However, there are certain advantages of staying at home and taking care of your children. If you are planning to do so, but are worried about your financial loss, you need to consider the following points:

Save Money on Child Care

This is one of the biggest financial benefit you can have of staying at home and taking care of your children yourself. Instead of hiring someone, you can do things better, and save around $250 – $300 every week.

Save Money on Taxes

If one of you quits your job and has no income, you obviously don’t have to pay income tax. For instance, if you were making $30,000 each year, it puts you in 28% tax bracket with over $20,000. This means you will have to pay around $8,100 every year, which is around $156 each week.

Save Money on Food Expenses

When you are at work, you go out to eat with your co-workers more than often. Let’s say you eat out around two times a week, and have $10 pop each time. It will cost you around $20 each week, that is $80 – $100 ($100 if u eat something additional) every month.

Save Money on Automobile

If you commute by car every day to your workplace, you spend roughly one and half gallon each day, and you have to get oil changed every three months. Besides, you have to spend money on repairs and regular maintenance. These costs can sum up to around $5 every day, or $25 each week. By staying home and taking care of your children, you can save around $100 a month on automobile.

Save Money on Work Expense

There are several hidden expenses we incur while we are at work. I call them hidden because we don’t really consider them as expenses. It just happens. We sometimes pay for coffee fund. Sometimes, we are expected to contribute money for a gift purchase. Although this may vary from person to person, I can say the average expenses are $10 every week.

Save Money on Habits

A smoker usually smokes more when he is at work. Similarly, we drink more coffee each morning and evening at our workplace. Staying at home can save you around $25 each week.

Save Money By Adopting Frugality

If you are at home, you will discover many ways to save money. However, this cannot be done if you are at your workplace. Besides, you can teach your kids to be frugal as well. The services that you paid for earlier, can then be done by you at home.

So, it really isn’t a bad idea to quit your job and take care of your child at home. You save around $500 to $500 each week, which is around $24,000 each year. I guess the decision of staying home is a fair idea.

Reduce Packaged Items in Your Cart

Even if you want to buy packaged items, buy in bulk. Packaging on small items generally costs much more than packaging on big items.

Another way to reduce your cost is by shopping in stores that don’t focus much on packaged products. For instance, at many markets, you are asked to bring your own bag. There are any groceries stores as well that offers you this option. The only investment you need to put is reusable bags, and few containers at home.

Lastly, you can save money by buying ingredients, and cooking at home. Cooked food, or frozen food would always cost you more than loose ingredients.

One more thing I would like to add here, is being a conscious shopper. It’s very easy to ignore the price and buy packaged food, simply because you don’t want to take extra pains. Besides, you will have to pay attention on what could be costlier, check the prices of the counterparts.

A Bigger Impact

Apart from saving some money, you will also help in keeping the environment clean and healthy, by not buying packaged products. Do not purchase anything with package that can be bought without package as well. You will be surprised at the amount you would be able to save every month simply by doing this.

It may not always be possible for you to buy things without packaging, but at least making at effort could make a big difference.

It would have been a piece of cake if the question would have been ‘tell me about some money saving tips’ or ‘ways to save money each month’. But when she asked ’single best advice’, I had to think for a while (and she also was bit surprised with it). However, not according to her expectations, I came up with a very simple, ordinary advice.

Although I knew that was a good one, it was certainly not the best one I could think of. So, for the next few hours I mulled over the same question, and I came up with two answers.

Earn More, Spend Less

This is certainly important, and you simply cannot save money breaching this rule. Before you create your monthly budget – if you do it at all – make sure you have this in mind. However, this is not something that you can use. An advice would be something that would show you how to spend less. So, I came up with another one.

Do Not Splurge Money to Impress Others

This is certainly an important advice. When you notice any consumer especially college students, most of the spending is done to please others. They buy new gadgets, new clothes, and new pair of shoes simply to impress their friends and neighbors. Once again, however, it was something that I cannot term as money saving ‘tip’. It was simply a state of mind, or a general consumer attitude, which one should avoid.

