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Five Unconventional Ways to Save on Everyday Expenses

You use coupons at the grocery store, combine errands to save gas, and watch your spending to save money, but is there anything else that you can do to save on your everyday expenses? Probably. Take a look at the following unconventional ways to save. You just may be able to save hundreds in just a few hours. 1. Cut your property tax. With the economic downturn home values have decreased by thousands of dollars. However, your property tax assessment probably doesn’t reflect this new value, which means that you could be paying taxes on a home value that isn’t … Continue reading →

How to Access Home Improvement and Save Money

One of the things that I have learned from living in a fixer upper home is that home improvement can get expensive, but doing some good assessment ahead of time can save you money. Knowing what needs to be done, how it can be done and who can do it will save homeowners hundreds of dollars. For some examples, you may be able to combine projects to save money overall, choose the right professionals to work together or do some of the work yourself. Having a good assessment will also give you time to research tax credits, utility credits, township … Continue reading →

Need to Furnish Your Home? Act Now

If you are looking to furnish your home any time soon, whether that means rooms of furniture or a few art and decor pieces, you may want to keep reading. That is because now is the time for great bargains from antiques to durable family-friendly pieces. Why is it the right time to furnish your home? There are a number of reasons. First, right now there are a lot of younger baby boomers going into retirement who are ready to downsize their living space. At the same time, older baby boomers are moving into retirement homes or with family. They … Continue reading →

How to be Prepared for a Grocery Shopping Trip

Sometimes you know when you are going to go grocery shopping and other times you just have to grab a few things on the way home. Either way, it helps to be prepared. If you are prepared for your grocery shopping trip, you will save money, save time and have all of the groceries that you need to make your meals and snacks for the week. Keep These Items with You Have a bag stored in the car with a couple of items to make it easy to do your grocery shopping. Carry your coupons everywhere you go. You never … Continue reading →

Are You Dry Cleaning Your Money?

Here is a disturbing statistic for the frugal folk. A survey by Proctor and Gamble found that women spend an average of $1,500 a year on dry cleaning. The survey also found that about 65 percent of those items that are sent to the dry cleaner are actually washable at home. Imagine how much of a savings that you could have if you skip the dry cleaner? Plus, avoiding those dry cleaning chemicals may be healthier for yourself and your family. Here are some tips that can help. First of all, there is a difference between dry cleaning recommended and … Continue reading →

The Money Saving Mom’s Budget

When it comes to frugal living, fresh inspiration is often hard to find. Oh sure, we do what we can, from attempting a budget to washing out baggies in order to save money. Often, the problem, though, is that we aren’t armed with a solid start to finish plan. Crystal Paine’s book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget gives you that plan, and explains the importance behind each step. I haven’t seen anything this good since Amy Dacyczyn’s The Tightwad Gazette, a book on frugal living that has now pretty much obtained cult status. Paine’s book, however, is updated with more … Continue reading →

What is Upcycling?

For years, the mantra shared by both practitioners of frugal living and those interested in keeping it green was: “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.” These three things not only can save money but can also conserve resources for the planet. You may have heard of a fourth term, “upcycling.” How is this different from the others and should you be doing it? Chances are that if you have been living frugally for some time you are already participating in upcycling. This fancy term describes taking ordinary materials, objects that you might have recycled anyway, and then transforming them into something more … Continue reading →

Ways to Save on a Six Flags Staycation

It’s never a good day when travelers are actually excited to see gas prices hovering near $4. Three dollars and 89 cents for a gallon of unleaded–SCORE!! While the cost of gas has fallen slightly in the last couple weeks, from its highest levels since July 2008, Americans are still paying nearly a dollar more per gallon than a year ago. As a result, families from coast-to-coast continue to restructure their summer vacation plans in order to preserve their household budgets, and still have fun in the sun. That goes double for clans living in and around Chicago. According to … Continue reading →

Layaway

My husband and I are considering a move to Arizona. Among the excitement about the adventure of living in a new state, I am anxious to have a gas clothes dryer again. I am not even a little bit dreading shopping for new appliances. Sears is running a commercial offering layaway on major appliances and it makes me a little nostalgic. My family took advantage of layaway a lot while I was growing up. With layaway you could put a deposit down on your purchase and make payments at agreed upon intervals until the purchase was paid for. When the … Continue reading →

Being Frugal Is A Way Of Life – New FL Blogger Intro

Finally, I’m writing my Frugal Living introduction post. Better late than never, I always say. I wanted to say hello to my fellow FL living blogger Mary Ann Romans, and all of Families.com new bloggers. Since starting with this website about a month ago I’ve been having a lot of fun writing in my various topics. Being able to share and learn is a wonderful thing. As the title of my blog today states, being frugal truly is a way of life, not just one area of it. Many times someone may start out counting pennies in the area of … Continue reading →