Top Ten Ways to Save Money

(A reader wrote asking what my tip-top money-saving advice would be, so I put together a little list for her. And you.)

1. Don’t turn your nose up at used pre-owned stuff.

There’s SO much good stuff out there that’s not brand new…some free (hand-me-downs, Freecycle), and some for cheap (Ebay, Craig’s List, yard sales, thrift stores, consignment stores).

(bed from craiglist, painted black by Joshua and me)

You probably aren’t going to be able to buy everything used (even The NonConsumer Advocate buys new underwear!), but even if you just switch out some of your brand-new-buying for some secondhand goods, you can save yourself some serious cash.

2. Live with less.

Living frugally isn’t just about obtaining all your usual items at a discount. Sometimes, you can save money by simply not buying something.

Maybe your current cell phone will do just fine. Maybe you don’t need 3 different winter coats. Maybe you only need one set of sheets per bed. Maybe your kids don’t need 15 new toys at Christmas.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find that you’re actually happier with less. Stranger things have happened.

3. Stop wasting food

I understand, believe me. I was a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad food waster back in my day. But, miracle of miracles, I stand before you a reformed person.

If I can (almost) stop wasting food, there’s hope for you too!

Plan a menu, make a detailed grocery list (those two things will help you buy less), take inventory of your fridge each day, eat leftovers, and throw random bits of food into scrambled eggs, on top of a salad, or into soup.

Throwing away food that was edible is a huge waste of money and resources (someone grew that food, harvested that food, and transported that food to the store, and it’s very sad when all those resources end up in the trash).

(Related: 10 ways to stop wasting food.)

4. Avoid eating out

Eating out is exponentially more expensive than eating at home.   Even if you change nothing else, cutting back on your eating out will have a big impact on your bottom line, especially if you currently eat out a lot.

Here are 7 reasons you’re eating out so much (with tips on how to stop!)

5. Be on the lookout for ways to cut costs on services/goods.

There are inexpensive ways to do almost everything, and in many cases, the frugal option is just as good as the expensive option.

A few examples:

-Mr. FG and I use Ting wireless as our cell phone provider ($20-$30 bill each month!), and we bought refurbished iPhones from Amazon Warehouse.

(More on Ting here.)

–We bought an Ooma box and now have no home phone bill aside from a few dollars in monthly taxes.

-We buy razors from 99 Cent Razor for just a a dollar apiece ($2 each when you add in shipping, which is still a great price.)

-We use Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Roku to avoid having to pay for cable TV.

(More details on avoiding cable TV here.)

6. Ditch disposables.

I’m not saying you should necessarily get rid of your toilet paper (You’ll have to pry mine out of my cold, dead hands.), but take a good look at your life and see which disposables you can cut out.

Could you:

• use real towels instead of paper towels?
• use a water bottle instead of bottled water?
• use real plates, cups, and silverware instead of paper/plastic?
• opt for reusable leftover containers instead of foil/plastic?

7. Buy stuff that lasts.

Well-made items DO cost more up front. But once you buy a quality item, you shouldn’t have to replace it for a good long while and that saves you money. And stress.

Don’t go out and replace everything you own right now (so much expense all at once!) but when things break irreparably, replace them with something that will last.

(Consider refurbished items, or look on Craig’s list to see if you can score a great item for less.)

8. Fix things when they break.

We live in a culture that has a thing for throwing stuff away.   It’s true that a lot of the junk we own literally can’t be repaired, but even in this day and age, there IS still a lot that can be fixed up.

I mend clothes, we repair our appliances, I repair furniture, I glue broken toys, I jerry-rig cabinet brackets (!)…in short, before we replace something, we think hard about whether it can be repaired instead.

9. Write a monthly money email.

This won’t necessarily be applicable for everyone, but it’s been so helpful for us, I had to include it!

Mr. FG and I didn’t have a good way of communicating about money for lots of years, and a while back, I came up with the idea of writing him a money email with a summary of income and outgo for the month.

More details about the money email are right here in this post.     If you’ve got joint finances and you’ve had trouble on the communication front, give this a try!   It has really changed our lives.

10. Learn to be content.

I’ve written a lot about contentment (you can find all the contentment posts here) because none of us will ever have everything in our lives exactly how we want it, no matter how hard we try.

It’s a fact of life.

If you don’t accept that and learn to see the good in what you have, you’ll always be throwing money at the problem, trying desperately to plug the holes in your life with more purchases.

If you are discontent with what you have now, odds are good you’ll still be discontent even if things get better for you. But if you learn to be content with what you have now, you can be happy even IF things never get better.

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I know I could have written a list with way more than 10 things, but the ones I listed feel most important to me.

What would you add to my list if you could add an 11th key money-saving principle/tactic?