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Copyright © 2009 Fred Vanhoosen Today's economy is especially hard on middle-class families and others who basically live week-to-week. Without careful budgeting and tending to finances, it's getting easier and easier to end up short of money at the end of each month. Ironically, it seems the tighter your money gets, the more expensive necessities such as utilities and food become.
In this article, we offer seven tips that if used can help the average American family reduce their living expenses by at least $100 per month.
Reduce Food Expenses, Without Giving Up Good Food Fortunately, with a little discipline and work, there are ways to decrease your spending without sacrificing too much. Having said that, there is one area where most people can dramatically cut down on their expenses, and that is eating out. "Eating out" includes eating in restaurants, grabbing food from the fast-food drive-throughs, or ordering take-out food to eat at home. Even a simple fast-food meal for a family of four costs twice as much as eating at home.
Buy A Sunday Newspaper: Shop The Grocery Ads and Clip The Coupons To get started on saving on your food bill, you need a little organization. Start by carefully reading your grocery store's weekly ad in the newspaper or online and making note of which items are on sale. Many stores seem to be having a lot of buy one/get one free sales, and you should take advantage of these items. What you don't use this week, you can use in the coming weeks.
In this way, you can also build up a store of extra items so that you are never caught without food for a meal. If certain meats are on sale, buy double portions and freeze half.
Another sure-fire way to save money at the grocery store is coupons! If you don't get a newspaper on Sunday, you should start. You will save a lot more money by the coupons you can clip than the paper will cost. Cut only the coupons for items you actually use or can substitute for your usual brands.
Plan Your Meals In Advance and Reap The Savings The next step takes the most time but brings the highest rewards: make a meal plan for the week, with an eye on the sale items at the grocery store and the items for which you have coupons. If your family eats breakfast, make a list of the items you will need to provide seven breakfasts. If you or your family eat lunch at home or pack a lunch for school or work, list what will be needed to provide seven lunches - be sure to include the weekends.
This is a good area to begin eliminating eating out. It is much more economical to take a lunch that to eat out.
Good lunch ideas include sandwiches, fruit or salads. If your workplace has a microwave available, consider taking leftovers from dinner rather than the more expensive microwave meals. This is also a good chance to reduce excess calories and junk foods from your diet.
For your dinner meals, try to plan items that can be used for two dinners or for leftovers for lunch. Some good dinner ideas include a roast beef (two meals and lunch leftovers), oven-baked or fried chicken and stews. You can also make a large portion of dishes like lasagna and have enough for one or two dinners. A good alternative is to freeze half of the amount you make for a quick dinner another night.
When planning your dinner menus, it is important to plan one or two dinners that can be prepared quickly. This is where the frozen portions come in handy. They can be easily thawed and require no work or planning. Everyone has nights when they are too tired after work to cook, and that is where the temptation to eat out or order take-out food can ruin the budget. Be sure to always have food available for quick and easy meals when you don't have the time or energy for cooking.
If you have frozen a portion of another meal, such as lasagna or a stew, just pop it in a dish, microwave it and you can put dinner on the table in a matter of minutes. Once you have made your menu planner, make a list of everything you need for each meal. Also list all household non-food items that you need or that are on sale.
Make A Grocery List and Skip The Impulse Items Try to get everything you will need for the entire week or month in a single trip to the grocery store. It is best to limit your trips to the grocery store to once a week or less. Most people pick up one or more "impulse items" each time they go to the store, so the less often you go, the better.
Stick to your list - unless it's something you actually forgot and will need for one of your planned meals, don't buy it!
A good way not to forget anything that you use on a regular basis is to put a small piece of paper on the fridge with a magnet - when you are getting low on something you use often (salt, coffee, sugar, detergent, etc.), jot it on the list and add these items to your weekly shopping list. Be sure to stock up on freezer and storage bags so that you will always be able to easily store your leftovers. A lot of food that could easily be frozen and used for another meal is lost by being shoved to the back of the refrigerator and sitting there until it goes bad.
Several small portions of various frozen leftover dinners can be combined to give your family a "pot luck" dinner.
Count Your Savings To Justify The Discipline These methods of meal planning and shopping can save you 25% to 35% off your weekly grocery bill. If it seems like a lot of work, put a dollar amount on it. A savings of $40.00 means that you are earning $20.00 an hour if you spend two hours cutting coupons, reading grocery ads, planning your menu and making a shopping list.
Reduce Your Electric Bill Another big expenditure each month is the electric bill! There are small things you can do to cut down, such as turning out lights in rooms that aren't being used, turning off power strips to eliminate the "energy vampires" that constantly suck power to recharge phones, batteries, etc., and turning off your computer each night.
Manage Your Hot Water Supply However, to really save money, look to your hot water heater! These are a tremendous consumer of electricity. Go to your circuit breaker and find the switch that controls the hot water heater. Modern hot water heaters heat up very quickly - you simply do not need to have it running all day, keeping the water at a constant hot temperature when no one is home or using hot water. Turn the hot water heater on when you get home from work and let it run until bedtime. There will be more than enough hot water for dishes, showers and the washing machine.
If you need to do laundry during the day, turn it on for about 15 minutes - while you're waiting for it to heat up, you can run a cold water load. Let the hot water heater run while you are using hot water, and then turn it off. And speaking of the hot water heater, invest in an inexpensive hot water heater wrap to keep the water in there hot, and check the temperature setting. There is never a need to have your hot water heater set higher than 125 degrees.
Follow These Seven Tips To Save Hundreds Of Dollars Yearly... Following the tips in the article could easily help the average American family save anywhere from a hunred to a few hundred dollars a month. Take these tips to heart, and you will be able to live a richer life as a result.
About the Author: Fred Vanhoosen writes about the
payday loan /
cash advance loans industry. To learn more about these cash advance loan products, we recommend reading the following overview of the
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Articles written by Fred Vanhoosen.
