This will be the start of a new series, inspired by a recent connection and conversation with the owner of Skelliewag.org. The goal will be to provide an on going series of how to save money, as the title indicates, in all aspects of life. Why do you trust me to give you advice? I am known among my group of friends as the J-Bag, literal translation, Jew Bag. Yes I am aware it is a derogatory name, I actually am Jewish, but I have never practiced, nor was I raised under traditional Jewish customs, it just so happens I have a Jewish mother. In any event, I tend to be pretty good with numbers and have always been able to find a deal on something, somewhere.

Many of the things I do to cut the proverbial money corner are done because I need to, I want to live a certain lifestyle, my job only brings in so much, so in order to indulge in certain items, others need to be cut back. Here is a starter list of how you can save money anywhere, anytime.

  • Stop buying bottled water. Earlier in the month I ran a contest giving away a Nalgene water bottle. The reason it was given away was to bring awareness to the fact that 8 out of 10 water bottles end up in land fills, not recycled. The other, more frugal message is, save your freaking money! I mentioned in my quest for a better cup of coffee that I had purchased a Brita water pitcher to help improve the taste of my coffee. I also bought myself a Nalgene bottle when I bought the Refill Not Landfill one for the winner and haven’t looked back. It was a great investment, allowing me to take clean, great tasting water to work with me and never buy bottled water again. Don’t get me wrong, if you are out and about and need some fresh water, buy it, but getting a water purifying pitcher or an in-line under the sink filter will save you hundreds of dollars per year. The pitcher I bought was about $15, roughly the cost of two cases of water from my local grocery store. Not only am I helping out the environment, I’m saving money in the process.
  • Transfer any outstanding credit card debt to a new credit card with 12 months interest free financing. You need a decent credit score to do this and if you are really in debt, you won’t be able to move all of your money, but it should save you at least a couple hundred dollars per year until you can get it paid off.
  • Pay off any credit card that has an interest rate. Use the above method if you can’t clear it in one shot, otherwise, pay it all off each and every month.
  • Find a credit card that offers you something you will actually use. The last two examples make credit cards sound really bad, I am actually a pretty big fan of them. I keep an American Express Blue Rewards credit card as my go with me everyday and everywhere card. There is no annual fee and offers 1% cash back on everything, 2.5% cash back on all grocery, gas and convenience store purchases for the first $6500 per year and 5% after that. Additionally, American Express (and Visa) will double the manufacturers warranty for any item up to an additional year, no extra cost to you. That means that I make sure that any electronic device I buy is charged to my AMEX card, even if I have the cash to pay for it. I’ll get the cash reward plus the added security of the extended warranty. And to those who question it, it does work. My $1500 camera body had a mechanical failure 18 months after I bought it, 6 months out of manufacturers warranty. One 15 minute phone call to the issuing credit card (it was Visa at the time), a repair quote, faxing the quote over to Visa and a 48 hour revue process and they issued me a check to have it repaired. Total time spent from first phone call to check arrival was 9 days. I was very impressed. On the other hand, cards that offer free airline miles don’t do much for me. You usually need to acquire 40,000 points to get a free ticket in the lower 48 states. Sure, they may start you with 10,000 free points and offer you double points for the first 6 months, but is spending $15-30,000 really worth a $200 airline ticket?
    Look for special credit card offers when buying big ticket items. Now I really seem like an ass contradicting myself again, but just hear me out. Buying on someone else’s money can often be the best choice you have. Here is an example. In March I bought a 42″ Plasma TV. I had been looking for a deal on one for some time and finally found one that was too good to pass on, so I bought it. I had some money saved to cover the cost, but not all of it. My choice was to buy on my American Express and get the 1% cash back, but I knew it would take at least 4 months to come up with the rest of the money for it, so the cash back would be countered by the interest charges. The website I bought my TV from, which happened to be the manufacturer themselves, had an option on checkout to get instant approval for a branded Visa card with 0% financing for 12 months. I have a great credit score so figured why not. The upside to this is really simple. Sure I had a good chunk of the money to pay for the TV, but why when they would let me use their money at no charge. Rather than dealing with 4 months of finance charges on my American Express card, I could make 12 small payments and keep the money I had saved up. This not only helps out my credit score, it makes me money. Note that I didn’t say saves me money. These types of deals are best for larger purchases and are often available in home centers, furniture stores and big box electronic stores. A note to the wise, pay very close attention to the small print and make sure you pay at least the minimum every month and that you have it all paid off before the 0% goes away. I also bought my furniture in this manor a year and a half ago, but the deal was slightly different. It was 0% for 12 months, no minimum payment for those 12 months. If I chose to, I could not make a payment for a whole year, so what was the incentive to pay it off in the 12 months? The small print revealed that part of the terms were, if you carried a balance past 12 months, they were included in the finance charge of something silly like 22.5%. That means, they lop you with a full years worth of interest in one shot on the 13th month. I chose to break it down into 12 small payments and had no penalty, no interest charges.
