1. We have gone to mostly having our thermostat set at 75 degrees for the air conditioning. We normally were keeping it at 72 or 73 last year.
2. We started giving our boys each an allowance of half their age per week. (So, the six year old gets $3.00.) After starting that, they pretty much buy their own toys/games that they really want. It has given them a whole new perspective on what they *really* want, and it saves us because we tended to be pushovers about buying things for them before they had their own money.
3. We have invested money over the previous two years in putting together a raised bed garden, and then putting an addition onto it. This year, our only money spent was to buy the vegetables, some new fencing, and pots/potting soil for a few things. Still — all that being said, we have had an abundance of fresh vegetables (and strawberries) in years past. Already this year, we have had tons of lettuce, spinach, and strawberries. By the end of the summer, we will have grown a whole lot more food for the money, plus we can feel good about having grown our own food.
4. Theoretically, keeping track of a budget should save us some money. I think that it does help to see it in “print” when we are spendng too much in one area.
5. Eric and I tend to give each other things for holidays that involve gifts that we really would have went out to buy anyway. For example, he and the kids had the garden plants be my Mother’s Day present. We would have bought them anyway, of course. Likewise, we’ll be buying a grill that will be for “Father’s Day,” but we would have bought it anyway.
6. Speaking of the garden one more time, sometimes a garden creates an overabundance of items. So, the last couple of years, we have saved money in buying things for the garden (additions, as well as plants, etc.) by having my parents pay for half of those expenses. In return, we provide them with all the veggies they want. This is good for us because it saves us money, and good because we might end up having some things go to waste otherwise.
7. Meal planning saves a lot of money over eating meals out often, or even over stopping at the grocery store several times a week! It helps us, though we admittedly still eat too much from out.
8. Oh, and as far as the grocery store goes, I try to send Eric when I have only a couple of things to buy. Whereas I end up picking up lots of extras when I run to the grocery store, Eric is more apt to buy exactly what I have asked for (if he can find it!), and nothing else.
9. We tend to buy a lot of our clothes (for us and for the kids) second hand. As the kids get older, it might be a little harder, but right now, we have an excellent consignment sale twice a year in the area that I go to, as well as a Once Upon a Child. We also have a nice second hand shop for women in the area, and then Eric has done well a couple of times at Goodwill for clothes for work. We still, of course, buy new clothes, but it has saved us a lot in what we haven’t had to buy new.
10. We used to buy tons of books. I am a sucker for books, and so is Eric. We now live not too far from a very nice library (from which we can also request movies through inter-branch loan), and we definitely utilize it a lot! Not only does it save us from buying books, but we also tend to borrow about five kids DVDs every time we go. Occasionally, we still find books that we love and want to buy (usually after we have rented them, to be sure, first) and sometimes the kids fall in love with a movie that we have borrowed, and so we buy it. But, the number of books and movies we actually buy now is only a small portion of what we used to buy.
11. We spend about $10 per month to be members of Netflix with their one movie out at a time plan (unlimited per month). We only get movies for us (since we get movies for the kids through the library), and since turn around time has us having a new movie in our hands just about three days after mailing the last one in, it’s plenty for us to have only one movie at a time. We used to be HORRIBLE with late fees at the rental place, so Netflix really has saved us a lot of money. Now we just pay for movies that we want to have, not late fees because we couldn’t be bothered to take it back.
12. I own an iPod because I am a huge music lover. I definitely feel it saves me money too, because I used to go out and buy all kinds of CDs. If I really loved something, I went out and bought the CD if we had some extra money, even if I only loved a song or two on the CD. Now, instead of buying that $15 CD for two songs, I pay about $1.98 on iTunes and just buy those two songs.
13. We own both a minivan and a compact car. We cannot fit all of our family in the compact car at this time, since two kids are still in car seats/booster seats. However, because the compact car gets better gas mileage, it has been a decision on our part to just figure out logistics when needed and save money over having two larger vehicles. We use the compact car for when each of us goes to work (since I only work a few hours a week, and only tend to do that when Eric is home). It would be a lot easier for us if we had two vehicles that were larger, but it saves us a lot of money to have the economy car. (Perhaps, it would save us even more money if we hadn’t just had to spend $400.00 to replace the starter on it this week, but what can you do? It’s 9 years old, so those kinds of things happening are expected, but since they rarely happen, it’s still a savings to keep the vehicle.)
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