Tonight we bring you the highly anticipated part two of "Money Doesn't Grow On Trees." During the last post I highlighted several ways our family has saved money and cut costs each month. You can find them here. There are plenty of more ways to whittle down your expenses and reduce what you spend each month including price-matching (shout out, Chelsea!), bargain hunting, being more conscious of electricity usage, cutting down your cable plan and/or cell phone minutes and just good ol' fashioned not eating. But that's no fun. We just picked the tips that had saved us the most money. Hopefully you all have taken our advice this week and
So where did we leave off? Ah yes.... We had been so pleased with our success at decreasing what we were spending that we were then on a mission to build our savings. The quickest and easiest way to do this was to calculate the total of all the bill reductions we had gotten and set up a monthly auto-transfer in that amount to our savings account. That way we would never "see" that money (that we were used to spending anyway), and the $200+ we were saving in bills each month would just go directly, and unnoticed, into savings. So far, so good.
In addition to saving money, Matt and I decided we also wanted to start bringing in a little spare change wherever/whenever we could. Well, not whereever or whenever... I mean we DO have standards, people! When it comes to some things at least. Going to Wal-Mart in PJs? Never. Going to Wal-Mart at all? Pretty much never. Waiting outside the Dollar Tree at 7:59am for the doors to open so I can buy every pregnancy test they have in stock? Might have done this a time or two. Like I said...standards when it comes to some things. (saving tip #2: don't do this either. even if they are only a dollar)
So anyway.. to complement part one of the post (how to save), here are our favorite ways to make a few extra bucks and a few ways to build your savings quick:
1. Have a Garage Sale
I know, I know. I know what you are thinking: "Spend weeks getting ready, put out signs, request a permit and get up at the ass-crack of dawn on a Saturday to sit outside right in mosquito-zone and sell a bunch of crap that not even I want anymore for 25 cents a pop? No thanks, Holly." But hear me out! Well..first off..you'd be right about the mosquito thing. I know that would be my first thought, too. But really...having a garage sale every once in a while is SO worth it, and there are a lot of ways to avoid all those downsides you just thought of. A full post is coming up this week with all the details, so I won't spoil that..but just be open to the idea that a garage sale can really be worth your while and can be done with much less time and effort than you might think. For our most recent garage sale, we spent only about one hour prepping the evening before and ended up bringing in over $600 even with no big ticket items and really not a whole lot to sell. It CAN be done. We have started having one twice a year which brings in a good little chunk of cash to put toward our savings. Start collecting/saving your stuff now, and be on the lookout for our upcoming post with tons of tips/tricks for a successful sale!
2. Start a Side Business
There are countless ways to bring in extra income on the side, even if it is not much, without having to get a "real" part-time job. Starting an online business is becoming one of the most popular things to do. Whether you are selling your own items on E-bay, starting a shop that sells others' products, selling your own items on Etsy..or something else, there are infinite possibilities. Etsy is a great option for turning a hobby into a business with no risk and little fees involved. You can open a shop for nothing, pay no monthly fees to keep it open and pay only 20 cents per item you list. So even if you just want to dabble or dip your toes in to see how things go, you aren't losing a great deal of time or money. And you don't have the pressure of a monthly fee hanging over your head during those periods you may just not have time to devote to it. Do you know how to knit? Because the knitters are KILLING it on Etsy right now!
Any skill or hobby you may have can become an extra source of income. Matt has a background in coaching soccer, for example and in the past often reached out to people in the community, neighbors and friends about private lessons. He was able to set his own schedule, there were no costs involved, and word spread quickly through the youth soccer clubs. Any skill you have (playing an instrument, dancing, coaching a sport, speaking a language, tutoring a school subject) can all be put to good use. So dust off that clarinet and get to it! People will pay oodles for private anything lessons. And judging by a few Toddlers and Tiaras episodes, just about anyone (or anything) can become a "pageant coach," and parents will pay more than they probably
3. The Money Jar Challenge
This one falls under the "how to build your savings" category. I mean..there is no magic way to turn your money into MORE money (other than gambling a large portion of your checking account balance on black 31 after a few too many free chardonnays), but there are ways to kind of trick yourself into saving money before you spend it, most of which rely on the out-of-sight/reach-out-of-mind concept. We came across The Money Jar Challenge on Pinterest around the first of the year and decided to give it a go. You can read about it here, but the basic idea is just depositing a gradually increasing amount of money into a jar each week for 52 weeks. The amounts start out fairly small, and the greatest amount is only $52..so it really isn't too much of a stretch, and at the end of the year you have a nice bit of savings. That is if you can keep yourself from dipping into it after drunkenly ordering pizza at 10pm and then realizing you have no cash on hand. Which is why we edited the challenge a little bit and made it into an online "jar" (aka ING account). This keeps the cash out of sight and reach, and honestly it is much easier to make the deposits that way versus having actual cash to put in an actual jar.
4. Auto-Transfers and Online Savings
Along the same lines, setting up a few online savings accounts can go a long way toward building your savings more quickly than just a savings account with your everyday bank. The money is always accessible should you need it, but withdrawing takes a day or two which makes you less likely to make any impulse decisions. (tip #3: move all of your money here before landing in Vegas) Another good thing about these accounts is that they are free and earn at least a tiny amount of interest rather than keeping the money in your checking account where it gets truly nothing. ING is one of the more popular options out there. Within a matter of minutes you can open your account, make a few deposits, link it with your checking account and be on your way to savings all from your computer.
It is super easy to set up multiple accounts with nicknames to divide your savings into categories (Trent college fund, future IVF savings, England trip fund, etc), allowing you to save toward specific goals and monitor your progress for each. Having this separation also makes it much less tempting to dip into one area of savings for something unrelated. For example..I would feel WAY worse about taking money from "Trent college fund" and putting it toward, say, a David Yurman ring (hi, Matt!), than I would if the money were all just in one big pot. It is much easier to see, this way, for what exactly your money is meant.
Keeping with the out-of-sight-out-of-mind idea are auto-transfers. I mentioned that we set up an auto-transfer of the money we had shaved off our monthly expenses, but in addition we set up a small auto-transfer ($20 a week) into each of the three categories we had set up. When I initially looked at our budget, I wouldn't have seen where an extra $60/week ($240/month!) was going to come from, but we decided to go for it anyway and have not missed it. It is amazing how much less money you spend when it is just not there to begin with! Even if you start with a small amount ($5 into three categories=$15/week=$60/month), you will be amazed at how quickly your savings grows. Just that $15/week (which was probably going toward things you didn't even realize let alone need...Starbucks, the dollar spot at Target, etc) is now going straight into savings and will total almost $800 at the end of the year!
A lot of the tips in part two seem to be just common sense, but sometimes it takes seeing them written down to make yourself realize their importance and to get you into gear to actually DO them! And as I said..there are a ton of other ways to save money and make money, but these are just a few key ones that have really made a difference in our lives. Hopefully they can do the same for you!
Stay tuned this week for the second edition of the GooGoo Review, garage sale tips and tricks and more. Also...tomorrow is PATIO DAY!!! Looking forward to documenting every detail. And I am excited to announce that my Etsy shop, SimplyScissors, is going to be partnering up with another blog for a giveaway! More on that tomorrow. In the meantime don't forget to sign up for OUR giveaway here with Mavi Bandz..the most functional and stylish new accessory out there! We are a quarter of the way toward getting enough entries...keep em comin!
As a side note, good job FC Dallas on the win last night!
Goodnight, everyone!
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