Fed Threads Needle With Forecasts That Are Not Really Forecasts
Four times a year, the Fed updates its SEP (Summary of Economic Projections) which detail the “most likely outcomes” for several metrics including the end-of-year Fed Funds Rate. While Powell has been clear in repeating this is not a prediction, no one else is really sure what else it would be. Today’s dots (the “dot plot” used to convey the rate outlook) showed another 0.50% in rate hikes by the end of the year. Bonds ended the day in slightly stronger territory because the change in the dots was widely expected and already traded into prevailing levels.
Core Producer Prices, m/m
0.2 vs 0.2 f’ast/prev
Core Producer Prices, y/y
2.8 vs 2.9 f’cast, 3.2 prev
08:34 AM
fairly flat overnight. modest gains since 7:30am ET. 10yr down 2.5bps at 3.802. MBS up 1-2 ticks (0.03-0.06)
02:22 PM
Weaker after the Fed due to DOTS. 10yr roughly unchanged at 3.823. MBS down 6 ticks (.19) but illiquid.
02:58 PM
Bouncing back a bit as Powell speaks. 5.0 coupons unchanged now. 10yr yield down 3.3bps at 3.794.
03:38 PM
Sliding back toward weakest levels now, albeit with some distortion due to illiquidity. MBS down about a quarter point. 10yr yield down 1.4bps on the day at 3.813. Shorter-term Treasuries trading 4-7bps higher on the day.
04:21 PM
Back into positive territory for MBS with 5.0 coupons up 2 ticks (.06). 10yr down 3bps at 3.796.
Download our mobile app to get alerts for MBS Commentary and streaming MBS and Treasury prices.
More than one million wineries currently operate worldwide. Each produces at least three different wines, and plenty of them stomp out 20 or more.
That’s a lot of potential hangovers. But if you sip responsibly you can enjoy the taste, the history, and the geography of the grape without any concurrent headaches.
And if you have champagne tastes but a Boones Farm budget? Buy the fruit of the vine online. A discount comes in handy at this time of year, given the expenses associated with the holidays. In the next couple of weeks you might be:
Having people over for your only fancy meal of the year, which surely calls for a grown-up beverage
Making mulled wine or glogg for a holiday open house
Looking for a good deal on bubbly for New Year’s Eve
Or maybe you’re just an everyday wine enthusiast who likes a glass with dinner. No matter what your reason, there’s no need to pay through the nose, so to speak, for a decent bottle. Thanks to increased competition, better technology, and smarter winemaking, there’s never been a better time to be an oenophile, according to wine critic Natalie MacLean.
“I’m a wine cheapskate at heart. Why pay more than you have to for pleasure? These days you can get a wine that tastes twice as expensive as it costs,” says MacLean, author of Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines.
Although talking with an experienced wine seller can be a pleasure, not everyone is lucky enough to live near a wine store, or even a liquor store or a supermarket that sells wine. And let’s face it: Your local booze emporium or grocery store probably doesn’t have the space to devote to a truly huge selection of vino.
Online sites like Wine.com and WineExpress.com have deep cellars, and sell enough of the stuff to offer discounts. Specialty sites exist, too, with somewhat smaller lists but interesting back-stories — and competitive prices.
Kissing vinous frogs It isn’t just the discount that’s attractive, but the chance to try dozens (or hundreds) of vintages you might not find in the local carafe-a-teria.
Don’t know where to start? The online sites make it easy:
You’ll see sections like “90 under $20,” i.e., bottles that have received 90 points or more from wine critics.
You can search by price point, by region, by type of wine — or even by clearance sales.
When you click on a wine title, the next screen may also include suggestions à la Amazon.com, “Customers who bought Mad Dog 20/20 also bought…”
Another way to find new varieties: Natalie MacLean and other wine critics have Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, as well as homepages. There you can learn their hottest (and cheapest!) new discoveries. MacLean tastes at least 30 varieties per day. Nice work if you can get it, huh? Yet as she puts it, “I’m kissing a lot of vinous frogs to find those princes for you.”
Or prospect at a specialty site like People’s Wine Market or the Accidental Wine Company, both of which offer discounted sips with interesting backstories. The former buys overstock vintages from artisan, environmentally-friendly wineries. “Overstock” means that only a few cases are left and a wine distributor won’t bother with such a small order. The producers sell it cheaply just to make back their production costs, according to company spokeswoman Ashley Sytsma.
Three varieties, “usually the last case or two in existence of that vintage,” are featured each week. The lowest price was $7; the most expensive was a 2006 Philippe Delavaux Grains Nobles for $49, which would normally retail for as much as $125 per bottle.
The Accidental Wine Company’s original niche could be described as “oops”: vintages whose labels were applied crookedly or got soaked by a bottle broken in transit. If I were an oenophile I’d be all over the scratch-and-dent stock, i.e., focusing on the inside of the bottle. (Then again, I bought “slightly irregular” cloth diapers for my daughter. True story.)
