Ways to save money most people don't know about

I like to think of myself as frugal but not cheap, yes there is a difference. Here are some savings tips that a lot of people haven't heard of. At least a lot of my friends never heard of them! Add any that you know of.

Eye Care For those that carry vision insurance I implore you to really crunch the numbers, you might actually be paying more (a lot) for eyecare than you have to. If you go to a vision place with insurance they are very secretive about the costs, I always wondered why. Now I know.
It is absolutely crazy but for my family it actually costs significantly more to have vision insurance rather than paying out of pocket. Here is a little secret too. Some places will give you additional discounts if you don't have insurance and will even give you more discounts if you buy more than one pair of glasses an or box of contacts at a time. I actually talked to my eye care center about this and they said for a lot of people it is cheaper to pay out of pocket rather than the monthly cost of vision insurance.

Electricity- Many electric companies offer discounts if you switch to time of use plans. Basically they want you to use the majority of your electricity at off times. So do your laundry at night, run your air/heat at night. The savings can be significant. If you work all day you most likely wont even notice a difference. It has saved my family thousands over the years.

Credit Card price adjustments - Ok credit cards are starting to not offer this but many still do. If you buy something and the price goes down, if you paid with your cc you can ask for a price adjustment. (yes, every time)

Property Taxes- If you aren't planning on selling soon, fight them. I have disputed mine and have had them reduced every single time. I think most people don't want to go through the hassle and just give up. It is pretty easy if you follow the paperwork and due dates.

Laundry I'm not trying to promote a product, but I have a big family and have done tons (literally) of laundry over the years. There is a soap called charlie's soap sold on Amazon. It is the most amazing laundry soap. I was always a tide person, but Charlies has forever changed me. Most laundry soap is basically a lot water, perfume and some cleaning agents. Charlie's soap is just the cleaning stuff and it last so long because you only use one tablespoon at a time, and it works! If you have a front loader, you will not have that musky smell if you use charlie's soap.

Vacations - For those that have a few extra bucks to go on vacation. If you use Priceline or Hotwire, you can get a hotel room for very cheap. There are numerous websites that help you determine which exact hotel you are getting. I have gotten 4* hotels for $100 bucks. It takes time and there is a method, but you can't beat the price.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Only sure way to save money is to NOT spend it.

Never buy anything that you do not need.

It is really very simple.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

Hah!
My ex saved a ton of money by spending a lot of money on "sales."

a reply to: JAGStorm

Very interesting on the property tax- I've never known you could fight it.
Good information to have, since I'm looking at developing 100+ acre property to retire on.

Curious about the charlies laundry soap, though. I've been making my own soap for a couple years now- great in the shower, not so great in the laundry. I've since gone back to commercial laundry soap. (currently using something generation unscented)
Something about soaps and detergents being different things. I have found that if you can't get something to smell clean, you should soak it in water with a little bit of lye- then rinse it and throw it in the normal laundry. the lye will bond to and convert the oils into soap... just be careful and sure to rinse it well before throwing it in the laundry, that stuff can wreck your day.

I wonder what's in charlies? MSDS sheets don't give away any secrets...

Don't have kids. Costs an astounding........nothing. Saves you at least 18 years of grief, worry, debt, frustration, arguing, BS, noise, money wasted on garbage that they'll use once and get tired of it and on and on and on.

a reply to: lordcomac

I tried homemade laundry soap and didn't like. We do too much gardening and didn't find that it cleaned well enough for our liking.

I did find the ingredients for Charlies; Contains: Sodium carbonate (washing soda), C12-15 pareth-2 (detergent), sodium metasilicate (drying agent)

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: scraedtosleep

Hah!
My ex saved a ton of money by spending a lot of money on "sales."

when my wife worked at Macys for a few years, half of her paycheck went to items that were on employee discount.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Get "take offs" at tire garages that swap tires for cars. They will give you basically new tires for $200 + or - that other drivers swapped for one reason or the other. Come with warranties too.

Learn how to change your own brake shoes and rotors. Good grief do garages charge big bucks for brakes.

a reply to: JAGStorm


A few more:

• Home surgery
  
• Have your children work in a sweat shop and garnish their meager wages
  
• Utilize the Cheryl Crow method of personal hygiene
  
• Start a religion and wait for the cash to pile up

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

www.youtube.com...

