Money Monday Tip #13

The money tip this week comes from Trent Hamm who has released all copyright on all written (non-comment) material on his blog The Simple Dollar to the public domain. It’s free to use as one sees fit, however, I still want to give him credit because of his hard work.

He recently wrote a post entitled: 100 Great Tips for Saving Money for Those Just Getting Started. Out of respect for your time, I won’t post all 100, but here is a list of my top 5 favorite ways to save money:

1. Turn off the television. There are a lot of financial benefits to this: less exposure to guilt-inducing ads, more time to focus on other things in life, less electrical use, and so on. It’s great to unwind in the evening, but seek another hobby to do that.

2. Make your own gifts instead of buying stuff from the store. You can make food mixes, candles, bread, cookies, soap, and all kinds of other things at home quite easily and inexpensively. These make spectacular gifts for others because they involve your homemade touch, plus quite often they’re consumable, meaning they don’t wind up filling someone’s closet with junk.

3. Cancel unused club memberships. Are you paying dues at a club that you never use? Like, for instance, a gym membership or a country club membership? Cancel these club memberships, even if you think you might use them again someday - you can always renew the membership at a later date if it turns out that you actually do miss it.

4. Don’t go to stores or shopping centers for entertainment. Doing so is just an encouragement to spend money you don’t really have on stuff you don’t really need. Instead, find other places to entertain yourself - the park, the basketball court, a museum, the library, a friend’s house, or even in your own home.

5. Never give up. Whenever the struggle against debt feels like it’s too much, go read a personal finance blog and remember that there are a lot of people out there fighting the same fight. Read around through the archives and learn some new things - and perhaps get inspired to keep going, no matter what.

Thanks Trent for a great list!

Thinking Out Loud readers: Do you have a money saving tip you would like to add to the list? C’mon, share it with us.