Accidental Wine still sells irregular vino but also sells end-of-season stock and other special deals. Some of the best prices aren’t advertised prominently on the site due to agreements made with the producers. A couple of recent examples:
2006 Six Sigma cabernet sauvignon for $12 (normally as much as $50)
Reds and whites bought in Spain last summer, $7 to $10 per bottle. “If it was made in America we’d be getting $20 a bottle,” says David Forbes, the “grape wrangler” who did the buying.
How to find non-posted prices? Poke around on the website, or e-mail the company ([email protected]) with the types or varieties you typically drink.
Finding the best prices If you already know which wine you want to buy, use a price comparison site such as PriceGrabber.com or CheapUncle.com. Type in “box of white zin” or whatever you’re looking for, and wait for prices to pop up.
These sites have online coupons to make the offers even more attractive. Or look for coupons through aggregators like Savings.com and RetailMeNot.com.
We now pause for a really stupid joke:
Q. What did the grape say when the elephant stepped on it?
A. Nothing — it just let out a little wine.
Before you place an order, check to see if the wineseller is affiliated with a cash-back shopping site such as Extrabux, Mr. Rebates or Fat Wallet. These sites also provide online coupons (including free or nearly free shipping) along with rebates of 3% to 7%.
Note: If shopping through a cash-back site, use only the coupons you find on that site. Any “outside” discount codes will void your rebate.
Aggregators like Cashback Comparison Tool or Cashbackmonitor.com offer side-by-side comparisons from some of the better-known cash-back sites; be sure to double-check the posted rates, which can change without warning.
Wine on wheels About that shipping: An order might be in transit for days. You might wonder whether your order will become a winesicle (North Dakota truck version) or an expensive bottle of vinegar (Florida truck version).
But all wine has to be shipped at some point, or it would never leave the vineyard.
The folks who do this for a living use extreme care, to the point of adding cold packs during certain times of the year.
Some sellers have a “hold until safe” option, i.e., they’ll store your purchase for weeks or months until the weather improves. Or you can opt to pay more for overnight delivery.
Note: Make sure your order will arrive when someone who’s at least 21 years old will be home to sign for it. No, it can’t be left on the back porch.
Obviously shipping adds to the per-bottle cost. But maybe not, thanks to deals and discounts like:
WineExpress.com ships some items free and offers 99-cent shipping for its “wine of the day.”
GetWineOnline.com has a “50/50 Club,” which means you can get half off standard shipping for an annual fee of $48.
Wine.com’s “Wine Steward-Ship” program provides a year’s unlimited shipping for $49.
UltimateWineShop.com has free shipping on some varieties if you buy in multiples of 12 (which could be a deal-breaker for some and an enabler for others).
Another way to keep costs low: Watch for social marketing deals. Recently I’ve seen deals like:
The “Holiday Gift Set” through LivingSocial, with two bottles of wine, two glasses, a gift bag and a “tasty treat” for $34
Four wines (three reds and a white) for $49 through KGB Deals
$70 worth of wine for $35 through Eversave
Watch for these deals, but be sure to do the math.
Tip: Depending on the social buying site you use, you can get credit for the next purchase or even an outright free order if friends buy using your referral code.
Haute sips or house swill? I am not suggesting that you ignore local winesellers. But casting your net a little further than the neighborhood state store or Safeway can improve your enjoyment of wine and stretch your fun budget.
Of course, plenty of people are perfectly happy with Charles Shaw or the super-cheap Aussie vintages to be found at the local liquor locker. A good friend of mine is content with boxed wine, which she cheerfully refers to as “the house swill.”
So if you have a proletarian palate and know that good stuff will be wasted on you, or if you simply can’t afford to dream past three-buck Chuck right now, then continue to do what works for you. But if you want to branch out a little, give the online vintners a try.
Myself, I never drink…wine. (Extra geek points if you got the Bela Lugosi reference before clicking on the link.) I don’t know red from white or white from plaid. I don’t know whether Night Train is an aperitif or a cough syrup. But vinous beverages sure are important to a lot of people. Hey, it’s in the Bible that you should drink a little wine for your stomach’s sake. And did Jesus turn the water into Kool-Aid, or 2% milk? He did not.
A bottle of wine is like any other non-essential treat. No one needs cable TV per se, and few of us would actually die without a piece of chocolate now and then. Knitters probably should consider using up the yarn they currently have, music lovers could back off on completing their Murray Perahia collections, and someone who owns four cats would do well to consider the cost of adding another.
But those small pleasures enhance our lives. That’s why we budget for them. So go ahead: Crank up “The Big Bang Theory.” Enjoy some chocolate and a kitten (not together). Craft a scarf while listening to The Goldberg Variations. And enjoy an affordable chardonnay or merlot whenever you want. Wine: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
When I was packing for my trip to Argentina, a friend advised me, “Put everything you’re taking on the bed. Now put back half the clothes, and take twice the money.”
