Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
SAVING MY PAY BY WAITING
My mother is a savings whiz and one of her tips is how to effortlessly save a
whole pay per year (or more - depending on how you do this.)
It doesn't matter what you earn, this still works. All my mother did was to
pretend her payday was one day later. She got paid fortnightly, so this meant
she made her pay last 15 days instead of 14.
There are 26 fortnights in 365 days, SO if you PRETEND TO get 'paid' every 15
days YOU WILL ONLY SPEND 24 pays per year, leaving 2 pays per year saved!
I am planning to stretch my pay for 2 extra days each fortnight to 16 days.
I can't do it with everything but it is perfect for food, my mobile phone
(prepaid) and spending money. For me, these total $130 per fortnight. Doing
this will mean I save 3 pays over the course of a year (3 x 130 = $390).
FREE GIFTS ALL YEAR LONG
I haven't had to buy gifts for anyone this year. Instead I have been going
to Canon's printable craft site and making them all.
I still have to pay for paper and ink (I do my own refills), but I'm
having a ball. I have made a 3D dragon for my nephew, put together a
origami kit for my niece and even a Chihuahua for my mum. It is so much
fun! The URL is:-
Canon 3D Papercraft
CARD TRIGGERS MORTGAGE SAVINGS
I made myself a memory trigger and it is saving me truckloads on my mortgage.
We have just bought a house and want to pay it off fast. So to inpire us I
did some simple mortgage calculations using Excel and worked out how long it
would take us to pay out our loan and how much money we would save if we
paid an additional $20, $40, $60, $80 and $100 per week. Then I put it all
on a card.
I printed off heaps of these cards and put them in our wallets (to stop
impulsive shopping), in the car (to stop takeaways), near the phone (to
reduce bills), on the fridge and next to our shopping list (to reduce luxury
items). It has been great!
These cards have inspired us to pay off an extra $60 per week which will save
us over 11 years and $124,000!
These are the details from my card:
$20 extra saves 5 years 3 months / $60,000
$40 extra saves 8 years 9 months / $97,500
$60 extra saves 11 years 3 months / $124,000
$80 extra saves 13 years 2 months / $144,000
$100 extra saves 14 years 9 months / $160,000
LEAVE THE KITCHEN SINK AT HOME
I am no longer a serial over-packer when I go on vacation and now use less
luggage and save on excess luggage charges at the airport. I used to pile
everything in my suitcase, do the same for my two sons and then get my hubby
to jump on the suitcases and force the zippers closed. We would get to our
destination and find we didn't use half the stuff I had packed, then have to
buy even more luggage to carry all my holiday trinket purchases home. Not
anymore! I found a free packing list that is easy to use. All I do is follow
the steps and I have my very own family packing list suited to the exact
destination. It even provides you with a list of things to remember to do
before you go. Just be careful to provide as little personal information as
possible. We don't enter our email address to avoid receiving unwanted spam
mail or marketing information.
The other side to this problem is forgetting things and having to pay
exorbitant prices for those items at your destination. This site will help
prevent that as well, saving you even more money.
Easily create your free customized packing list or holiday checklist. For all holidays and travelers.
SQUEEZE MORE VALUE FROM YOUR GROCERIES
Writing down the dates I open packets is saving me money. It means I now know
when to buy items on special, which goods are the best value, when I will run
out and helps me budget for big ticket items. If you start writing down the
date when you open boxes of laundry and dishwashing powder, toilet paper,
shampoo and so on, after a few months you will know how long these goods
last. So you will be able to plan when you will need more and decide how many
items to buy if they are on special. This is also handy for working out which
items are the best value for money. Some brands seem cheaper but if you go
through them faster then they are costing you more money. It also helps me
budget for buying in bulk. For example, I buy my washing powder in a 10kg box
and by noting how long it takes to go through the whole box, I can estimate
when I am going to run out and start putting $5 a week aside four or five
weeks before I need it. This way I can always afford to buy in bulk.
$20 SATURDAYS FOR FUN WEEKENDS
My kids love doing things on Saturdays but even a trip to the movies for our
family costs $70. So I invented '$20 Saturday'. We could go anywhere and
do anything as long as it didn't cost more than $20 for the whole day. One
Saturday each month we would find a spot in the street directory that
looked interesting and take a picnic, other times we visited free places
such as museums or community festivals and the $20 bought a drink,
small snack or ice cream. Not every place was terrific but we gave each
place or activity a score to rate whether we would like to do it again. My
boys talk fondly of things we did together and places we visited on $20
Saturdays and they learn that you don't have to spend up big to have fun.
