Fifteen Ways to Save Money
With constantly rising prices we can all use a few tips on how to save money. This is a list of some of the things we use in my family to save money. Some may seem to restrictive to you, but they have worked well for us. By continually saving on expenses and using the Dave Ramsey plan on money, we were able to get 100% debt free over two years ago. I can’t express strongly enough how great it is to be totally free.
David Parham
11/7/20264 min read
Fifteen Ways to Save Money
With constantly rising prices we can all use a few tips on how to save money. This is a list of some of the things we use in my family to save money. Some may seem to restrictive to you, but they have worked well for us. By continually saving on expenses and using the Dave Ramsey plan on money, we were able to get 100% debt free over two years ago. I can’t express strongly enough how great it is to be totally free.
1. We stopped buying name brand clothing. There are so many good generic clothes on the market and it can sometimes be less than ½ the cost of name brands. I personally buy the Walmart brand jeans called Rustlers that are made by Wrangler (based on the Pro Rodeo jeans design). Are they as good? Not quite as heavy denim or as many strength spots, but for the average person they work great. And cost half the price of the standard Wranglers.
2. Don’t buy shirts or sweatshirts that have names or logos on them. Plain clothes with no names work just as well. Quit worrying about what other people think. Just be happy in your life.
3. Minimize the number of clothes you have. A few basic colors can mix and match and you don’t have so much to think about each day. This was a Gabe Bult idea I picked up on You Tube. He is one wise young man.
4. Quit buying books. There are thousands of free books available online and in your local library. My library supports Hoopla Digital where I can read many current books for free by using my local library sign on. I wrote a whole article on Saving Money Reading Books last year. Another good article is Inexpensive Hobbies.
5. Shop your insurance at least every other year. Once you get with a company, they will slowly creep up your premiums.
6. Only carry liability insurance on your cars if paid for. I do carry $200,000 of coverage on liability as many cars cost that much nowadays.
7. Don’t buy cars on credit. We have not had a car payment in 25 years and never intend to have another. Buy good used 8 to 10 year old cars. They are very reliable and won’t cost you much especially if you stick with Hondas or Toyotas. I have a 25 year old Ford Ranger and while not too pretty to look at, it is rock solid dependable and does everything I need. Most Hondas and Toyotas will last over 300,000 miles.
8. Change Internet providers at least every other year. If you will do that, you can have full speed internet for less than $50 per month.
9. Use inexpensive cell phones and cell plans. We use simple Android Samsung Galaxy phones we buy used that are one year old on eBay. For my sister we use Mint Mobile for $180 per year as she has no internet. On my wife and I and my business phone we use InfiMobile. It runs on T-mobile network and costs just $60 per year for 5gb of data per month or $72 a year for 10gb per month. If you have local internet and log into wifi most of the time, these work great.
10. Buy generic groceries on 90% of your items and shop at discount stores such as Winco, Sams, Walmart, and Aldis. Same high quality, much lower costs.
11. Never pay for television service. If you have high speed internet, buy ROKU on your smart tv and watch 1000’s of channels for free. We do pay for Amazon Prime video so I can watch Thursday night football and purchase Frndly TV for all the other old channels which you can record and skip over all the commercials. This includes several great channels like Hallmark family and Up Tv.
12. Buy your TVs on black Friday. We got a 65” QLED Vizio last year at Sams for $228. Best tv we have ever owned. All of our TVs are Vizios and they are good quality. Never had one go bad and we have owned six.
13. Don’t own things that require maintenance if possible. I know cars and trucks require maintenance, but even our lawn mower is a 40 volt Worx using two 20 volt lithium batterles. My small rototiller is an electric model from Sun Joe. My weed eater uses 20 volt Worx batteries. Simplify and keep extra batteries. Twice a year I rent a Honda big rototiller to break ground in spring and turn under in the fall. I have no costs of maintenance even with a huge garden.
14. Setup a simple solar system. I have six EcoWorthy solar panels and 3 12 volt batteries. I run my office on 12 volt lights and use an invertor to power the laptop, printers, and Internet modem. I wired up the whole system just watching YouTube videos. It works great, especially in the hot summer Texas sun
15. Make do with what you have. Don’t buy new things unless something breaks.
I think I will stop the article on 15 ways to save. I have many other articles under the Minimalism Articles tab below. Life can be simple if we will just look for simpler methods and make do with what we have.
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