Finding ways around the home to save money!
There are many ways that you can start saving money towards your financial goals by just changing a few things around your house! Too often we think about the daunting, huge changes that can be a part of money saving, however try a few of the ideas to take smaller, more manageable steps towards one of your financial goals.
1. Decorate a cute jar and leave it near an area in your home that gets lots of foot traffic!
When you use cash, try to save your extra change and dump it in your jar every week. After you’ve collected a jar-full of change, find your nearest Coinstar machine. If you convert your change to a gift card (including Amazon), you won’t pay any extra fees!
2. Paper products are expensive!
While couponing can help with this regular expense, it can get very time consuming. Take a tip from nice restaurants and try trading out your paper napkins with cloth ones. Plain, white works great because you can bleach any stains from them! The cost will be more expensive in the beginning but will pay off in the long-term and won’t add too much extra space in the washing machine (not to mention it’s also eco-friendly!)
3. Love cooking but hate the added expense of dried herbs?
Pick one herb you use often and grow an herb garden at home! Here’s a great resource to get you started. You can sometimes buy the small plants at your local grocery store.
4. Did you know that when an electronic device is plugged into the wall, it keeps draining energy (costing you money!) even when the device is turned off?
To prevent this from happening, buy some power strips so that you can easily turn the power strip off when items aren’t in use to minimize standby energy drain.
5. Cleaning products are expensive and with increased concerns about chemicals, now is the time to start making your own!
Just save your bottle when you empty a container or buy one for $1 at the dollar store. You can make 9 different cleaners with just 12 different ingredients and you probably have about half of them at home already! Good Housekeeping is a great resource for ingredients and instructions.
6. On average, a load of laundry costs about $.21 in laundry detergent per load. You can get this cost down to on average $.05 per load by making your own laundry detergent.
This can amount to a significant savings every year and is also a natural alternative to traditional laundry detergents! Here’s a great resource for making a quick, easy and inexpensive powder version but there are lots of resources online for liquid detergent as well.
7. You can also save money by washing your clothes in cold water!
8. With some extra time indoors, think about making some gifts and maybe picking up a new hobby!
Consider picking a friend (or sister!) who could use a pick-me-up and make a small gift for them. Drop it on their porch or in the mail.
9. Find yourself with a fruity Refresher from Starbucks on a regular basis?
Skip the expensive drinks and instead, purchase some drink dispensers from the dollar store and on Sunday, make a batch of sweet drinks to get you through the week! Add some lemon slices or blueberries for appearance!
10. Looking to refresh your skin from the harsh, winter months that are not behind us?
You probably have all the products you need to give yourself an inexpensive facial at home.
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