All the five to seven watt transformers plugged into outlets all the time 24/7 do increase your light bills. Seven watts for twenty four hours a day comes to about a buck a month. Multiply that times an average ten things in your home and you have ten bucks a month. That is without even using them, they take much more when using them. So many things have a remote now and there are smart bulbs and alexa or google controlled outlets all over some people's homes. No wonder people are getting fat, they do not even have to get up to turn the light on or change the TV channel anymore.

We have a food pantry where we buy when on sale and then rotate the supplies. We have a bunch of miracle whip now that we got for 97 cents for a 30 ounce jar. We get high quality slipjack tuna when on sale, for about sixty six cents a can or cheaper. We get organic stuff and when there is a good sale coupled with a coupon at the coop, we stock up, a years supply is adequate. At a buck thirty for a twenty ounce woodstock ketchup, and seventy two cents for a woodstock mustard, we bought quite a few. It is a really good product, taste wise. Who cares about organic when something tastes so good compared to all other ketchups. Only buy foods you use, throwing things away because you find you do not care for them or they do not fit your lifestyle is a waste.

Do not buy things you do not need. A person will use a tool or kitchen appliance all the time for a year if they buy it to justify buying it. Then use goes away, they proved they did not waste the money and sooner or later it is shipped to vinnies as a donation. Been there a lot over my lifetime, so has the wife. So have my daughters, I am just aware of it now, my daughters cannot comprehend they are doing it. All we need is something to do, hopefully something to do actually has a return on it. I go pick blueberries, I go to a close place, we used to drive all over the county picking berries, the gas cost more than the berries we picked were worth, seven bucks a quart is what wild blueberries cost around here, you can go through ten bucks in gas easily. It cost me about a buck round trip where I go, usually picking a quart and a half each time. People buy all sorts of expensive stuff to make money but in the end, they actually wind up with a project that costs them more than what they make.

The best rate on credit cards is to pay it off every month and try not to use it much. Credit cards make you buy more, once we go over the cash we have with us at the grocery store, we add lots of things to the cart that we would not normally buy. Sometimes it is good, we bought fifteen natural ahmish chickens for eighty nine cents a pound, our bill exceeded the cash we had on hand that day. But we paid it off completely the next bill.

Here they do not come down much on property taxes. If you buy a house your rate goes up to the higher rate and you pay more taxes than the person who lived there for years. The state does not allow much variation for us locally, that is the way it is here now, hardly any benefit from contesting their taxes anymore.

Vacations do not have to be extravagant to be fun. You wind up burnt out for a week afterwards. I would rather just get a tent and go camping at a park around here. Usually you come back relaxed and smelling like a campfire.

a reply to: JAGStorm


I'm loving that video. It made my black, capitalist heart smile.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I forgot two things:

Where I live we have several competing garbage companies. If you call them and say you are thinking of switching they will lower your rate. It obviously doesn't work in places that don't have competition. Right now I have the largest sized recycle bin and garbage bin, I pay 50 bucks every four months. Not sure about everyone else, but that is pretty much the cheapest we've ever had.

Secondly, for anyone out there in old timey land, cut the cable and start streaming!

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: JAGStorm

I forgot two things:

Where I live we have several competing garbage companies. If you call them and say you are thinking of switching they will lower your rate. It obviously doesn't work in places that don't have competition. Right now I have the largest sized recycle bin and garbage bin, I pay 50 bucks every four months. Not sure about everyone else, but that is pretty much the cheapest we've ever had.

Secondly, for anyone out there in old timey land, cut the cable and start streaming!

We have a landline, we also have AT&T landline internet. In our location we could problems with choice here, we got what we got. We have an antenna that picks up eleven local channels and a Roku unit and that is enough. No cable costs at all. There are some free providers we get on the Roku too, and we get prime.

Theres loads of ways to save money, buy reduced herbs at the store and repot them and get many years of free herbs.

If you're tempted and can find a broken bucket then cheap spuds are on the market as all you need is a spud where its eyes are looking after you and so long as you can build up the soil as the plant grows theres a good few pounds of spuds for nothing more than a few shovels of dirt and some water.

Get to know your local area and if you've got a bumper crop of something then find someone who has a bumper crop of something else and trade and be able to slice/dice so you can pop it in the freezer.

a reply to: Maxatoria

That spud idea is interesting..........never tried that but then again, I thought spuds were supposed to be bad for people's diets?

