I'm in my 60s and have always done little things that add to our savings. Neither hubby nor I were ever promoted at work, so our paychecks were on the smaller side. Even so, we paid off the mortgage on our home, paid cash for our car, have no debt, and look forward to retirement next year.
For example, when I wanted to wallpaper the house, the estimate PER ROOM was $300 plus the cost of the wallpaper. I get sick when I'm around some adhesives and other chemicals so I thought I couldn't do it myself. Then a friend suggested nailing it to the wall with gold nails that blended with the scrolling around the floral design. The $300 cost was reduced to $10 for nails. Since I earned $10 an hour at that time, my cost was reduced from 30 hours of my paycheck to just 1 hour of my pay.
I do the same with chicken. If whole chicken is on sale, I'll buy several and freeze them. The other day, however, I found 10-pound bags of leg quarters on sale at Save A Lot for 59 cents per pound. Three bags, 30 pounds of chicken, cost less than $18, or less than 2 hours pay for 15 meals.
I'd love to hear what you do to save money.
I love when it's easy to save money. I save every $5 bill I get. Sometimes I receive 3 in one day - I have not missed this money at all. It is in a safe place and I use it to take grandkids to exciting places like Wolf Lodge. I am now saving for Disney World. It is so easy... and I can barely spend a $5 now-days - gotta save it!
When I was working, I always figured out how long did I have to work (counting taxes, etc.) to pay for something. I was always at the lower end of the salary range so it wasn't hard to figure out what was really important to me and what wasn't.
As an example, Starbucks never really did anything for me, but friends liked to "treat" themselves. When I figured out how long I had to work (at a hard job) to pay for one of those drinks, it really moved it out of my radar, especially when they "had" to make a side trip to pick it up... gas too?
Nothing was that good as far as I could see and for that I could save time and make my own at home just as easily, relax while drinking it, and spend my hard earned money on something I really enjoyed. Manicures and pedicures, came under the same criteria and I enjoy doing my own nails more than having someone do them for me.
I have never felt deprived and enjoy a rich, full life. Now my husband I, as retirees follow the same pattern, and everyone thinks we are rich (not by a long shot) but see us enjoying what is really meaningful to us and having a wonderful time.
At the end of each day, I remove every $1.00 bill from my wallet and put it away. I bundle them into piles of $10 each and it's amounted to several hundred dollars over a couple of years now.
It adds up pretty quickly because every day I have to break at least a $5 bill, and automatically have at least $4 to add to my stash. It really seems painless to me, and way easier than saving bunches of coins and having to roll them up.
My husband and I are also on the lower end of the income totem pole, and are now nearing retirement age. Add to that the fact that for about the last 1 1/2 years I have been battling some health issues, and we had to make some drastic changes to stay afloat financially. Our money saving issues mostly revolve around spending less.
We don't have a home phone anymore and don't miss it. We'd had the same number for 40 years and it took me a while to realize that the only reasons I wasn't cancelling the home number were that I didn't want to let go of my number and also that I had a habit of finding my cell phone by calling it with the house phone. Silly - let go. It saved me at least $40 per month.
We don't have cable TV. We now have a roku that our kids gave us for Christmas, and it kind of piggy backs one of their Netflix accounts, so we pay nothing.
We are on our son's cell phone account, and only use phone, not internet, so we don't have smart phones, costing much less per month than expensive phones and paying for internet for the phones. Only $60/month, saving me at least $100.
I now have internet at home as I needed it for some business transactions, but until recently I just went to the library and used their computers. More savings.
I had my insurance policies reviewed and consolidated. My home owners and my car insurance are with the same company now and saves me a bundle, although I am not really sure how much off hand. It is the only bill I have taken from my bank account automatically each month because I receive another discount for doing this.
We eat at home as much as possible, and we cook together more than we ever did before. Of course, we no longer have any children at home, so I realize this is easier for us than the young "on the go" family.
This may seem kind of extreme, but I hate paying for cat litter. (Did you know they mine for that stuff?) I tear up sales papers (not the glossy kind) and even envelopes and have an ongoing stash that I change often. I pocket $6-$12 a month and keep that much more stuff from going to the landfill.
I have 3 daughters and a daughter-in-law, and they all know I will take their old purses. Why do I care if its last years style? Most of us get tired of purses, and get rid of them for that reason, not because they are really not usable anymore. I get a lot more use from them after the girls are done with them, and its actually fun to see how I can match them to the season, etc.
I love to reduce, reuse and recycle. I get as much enjoyment from others benefiting from something I can give or do for them as I do from benefiting from them. I have had to go on disability, but I try to help others as much as I possibly can, as this always helps me as much as it does the recipient.
There are so many ways to be happy and content that we have forgotten in our fast paced world. My husband and I are actually happier and closer as we work together and have remembered what is necessary and what is not.
