Sunday, February 22, 2009

How to save Money When Time is Money

I am a SAHM with 2 kids, 9 years and 4 months at the time of this post. I home school and do volunteer work. My time is valuable. Some of the standard Ways to Save Money don't work for me. I don't want to hand wash my dishes or hang my clothes to dry- and I don't have time for this. I still want to save money. So what do I do? I compromise.
These are my tricks to Save money and not use extra time I don't have.

1. Run Major appliances at night when electricity is cheaper.
See more on this here Ways to Save money At Home

2. I use Vinegar and baking soda to clean (most stuff). It's cheap, cheaper than most cleaning supplies- and it does a better job, but I don't have to spend any time mixing up anything. And as a bonus, vinegar disinfects as well as bleach and is safe for my kids!

3. I don't have time for coupons- I shop dollar stores for the best deals.
See more here Save Money on Groceries

4.Utilize Pay Per View Movies. That's right, most people will tell you to save money you should cut back the cable bill. I think this is something that has to be weighed. We hardly ever go to the movie theater. But we do like to watch movies. Renting a pay per view is the same price for me as going to my local video store- but I don't have to spend any gas getting there or worry about late fees. I also don't want to do an online rental store, because there are some months we don't rent a movie.

5. Grow one thing you like to eat (alot). Planting a garden to save money on groceries is not piratical for most people. I've tried it. It's great fun at first but it is very time consuming. I buy the supplies but never see any results because I don't have enough time to keep up a garden. Instead of saving money I end up losing money. But you can find one easy produce item your family likes to eat and plant just that. Depending on what it is you may even be able to put it in a pot. Do the research on what your family likes compared to what is easy to grow. Seeds are cheap- but time is money, so don't decide on anything that needs to be babied to much.

6. Pay your bills online or directly out of your checking account. Both of these are usually free. I haven't bought a stamp in years- and who wants to with the way the cost of sending a letter keeps going up. I keep a notebook with all my account log in IDs and passwords, website addresses and the day they have to be paid. It only takes me a few minutes. I don't have to spend money on stamps or checks (I haven't had checks in a couple years either). This definitely saves me money while saving time. Online bill pay is great. The amount due is right in front of me. I don't have to hunt down bills, write checks or go to the post office. For those bills I can't pay online or directly out of my checking account, I pay over the phone.

7. Convenience foods. Is taking a short cut on the family dinner the best way to save money. YES!
I know many people think these convenience foods are more expensive but it really depends. I hate to cook. Cooking anything from scratch usually takes a really long time. For $7 I can buy a meal in a bag- veggies, meat, everything, that I can cook in 20 minutes flat y. Worth it to me- Oh Yeah. People just assume this type of product is not cost effective. That's not always true. For larger families it may not be as pratical. But, for my family it's perfect.

copyright © 2009 best-ways-to-save-money.blogspot.com Best Ways to Save Money

No comments:

Post a Comment