  • Get an ING Direct savings account. Above I stated that buying my plasma on a credit card made me money, not saved. It made me money because the lump of cheddar I had put aside for it was still sitting in my ING Direct savings account, making [at the time] 4.5% interest. Heres the deal, you won’t find a better rate from your local bank unless you have $10,000 laying around. You will find a better rate from some of the other online banks, but I’ve never had a problem with ING in the 3+ years I’ve been using them. Current interest rate is 4.3% and I try to make a small deposit every pay check. They even have an automation tool that will pull money from your checking account once or twice a month so you don’t have to remember to. For those who don’t know, they are an FDIC insured bank, they are known as a semi-liquid savings account. What that means to you is, you can’t just walk into a branch and withdraw or deposit money, you must do it electronically over the internet and you deposit money into ING via your checking account, withdraw from ING into your checking account. It takes about 8 business days from the time you start a transfer from your checking account to ING to show up and about 2-3 days to make a withdraw back into your checking account. For those interested in opening an account, I can give you a referral link via email that will give you a $25 sign-up bonus for opening an account with at least $250, I get a $10 referral fee. Once your account is setup, you can then start to offer referrals to your friends and family as well. If you are interested, please use the Contact Page and put ING Direct Referral in the subject line and your first name, last name and email you want the link sent to in the body of the message.
  • Learn to find a better deal. Chances are, there is a better deal on almost anything you want to buy, so take a few minutes and so some research on it. Stop being impulsive when you buy. Here on Randomn3ss is a page called Deals, it is the content of my other site, iLikeCheapStuff.com republished. Check it out, there are some amazing deals. Likewise, give a read to an early Randomn3ss article, Get the most from coupon clipping at the grocery store, it outlines how to save big money at the food store, without killing yourself.
  • Buy generic when possible. I’ve found that many of my favorite cereals come in a generic, store brand form. They nearly identical, if it was a blind test I’d probably fail picking which was which properly, and cost half as much. My one local grocery store just did a sale on them, trying to get more attention to their own store brand, $1 per bag. This was 4 ounces more than the boxed name brand version, and no box, which means better for the environment anyway. Certain other items can usually be bought in generic form without much difference, like socks.
  • Start enjoying what your community offers. Community sponsored events are at an all-time high. Why waste money going to a movie on a Saturday afternoon when you can probably find something your community or nearby community for free. Not only does this give you a chance to check out what is going on in your area, you can actually meet people from your area.
  • Learn to cook a great meal. I enjoy going out to eat as much as the next person does, but I can’t afford a $150 meal for two once a week, I can barely afford it once a month. I will however happily spend $30 on some great, fresh ingredients and cook a nice meal at home. Cooking is not for everyone, but learning how to make more than spaghetti and meatballs and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches will save you a ton of money on going out to eat. Avoid cookbooks. I can’t stand them. They cost too much money and I don’t have anywhere to store them. Make your own. You have the internet, or at least access to the internet, I know because you are reading this. Learn to find sites that have receipts you like. I keep Simply Recipes in my RSS reader and have Chow.com on my bookmarks, two great resources that are free.
