General Money Saving Tips/Strategies

Well the best kind of saving is forced saving do the best thing to do is to set up a direct debit from your account in which your salary comes so that the money is transferred automatically into an account to which you neither have a cheque book or an ATM so that you cant withdraw money out of it. You should let this continue for the next 5 years and then walah you will surely have a substantial amount in that account. Furthermore as your income increases with time you should increase the amount of money that goes into the account on monthly basis. Another good method is that you should start putting all the lose change that you have interms of coins into a box that you dont open. Let it accumulate for a year and then open it, I am sure that you will be surprised at the amount of money that turns out. Let me know if you find any method interesting.

go for mutual funds

This site www.thegrocerygame.com shows you how you can get groceries almost free - when things are on sale - when stores will mark them down even more http://www.smartmoney.com/dealoftheday/index.cfm?story=20060905&pgnum=1 This site tells you the best time to buy everything from wedding dresses, clothes, baby stuff, appliances, airline tickets, broadway tickets, computers, gas, gift cards, tvs, If you are pregnant www.baby2bee.com you can sign up at this site and they will send you free formula, free gift certificates for formula every month, diapers, coupons and other money saving things. Also if you are pregnant another good thing to do is have your husband/significant other host a diaper party. What that is - is he invites his friends over to watch a game or play cards, or whatever it is he and his boys do. Your man provides the food, they each have to bring a package of diapers. On clothing - shop at outlets - my fiance gets DKNY, Polo and other name brands for like $20 or less at Burlington Coat Factory and TJ MAXX. That's Cheaper than the non-name brand clothes at Target. Make a menu for the week. Buy only enough for what you need to make the meal - plus enough to have left overs for lunch. It's usually cheaper to pack a lunch. If you pack your lunch the night before it will be easier for you to grab on the way out and not be tempted by fast food. If it's something that you eat a lot of - consider buying bulk at Sam's Club or Costco. Make sure that you compare the price per unit at your grocery store to the price per unit at the club. It's not always a better deal. And only buy stuff that won't go bad. Consider carpooling to save money on gas. For kids birthdays - make the cake yourself - this usually costs $5 as opposed to $20 - $40 for a bakery cake. My fiance and I take all over our change and throw it in a big water jug (the 5 gallon kind). We pretend it's not there. When it starts getting full, or when we want to go on vacation or have an unexpected bill, we roll the change and take it to the bank (don't use the Coinstar machines at the grocery store - they take too much money). The last time we rolled our change it was barely full and we had $500 in there. My friend also does this and had enough change in his jar to use as the downpayment on his house. Make sure you eat before you go grocery shopping - you always end up buying more when you are hungrey - and it's usually impulse buys and things that you don't need. When you go shopping for clothes - if it's something above your price range - don't buy it. If you are still thinking about the item of clothing a few days later - then it's not really an impulse buy. But check back to see if it's on sale yet. Consider shopping at garage sales and thrift shops. Sometimes you can find really great stuff. Buy stuff online or in stores when they are offering free shipping or good promotions.

DON'T SPEND IT!!;L lol

Open a Certificate of Deposit, and deposit 5-15% of your income into it. But I only recommend this if you want to save the money for a certain event coming up and that you will not need to take the money out for any reason until the day of maturity. Or you could open a money markets savings account, but it usually requires $2,500.00 as a minimum balance. But it does have a higher rate of return than a regular savings account, and you still have access to your money incase of emergency. And in order to keep you from getting the urge to pull the money out, you might want to open the account seperate from where your current checking account is. And if possible have the money transferred straight from your paycheck into that account. This should help boost your savings, but it might also be a good idea to invest in your company's 401(k) plan especially if they offer a match %.