Good advice. I tried to follow it and still ended up bringing more clothes than I could possibly need. I didn’t bring much money, though, because one of my goals for this trip is to keep saving even while I’m traveling.
Saving for travel is relatively simple: You set up a targeted savings account and put a little money aside each week or each month. Setting a schedule and sticking to it is the key to saving for anything. Travel is no exception.
Saving while traveling is a bit more complicated. Even the most carefully-planned vacation is plagued with unexpected expenses. Over at I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Ramit Sethi suggests budgeting 20% more than you think a trip will cost to pay for sundry expenses along the way.
That’s a lot of dough. Where does it all go?
Taxes and fees. Many countries levy special taxes and fees on tourists. A little research can let you know what these will be, so you can plan ahead. To find local tax, toll and fee information, check the websites for each state or country you plan to visit, or talk to your travel agent. At the airport in Argentina, for example, we had to pay $140 per American citizen to enter the country. A fellow behind us in line hadn’t know about that fee, and was miserably explaining to the ticket agent that he didn’t have that much money on him and didn’t know what to do.
Unexpected needs. Baby Tylenol. Adapters to plug in our electronic gadgets. Groceries from the corner market. I knew we’d need something day to day on our trip, but I didn’t know what. It wouldn’t have made sense to travel with every possible thing I might need. These things were cheaply and readily available here, and would have taken up valuable space in a suitcase. Bringing cash to cover incidental needs made more sense than imagining every possible occurrence and packing ahead.
Impulse spending. Part of the joy of travel is seeing new things and having new experiences. Some of those may cost more than you’d expected. In our travels in Argentina, I’ve had the chance to visit Eva Peron’s grave, fall in love with a local winery, and take a river cruise. Better to budget in advance for museum tickets, scenic tours, and souvenir shopping than to find yourself pinching pennies halfway through your trip because you splurged at the beginning.
Emergencies. On our last visit to Argentina, my infant daughter caught a terrible ear infection and needed hospital care. Our insurance ultimately paid for her care, less our normal co-pay. But at the time, we had to pay out of pocket for everything here, and then chase down reimbursement for it through a maze of paperwork once we got home. Having a comfortable cushion of while traveling lets you handle real emergencies as they crop up.
There’s no doing away with all these expenses, but there are plenty of things you can do to keep your overall costs low. Here are some easy ways to save while traveling:
Be prepared. I mentioned planning to buy some small needful things, like infant Tylenol, while you travel. A little research on your destination can help you figure out what necessities are going to be cheaper where you’re traveling to, and which ones might cost a lot more. I planned to buy a fancy dress for the party I’m attending, because clothes are generally cheaper here. But I bought my husband a video camera before we left, because electronics cost quite a bit more in Buenos Aires than they do in Boston.
Travel with frugal companions. Just like your friends influence your spending at home, they can pressure you to spend or save on the road. I have a close friend I’ve traveled with several times during the past year. She’s more frugal than I am, and she’s great at checking my impulse to spend excessively just because I’m on the road.
Know your weaknesses. I splurge when I’m stressed and when I’m celebrating. Travel tends to push both those buttons. I worry about making it on time through the airport, so I throw caution to the winds and pay for overpriced food rather than packing a picnic ahead of time. I want to treasure the memories of where I am, so I spend money on knick-knacks or clothes that I don’t really need. This is a habit I picked up from childhood. My normally tightwad mother would open her purse with abandon when we were traveling, and I’ve never quite shaken the habit. Knowing this about myself makes me look twice at any purchase I want to make when I’m on the road.
Make a game of it. See how low you can keep your daily travel budget. Can you get through a whole day in a foreign country without spending a dime? Can you clip coupons in a language you barely speak? Take advantage of local specials at the neighborhood diner instead of eating in your hotel? Score points with your spouse by finding ways to save on your vacation.
Have a savings goal in mind. What are you going to do with the money you don’t spend on this trip? Having a prize in mind helps keep me focused on saving. I have a pool of money I can afford to part with here in Argentina. Any money I take home will go into my high interest savings account towards my next savings goal: paying off our car loan. My goal is to shave time off that deadline by bringing home enough unspent “travel money” to make a full months’ car payment.
Of course for some people part of the joy of travel is being able to let go the reins of frugality and spend freely. If you’ve saved diligently and have that 20% cushion Ramit Sethi suggests, there’s no reason not to.
But if you enjoy frugality, there’s also no reason to leave your frugal habits at home. Careful spending while traveling only reinforces wise fiscal habits at home, and if you come home with part of your travel fund untouched, you’re that much closer to the being ready to book your next trip.
J.D.’s noteOof. I have a lot to say about this one. Maybe I ought to leave my thoughts in the comments, but I’m going to be bold and append them to Sierra’s post.