FREE IDEAS TO MAKE AND FIX THINGS
I have saved myself stacks of money learning how to make and fix things for
myself on the Instructibles website. Instructables - The World's Biggest DIY & How To Show & Tell
Anyone can join for free. People from around the world upload their ideas in
step-by-step form (pictures are required for each step). There are some
really unique and clever ideas from recycling soda bottles into self watering
planters and building a bookshelf made from books (literally!). A great
saving!
MAKE MEAL PLANNING EASY WITH MEALOPEDIA
If you struggle with menu planning try mealopedia - recipe ideas, menu planner and shopping list creator. It's a great new
website that allows you to plan your meals for the week, provides recipes and
shopping lists you can print. It even has a budget option if you need to
tighten your grocery spending!
mealopedia - recipe ideas, menu planner and shopping list creator
LOVE FOOD HATE WASTE
If you hate wasting food try this website Recipes to reduce food waste and save time - Love Food Hate Waste.
You can easily make your leftovers into completely different meals and
save both money and time!
With a family of seven and children ranging in age from four months to ten
years, I don’t like wasting food and am often trying to find ways to use up
leftovers. This site has really helped!
Recipes to reduce food waste and save time - Love Food Hate Waste
CALCULATE THE REAL VALUE OF SPENDING
I curb my spending by calculating how long I have to work to earn enough
money to pay for each purchase! My husband loves KFC but I am no longer an
easy push over. I would have to work three hours for our family to enjoy one
meal that is gone in just 30 minutes!
Instead of looking at the dollar value of an item, I look at the ‘work value’
of an item - this is what it will really cost me. To do this, work out your
net hourly rate (after tax and minus expenses such as babysitting). When you
are tempted to buy something, divide the purchase price by your hourly rate
to see how long you will have to work. It can be a real turn off - especially
when buying takeaway food!
FREE BIDSNIPING ON EBAY
I use a free bidsniping website to get the best price on eBay. With small
kids in tow it can be really hard to hang around to bid in the last few
seconds of auction to get the best price. In the past I have used other
bidsniping websites but they end up costing me money. AuctionStealer
gives me three free snipes every week which is also limiting the
amount of items I buy to three per week as well! I tell it the eBay item
ID, how much I'm prepared to pay and then it places the bid in the
last ten seconds of the auction and I don't have to watch it. It is
brilliant! The URL is:-
AuctionStealer - FREE online auction site sniping software esniper ebay snipe site e snipe auctions ebay auction sniper site bid sniper free auction
STOCKINGS PICK UP PET HAIR
I have discovered the fastest, cheapest way to make housework a whole lot
easier for pet owners! I have four dogs and a cat and am consequently always
sweeping the floors. Special mops for wooden floors or 'static' types are
very expensive but by chance I saw something on television recently which
gave me an idea. I modified my old broom by fitting a stocking over the
bristle part and then simply swept the floors as usual. It was amazing!
Animal hair stuck to the stocking like a magnet and dust and dirt was
collected far better than using a broom alone. To prove a point I swept the
kitchen floor with my normal broom first, then went over it again immediately
after with the stocking attached. The amount of fur and dust that was
collected was astonishing! The floor feels really clean these days and costs
nothing to maintain - what a brilliant way to recycle an old stocking!
PANTRY CHALLENGE
Try this fun game out with your family next time the cupboard's looking a bit
bare. We call it the Pantry Challenge! With the budget extra tight for almost
a week recently, I was feeling like Old Mother Hubbard and all out of meals
and ideas. Fortunately, we came up with a plan! My daughter took an
eco-friendly shopping bag and told each of the kids to go to the pantry and
pick out an item. The challenge was, my daughter had to then make up
something to cook for dinner out of their selected items - a bit like the
television show 'Ready, Steady, Cook!'
Far from being a disaster, we ended up with a fabulous dinner of baked
beans/lentils with jacket potatoes, sour cream and salsa, accompanied with
salad. We even had some yummy chocolate cream tarts for dessert! We have
since enjoyed other Pantry Challenge meals, such as sausage tacos accompanied
with the left over salsa. It's a really fun way to save heaps of money and
we're all realising that not being able to go to the shops isn't quite such a
hardship after all!
