5 ways to save money and keep up with the Jones'

Tonight I felt compelled to share some tips on how to save money without losing face. I would consider myself a pennypincher with the best of them. The key to most of these ideas is the willingness to think outside the box.

5. Take advantage of your local library-  There are many things that the local library can do for you. They have free books, movies, cd's( which you can download to your ipod), classes, workshops and seminars. The staff also know many other free services that are in the community that most people do not know about. My local library offers free tutoring for k-4 students in the area. That alone can save parents 25-60 dollars a session.

4. Cut the cord- In this day and age there is no need for a home phone or even cable for that matter. We use MagicJack and cel-phones. the people that contend you can't use 911 with MagicJack have not had one because that is part of the registration process to set up the home address for the phone. Magicjack is 19.99 a year vs. 40 dollars plus for other packages. Now to digital cable, this is completely unnecessary. ditch the cable, boost your bandwidth package and get Netflix and take advantage of Hulu. Netflix you can instantly watch tons of content and they will send you dvds in the mail that you choose.  This cuts cost in renting movies and cable because now you can have those movies for movie night sent to your door and you can watch the same shows on network tv the next day or so on Hulu.  We have Hulu Plus and Netflix along with the highest internet package. The only thing I sometimes miss is being able to watch sports events,  so I will be looking into NBA pass and MLB.tv to see if those will be worth it over the year. I hope the NFL not only plays this year but comes to the realization more people are cutting the cord and come up with a streaming online package for NFL fans in the US.  With the cutting of the cord it has also ended the mindless surfing of hundreds of channels with nothing on. It saves us time and money, which I may haver heard somewhere before that "Time is money" so maybe just money.

3. Network- This means that you should talk to people. I mean if you are a teacher ,as I am working on becoming, or a plumber then let people know that information. This may lead to you in your kitchen with a leaky dishwasher and being able to call that plumber you know and barter some free tutoring of his kids for him to fix the dishwasher. You can even try to strategize this portion. see if you can't become at least associates with a mechanic, plumber, teacher, lawyer, financial advisor or any other person you might think you could need their service in the future. Bartering has been done for thousands of years, so take advantage of the skills or things you already have and save some money. Craigslist.org is a a great site to trade services.

2. Buy Used- Most things can be purchased used at a humongous price reduction versus new. You can buy clothes used at places like Plato's closet, Goodwill, Once Upon a Child, and Garage sales. You would be surprised at how many clothes still have the tag from the store on them that end up at second hand shops or consignment stores. I buy the majority of my kid's clothes at Once Upon a Child and can buy them ten outfits of the same brand for the amount that places like Carter's or Buy Buy Baby sell one for. Upscale neighborhoods are usually the best for quality of secondhand items since they are usually the original owner of the items. Cars should be a given, they lose on average 6-20 percent when they are driven off the lot. My head tells me I do not want to be underwater on a vehicle the day I buy it.  Craigslist and Ebay are great resources to buy secondhand anything.

1. Think outside the box-  Do not follow the herd of people doing anything. Demand and Supply rules of Economics apply to everything in life. Let's say I have ten pencils but 100 people want one, then I can raise the price and most likely at least ten people will still want one. If I have ten pencils but only one wants to buy one at the current price then I need to drop the price in order to entice more people to want my pencil. This is true with any product. Let me show you an example: TV's , the technology is constantly getting better making tv's somewhat cheaper for the quality, but overall those prices have been rising for each new innovation of the year. This includes plasma, lcd, led, and 3D. TV's are still a major investment and most likely you will have an outdated one in 6-12 months. So, with a big purchase like this on my mind I researched and researched and found on my budget of 350 dollars all I could afford was mid range smaller tv's. Then I thought outside the box and now I have an 85 inch screen to watch movies, write things like this blog,  and any other thing you can do with the computer and an internet connection. How is this possible on a 350 dollar budget, but through an awesome device I stumbled upon call the aaxa m2 mini led projector. I have it connected to my mac mini, wii, and antenna. It has an hdmi connection along with most other inputs and I can just turn it on, point it at my wall and go.

 I know there are many more things we can be doing.I would love to hear some other tips or things people have done to save money for them and their family!

Children are expensive

I just read some where that just 1 child will cost 226000+ dollars to raise for 18 years. That is exhausting to think about. Then the more I thought about it the more I realized that is probably not accurate anyways since most kids are now staying home or being supported entirely throughout college. This means an extra 4 or 5 years in most cases. So that probably brings the total closer to 300,000 dollars per kid if you do not count college tuition. Wow, so this got me thinking that I need to make more money. So, I have scoured the internet for ideas on how to make extra money and the side and I came across one blog that seemed to put most of them together. I am going to put a list here which will have some of the same ideas and some that are not on there but you can look at the link I have for more details on most of the ideas I will be putting here. I will be trying most of these ideas out over the next few weeks and be reporting back how succesful I am at it.

1. Part-time job: pick up an extra low hour commitment job in order to supplement the income
2. Tutor: If you have a knowledge or skill that people want then why not charge them to learn it.(I have begun this one already)
3. Donate Plasma: It comes with the distinction of only being for desperate people, but I think it's a legitimate way to try and earn some extra bread. If you go twice a week it's about 60 dollars a week so it can pay for that date night you and your spouse want every week. ( beginning this one today)
4.Pick up odd-jobs: I would have to say craigslist will probably be the best service for me in this matter
5. E-bay: everybody has things lying around they are not using anymore. If you haven't used it in a year, sell it.
6. Scrap metal and recycling: If you drink pop, buy the cans instead and recycle them to get some money back. If you have a large truck take a drive around town to pick up scrap metal curbside for trash day or do free appliance removal and scrap those. People will be glad to get the old appliance out of there and might even tip you. This can be some decent money if you know how to seperate ferrous and non-ferrous materials. Take a magnet and if it sticks to it put it in the pile different from the metals that do not. This will save you headaches when you get to the recycling center. If your scrap is organized they are more will ing to give you higher prices. I do not know everything about this so I have included a link to a blog that is dedicated to scrapping metal.