While visiting a friend recently, she gave me a great idea for a way that helps her to keep herself organized as well as to save money on her grocery bill every week. Her trick is to use a MenuTemplate that she prints off each week before buying groceries. She writes down what she plans to make, looks into her cupboards and fridge to see what she already has, and then fills in the section for what she still needs to buy.
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Money Saving Tips
Having a car is already expensive enough due to maintenance costs and insurance, not to mention fuel. The following tips will help you to save some money when it comes to your car.
1. Shop around for auto insurance if you live in a place that has more than one option. Make sure you are getting the full protection you need from a reputable insurance company, and don’t be afraid to shop around every year to make sure you are getting the biggest bang for your buck.
2. Wash your car at home rather than paying the big bucks at a gas station car wash.
3. Do not buy a higher octane level gasoline than is required by your vehicle as you will be wasting your money.
As I have written before, it is important for all of us to have some funds set aside in case of emergency. If your vehicle breaks down or you find yourself out of work for a while, you do not want to have to use your retirement savings. There are key reasons why you should not even consider your RRSP as your emergency funds.
First, you get penalized for withdrawing. You pay withholding tax to the government when you first make your withdrawal.
Second, you have to pay more tax at the end of the year on the amount you withdraw, depending upon your income tax bracket.
Third, there are other negative impacts as well, including the fact that you lose that RRSP contribution room permanently. So as you can see withdrawing from your RRSP is expensive.
To prevent ever having to make an RRSP withdrawal before retirement, consider putting some money aside every payday and using either a Tax Free Savings Account or even just a regular savings account that still pays you some interest. This way you have the flexibility to make RRSP contributions with excess savings before the deadline without putting you in the position of touching your RRSP prematurely. (Build your emergency funds until you have three to six months of living expenses and then any money above that can be used for your RRSP in the event that nothing comes up throughout the year.)
Before putting money into your RRSP, make a mental note that this money no longer exists to you until you retire. It is not back up savings. Don’t even include your RRSP balance when you calculate how much money you have. It’s best if you forget about it, because there is no point in contributing to your RRSP if you intend to use it as emergency funds. It just doesn’t make financial sense.
We recently switched our phone company in order to save money. In the past we have used Vonage, and for quite a while it worked really well for us and it was inexpensive compared to other phone companies offering service in our area. Unfortunately, as time went on we found that the quality of our phone connection deteriorated and we also started paying more for our monthly phone bill.
So, we decided to try out magicJack. We bought the device at Future Shop for $55 including tax. It is really easy to set up, as all you have to do is plug the device into a USB port on your computer. (You need a broadband Internet connection to use the service.) Then you can either just talk through your computer, or, you can connect the phone cord directly to your regular phone. We found that we get a better quality connection using the phone, and of course, it’s way more convenient, too. However, when we are on the road, if we bring our laptop along, we could technically use our phone service, too, as long as we have access to the Internet. This means we wouldn’t have to use our cell phone and we could avoid expensive roaming charges.
If you want to save money on your electricity bills as well as be environmentally friendly, there are a lot of creative ways to do just that. Some good tips include buying energy efficient appliances, avoiding rinsing dishes before putting them into the dishwasher, and turning off fans, TVs, and computers when you are not using them.