My mother is a savings whiz and one of her tips is how to effortlessly save a
whole pay per year (or more - depending on how you do this.)
It doesn't matter what you earn, this still works. All my mother did was to
pretend her payday was one day later. She got paid fortnightly, so this meant
she made her pay last 15 days instead of 14.
There are 26 fortnights in 365 days, SO if you PRETEND TO get 'paid' every 15
days YOU WILL ONLY SPEND 24 pays per year, leaving 2 pays per year saved!
I am planning to stretch my pay for 2 extra days each fortnight to 16 days.
I can't do it with everything but it is perfect for food, my mobile phone
(prepaid) and spending money. For me, these total $130 per fortnight. Doing
this will mean I save 3 pays over the course of a year (3 x 130 = $390).
FREE GIFTS ALL YEAR LONG
I haven't had to buy gifts for anyone this year. Instead I have been going
to Canon's printable craft site and making them all.
I still have to pay for paper and ink (I do my own refills), but I'm
having a ball. I have made a 3D dragon for my nephew, put together a
origami kit for my niece and even a Chihuahua for my mum. It is so much
fun! The URL is:-
Canon 3D Papercraft
CARD TRIGGERS MORTGAGE SAVINGS
I made myself a memory trigger and it is saving me truckloads on my mortgage.
We have just bought a house and want to pay it off fast. So to inpire us I
did some simple mortgage calculations using Excel and worked out how long it
would take us to pay out our loan and how much money we would save if we
paid an additional $20, $40, $60, $80 and $100 per week. Then I put it all
on a card.
I printed off heaps of these cards and put them in our wallets (to stop
impulsive shopping), in the car (to stop takeaways), near the phone (to
reduce bills), on the fridge and next to our shopping list (to reduce luxury
items). It has been great!
These cards have inspired us to pay off an extra $60 per week which will save
us over 11 years and $124,000!
These are the details from my card:
$20 extra saves 5 years 3 months / $60,000
$40 extra saves 8 years 9 months / $97,500
$60 extra saves 11 years 3 months / $124,000
$80 extra saves 13 years 2 months / $144,000
$100 extra saves 14 years 9 months / $160,000
LEAVE THE KITCHEN SINK AT HOME
I am no longer a serial over-packer when I go on vacation and now use less
luggage and save on excess luggage charges at the airport. I used to pile
everything in my suitcase, do the same for my two sons and then get my hubby
to jump on the suitcases and force the zippers closed. We would get to our
destination and find we didn't use half the stuff I had packed, then have to
buy even more luggage to carry all my holiday trinket purchases home. Not
anymore! I found a free packing list that is easy to use. All I do is follow
the steps and I have my very own family packing list suited to the exact
destination. It even provides you with a list of things to remember to do
before you go. Just be careful to provide as little personal information as
possible. We don't enter our email address to avoid receiving unwanted spam
mail or marketing information.
The other side to this problem is forgetting things and having to pay
exorbitant prices for those items at your destination. This site will help
prevent that as well, saving you even more money.
Easily create your free customized packing list or holiday checklist. For all holidays and travelers.
SQUEEZE MORE VALUE FROM YOUR GROCERIES
Writing down the dates I open packets is saving me money. It means I now know
when to buy items on special, which goods are the best value, when I will run
out and helps me budget for big ticket items. If you start writing down the
date when you open boxes of laundry and dishwashing powder, toilet paper,
shampoo and so on, after a few months you will know how long these goods
last. So you will be able to plan when you will need more and decide how many
items to buy if they are on special. This is also handy for working out which
items are the best value for money. Some brands seem cheaper but if you go
through them faster then they are costing you more money. It also helps me
budget for buying in bulk. For example, I buy my washing powder in a 10kg box
and by noting how long it takes to go through the whole box, I can estimate
when I am going to run out and start putting $5 a week aside four or five
weeks before I need it. This way I can always afford to buy in bulk.
$20 SATURDAYS FOR FUN WEEKENDS
My kids love doing things on Saturdays but even a trip to the movies for our
family costs $70. So I invented '$20 Saturday'. We could go anywhere and
do anything as long as it didn't cost more than $20 for the whole day. One
Saturday each month we would find a spot in the street directory that
looked interesting and take a picnic, other times we visited free places
such as museums or community festivals and the $20 bought a drink,
small snack or ice cream. Not every place was terrific but we gave each
place or activity a score to rate whether we would like to do it again. My
boys talk fondly of things we did together and places we visited on $20
Saturdays and they learn that you don't have to spend up big to have fun.
