This post is a hard one for me to write. So I will start off with a disclaimer: I am not a saver. At all. If the money is there, I want to spend it because after all, you can't take it with you when you go, right?
Well that is true, you can't take it with you when you go. But living paycheck to paycheck will cause a stress that will get you where you are going a whole lot quicker!
James is a saver. He is not an impulsive buyer. He researches the best deals and saves coupons like crazy. He is a member of every shoppers loyalty program and he uses those points. I guess when they say opposites attract, they weren't lying.
Once I decided that before we got married, I wanted to be out of debt and be better with money, I knew that the way I was living wasn't going to cut it anymore. So I started looking up ways to save money. It has been a VERY slow process, you can't make a spender a saver over night.
The first thing I did was become a member of Ebates. I do a lot of shopping online. I had heard about this site that will give you money for shopping online, but of course I thought it was a scam. But when I went to the website, I realized it wasn't!! I would say about 90% of the stores I shop at are members. Each store will give about 1 - 10% cash back, and while 1% doesn't seem like much, that money adds up after a while. Once you are a member, you can start referring your friends and family, and make even more money!! Checks come about 2-3 times a year, and all extra money received from Ebates went to pay off my credit cards or my 4-runner.
Another thing that I did to save money was cut my cable package. I started thinking about all that I was paying, and how much time I actually spent watching TV. I figured out that I was paying almost $200 for no more than 30 hours of TV, a month!! I first tried to get rid of cable all together. I got a Roku box and a subscription to Netflix and Hulu. This came to be about $17 a month. I still had internet through Time Warner Cable. When we purchased our house in June, I called around asking for internet prices. I was able to get a deal with TWC to have basic cable and internet for the same price that I was paying for internet. We decided to purchase that plan, because it was no extra money. We do not have any deluxe channels or movie channels. That is what our subscriptions to Netflix and Hulu are for. If, after a year, we are not able to get the same deal from TWC, we will cancel cable all together again.
Here is a list of some more things we have done to save money:
- Eat out twice a month
- Using cash, and putting all extra change in a jar
- Canceled the gym membership
- Starbucks only on weekends
This may not seem like much, but like I said, it is hard to make a spender a saver. In 2015 I want to get better. I want to have a budget on gifts I give others. I want to find a way to reduce our grocery bill and electric bill. Stay tuned, I am sure it will be an interesting ride ;) <3
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