I’ve become a huge fan of the packing list. As I begin to travel more and more, it’s very useful to have a fixed list that indicates the things I need to take with me. This keeps me from panicking with last-minute worry that I’ve forgotten something, but it also helps me keep costs down because I have a sort of mini-inventory of travel stuff I need. (I used my last Breathe Right nasal strip in Denver last weekend, so I bought more today because I had a coupon.) I have two packing-list apps for my iPhone, have bookmarked several packing-list sites, and even have a packing-list book on hold at my library!
The packing list also helps me to pack light, which is another way it saves me money. When I pack light, I know what I have and where I have it. Plus, I don’t have to check a bag. (My goal — even for our upcoming month-long trip to Europe — is to travel with a single carry-on bag.) In extreme cases, I’ve known people who have packed so much Stuff they’ve actually had to ship some of it home. From Europe. Now that’s expensive!
Finally, on long trips, I keep a daily log of what I’m spending. I know my overall trip budget (and what that works out to per day), so my daily tracking lets me know when I need to pinch pennies and when I can cut loose a little. And in my case, I use a specific credit card that waves overseas transaction charges while also giving me 1% cash back.
Sorry for hijacking Sierra’s post. I’ll go to the gym for deadlifts and burpees now…
[Wait! One last tip! If you’re traveling in the U.S., order an Entertainment book for the city you’re traveling to. When Kris and I do this, we recover the cost very quickly.]
Last month I wrote a post on do-it-yourself beauty and personal care products. That touched a nerve with a lot of people: some loved it, some hated it; it seemed like everyone had something to say.
At the time I’d planned to follow up with a post on do-it-yourself cleaning products for the home, but I’ve decided to take a step back and look at the bigger question: What is a clean house worth?
Everyone puts some resources into keeping their home clean. Whether you spend hundreds of dollars a month on professional cleaning services or struggle to pay for soap, you’re going to have to shell out cash, time, and effort to have a healthy, clean, happy place to live.
Should You Do It Yourself?
For some, having your house cleaned by a professional seems like an unthinkable luxury. To others it’s just part of the cost of running their household, like paying the electric bill.
The thing to remember when deciding whether to do your own cleaning or pay someone else to do it is that you always have to spend something on keeping your house clean: money or time. Time is a finite resource, too, just like money. If you decide to do it yourself, you’re committing to spending a chunk of time every week doing chores. If you pay someone else, you get that time back in exchange for your money.
House cleaning isn’t cheap. In the area where I live, you’ll pay a house cleaner $70-$100 for biweekly cleaning of a moderate-sized apartment. If you want a really deep cleaning or have a large house, it can cost a lot more.
That price tag is worth it to a lot of professionals. They look at the value of their own time and decide that it’s worth their while to pay someone else to wash the floors and scrub the tub. The time they don’t spend cleaning their own house they can spend working or relaxing.
In the days before I had kids, I lived in a shared apartment with four other adults. We all worked full time. With five salaries coming in and no one with a lot of time on their hands, hiring a house cleaning service was clearly the right call. We never had to fight over whose turn it was to do those cleaning chores, and we were all happy to spend money rather than time on keeping the house clean.
As a stay-at-home mom, that equation changed. Suddenly I was drowning in time and scrambling to come up with enough money to pay my bills every month. Housekeeping services were one of the first things to go.
Every household has to do their own math and figure out how much time and money they’re willing to spend on keeping the house clean.
How DIY Do You Want to Be?
Even if you hire a cleaning service to take care of the big stuff, you’ll still do a fair amount of housekeeping yourself. There will always be spills to mop up, dishes to wash, laundry to do, and garbage to haul to the curb.
When you’re going about your household cleaning, you have a lot of choices to make. What products will you buy? What tools will you use?
There are probably as many individual answers to those questions as there are houses being cleaned. Here are some popular strategies that people use to keep costs down when they’re cleaning their homes:
Make your own cleaning products. I know, I know, some of you are tired of the hippie stuff. But this one isn’t mine. Trent at the Simple Dollar has done all the math on how much you can save by just making your own laundry detergent, and it adds up to a decent chunk of change.
Do away with disposables. Try using rags instead of paper towels to clean up messes, or buying refills for your handsoaps instead of whole new containers. Every time you can eliminate waste in your cleaning process you’re cutting costs as well as helping out the environment.
Buy in bulk. Cleaning products last for a long time, if not indefinitely. You can buy bulk containers of things like laundry soap, handsoap, and all-purpose cleaner. Typically, the per unit cost on these is lower than if you buy just a regular size bottle at the drug store. Watch out for shopping momentum, though. Only buy bulk items you really need and will use.
Use coupons. A lot of people make out like bandits byclipping coupons and taking advantage of sales to stock up on their favorite cleaning products.
Keep it simple. There’s a dizzying array of cleaning products on the market, making competing offers and boasting features you never knew you needed. Stick to the basics.
