E-Article - 7 Radical Ways To Save Money

7 Radical Ways To Save Money by Jennifer Mulrean on MSN.com

I have no idea which Facebook post directed me to this article, but I at least wanted to share the article with you. I found the contents a bit of common sense and had a few "duh" moments when reading it. Of course I myself just reevaluated my family's budget this past week which caused me to bang my head against the wall a few times and quietly scolded myself about our recent run-a-way spending habit. I'm a firm believer that you need to reevaluate your budget every quarter just to make sure you're still on the track that you set yourself on in the first place...it's far to easy to jump track and live in the moment, forgetting about your goals.

So back to the article, Jennifer Mulrean quickly goes through seven steps to make money and/or keep money in your pocket. They are...

1. Hold the mother of all garage sales - get rid of all that stuff in your house the you don't need, haven't used in ages, and just plain don't want anymore. In my case since I can't stand hosting a typical garage sale it's to the baby/kid consignment stores and craigslist!
2. Quit smoking.
3. Tame your driving addiction - take public transportation, unfortunately in my case that wouldn't work too well. It takes hubby an hour to get home, to take the bus would add at least another 40-minutes to that the last time we took a look at the bus schedule. I'll take the expense rather than the missed family time. Metro Phoenix is getting on the bandwagon of more ways to get around the city, but until the metro-rail comes up the Glendale way, the hubby will be driving himself.
4. Buy used - the article mainly focuses on clothing, but buying gently used appliances (we love B&B Appliances!), baby items (Kid-to-Kid or Other Mothers), cars, etc. will save you a lot of money. Now for those of you who wrinkle your nose at buying used clothing, get over it and hit the local consignment shops and donation stores like Savers and Goodwill. I'd much rather pay no more than $4 for a pair of nice looking shorts or pants for my rapidly growing children than the $12+ retail.
5. Become a homebody - stop going out for your entertainment. Rent movies rather than going to the theater, eat at home rather than going out for dinner or calling in for take out, borrow books and audio from the library rather than purchasing them, etc.
6. Cut your housing expenses - physically moving to a cheaper part of town may work for some, but for others it's impractical. Instead they focus on renting a portion of your home to create income. Of course there are other ways to cut housing expenses too like doing your own landscape maintenance rather than having landscapers come out or find ways to lower your utility bills.
7. Cut up your credit cards - yeah, I don't think so. I can understand the reasoning behind this idea, but I myself feel much more comfortable knowing that I have a large amount of credit in my pocket for a just in case (like we need a new AC unit). However most families out there do carry a large chunk of credit card debt month to month and so I can see how cutting up the cards, or locking them up, would help those people stop blindly charging and whittling those balances down.

To read the full article yourself click on the link in the title of this page.