FREE IDEAS TO MAKE AND FIX THINGS
I have saved myself stacks of money learning how to make and fix things for
myself on the Instructibles website. Instructables - The World's Biggest DIY & How To Show & Tell
Anyone can join for free. People from around the world upload their ideas in
step-by-step form (pictures are required for each step). There are some
really unique and clever ideas from recycling soda bottles into self watering
planters and building a bookshelf made from books (literally!). A great
saving!
MAKE MEAL PLANNING EASY WITH MEALOPEDIA
If you struggle with menu planning try mealopedia - recipe ideas, menu planner and shopping list creator. It's a great new
website that allows you to plan your meals for the week, provides recipes and
shopping lists you can print. It even has a budget option if you need to
tighten your grocery spending!
mealopedia - recipe ideas, menu planner and shopping list creator
LOVE FOOD HATE WASTE
If you hate wasting food try this website Recipes to reduce food waste and save time - Love Food Hate Waste.
You can easily make your leftovers into completely different meals and
save both money and time!
With a family of seven and children ranging in age from four months to ten
years, I don’t like wasting food and am often trying to find ways to use up
leftovers. This site has really helped!
Recipes to reduce food waste and save time - Love Food Hate Waste
CALCULATE THE REAL VALUE OF SPENDING
I curb my spending by calculating how long I have to work to earn enough
money to pay for each purchase! My husband loves KFC but I am no longer an
easy push over. I would have to work three hours for our family to enjoy one
meal that is gone in just 30 minutes!
Instead of looking at the dollar value of an item, I look at the ‘work value’
of an item - this is what it will really cost me. To do this, work out your
net hourly rate (after tax and minus expenses such as babysitting). When you
are tempted to buy something, divide the purchase price by your hourly rate
to see how long you will have to work. It can be a real turn off - especially
when buying takeaway food!
FREE BIDSNIPING ON EBAY
I use a free bidsniping website to get the best price on eBay. With small
kids in tow it can be really hard to hang around to bid in the last few
seconds of auction to get the best price. In the past I have used other
bidsniping websites but they end up costing me money. AuctionStealer
gives me three free snipes every week which is also limiting the
amount of items I buy to three per week as well! I tell it the eBay item
ID, how much I'm prepared to pay and then it places the bid in the
last ten seconds of the auction and I don't have to watch it. It is
brilliant! The URL is:-
AuctionStealer - FREE online auction site sniping software esniper ebay snipe site e snipe auctions ebay auction sniper site bid sniper free auction
STOCKINGS PICK UP PET HAIR
I have discovered the fastest, cheapest way to make housework a whole lot
easier for pet owners! I have four dogs and a cat and am consequently always
sweeping the floors. Special mops for wooden floors or 'static' types are
very expensive but by chance I saw something on television recently which
gave me an idea. I modified my old broom by fitting a stocking over the
bristle part and then simply swept the floors as usual. It was amazing!
Animal hair stuck to the stocking like a magnet and dust and dirt was
collected far better than using a broom alone. To prove a point I swept the
kitchen floor with my normal broom first, then went over it again immediately
after with the stocking attached. The amount of fur and dust that was
collected was astonishing! The floor feels really clean these days and costs
nothing to maintain - what a brilliant way to recycle an old stocking!
PANTRY CHALLENGE
Try this fun game out with your family next time the cupboard's looking a bit
bare. We call it the Pantry Challenge! With the budget extra tight for almost
a week recently, I was feeling like Old Mother Hubbard and all out of meals
and ideas. Fortunately, we came up with a plan! My daughter took an
eco-friendly shopping bag and told each of the kids to go to the pantry and
pick out an item. The challenge was, my daughter had to then make up
something to cook for dinner out of their selected items - a bit like the
television show 'Ready, Steady, Cook!'
Far from being a disaster, we ended up with a fabulous dinner of baked
beans/lentils with jacket potatoes, sour cream and salsa, accompanied with
salad. We even had some yummy chocolate cream tarts for dessert! We have
since enjoyed other Pantry Challenge meals, such as sausage tacos accompanied
with the left over salsa. It's a really fun way to save heaps of money and
we're all realising that not being able to go to the shops isn't quite such a
hardship after all!
