Frugal Friday: 10 thrifty tips to save more money

                                                                           

                                                                                                  Gas:  

If you have a credit card that offers you reward points, take advantage of them!  For instance, my credit card offers me 5% cash back on gas 6 months out of the year (usually Jan-March and July-Sept).  Since I budget for gas every month and already expect that expense, I take advantage of the 5% cash back incentive by using my credit card to pay for gas and paying off the balance before the due date.  It's a good way to earn a few extra dollars from a regular expense.  

Get a membership at a store like Sam's Club or BJs, their gas prices are often lower by 8 cents or more per gallon compared to other gas stations.  At the time I'm writing this, the price at Sam's is actually $0.13 less per gallon than the nearest gas station to my home.  So let's say that on average, I save 13 cents per gallon of gas, if I fill up 4 times per month then I will end up saving over $80 a year (possibly more).  My one-year membership to Sam's Club costs me $45 and it allows me to save almost twice that amount each year on gas.

Food:  

Couponing is a great habit to get into, although I have found that shopping at low cost food stores like Aldis and PriceRight is ultimately the best way to keep my grocery budget low.  Those stores are great places to purchase basic food items like pasta, crackers, spices, and other pantry supplies.  Often times their prices are lower than if I shopped somewhere else with coupons.  I will admit, not every Aldis brand product is the equivalent to the name brand product, so some trial and error is necessary!

Clean out your cabinet on a regular basis.  Look through to see what food items you have and brainstorm ways to use them up before you go on your regular grocery shopping trip.  Google and Pinterest are great ways to find recipes, but also try recipematcher.com where you can type in what you have on hand and get a list of recipes that call for those ingredients.

Drink more water!! Avoid spending money on soda and juice if possible - water is a much healthier option and it comes from your faucet, always available!!  When you go out to the store, bring some water with you and don't grab that bottle of soda (or candy bar) in the checkout lane - those few dollars can really add up over time.

Cleaning:

Vinegar and dishsoap make a great, multi-surface cleaner.  I have some mixed up in one of those kitchen soap dispensing scrubbers which makes it super easy to clean and scrub surfaces at any time.  Baking soda is also a cheap cleaning solution when you need some extra scrubbing power.

Available at Gina's Soft Cloth Shop

Cut back on paper towel use.  I doubt my household could ever go completely paper towel-less, but there are an abundance of ways to switch out those expensive paper towels for reusable "paperless towels".  You can buy these "paperless towels" from small businesses on Etsy.com, or try out PaperlessKitchen.com where they have a large selection of eco-friendly products for cleaning.

Images Courtesy of www.sxc.hu

Other:

Keep your spare change.  I have ours in a glass bottle - cash it in when the bottle gets full and begin again!  Even 10 or 20 bucks can help when purchasing groceries or gas.

Cash in your bottles and cans - keep them in garbage bags and let them accumulate before cashing them in.  You may only get 5 bucks, but every little bit helps when you're pinching pennies!

Use body wash instead of shaving cream when shaving your legs or underarms.  I only mention this because body wash is a very popular gift and people have given me so many bottle that my closet is practically overflowing with them! When I ran out of shaving cream recently and didn't have money in the budget to purchase more, I had to make do with what I had around.  Body wash to the rescue!

Those are just some of the things I do to save money - sometimes you have to think outside the box, (like the shaving cream), but it's worth it in the end.

Share your tips in the comments below!!