Practical Money Saving Tips for Your Family Budget

I'll admit it: I'm a total cheapskate. I know the socially acceptable term is "frugal," but frugal would be a vast understatement when describing me. I like quality, but I find a way to save money on the quality items I covet. Not because we can't afford to pay a higher price, but because we'd much rather keep our hard earned money in our bank account rather than in the hands of some mega retailer.

Track your Income

Recently, I was doing a little money management on our bank account and calculated that we spent over $160 on fast food within the past month. I was floored. I had absolutely no idea how we could have spent that much money on junk. We eat in 6 nights each week, and I make him a packed lunch almost everyday to take to work. Since then, I've been tracking all of our purchases. Because when you're a bit careless, you could end up dumping close to $200 on unnecessary junk. Now, I log every purchase we make in a virtual checkbook and can see where my money goes and I have the opportunity to put a stop to unnecessary spending and save money.

Movie Night

We're big movie people. We catch a flick every chance we get. We order movies on demand through Time Warner, head to the movie rental place and rent two to four movies or take a trip to the movie theatre to see current flicks. But, our movie habit was burning a hole in our wallets. Movies on demand are $5 each, movie rentals are $3.75 each and we get two movies each time and going to the movies can cost up to $30. Since we indulge our movie addiction each week, we spent anywhere from $20 to $120 monthly on our little money sucking habit.

We've smartened up. Now we can watch unlimited movies for $15 each month through Netflix. Currently, we're catching up on the first season of Heroes and some indie documentaries. With Netflix, you can sift through their movie inventory on the website and add the flicks you'd like to watch to your queue. If you choose the $15 package like we did, you'll have two movies in the mail every other day. Netflix is a godsend that saves us over $100 each month.

Coupon Shopper

Sure, everyone knows that they can save money on their groceries by clipping coupons. But, coupons are available for practically everything. Take for example our recent trip to the post office. We recently moved, so we forwarded mail from our previous mailbox to our new P.O Box. As a nice gesture, the post office sent us two "10% off a $50 purchase" and a "$10 discount on a $50 purchase" for Lowes. We're coupon fiends, so of course we were giddy.

Even if your post office isn't as nice as ours, you can clip coupons to get a substantial discount on almost anything. If you're an online shopper, give Retailmenot.com a visit. Type in the name of the website you're about to shop with and it'll generate a list of current coupon codes. I once got a 50% off discount for a makeup retailer. This goes to show that you can get coupons for anything. I refuse to pay full price for anything; I'm always saving money by waiting for items to go on sale and pairing the items up with coupons.