Category: Frugal

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How I Saved $150 On My Hotel Stays With A Phone Call.

As most of you know, I have been away for the last 3 weeks visiting friends and family around the U.S. – by car. I drove from Colorado to Massachusetts to Florida and back, putting over 5,600 miles on my car and spending my fair share of time in random hotels alongside highways in the middle of nowhere. See, when I travel by car long distances I don’t make reservations in advance; I just drive until I am tired and then find a place to stay. And if I just pulled into a random hotel and got a room, chances are that I would be paying way too much for what I could be getting for much less, especially in the middle of nowhere. So that’s why before I go into any hotel, I call from the parking lot outside…and make sure they offer free breakfast with the room rate.

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Frugal
4
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Buy Rechargeable Batteries To Save Money And The Environment.

Two years ago, I wrote about buying rechargeable batteries for everything in my house that needs them – and I have to say that it was definitely one of my better purchases…ever. I got 36 batteries for less than $30…24 AA batteries and 12 AAA ones. There are so many things around my house that use batteries of this size – remote controls, computer mice, smoke detectors, kitchen timers, flashlights – that the purchase has turned out to be a no-brainer. I used to buy multiple packs of AA batteries all year, only to throw them in recycling a few months after the purchase. But now, after my one time purchase, I just plug them and in 30 minutes, I have a brand new set ready for use.

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Frugal
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Save Hundreds Of Dollars (Every Year) By Drinking Filtered Tap Water.

Let’s say you currently buy water in plastic bottles for your everyday water consumption. And let’s say you consume three .5 liter bottles per day, give or take. That’s 90 .5 liter bottles per month, or 1,080 per year. (An average day could be more or less depending on your situation, so I just picked a number). To see how much that would cost you per year, I wandered over to the Staples website and saw a 24 pack of .5 liter plastic bottles on sale for $7.00. At $7 for 24 bottles, it would cost you at least $315 for a year’s worth of water in little plastic bottles. Wanna know how much it costs me for water at my house? $1.91 per every 1,000 gallons – meaning I would have to DRINK over 500 gallons of water a day, for a year, to spend as much as some people do on the plastic bottles filled with it. That’s insane. In fact, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap the stuff costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000. Yes, you read that right – $9,000 per month. And there is no way I am spending my hard earned cash on filtered tap water in plastic bottles! In fact, I carry my Klean Kanteen reusable water bottle with me everywhere I go so I never have to. And did you know that:

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Frugal
15
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Cut Your Grocery Bill With A Cookbook And Some Real Food.

Looking for a real way to cut that grocery bill? Tired of spending hours every weekend cutting coupons for frozen, pre-packaged, processed food? I know of a much easier way – buy yourself a good cookbook and learn to cook. Don’t believe me? In the last 3 weeks I have bought only fresh fruits and vegetables to cook with and have significantly cut my grocery bill. And that is with buying from Whole Foods! For years I always bought a ton of organic prepared foods and then some raw vegetables to do some cooking with, but now that I have switched away from that entirely and am buying “raw” food every week, my bill has really gone down by quote a bit. Plus, the colors look nice:

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Frugal
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Three Savings Tips For A ‘Less-Stress’ Family Holiday.

Shops are buzzing, bells are jingling, and halls are being decked. The energy of the holiday season is palpable, but what is the best way to make merry without fretting over incoming January bills? Get the whole family involved with three simple activities to create a holiday celebration that will save you money, teach your kids financial literacy and let you get back to enjoying time with your family.

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Frugal
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