what you do to save on everyday things....

I wash everything in cold water. Haven't used hot water for over 10 years. I am also frugal about having lights on and also use energy saving bulbs. I often wash at night and hang clothes on hangers in a bathroom so that they are partially dry before using the dryer. I am the monster that turns off the elctric water heater which no one else in my family seems to do. As I come in from work I turn it off. Not necessary for it to be on all night and ther is still enough hot water for the family to bath/shower. It is very difficult as in my country the cost of electricity is through the roof so I try to decreasae wattage. I don't buy clothes either - my daughter picks me up clothes and shoes in sales and I receive gifts from my daughters in law. Hard to cut down on food though. But I have stopped eating meat almost completely. Best of luck in your endeavours!

I make my own coffee and take it with me when I go somewhere instead of buying cups at convenient store. We also do not eat out any. I can make my own egg mcmuffins at home and they taste much better!!!There are a ton of things that can be done to save money.

I save money on food by looking at store sales fliers to find the best sales. I also use coupons. I buy the weekend newspaper inserts, but I buy the Friday paper (as it has coupons inside but the paper is $1 less). I also flip through the paper real quick off to the side in the store or in the car. If I see a good coupon that I can use twice before it expires, buy 2 newspapers. We don’t pay our own utility bills as it is included in our rent. With that said, we still take steps to save money because if our utilities go up a lot, so will our rent. I work from home, so I will turn the heat down during the day and wear a sweatshirt and slippers. If we leave the house for more than half the day, we usually turn the heat off. At night, I turn the heat down significantly in the kitchen and living room, but not the bedrooms. Although it won’t necessarily help you save money in the frugal aspect, I recommend saving all change. I am notorious for losing it, but I started saving it. I took $10 in quarters and $5 into the bank today to add to my checking account and picked up some rolls for more coins that I have.

I am not very much good in saving. but recently I am trying something to save. like i used to buy expensive snacks each day at work. now for 3-4 days I am not buying them. plus we have reduced eating out

Some of the things I do to save money are by planning my weekly shopping before I shop. I write everything down I will need in the house for the week, I shop around for the best price before I buy and I buy everything that is on my list. If it is not on my list I do not buy it, also if something runs out that I think should have lasted the week I will not buy anymore of it until the next week. I go for the cheapest product of everything I want too. I have a set shopping budget and at the end of the week, if there is any money left out of the budget no matter how much I put it away in a tin or a savings account.

my husband and i, even before we got married, likes to go out with another friend or another couple to have drinks. we used to do this two to three times a week. now that we are married, we have discovered the fun in living together, having a quiet time at home, just watching tv or even playing on-line games (we're both kids at heart! LOL!). we still like going out with friends but we limit it to just once a week. with that i, as the "budget officer/financial manager" LOL! of our relationship, find that we really save a considerable amount of money. i know it wouldn't be right for us not to go out with friends at all because we also need those times to socialize and just to relax and have good conversations. but limiting it to maximum of once a week is already a big help to our finances. take care!

I learned a lot of my frugal shoppping as a child, shopping with my dad. Now that I am on low income and seeing prices a lot higher it does make it tough. However, I gave up a lot of my appartment space for a freezer and buy in bulk and buy discounted items. I buy food like day old bread and baked goods, damaged goods and spend a lot of time at Liquidation World. I also find buying unsliced bread and using the slicing machine proved save me a lot of money. I saw bread today for 5.00 a loaf and unsliced for 0.99 big difference. Another thing that I do and that you have the ability to do is to call the number on the back of products if you find it not to your standards or you have a suggestion. That company will then send you coupons and promo items for free. Also using the internet for coupons has been a big help and some point programs in stores to use towards discounts on gas and or future groceries.

the stores in my area are trying to tempt people to come in so they tend to put stuff like toothpaste and tins of soup on sale for 49 cents, so when the prices are that low, we stock up. we plan our meals before we grocery shop and pretty much only buy stuff that we will need for those two weeks, we also make a lot of soup for meals. do you have closeout stores in your area? those are also great to shop at.

The gas prices dropping is a big help to our budget. We paid 1.99 a gallon yesterday. We hang our clothes to dry,not using the dryer saves about 25.00 a monthon our electric bill. I make sure to turn the computer off when not using it also. We have definetly caught back on eating out. We only rent movies from the library where they are either free or 1.00 for new releases. We had our cable and internert turned off at home. We sure read more now that we only get 4 channels of television.It seems to have help[ed our daughters grades in school too.Hopefully with the falling gas prices home heating prices will drop also. That will really help with our winter budget.

Hm.... to save we and stretch our pennies... We use old bath water to flush our toilet & water the flower beds (I also use the old laundry water for that too) so that saves on water but for us with a well it saves on electricty and room in our holding tank. I keep the thermostat as low as possible when dh isn't home he likes to be toasty but we need a bill that is managable KWIM? Eat left overs! Buy as cheap as possible! Drive as little as possible. WHen I have to take my middle child to speech therapy I stay so I don't have to waste gas to come get her an hr later. I've considered walking but we don't have any sidewalks & live by a very busy area. Compost to save room in the garbage/landfills can plus it helps out with the garden too :) I use the plastic grocery store bags for garbage bags they may fill up fast but then I don't have to buy more garbage bags & the grocery bags get a 2nd use or more. Unplug items like coffee pots or whatever that has a clock as I have like 4 things with a clock on them why pay the electric company 4x the money & especially if the item isn't being used. They say the same for things like cell phone chargers ect if it's not charging anything it's still drawing some electricty

Well I tend to buy baby carrots 2 lb bag of them for $1.10 and chop them up and can them to make them last longer. I save lots of coupons and cook from scratch from time to time. I also am part of a yahoo freecycle group that tends to have items given in good shape for free. I even save my pennies haha.

I buy items such as oatmeal, dried beans and oatmeal in bulk when I can. They are all staples in my diet. I also don't eat red meat and only rarely eat poultry. I tend toward a vegetarian diet.

I am having the same problems as you are having. Prices for basic items are still on the rise and where I live most of our basic food items are imported so it costs far more than you pay in the USA. I try but I don't know what to do. You cut down until you cannot cut down anymore. Sometimes it is very depressing but hard times can make us strong. I've been through many hard times and once was without electricity for three months after a hurricane. Can you imagine that? Living in a hot country and not having a fridge? I learnt how to preserve meat the old fashioned way and guess what we survived. Just keep going, day by day and thank God if your family is healthy and well. I have saved coins from January and will have enough money to buy a turkey and ham for Christmas. The little things do add up. God Bless you and your family

there are plenty of ways to save.now i'm also similar condition to you.the material for life is hiking.nearly everything is hiking except my salary.so i'v got to cancel some planned tourism.just for saving money.and i'm not generous for using water,electricity.i try my best to control it.now i feel i'm so mean.LOL.

To me, I've made up my mind not to stay up late so that I can get up early, that makes it possible to get the bus in time to go to work. If not, I have to take a taxi, that's expensive, so it's the best way for me to save money daily.