  • Cancel any unused memberships. This includes NetFlix, the gym and that porn site you haven’t been to in a while. If you haven’t used it in 30 days, you don’t need it, get rid of it. I’ve already given a review of Redbox DVD rental service and shown you how to get free promo codes for movies, so that should take some of the burden off. I know that they don’t have anywhere near the number of movies that NetFlix does, however, NetFlix premium memberships are upwards of $24 per month, that’s $288 per year. Even their cheaper plan of $9 per month, which only gives you one movie at a time will run you $108 per year. That is a lot of money spent on movies. Most public libraries offer free movie rentals, you won’t find the most up to date movies, but they are free. Start trading movies with friends, family and co-workers. I’d keep a detailed list of who you let borrow what, and I’d suggest making a back-up copy, but that is another free offer. Health memberships can be a great thing, if you go. Most places charge $25-50 per month, go! If you don’t go, cancel. Join again when you have the time to put into it. Same thing goes with magazines, the local newspaper, premium TV channels or anything else that comes with a monthly or yearly bill.
  • Look over your cell phone bill and see if you are really using all the minutes in your plan. Chances are, you aren’t coming anywhere close and are over-paying. Call your carrier, find out what other options you are based on the minutes you’ve used over a 3 month average and downgrade. Make sure you ask them if there is a fee to change plans and if it will extend your contract. If you pay your bill on time and have been a customer for more than a year with that carrier, they will usually waive any fees for rate plan changes. I’d also suggest ditching the phone insurance option unless you have a seriously expensive phone and are prone to dropping it and loosing it. I just canceled mine after having it for 18 months, at $4.99 per month. Why? I have a Motorola Razr phone, to buy one without a contract is about $100. Over the coarse of 18 months I paid just shy of $90 in insurance and if I file a claim, have to pay a $50 deductible. Essentially, that means paying $140 for a $100 phone. The kicker – they have the right to replace my bought as new phone with a refurbished unit and it is only the core phone, not the battery, battery door or any accessories.
  • Where possibly, buy refurbished. In the last year, I’ve made two significant purchases, my plasma TV and Macbook, both were refurbished units. The plasma came at a 40% discount over new, the laptop came at a 20% discount. Why were they refurbished? There are lots of reasons, the item could have been delivered to the customer, who refused it. It could have been ordered and then canceled before shipping or the store could have simply over-stocked them for a big sale but never moved all the units, so they will offer then at a discount. By all accords, both items I received were virgin in the box. Neither showed any sign of wear or previous ownership. Make sure to look into all warranty information to make sure it will be covered and, as suggested earlier, buy on a Visa or American Express credit card. Buying refurbished units can save a ton of money while still getting what you want.
  • Learn to pay yourself. This is a really hard concept for people to grasp at first, but makes sense once you start putting it into practice. Say you want to buy a new car and you anticipate the cost will be $300 per month. Pay yourself $300 per month for 6 months or longer before you buy it, put the money into an ING account, make some extra money on it and make sure that you are still living within your means. This will also give you a nice down payment and lower the monthly charges when you make the purchase. This can be applied to almost anything. It is nothing more than a glorified piggy bank or rainy day coin jar, just on a larger scale. Save, then spend. Don’t spend, then figure out how to pay back. The only time this doesn’t apply is when you can get a 12-month 0% credit card and know that you will have the balance paid off within 12 months.
  • Skip the bar and do a BBQ. Same as learning to cook a great meal, skip the bar one night and invite some friends over for a BBQ. Ask that they all bring something, food, drink, whatever. My friends and I did this almost every weekend the entire summer and we ended up saving a ton of money on food and drinks. A group of 6-10 people can eat on $50 worth of food from the grocery store or farmers market, a night at the bar eating crappy bar food would cost at least that much per person and a decent restaurant could cost 10 times that.
  • Follow up to the BBQ, movie night. A co-worker has a regular movie night with her friends and family, outside. They have a projector and play a movie on the side of their white garage in the summer time, everyone gathers in the yard and watches it at night. If you don’t have a projector, usually someone has a nice TV setup or theater room amongst a group of friends, get together and watch it there instead of going out to the movies.

Get started with these, look for more installments every month or so. If one or more of these ideas work for you, I’d like to hear about it. Living a cheapskate’s lifestyle isn’t always easy, but it will, in the end, benefit you.

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