Since my goal for May is to pay cash for all of my purchases in addition to saving money in general, here's a quick update on what has happened so far this month...
May 1. Went to Walmart with my list but only had $30 in my wallet. Usually I would buy everything on my list plus some extras and just charge everything. Today I prioritized my list and only bought the stuff of highest priority, stopping when I ran out of cash. I left the other items to be purchased when I had more cash with me. Lesson learned--using a cash only system saves a lot of money.
May 2. Ate all of our meals at home today. Actually we have been doing this for a few months. For years we literally ate out at a restaurant every day, often more than one meal. Then one day a few months ago hubby and I just stopped eating out. It's expensive (dinner for two is easily $20 to $40 a pop!), the portions are HUGE, and the healthfulness of the food is questionable. Lesson learned--cooking at home saves lots of money, portions are more reasonable, and the quality of the food is better, not to mention the benefit of left-overs which can be used for another meal.
May 3. Went to the mall. Macy's is my favorite store...everyone knows this which is why I had in my posession a $350 gift card (a birthday gift from friends). I may have money to burn since it isn't coming out of my pocket but that's not good enough. The stuff I buy needs to be 50% off regluar price plus an additional 30%-50% off of that. Wasn't a very good sale day so I bought a couple of deeply discounted items and saved the rest for later. Lesson learned--everything goes on sale eventually...with a little patience I can save lots!
May 4. Friends came over and I showed them how to purchase their airline tickets online. The most amazing part is that this family of eleven, only three of whom work and make minimum wage, and who have lived in the US for less than a decade, was able to pay cash for five of them to return to their home country for vacation...that's $8,500 just for airline tickets plus they will take more savings to pay for their other travel expenses. Lesson learned--saving an incredible amount of money is possible, even on the smallest of wages.
May 5. Stayed home all day. Didn't have to work so stayed home, cleaned the house, mowed the yard, cooked a great lunch and dinner and checked up on my eBay auction. Lesson learned--staying home whenever possible saves gas, gives me time to do tasks I would otherwise hire out (house cleaning, yard work) and even lets me dabble in alternative income strategies such as eBay. Cool
May 6. Went to the Children's Festival in a town an hour away. I staffed a booth there for one of my clients, got lots of freebies from the other booths and even the gas to get there was paid for by the client. Lesson learned--take advantage of free events in the community, group your errands so that you can get things done while on the way to your final destination, and take advantage of free/compensated stuff from your clients/employer.
Saving Money...A Lesson A Day
May 7th, 2006 at 01:05 am
May 7th, 2006 at 02:02 am 1146967345
May 7th, 2006 at 05:50 pm 1147024235
Flyertalk.com is a good site to find out about airline point systems.
May 10th, 2006 at 05:18 pm 1147281519