Great Ways to Save Big!!!

Don't play the lottery. Just don't do it. You might as well flush your dollars down the toilet. Save $50-$250 a year. Cancel cable TV premium channels. You know they are a big money waster. Save $200 a year. Going out to dinner once a month instead of twice can save at least $500 a year. You know you've been eating out too much lately when your child says "Mom, why is the oven door hot?"

Instead of buying expensive bottled water, use a water filtration system such as one from Brita or Pur. It turns your free tap water into the same pure water you're buying at the store. Evian spring water, by comparison, costs $21.19 a gallon. And you thought gasoline is expensive! I'm saving $250 a year. Eat less red meat. Pasta and chicken are inexpensive and better for you. Three meatless meals a week will save your family over $500 a year. Break the McDonald's / Pizza-Hut / Taco-Bell / Kentucky-Fried Chicken habit. My family was spending over $40 a week, which was over $2,000 a year. If you have a $3.00 a day Starbuck's habit like I did, cut it down to 4 days a week. Save $500 a year. Bring a sack lunch to work. Are you paying $5.00 for a deli sandwich? That's throwing away over $1,000 a year. When shopping for the sack lunch or the kid's lunches, those individually packed snacks and drinks look so convenient. Buy juice in bulk and use a thermos. Buy fruit and cheese in bulk, and use your Tupperware. Snack-size chips cost twice as much as filling a plastic bag from a big bag of chips. You get the idea. Save hundreds of dollars a year. If you smoke, you are blowing $1,500 a year on cigarettes, and paying double for health care over your lifetime than the average non-smoker. Kick the habit and your car, health and life insurance will be cheaper too. Every night, put all the change and dollar bills from your pocket or purse into a change jar (do they still make piggy banks?). Save maybe $1,000 a year. Popcorn is a very healthy and inexpensive snack. Not the microwave kind smothered in butter at a dollar a bag. Get a hot air popper and use the $1.50 a pound bags of corn. It's as fast as a microwave and uses less electricity. My family saves $300 a year on snacks. Save on gas. Drive smart, keep your speed down. Leave extra room between you and the car ahead of you. Smooth, lawful- speed driving will save you at least 3 mpg. Besides saving $200 a year in gasoline, there will be less wear and tear on your tires and brakes, and less chance of an accident or tickets causing higher insurance rates. There is probably no bigger waste of money than payments on your credit cards. Interest on your cards should not be part of your cost of living. If you have to charge it, you probably can't afford it. Hey, your credit cards don't get up in the middle of the night and go shopping all by themselves.