Have a Cleaning Plan
Cleaning the house can be an intimidating prospect. Where do you begin? How do you know when you’re done? Without a plan, you can wind up spending a lot more time, frustration and money than you really need to.
Some of the best cleaning advice I ever got was this simple truth: Do one thing at a time. Don’t set aside Saturday as cleaning day and think you’re going to rock the whole place into a state of pristine order like a team of professional house cleaners might.
Instead, pick one task or one room and get it done. Some people get a lot of mileage out of chore charts. (And, of course, there’s J.D. and his silly chore cloud.) In my house, we used to use a chart that listed out all the chores that needed doing. When someone did a chore, they’d initial the chart with the date, so everyone knew when the floors had last been swept or the windows washed.
After nine years of living together, my husband and I are past the days of chore charts. We both know pretty well what needs to be done and how often it needs to happen. We have our routines, and we’re comfortable with the cluttered-but-clean living space we share. The chart was invaluable for helping us work out those routines in the early days, though, and I’m thinking of bringing it back in a different form for my kids’ benefit.
How do you keep your house cleaning without breaking your back — or the bank?
“How can I travel on a budget?” is one of the top questions we receive at TPG.
There’s no question that travel is expensive right now as millions satisfy the itch to travel more. Demand has been through the roof. Inflation and correspondingly high hotel, rental car and airline ticket costs have many would-be travelers throwing up their hands in frustration.
However, there are still many ways to save. In addition to using reserves of points and miles to book hotels and airfare, TPGers have many budget travel tips to help stretch your dollars when traveling.
Here are 22 ways to travel on a budget.
Use membership codes to save on car rentals
If you’re a member of AAA or AARP, have a Costco membership, are a veteran or work for a large company with a car rental discount code, pull all of these levers. You might be eligible for discount codes you didn’t even know about. A few examples from AARP include 30% off a car rental at Budget or Avis.
Related: How to never pay full price for a rental car
Look beyond traditional car rental companies and locations
Most people search for rentals at the airport with standard companies like Hertz and Avis. If you don’t find good results, consider off-airport locations or try alternatives like Kyte, Turo and Silvercar.
Related: Delta and Turo launch partnership, allowing travelers to earn 2,000 SkyMiles on 1st rental
Check credit card merchant offers
Before booking your trip, review your credit cards’ special merchant offers. Multiple issuers offer this option (although American Express is a leader in the category).
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Every program works similarly: Log in to your card account online or through your banking app, review the offers available to you, add the ones you want and make a qualifying purchase using the card for which the offer is registered.
There are no promo codes to enter at online checkout or coupons to print to take to the register. There are likely offers you can activate that will provide discounts on dining, gas and entertainment.
Related: How credit card merchant offers can save you hundreds of dollars every year
Take advantage of free days at national parks
Every year the U.S. National Park Service sets aside several days when entry is completely free; options include Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January, the first day of National Park Week in April, National Public Lands Day in September and Veterans Day in November.
Visiting a national park on one of the NPS’ free-entry days can save you up to $35 per vehicle at some of the most popular national parks, such as Glacier National Park and the Grand Canyon.
Stay outside the national parks
You might dream of a night in a rustic cabin inside a national park, but getting that reservation could be challenging or costly — especially if you can’t pay for it with points.
However, just beyond the park, there’s probably a hotel you can book with points. For example, you could stay at the Holiday Inn in West Yellowstone with IHG One Rewards points; the SpringHill Suites just outside of Zion National Park is a great property if you have Marriott Bonvoy points to spend.
Related: The best campgrounds, hotels and lodges near Yellowstone National Park
Download the T-Mobile Tuesdays app
If you’re a T-Mobile user, you’re in luck: This app is a major perk that will put money in your pocket just for checking your phone on Tuesdays.
To participate, download the T-Mobile Tuesdays app, check the app on Tuesday and claim your discount code. We’ve seen weekly discounts on everything from rental cars to gas, hotels and theme park tickets.
Get discounted gas at Shell through the Fuel Rewards app
At TPG, we love to stack savings. The Shell Fuel Rewards app is a good one to pile on the discounts.
You can link it to other loyalty programs — including American Airlines AAdvantage, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Advance Auto and more — to receive extra discounts. Also, if you purchase through Fuel Rewards, link to partner retailers such as Petco, Bed Bath & Beyond, Office Depot/OfficeMax and many others to save even more.
Don’t forget to use a credit card that gives bonus points or discounts at gas stations for even more savings. TPG likes the Citi Premier® Card (see rates and fees), which awards 3 ThankYou points per dollar at gas stations, and the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express, which also gives 3% back at U.S. gas stations.
Related: These are the best credit cards for gas purchases
Save on theater tickets in New York and London
Check TodayTix for cheap Broadway and West End tickets if traveling to New York City or London.
The TodayTix app has discounted tickets to various shows available. Prices vary, but most of the top shows currently playing are available on the site and the app.
