Wednesday, January 7, 2009

10 Ways I Save Money

Been thinking about saving money lately....

I am a bit of a gear-whore, and have problems buying tons of crap related to my many sporty hobbies: snowboarding, motorcycling, mtn biking, road biking, etc. I feel bad about that sometimes. On the other hand I am really a frugal fellow in many other ways. Here's what I do or have done recently on the savings side of things:

  1. Cancelled gym membership 35x12=420/yr
  2. Returned leased welding gas cylinder. Haven't used my welder in over a year! And I can still use flux core wire if I need to use it without gas. =40/yr
  3. Have no car payment. I have a 20 year old Toyota 4x4.... savings here is 200-400/mo depending on your choice of cars. 2400 to 4800/yr
  4. Cook at home. I cook at home a lot. At least one big meal a week, which gives me usually 2 more meals of leftovers. I always eat breakfast from my kitchen. Lunch is sometimes out when at work. Usually it is leftovers or a can of soup or a sandwich. Dinner out maybe 2-3x per week, but often that is 6 bucks for a few slices of my favorite pizza. Meals i could eat out but don't 21 total meals per week, lets say 3 lunches out and 3 dinners....so that's 15 meals that I could eat out but don't....10 bucks avg. per meal...150 bucks per week savings.
  5. Bought a season pass to the local ski hill. This seems like it would go in the spending category, but I think it saves me money by me going snowboarding all the time, and not going shopping or whatever else, and i am so tired at night I just hang out at home and go to sleep early instead of going out. Oh, wait, maybe that part is just from me getting older! It also promotes excercise and health, and then I have less medical expenses. Actual savings amount is hard to calculate, but I will put it at at least 1000/yr.
  6. Buy the Best Stuff. When I do buy gear, I do massive research beforehand, on what is the best product. This saves me money because the best stuff is often the most durable and most high quality. Buy something good that lasts, instead of five of something that falls apart or breaks......Then I do massive research on the best deal for said best products. Example includes a recent snowboard purchase, my second new board in....hmmm....6 years I think. I found a nice Nitro for 230 shipped on Ebay. Half of retail price! It took me months to find that board though. Also last winter i got a 200+ dollar Patagonia shell jacket for 100 bucks at their outlet store. This winter i found similar pants, again at half retail at 100 bucks. I won't need to buy ski gear for I bet 5 years at least and maybe forever, due to Pati's exceptional quality, and lifetime warranty. I have had the same guitars for over 10 years, nice Fender Strats....Last mtn bike I bought lasted 8 seasons and still is rolling. Buy good stuff. Keep it for a long time. Simple really!
  7. Netflix. If you watch a lot of movies you already know what a deal this is.....
  8. Eating good healthy foods. I eat mainly unproccessed foods or minimally processed foods. Results are that I am a healthy weight, and have good cholesterol levels. Heart attacks are expensive and I am not going to have one!
  9. Simple entertainment: on Sundays during the summer to relax I go for a motorcycle ride through the backroads of Montana. Cost: 8-10 bucks in gas for 2-4 hours of awesome scenery and thrills! Or I might ride my bicycle from my house for a few hours. Cost: free!
  10. Living in an out of the way place in a smaller town or city. I grew up in Maine. Cheap! I now live in Montana. Cheap! I live in the expensive part, which is in-town Bozeman, but it is still cheap compared to many other cities. There are less places to spend money....so you spend less money. The smaller the town the better this effect is.
Okay, that was fun!

Until next time,
Lincoln

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Love the specific points about frugality, which might include buying good stuff once in a while.