I am always inspired by bloggers who share simple, practical, real-life ways that they save money. Each month I give you a little peek into our family life to let you see how we manage to save. I’ve learned that frugal living is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. Little things add up to big savings over the long haul!
5 Ways We Saved in September
1. Received a Big Fat Check from Ebates
I do all of my online shopping through Ebates. It’s a really simple way to get cash back on all of your purchases–and, boy, can that add up! I received a check from Ebates for $112 this month! If you haven’t signed up for Ebates yet, simply go here. You’ll receive $10 just for signing up through my link. Then, whenever you want to make an online purchase, just go to Ebates first. You will then search for the company you want to purchase from on the Ebates search bar (ex. Target, Hotels.com, Amazon, etc.), click on the link and you’re golden. For a more detailed tutorial on how to use Ebates, be sure to check out my article.
Estimated Savings: $112
2. My Husband Was a Handyman
My husband was quite the handyman this past month. He fixed our lawnmower, our dryer, and our dishwasher. Yes, he’s certainly a keeper! My husband never really viewed himself as particularly handy, but he’s sure saved us a bunch of money lately. As he says, “There’s a Youtube video for just about anything.” So, the next time you have an appliance break down, try looking on Youtube to find a tutorial explaining how to fix it.
Estimated Savings: $300 (Conservative estimate of replacing all of the appliances)
3. Creative Solution to a Gross Problem
This next one is pretty icky. When we came back from our vacation recently, we discovered a bunch of maggots in a bag of potatoes in our pantry closet. The smell and the mess were absolutely disgusting. We ended up throwing out quite a few items and ditching two shelves entirely. My husband decided to go get some cheap lumber from Lowes and made new shelves. (Yes, be still my heart!) We then painted the boards with some leftover white paint, and now we have a cute pantry. All for $15!
Estimated Savings: $85 (Instead of purchasing a shelving unit from Target or Ikea.)
4. Tweaked My Menu Planning
I discovered a new way to save money on meat! This past month I have tried a new method of menu planning–and love it! Each week I get EITHER 3 lbs of beef or one package of chicken breasts that contains 6 breasts. Then I plan 4-5 meals using that meat. (The other meals are fasting meals in which we do not eat any meat or dairy.) Here’s an example of a menu plan with chicken:
Meal #1: Fettucine Alfredo w/ one chicken breast
Meal #2: Homemade Pizza w/ peppers, onions, and one chicken breast
Meal #3: Chicken Pot Pie w/ two chicken breasts
Meal #4: Chicken, Broccoli & Rice casserole w/ two chicken breasts
Yes, this means that we’ll have a lot of meals around the same kind of meat in a week. However, it also means that I only spend $5-7 a week on meat! Not bad.
Estimated Savings: $25 (Saving roughly $5.50 a week on meat. With our weekly grocery budget at $75, that’s huge!)
5. Buy Bread From the Discount Store
A few months ago I discovered the discount bread store in our town, and I have totally fallen in love. It is a Nature’s Own bread outlet, which is the brand that I like to buy anyway. At the store every loaf of bread is just $1–plus it is only one day old. That’s it! It still tastes great. Either my husband or I will stop by every other week and pick up 6 loaves of bread and anything else that we find (hot dog buns, tortillas, etc.). We put it all in the freezer so that we always have a supply of bread on hand.
Estimated Savings: $18 (Saving $1.50 per loaf of bread.)
Total Savings: $540
What a great month! Thanks to my husband’s handiwork and my thriftiness, we managed to save quite a bit of money in September.
How do you save money each month?