While not all shows are hugely discounted, TodayTix often runs no-fee promotions. Keep in mind that for some shows, you won’t be able to choose your precise ticket location. Instead, you will pick a section you’d like to sit in.
Related: On with the show! How to get a great deal on Broadway tickets
Save on entrance fees with Bank of America
Bank of America cardholders can enjoy free general admission to more than 225 cultural institutions in dozens of U.S. cities on the first weekend of every month just by showing their cards. It’s through the Museums on Us program that’s been going on for 25 years. It’s open to Bank of America, Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank (U.S. Trust) credit or debit card holders.
Related: 5 reasons to get the Bank of America Premium Rewards credit card
Use your library card for museum entry
Another way to get free museum admission is with a library “lending ticket” — a program where libraries will lend museum passes for a set amount of time.
Also, check if your local museum’s membership comes with ROAM (a reciprocity program across North America). It’s an easy way to get maximum value from a regional (and usually less expensive) membership.
Take a free walking tour
Sign up for a free walking tour on your first day in a new city. It’s an inexpensive way to learn about the city and orient yourself.
Look online for options before traveling and sign up in advance if necessary. Then, all you need to do is show up with comfortable shoes and enjoy your free tour.
Although tipping is suggested, you’ll spend much less, even after generously tipping your guide, than you would with a standard tour option. You will likely also meet other like-minded travelers, which can be welcome if you’re traveling alone or looking to make new friends.
If you’re interested in seeing what’s available on your next trip, Google the city you’ll visit and the phrase “free walking tour” to see what comes up.
Dine on the cheap with Seated
Here’s a fun one: The Seated app allows you to dine out and get paid for it.
The app rewards diners who sign up and eat at designated restaurants with cash they can redeem through gift cards. All you have to do is let the app know you’ll be dining at a location before you take a seat. You can also get gift cards for Uber, Amazon and Starbucks.
Fly on weekdays
Flexibility on which days you fly is one of the keys to getting the best airfare prices. Leisure travelers most commonly book weekend flights, while many business travelers fly on Monday. So, the midweek days — Tuesday and Wednesday — have lower demand and are often the best days to travel for lower prices.
Related: When is the best time to book airfare?
Book vacation packages
Airlines that bundle airfare and hotels as vacation packages can offer better deals thanks to their vast buying power and inventory. These bundles can offer savings of up to 40% off. Savings on business-class plane tickets and high-end hotels can offer some of the best deals.
Also, purchasing directly from the airline gives you a one-stop shopping experience. You can even add a car and activities to your trip at the same time. Plus, you’ll often be able to take advantage of special sales and bonus points and miles offers.
Related: Everything you need to know about saving money with vacation packages
Use a price monitoring tool
Airline fare monitoring sites such as Hopper and Google Flights ensure you get notifications when your trip’s best and lowest prices become available. Set up as many combinations as you’re considering, including different departure and return dates, so that you can get alerts for all possible fare reductions.
Be flexible on destination
If you’re not locked into a fall or winter vacation location (like you would be for a destination wedding or family reunion that you can’t change), try an alternative to find better prices. For example, consider subbing Quebec City in for Paris if you want Old World charm. For scuba diving enthusiasts, skip the expensive long-haul flight to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef and instead head to the second-largest barrier reef in the world in easy-to-access Belize.
Related: 5 key tools and tips for cheap airfare
Hold your deal
If you see a great deal but are not yet ready to book, hold it. For example, Hopper’s Price Freeze allows you to lock in the price of a flight for up to seven days to take more time to finalize plans before you book. Some airlines will also let you hold flights for a small fee. (Remember that all U.S. airlines, by law, allow you to hold and cancel a flight booking within 24 hours without penalty as long as you book more than seven days in advance.)
Re-price your flights and hotels
As long as you’ve booked a hotel, car or flight that can be canceled without penalty, you should make it part of your weekly routine to check for price drops. If you find a lower price, rebook. You can use these same rebooking strategies with points to make dynamic pricing work in your favor for hotel stays so you can save on award nights.
Related: How I saved 33,500 points on upcoming hotel stays
Consider alternative airports
With prices high, now is the time to be flexible and check all nearby airports. For example, Houston and Chicago have two airports, while the New York City area has three, including Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in New Jersey. In Southern Florida, you could easily fly to West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale or Miami. It works internationally too: Try Gatwick Airport (LGW) instead of Heathrow Airport (LHR) when flying to London.
It may even make sense to get to one city by flying to another city and then taking a short train ride for the rest of the journey. For instance, you could fly into Philadelphia and catch a train to New York. Strategies like this can help you get to your destination on a flight with better pricing or award availability.
Use positioning flights
Positioning flights are unrealistic for every situation or trip, but they can often offer better award availability or pricing than those from your home airport. Can you reach your destination for a lot less by starting in Seattle or Chicago? Would adding another flight to a different airport save you money or miles? Just ensure you leave enough time between flights to avoid unnecessary travel headaches.