So what is it? What is the one thing (best thing) that can save you money. This morning, while reading a personal finance book, I realized, it’s books, at least for me. I spend around $90 each month on books, which is $1000 every year. I guess that’s a pretty decent amount. However, I cannot survive without books. Instead, I can opt to have membership at any of the local libraries.

So, yes, for me it’s cutting down on reading books. I would need some of your comments on this topic. “What’s the single best advice for readers to save money?”

• Apply formal money management techniques
  Don’t spend your money aimlessly. Plan your expenditure and also track how you are spending your money. List out your credit card dues and in how you many days you intend to pay it up. Form realistic goals for your bank balance and try to achieve it and stick to it sincerely.
• Hunt for Cheap Insurance
  Insurance premiums can be very high. You’ve got to hunt for cheaper insurance, i.e. those with lower premiums but good coverage. This is quite tough and time consuming, but it’s worth the effort for you.
• Get a lower interest payment from your financier
  If you have taken money from your financiers or mortgaged property to them, you can simply get your loan converted to a lower interest one by talking things out with your financiers. If you are not able to pay up a loan, they will be more than ready to slash the interest rates because that is a better option than missing out on payments.
• Review your expenditure on all household communication devices and modes
  If you are a busy professional you’ll hardly watch TV, so is it necessary for you to keep your subscriptions for the cable TV channels and pay up  for them unnecessarily? Also it’s not necessary for you to maintain both a landline and a cellphone connection for communication. Why do you need to waste money on a landline connection when most of the times you stay out of home with your cellphone around?
• Don’t overlook hidden money
  Always be conscious of gift cards, coupons and any discounts. If you are entitled for any unclaimed monetary gifts just check websites such as Missingmoney.com where you might find such property under your name.
• A junk sale is a super way to make extra money
  You can always sell up your old unused items, donate them or give them up for recycling. All the three ways are going to fetch you money. Some stores give you discounts when you give away things on charity or send them for recycling.
• Visit some good personal finance websites and blogs which can show you effective ways of investing money and making it grow. Other than saving in fixed deposits in banks there are many other investment options which make your money grow more than the traditional fixed deposits. There are some good retirement and insurance plans for doubling or trebling your money in a matter of a few years.

Money Saving Tips

A Wrong Credit Card Can Make You Spend More

Choose a credit card that is most appropriate for your expenditure and style of spending. The credit card that you choose should be perfectly made for you. Otherwise you might be spending money on extra features and services that you don’t actually use.

Track Your Expenditure

Many of us don’t closely follow how much we spend on what. Use personal financial planning software. Allot a certain amount of money for each of your expenditures and allow yourself to receive SMS alerts on stepping out of your limits.

Loyalty Club Memberships

Retailers offer attractive discounts to members of loyalty clubs. Loyalty club membership discounts can be used anywhere, from bookstores, cinema halls, restaurants and even for buying flu shots.

Find Coupon Codes

Coupon code discounts come in a big way to shoppers these days for both their online as well as in-store purchases. Hunting for discounts on coupon codes is so easy. Just run a Google search for the retailer outlet’s name and find if it’s offering any codes. After that find out the discounts that the codes carry and avail them.

Watch out for Grocery Sales

Grocery sales are offered once in two or three months, you can still save up on a lot of money by a clever usage of grocery sales, general rebates and coupons. With these you can always buy items in discount.

Pay In Cash Rather Than With Credit Cards

Paying with credit cards might look a very convenient option, but making cash payments can save you a lot of hassles. Firstly, you are saved unnecessary fees on credit card payments. Secondly, the transactions remain simple and straight. There’s no risk of your bank account being pilfered due to leakage of your credit card details. Thirdly many shops have attractive discounts on cash payments.

