Dropping the Dime: Saving Money Part 1

A few years ago, I decided to try this stay-at-home mom idea. Sounded great! I mean who wouldn't want to spend more time with their kids, right? Well, long story short, it didn't take long before I started seeing some of the downsides to this endeavor.

Our family lives on one income, not much above minimum wage. Needless to say, the budget can get a little tricky now and then, but with some creativity, we are now stretching past marks we didn't ever believe we could.

While I am still always working on creative ways to pull in extra income, I figured I would share some of my tips, tricks & hacks for reducing the outgoing, and pull some back in.

So without further ado, here are some of my family's secrets towards a freer future.

(DISCLAIMER: Yes there are some Affiliate links. Not many, and ONLY from trusted sites.)

The first step we took was to take a close look at our spending habits. Yes, I know...BORING. But it does tend to be pretty enlightening. After figuring out where we had our budget breakers, my husband and I sat down and hashed out an agreement about what we should do about it, and created a flexible budget—well, I would call it more of a priorities list—and agreed that the lower priorities we would cut down or out, depending on what they are.

The biggest (and kinda needed to live) part was food and household supplies. Well, I have tried, and I cannot live on multi-vitamins alone, so I decided to work on critiquing what and how we got or groceries.

The first part was to start thinking more before we bought. I plan as far in advance for as much as possible, and pay much closer attention to sales and discount racks. This started a savings snowball, which then led to coupons.

I had been using coupons before, but I started learning how to use them to their greatest potential. How?

The Krazy Coupon Lady has some amazing tips and guides for paring sales & coupons for super cheap and even free items. But one thing I learned that wasn't on there was about Mypoints.

Mypoints is a site that has been running for many years, and has built a sturdy reputation. Besides being able to cash out points for tons of different gift cards, it also gives you points for printing and redeeming coupons, so it is a nice extra bang for your buck.

You can also earn points from reading emails, watching videos, doing surveys, and tons more. If you are an online shopper, you can get points for a lot of your purchases!

I also love Swagbucks & Inboxdollars for the same reasons.

Oh, and Loyalty programs are amazing for stretching your dollar. For example, Kellogg's Family Rewards, you can cash in points for high value coupons. The yes card from Family Fare offers free product coupons every Wednesday, Meijer Mperks has amazing coupons & rewards that really help a lot. This is just to name a couple.

I also learned about rebating and found three apps/ sites that pay out well and have good selections. Most of these apps are for on the phone, so keep that in mind.

One that is an app but also works on the computer is Saving Star. You can upload receipts, link to loyalty cards, and if you want to, you can even link your credit/debit (I personally haven't been brave enough to try that one).

But with anything linked, you will earn rebates that you have clipped automatically, no uploading required.

The next is Ibotta—for sure my true favorite, as it has an awesome selection, pays out quickly, and its user interface is easy to navigate.

And finally we have checkout 51. It has less than Ibotta, but it has some things that Ibotta doesn't.

With all of these, there is one major tip that anyone can do at home to save up money:

The change jar. Yes, I know that's very common advice, but just simply grabbing a jar or, in our case, old coffee can, and emptying change into it, it really surprises you how much money you have when it's time to cash in all those coins.

Don't carry cash? Many banks offer a round-up program that will automatically deposit extra change into your savings account after each purchase.

Using this handful of options is what got us rolling. In one year, I was able to save a couple thousand dollars just on needed items.

As I am sure you may have guessed, yep, I am a rambler, so I will leave off here and continue in part two, where I will tell you how we dropped our electric bill from OMG to manageable.

I hope you enjoyed my post and hope to see you next time!