Related: Use positioning flights to get amazing deals
Use points and miles when appropriate
Since you are reading TPG, you may also want to earn points or miles through your everyday spending that you can use to pay for part of your trip. Some credit cards — like the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card and the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card — can help you earn airline miles or hotel points that you can redeem directly with the airline or hotel. Cards such as the American Express® Gold Card earn transferable points you can redeem for travel or transfer to various travel partners.
If you have a stash of points and cash fares are high, it makes a lot of sense to use those points instead. For example, I recently priced a trip to San Francisco and found a flight over the Fourth of July weekend; it should normally cost about $400, but for this particular weekend, it was going to cost me at least $621. I used 46,000 Delta SkyMiles instead. While it wasn’t the best redemption in the world, it was better than shelling out all that cash. Most of those SkyMiles came from credit card spending on my Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card.
Related: Why I’m keeping my Delta Reserve card even when I’m flying less
There are many strategies for getting the most out of your credit card. You’ll generally get the most value when redeeming for premium-cabin flights or luxury hotel stays. However, you may prefer to book economy award flights or lower-category hotel stays using your points to stretch your points further.
Join AARP
You can join AARP for discounts even if you are not retired. The advocacy group for older adults offers all kinds of cool discounts, including $60 to $200 off British Airways flights and 10% off Hilton hotels.
Related: How to use AARP discounts on travel
Bottom line
Spending a small amount of time researching the best ways to travel on a budget could easily make a dream trip, like a Paris vacation, more attainable.
It’s possible to take an excellent vacation on a budget. You just need to put in the time to plan your trip, budget your expenses, download a virtual wallet of money-saving apps and consider using points and miles to decrease your out-of-pocket costs.
Some of our top budget travel tips include shopping around, signing up for deal alerts through websites like TPG and using points and miles. Opening a credit card or two for the sign-up bonus once or twice every few years could make your trips even cheaper. Don’t forget to sign up for our daily newsletter, where we teach you how to travel better for less. At TPG, we make traveling on a budget easy.
Even though CPI came in right in line with forecasts today (core m/m at 0.4 vs 0.4), and even though that was initially worth a small rally this morning, bonds found a way to get rolled up in a snowball selling spree by the end of the day. What’s up with that?! The notion of “after additional consideration, we’ve decided this is bad for rates instead of good” can only go so far, but even when we go hunting for other scapegoats, we only find things like the WSJ article alluding to the Fed’s option to use tomorrow’s dot plot to show the market it’s serious about tomorrow being a true “pause” as opposed to a “pivot” confirmation.
m/m CORE CPI
0.4 vs 0.4 f’cast, 0.4 prev
m/m headline CPI
0.1 vs 0.2 f’cast, 0.4 prev
y/y CORE CPI
5.3 vs 5.3 f’cast, 5.5 prev
y/y headline CPI
4.0 vs 4.1 f’cast, 4.9 prev
08:42 AM
Modest rally after CPI. 10yr down 3.2bps at 3.711. MBS up 6 ticks (.19).
09:41 AM
Off best levels with 10yr almost all the way back up to ‘unchanged’ (currently down only half a bp at 3.738). MBS still up 6 ticks
12:53 PM
Sideways at weaker levels ahead of 30yr auction. 10s up 4.5bps at 3.788. MBS down 2 ticks (.06).
03:10 PM
Snowball selling into the 3pm close. 10yr up almost 10bps at 3.841. MBS down 3/8ths in 5.5 coupons.
Download our mobile app to get alerts for MBS Commentary and streaming MBS and Treasury prices.
When my husband and I got married nine years ago, we had an audacious dream of paying cash for our first home. At that time, it was very much a far-off dream — we were just trying to survive the rigors and expenses of law school without going in debt. That alone was a seemingly gigantic feat.
But after three years of law school, my husband did graduate without debt, passed the bar, and we started planning for the future. Since we’d been renting for almost four years, my husband had a good job, and our second baby was on the way, pretty much everyone expected that buying a house would be in our immediate future.
I mean, after all, isn’t buying a house the responsible thing for a young couple to do? Well, maybe — or maybe not. We didn’t have much money in savings, and we weren’t sure how long we would be living in the town we were in, so we chose to go against conventional wisdom and continued renting.
Setting a Goal
Within the next six months, my husband lost his job, we relocated to another city so he could find work, I had some significant health problems in my pregnancy which resulted in numerous hospital and doctor’s bills, and we had our second baby. Needless to say, we were incredibly thankful that we hadn’t taken out a mortgage and then had to deal with the headache of trying to sell a house at the last minute — especially since the housing market was poor in our area.
It was around this time that we were first introduced to Dave Ramsey. While we didn’t have any debt and had always lived on a strict budget, going through his Financial Peace University Class fired us up to set big financial goals and work hard to accomplish them.