Reduce Your Expenditure on Pet Lifestyle Products

Pet lifestyle products cost a fortune! Pets are meant to lead a free lifestyle like their counterparts in the jungles, but we see them playing with pet toys, being taken to pet beauty parlors and made to use pet furniture. By letting a pet lead a simple life like an animal, which it correctly ought to, we not only give it the freedom that it craves for, but also save up on a huge amount of money. Spend on pet food, pet insurance and medical care instead.

Artful haggling while shopping (it’s not embarrassing anymore) and sealing up cracks in your house to prevent leakage of conditioned air during summers and winters are the last two ways in which you can save up on your expenditures.

Hmmm, there’s still a way out. This is how you can manage to buy snacks at cheaper prices at the entertainment venues:

• Take a loyalty club membership

  Movie houses sell items on discounts to club members on weekdays. You also get accessory snacks for free on purchasing a one. For example, with a fountain drink you can expect to get a packet of popcorn for free. Also, you get to earn points on purchasing snacks on weekdays. You can use these points for a weekend visit. The bottom line: take a loyalty club membership.

• You tend to buy more popcorn when watching thrilling, family oriented or interesting movies, and also when in company. Before deciding to watch a movie at a theatre, find out if it’s interesting. If a movie does not excite you that much, why visit a movie hall at all? You can watch the DVD instead, can’t you? You can save up on the ticket as well as the snack food.

• Buy movie gift cards

  You can get snacks for free at cinema halls with movie gift cards. If you are lucky your family and friends might gift you movie gift cards during this holiday season. Otherwise you could get some at auctions on websites like the EBay. Some gift cards and coupons allow discounts on the snacks you buy.

• Buy bulk vouchers

  Snack counters at the movie venue will offer you discounts on purchase of bulk vouchers. If you are a regular movie buff, you can buy a pack of 50 or 100 coupons which offer you snacks at discounted prices. The advantage is that the coupons don’t expire. But the disadvantage is that you’ll have to visit the same theatre till your coupons get exhausted if you were to buy snacks at discounts.

• Buy large

  Large sizes of snack packs get you free refills. Go with a gang of friends and order the biggest size packs and avail the refill perk.

• If you cannot slash the snack price, you can still budget your movie by cutting out the ticket price. Find out the times and days of the week when the tickets are sold at their lowest prices and avail the offer.

Waste Furniture and Appliances Occupy Greater Space

In my house, there’s some old furniture that hardly finds any use. I have hired a huge apartment to accommodate that furniture and am paying a big amount of money on rent for that. It was only a few days ago that a friend hinted that I was wasting my money trying to accommodate that furniture. Otherwise I could have hired a smaller house where I could keep only articles that I use. She was so correct! I never thought in those lines at all before.

Why Waste Money on Storage Space?

I’ve known quite a number of friends of mine who’ve kept household articles in storage spaces. Storage spaces don’t come for free, do they? Do you really need all those things that you’ve kept in the storage space unless they are very precious? Many people keep articles like books, old electronic goods, old appliances, bicycles, old clothes etc. in storage spaces for years together. These items gather dust and the storage space owner gathers money on those. Why don’t you just dispose or sell off these items. If you are not using them for years now, in all probability, you’ll not be using them in future too. Especially while relocating, its always better to sell or donate off old furniture, rather than keep in storage spaces and pay for it.

Commercial Junk Haulers are Expensive

Many of us use our garages as garbage bins. So, you go on piling up all the household clutter there. One fine morning you think of buying a new car and accommodating it there. You call up the junk collectors….What happens after that? Are you shocked by the dizzying prices they quote for getting the job done? The worst is, the more the junk, the higher the charges for clearing it. If you’ve got years of junk piled up, God alone can help you in paying up the expenses!

You can get rid of all household junk in a couple of steps. Firstly, learn to feel that you can live without those articles and secondly have some concrete idea as to what you’d do with them. Next, collect them at a place specially kept aside for the purpose. This will help you in getting your house decluttered in no time.