Speaking as a person that's not into situation comedies, most sports, cop and terrorism shows in every flavor, that only seeks news on the web, when I want to, have never tuned into news shows, as a habit, and so on, and hate commercials, I cut the cord years ago, pay zero TV bills. To be forthright, I also have a problem supporting the corporations promoting what is too much trash, cultural degradation and consumerism, to pay these corporations, to be a direct support of things I consider evils and evil agendas. All that said, I've saved $10,000+ since going this route. Now, I do like good period dramas, some BBC productions, certain movies, and, yes, a few network shows, not much, but which are available free, HDTV, over the air, for the cost of antennas. Otherwise, I wantonly buy any videos and video boxed sets I want, usually even buy some of them used, for similar reasons of not wishing to support some companies that only accidentally film something decent, here and there. I can't find DVDs I want much anymore, have a collection of all the things I like, that would take years to watch all of, nothing but what I like to watch, no channel surfing anymore, and, after going through all of that, theoretically, could start at the beginning and watch it all again, as you even forget a lot of details that become new, all over again. I never, ever lack something I truly would like to watch, actually know what I'm going to be watching for the next couple months, as well as what I'll move on to, come winter, sort of have seasonal likes. I've still spent so much less, building a great collection of videos, than pouring money down that cable or sat bill rat hole. Depending on where you live, there is a lot over the air, probably all your favorite lame shows or enough sports, anyway, as well as local and national news. Even Netflix can be like rummaging through trash, compared to having a collection of stuff you know is good. So, there's a way to save a lot of money, and cease paying the devil, while you're at it, being part of the evil that's turning peoples' minds to mush. Everything bad has a foundation in people who support the evils. Put it this way, you can't complain about vulgarities, violence and degradations in the media, if you're paying them to produce that garbage. That's like an alcoholic, picketing a brewery. In any case, cut the cord, and learn that it's impossible to spend what you save, build a remarkable library of entertainment and never run out of things you like to watch. Better entertainment, which may as well be for free? What's not to like? And, when I was on cable or sat, there were many days there was, literally, nothing on any channel I wanted to watch, found myself loading a video, anyway.

You know something else, these cable and sat companies are after me, with a vengeance, an ad every other day, sometimes a few a day, with the same "deals", have had them coming to the door. And they so insult your intelligence with those sucker deals, a low rate for 12 months in the tiny print, no disclosure that even the sucker deal can have up to 40% added to it in various fees, taxes and gotchas. You wind up, in 12 to 24 months, with bills that have doubled, forever, while anything good that comes along, in the future, will only be offered to new customers, including basically lower rates sometimes they do not offer to existing customers, unless you call and get them to lower your bill or you walk, which sometimes works, but only for some months, at that. It's a big "screw you" to their most loyal customers.

Of course, they're going to con you, any way they can, as, like the scumbag entertainment stuff they produce, they're scumbags in business, too. No surprise there. Last person that came to the door, they asked me what I would like, then. I told them the sucker deal, for at least five years, and a bill that's no more than the giant numbers of their offer, in total. I also said it would be nice to have some print a size you can read, without a magnifying glass, that contains some of the ugly truths, always at the bottom of their ad, in a font I can't make so tiny on a computer, have no idea how the hell they get the fine print so fine, but containing the installation costs, the DVR rental when the sucker period ends, HBO and Showtime only suckered for 30 days of their vile and cheap smut and gore, after which they cost more than the sucker total, everything simply ballooning in perpetuity when the deal is over, coming to kidnap and hold your youngest child hostage or amputate an arm, to start, after 12 months. Maybe put what a sample bill will look like, during the sucker period, and after the sucker period, in their print ads. In short, stop insulting everybody with the sucker deal con job. Oh! Maybe if they'd do all that and stop being evil and show something on the screen a marginally civilized and intelligent being would enjoy watching, how about just really good channel, without commercials, that's not an extra fee? I mean, they charge you out the rear, for a bunch of channels that are going to assault you with commercials, anyway? What is that business model, the "get you coming and going" paradigm? At least I haven't had them come to the door, since.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I would add: move to Texas! I may be incorrect, but the common wisdom here is that there's a 12 month open season on Axis Deer and feral hogs. You need not ever buy meat at the grocery again!

If you don't or can't move to Texas, check your local state rules and find out if there's nuisance game in your state you can harvest all year long.

I switched to Geico and saved a ton on my car insurance.