and oil in my pantry.  There are frozen chicken breasts in my freezer.  See, the thing is, if you want something to eat in our house you are going to have to cook it.  I'm not buying a lot of cereal.  We are boiling eggs and eating fruit.  If biscuits are on the menu we are making them.  For dessert type treats (cookies and such) we are baking from scratch.  So, at first glance one might say there's no food here, but a better way to say it is there is no pre-made food here.  We are saving money on groceries by buying ingredients and cooking ourselves.  So, if you are getting hungry grab a bag of beans out of the pantry and get them cooking on the stove.  

• DIY.  Anything and everything you can think of, do it yourself.  I cut all of our sons' hair (with a few exceptions - when we had a new baby, etc.) until they are old enough to start paying for their own haircuts.  There are probably a lot of things you are paying for that you could do yourself for less, or possibly for nothing.  Think haircuts, oil change, manicure/pedicure, lawn care, etc.  How many things can you remove from the monthly budget and start doing yourself?  Do you have a gym membership?  Could you start walking in your subdivision?  Do you pay to have your pet's nails trimmed?  Could you learn to do it?  Does your beautician do your eye brows?  Could you?  Explore the possibilities.  

• Shop garage sales, consignment shops, and thrift stores.  Here's a big one for me.  I buy most of our kids' clothes used.  Our grill out back on the deck came from a garage sale for $20.  Same thing with the leaf blower in the garage, our chiminea, and half of our furniture.  Our kitchen table and chairs - garage sale.  Our piano - purchased used.  A lot of my Christmas dishes, a second set of china and several other things in my kitchen have come from garage sales.  The girls have a picnic table on the deck we found at a garage sale for $10.  We've used it for years and they love it.  I have a little cabinet in the dining room I use to store school stuff, that, and our two bar stools in the kitchen came from an estate sale.  If you aren't shopping garage sales and Goodwill and the like you don't know what you are missing!  Yes, it's a little more work but it's sooo worth the savings.  I plan to do even more garage sale and consignment shopping this year.  I have a few rules for used shopping, like I don't buy undergarments and I don't buy gifts for people, but other than that the sky is the limit.  If you are looking for ways to save money, buy used.   

• Use coupons.  I don't mean just cutting out the occasional coupon from the Sunday paper.  I mean really learn how to coupon and get good at it.  You don't ever need to buy a bunch of junk food or stuff you don't use.  You can find coupons for the things your family uses regularly and when matched up with sales you can s.a.v.e.  

•  Barter.  Here's an idea that can save anywhere from a little to a lot.  Instead of paying to board your pet take turns with a neighbor, caring for their pet when they travel and them taking care of yours when you head out of town.  Trade other services too - piano lessons, baking, housecleaning, yard work.  Offer to do what you are good at as a trade for something you need done.  Not only does bartering save money, it can be a lot of fun.  

• Drink more water.  This one is very simple but for our family can be a major money saver.  We have got to work on this one this year!  I'm surprised when I look at what we really spend on juice, kool aid, soda and the like.  If we drank only water we would save tons of money!  There's no excuse for us not doing this one.  We just need to train our appetites and save "special" drinks for special occasions.    

• Get rid of cable, newspaper subscriptions, data packages, etc.  Depending on how serious you are about saving money you may want to consider getting rid of some things you could live without.  Believe me, I know it's not easy!  We've gone through some rough times and have had to strip our lives bare of any extras, but any time we've had to do that it has been worth it.  We are entering a period now where it is probably necessary to do some stripping away again.  Do you really need (fill in the blank)?  Ask yourself (and your family) some hard questions.  Take the savings from anything you get rid of and use that to pay down debt.  You won't be sorry.

That's all I have time for right now but I may write a part two later.  I'm positive if I continued to write I would continue to think of ideas.  You've surely got ideas too so please pass them along.  I would love to get a discussion started on how we can all save money in 2015.  If you would like to submit an idea for a guest post I'd be very interested to hear it.  Send your submissions to 7morans@comcast.net