10 Little Ways to Save BIG!

Whether you're saving for a vacation, or saving up to pay off bills, it IS possible to save BIG without sacrificing your daily living.  Here are some tips to help you save everyday.

1.  Break that Dollar.  Everyone has change.  Instead of paying in exact change for every purchase, break that dollar bill, and set the change received aside.  By the end of each week, your average savings is around $10... That's $520 per year if you do this every week. 

2.  Found Money.  What's found money?  Well it's that change or occassional dollar bill found in the dryer, it's birthday money received, it can be a scratch ticket that you found, that's a winner, it can be those pennies you find int the parking lot and things like that.  Your number will vary greatly, depending on many different factors, but my found money averages about $1300 per year. 

3.  Recycle.  Here in Rhode Island, our municipality comes each week to pick up our recycables... This means that the State receives the money for my recycling efforts, and to tell you the truth, I don't pay any lower taxes because of this.  So we decided that we save ALL Aluminum items, such as cans, disposable pans, tin foil, and the like.  We then will bring it in to a local recycling center when we have a truck full, with is about every 3 months, or four time per year.  The price paid per pound changes daily, but generally averages out to about 40¢ per pound.  A normal truck load for us is about 200 lbs.   Yearly savings = $320 per year. 

4.  Yard Sale.  I loathe having a yard sale, but I host 1 yard sale each year, and the savings are two fold.  The first and foremost, is it makes us purge our belongings.  It also brings us in about $500 per year ( this is for a single yards sale)

5.  Cash Back Rewards.  There are credit cards that offer cash back when you use their cards, and online survey sites that pay you money for taking surveys.  Average Yearly Savings = $350

6.  Send in Rebates.  Now I'm not saying to purchase items you don't normally purchase just to get the rebates, but often times, there are rebates on products you normally buy, so send those rebates in, and put the money into your saving fund.  Keep your eyes peeled on products you purchase for mail in rebate offers.
Average Yearly Savings = $150 per year

7.  Left Over Budget Dollars.  Do you have allocated money for household purchases each week?  I do.  If there are week's that you don't use the entire amount, put that money aside.  Again, this can vary greatly by family.  Our yearly savings averages out to $520 per year, or about $10 per week.

8.  Coupons.  I don't know how many times I have said this before, but coupons can save you BIG bucks.  If you save on average $100 per week, and instead of putting ALL that money aside into your fund account, just take 10% of what you saved = that's another $10 per week, or $520 per year!

9.  Drop Premium.  Now, I have noticed that over the years, we watched VERY little on the pay channels such as HBO or Cinemax.  So we dropped them.  If you have 2 pay channels and drop them, that's an average yearly savings of $230

10. Skip The Dinner Bill.  The average American Family dines out at a restaurant at least once per week?  Change that to just once per month, and your savings for a family of four could be as much as $1600 per year or more!  ( That's at $40 for the entire bill)

There you have it.  10 little ways to save over $6000 in a single year.  That would make for a VERY nice vacation! 

How do you save money?  Got a creative way that you and your family do it?  leave a comment and let everyone know how they can do it too!