Rather than spending a lot of money inviting your friends out to eat, invite them to have a meal at your home. You have to eat anyway, so it won’t cost that much more to feed a few extra people. Besides, having people over is great motivator to clean up your home! After the meal you can enjoy each other’s company by playing cards, board games, or watching a rented movie. Entertaining doesn’t have to be expensive to be fun. In fact, our best experiences with others have been when we have chatted with them in our living room. It’s easier to make a connection and you don’t have to worry about being interrupted every few minutes by a restaurant employee. Try it out sometime to see how it works for you. It will make it a lot easier to entertain more often without having to worry about how much the bill will come to at the end of the evening!
You may be acting frugally and buying items on sale, but the key is to make sure that the teller is ringing them up properly. So many times I have selected specific products that were on sale only to discover later that they rang through regular price. In order to prevent this from happening, stay alert and always make sure that the prices are correct for each item you are buying. Don’t get distracted by fumbling through your purse, reading the magazine covers on the racks or by bagging your groceries. And don’t be afraid to point out the errors. After all, the item is supposed to be on sale and you are the one who has to pay for any errors that are made.
In many places the tap water is safe to drink, but with all the chlorine and various minerals in the water, many people prefer to drink bottled water or lug those huge water jugs home every week. When we first moved into our home our water both tasted and smelled like mold. We were willing to try anything. We decided to take the big jug route, but after a few months of carrying those big jugs full of water we decided to try something else. We purchased a water filtering system from the Home Depot (GE Dual Stage Water Filtration System) for about $160.00 and my husband installed it himself. The filters need replacing approximately every 6 months (depending on family size and water usage) and they cost about $60.00. So, for about $120 a year we can drink good-tasting water without the hassle of carrying heavy jugs or harming the environment with hundreds of used water bottles.
You may have never heard of power cycling before but it is a great trick that solves a wide range of problems with electrical devices. For example, if your printer isn’t responding after you have requested something to print, or if your Internet cable modem is not working properly a power cycle will often fix it. A power cycle is performed by simply unplugging the power cable from the outlet and waiting for about 30 seconds before plugging it back in. This action refreshes your device and almost always solves the problem. So, if you’re having trouble with one or more of your electronic gadgets, before throwing it out or spending money on unnecessary repairs, be sure to power cycle. It’s amazing how something so simple can solve so many problems!
If you work outside of the home a great way to save a lot of money is to simply bring your own lunch to work. To illustrate, if you buy lunch every day and it costs $5.00 – $7.00 on average for each meal, you are spending about $150.00 a month! In fact, you’re probably spending more than that if you consider all the tax you pay.
I know it can be somewhat tiresome and annoying preparing lunch in advance, but if your workplace has a microwave, an easy solution is to cook enough dinner each evening so that you have leftovers to bring as your lunch. Another idea is to cook a large bowl of your favorite pasta, soup, or chili, and then freeze lunch-sized portions. That way when you don’t have any leftovers you won’t have an excuse to buy food from the cafeteria. There is also the option of buying ready-made dinners like Michelina’s, although you need to be careful as they often contain a lot of salt and can be extremely fattening! Even if there is no microwave available at your workplace, you can still prepare a variety of sandwiches, vegetable salads, pasta salads, and wraps.
There are health benefits to bringing your own lunch, too. While observing the habits of my colleagues who generally eat from the cafeteria, I have noticed that most order the special – a single dish of fried perogies, a burger, chicken wings, or something else equally unhealthy. By contrast, when I observe those who bring their lunches, they often have a healthy main dish accompanied by yogurt and at least one piece of fruit.
If making your own lunch is a foreign concept for you, I recommend trying it for one week to see how it goes. After one week, if you decide to continue to eat at the cafeteria, try to at least bring some of your own healthy snacks to accompany your meals and when you order, be sure to choose healthy options.