• Go ahead and claim your tax refunds. Every year, it seems the IRS has some millions of money from unclaimed tax refunds. Now, the IRS is not to be blamed for that. Isn’t it your duty to provide a forwarding address to the IRS once you change your address? Change in tax return status due to marriage or death also causes a delay in getting the tax refunds, but keeping the IRS updated about your current status always will help you get your money. At least, fill FORM 8822 of IRS which will keep the IRS informed about your current contact address. Your tax refunds are one good source of your income. Make it a point to claim them.
• It’s amazing to know how much cash and property we miss out on in our daily lives. A friend of mine lost her grandmother who was staying in a distant land. Though the two were not in contact with each other for about a decade due to career obligations of the former, her grandma left her a house and some cash on the girl’s birth which she was not aware of. It was only much later on enquiry that she came to know about that. If you think you could be in a similar situation just find out and see if you have any hidden money there. Apart from that, carefully review your monetary transactions in business and with family and friends and see if anyone owes you cash which you have forgotten about.
• If you are an ex-union worker, just contact the organization to find out if you are eligible for any of the benefits like insurance or pensions etc.
• When you change residence, just be careful to follow up your utility bills. Make it a point to provide a forwarding address so that the utility usage department could refund your deposits. Also, don’t be lazy in following up your bills. Chances are that, you might have made an overpayment. All this cash adds up significantly to your savings.
• Track your gifted saving bonds. Many times parents and relatives gift their young children saving bonds which the children forget about when they grow older and start earning themselves. These federal bonds, which don’t accrue interest after they mature, can be withdrawn for cash.
• Mention your life insurance policy in your will so that your family members get the benefits. Otherwise nobody will come to know about it. Also if you want to check out if you are due other benefits of insurance by a deceased member of your family, just check their bank payments to see if they have made insurance payments.
• The frequent flier miles facility of airlines is also a source of hidden cash.

Even though the prices are rising you can still save yourself some money from your fuel expenditure if you do some wise spending.

First of all, why don’t you go the eco friendly way? Why don’t you stop using your car every now and then even for visiting the departmental store in the next street? You can surely walk down that distance or take a bicycle ride can’t you? That’ll not only save you money but also be healthfully helpful. Now, with the healthcare reform necessitating you to keep yourself healthy, isn’t this a timely step you can take in this direction?

Well, you might have heard that over and over again elsewhere too so I’ll not bore you with that. Now for the real tips that will come handy when it comes to budgeting on your fuel expenditure:

Locate the Cheapest Gas Station In Your Vicinity

Did you know that different gas stations charge different fuel prices? Locate a gas station that charges the least rates near your house and go there for refueling. GasBuddy.com and Billshrink.com will help you out in that.

Make Cash Payments

Why do you want to make credit payments all the time? That will cost you more because in addition to the interest fees you’ll be charged higher by the gas service provider to compensate for the slashed merchant fees. Pay up with cash and get discounts or lower rate options.

Purchase from Warehouse Clubs and Supermarkets

Warehouse Clubs like Costco, Sam’s and BJs sell fuel at slashed rates. Go and purchase from them to save up money on your fuel charges.

Supermarkets like Kroger are offering discounts on gas when you purchase groceries from them. Also you could purchase gas at Safeway and Stop and Shop. Some of these chains have installed gas stations so that people could purchase gas when they go to purchase their groceries there.

Buy a Hybrid Car

Fuel efficient cars have always very helpful when it comes to saving up on your fuel charges. Go for the hybrid cars which consume less fuel than your normal ones. Also get your car examined by a garage mechanic so that it does not consume more fuel due to inefficiency. You might have to spend a bit on the garage mechanic but when it comes to your recurrent fuel costs, getting your car repaired for once is a wise investment. Save up on fuel using these methods.

I wonder when solar energy is made more widely available for commercial usage. Also wind energy should be harnessed for driving commercial vehicles.