Saving money - tips and looking for more

Anybody here like me and my fiance, people who are getting little to no contributions from the family, know what its like to try and save a decent sum of money in a relitively short period of time. I have found a few ways that work for me.

Singles - Do you realize how many of these you get each week? I take any dollar bills I get and save them. When I get home from work, I put them in an envelope. When I hit 50, I rubberband them up and start again.

How this works? Well it takes discipline because it is easy to buy that candy bar or that cup of coffee with the single. You CANNOT! You have to not spend it. That will mean a 85 cent candy bar will take $5 out of your pocket and into your savings. You will decrease your spending because of this.

Loose Change: A lot of us have loose change buckets or whatnot. If you are a member of Teachers Fed. Credit Union or another bank with a free 'coin star' machine, Get in the bank! Make it start collecting interest. I know the interest will not be a lot but every penny counts.

Lose Weight Instead of eating the quick and easy meal from 7-11 or from the deli, bring something to work with you. Drink water over soda. Refill your bottle. If you spend $3 a day at work on drinks you can save an extra $15 a week or 780 over a year! and you will drop some pounds.

Rent movies This is a tough 1 for me. I have a nice DVD collection and I love buying movies BUT I am renting now and saving the $10+ difference.

A Garage Sale I have not done this yet but I am seriously considering it. Since I will be moving out of my apt and in with my fiance in about a year anyway, I think we (Nic and I) can really profit froma garage sale. My father and her parents both offeed their yards so we can have it and I am sure they will do some cleaning of their own and allow us to keep the money raised.

The way I look at it is money is money. With a $30K party on the horizon, I am in complete saving mode. The funny part, for the first time in my life I am fincially stable and can afford to do things I couldn't in the past but NOW I am paying for a wedding and still cannot.

Hopefully some of you guys (and girls because we know you lurk) can throw around some saving ideas. Some off the wall ways to geta few extra bucks.

~Ant

We are also getting what you may consider as negative contributions!

We opened an account with ing direct! This is great. 3.8% interest rate!!!

Other than that, I must agree, making your lunch saves tons! I use to spend about $8 a day, now the food shopping I spend to make my lunch comes out to less than $8 for a week!

Also, I personally think that keeping track of your spending saves. Whenever I spend a day out, if I come home with more than $1.00 in change, that means to me that I was not aware of my spending and what funds I had on me and I was not spending wisely. That is just a measure that I use. WHen I am watching what I spend, if something comes out to $4.58, I should know if I have 58 cents in my pocket or not.

You might consider clipping coupons. I have always done so and now my DH sees why.
If you shop at King Kullen, they double the $1.00 coupon. I save anywhere from $20-50.00 per shopping trip. It's a great way to buy toiletries and cleaning products.
At the end of a year, you realize significant savings. Order the weekend Newsday (Fri-Sun) for about $52.00 and you reap the rewards.

bringing your lunch every day saves at least $25-$30 a week.

and the loose change idea is great, we had over $300 in change from just over a year.

loose change is awesome --- but i also like to use it as my 'spending money' -- I refuse to bring a dollar bill or a 5 for a candy bar or coffee at work.... so I don't have it unless I have enough chnage for it in my pocket - sort of reverse psychology i guess


Also ING has an awesome interest savings account, almost 4%, and now through april 4.75%!!!! free money always helps! :)

To compare different vendors/diamonds when buying the engagement ring this tool may be pretty useful:

http://www.andersonanalytics.com/diamond.htm

Or you can check to see if you paid too much, LOL