One of the big goals we decided to aim for was paying cash for our first home. We crunched a bunch of numbers and realized that, if we continued to live simply and frugally and worked hard to bring in extra money through side jobs, we could save enough over the course of five years to pay cash for a starter home.
It felt like a mammoth goal and we weren’t sure if we could do it, but we decided to go for it anyway. We figured that, even if we didn’t make our goal in five years, we’d at least be a lot closer to it than if we didn’t try at all! Plus, from our calculations, we’d be in a lot better position to wait to buy — even if it took seven years to save up enough for a house — than if we were to go ahead and get 15-year mortgage and pay it off early.
We knew that we could buy a decent starter home in the area where we were planning to move for around $100,000 to $110,000, so we divided $100,000 by 60 (since there are sixty months in five years) and set a goal to save $1700 every month. Because we didn’t have any debt or school loans, and because we lived simply and frugally, we were able to live on significantly less than we were making, thus freeing up a good chunk of money to put towards our house savings each month.
Gazelle-Like Intensity
Once we set this goal and I blogged about it publicly, we were incredibly motivated to work as hard as we could and delay every purchase we could in order to put as much as possible into our house savings fund. We used coupons, ate a lot of meatless meals, shopped at thrift stores, cooked from scratch, brown bagged it, continued to use our old and worn-down furniture, didn’t replace anything that wasn’t an absolute necessity, limited our going out to eat, only had one car, stayed home a lot, used gift cards from Swagbucks to buy any non-necessities, bought eye glasses from Zenni optical, learned to be content with what we had, and continued to live on a strict written budget.
Meanwhile, we also looked for ways to increase our income. I blogged, wrote ebooks, and took on freelance writing jobs. My husband did contract work, started his own law firm, and helped me running the blogging business.
That first year, we didn’t always make our monthly savings goals. We had some unexpected medical bills and car problems that ate up a portion of our savings. But we kept plugging away, throwing whatever extra we could squeeze out of our income toward savings.
The few years of long hours and hard work we’d put into blogging started to really pay big dividends and by the second year, we were meeting and exceeding our monthly savings goals every single month. As our house savings fund increased, we began to get so excited that we kind of went overboard and worked long, long hours in order to meet our savings goal even faster. I wouldn’t recommend putting in such long hours, missing so many social events, or sleeping so little, but the effort paid off because, at the end of two and a half years, we paid 100% down on our first home!
Even though I wish we had given ourselves a little more breathing room and margin while saving, it was thrilling, fulfilling, and exciting to achieve this goal — in half the time we had initially planned. And we are thankful we chose to take a counter-cultural route and pay cash for our house. Not having a mortgage payment has freed us to continue to save aggressively toward other goals, increase our spending in areas that really matter to us, and give generously to needs in our community and around the world.
This is a guest post by Carol Parker, content manager at Drugsdb.com. Carol holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Albany College of Pharmacy.
These days, getting sick can be a costly business, especially for those who can’t afford medical insurance. Not only does a person have to worry about paying the consultation bill from the doctor, but the cost of prescriptions seems to skyrocket each time you need to have them filled.
The good news is that there are many ways to save money on your prescriptions. Although they may require some effort on your part, the savings will be well worth it.
Why you should try to save money on your prescriptions There is no doubt that the economy is in a very tight spot at this time. Because of this, it is important for a person to try and save as much money as possible on disposable purchases, especially where prescription medications are concerned. Money saved on prescriptions can definitely be put to better use elsewhere in our already overstretched budgets. By researching and finding ways to cut down on prescription expenses, it is possible to reduce their cost substantially. The good news is that there are many ways in which a patient can reduce the cost of their prescriptions.
The following are my top 10 tips to save money on prescription drugs:
Always inquire about generic options which may be available. Many brand-name medications have generic substitutes which are required by law to contain exactly the same ingredients as the brand name medicines. Whenever you receive a prescription from your doctor for medication,make sure to ask about the possibility of generic alternatives available. The end result could be as much as an 80% savings on the cost of your prescription.
Find out if you qualify for Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs). Certain pharmaceutical companies have put PAPs in place for those who earn below a certain wage or who simply can’t afford any form of medical insurance. PAPs may include assistance in the form of savings cards, assistance with co-pays or levies, and coupons which can be redeemed against the price of certain medications.
When possible, fill all of your prescriptions at one pharmacy. By having all of your prescriptions filled at one pharmacy, you will not only save time (and gas), but your pharmacist will get to know your particular prescriptions. This will come in very handy should you develop any allergies or unpleasant side effects from any of your medication.
Consider the possibility of splitting higher-dose pills. It is a known fact that there is often very little difference in price when it comes to different dosages of pills. A 50mg pill will often cost almost the same price as the same pill in a 25mg dosage. Find out from your pharmacist if the medication you are using comes in different doses and if it is safe to split the larger-dose pills or not. It is important to note that some pills are not safe to split, but your pharmacist will be able to give you reliable advice in this regard.
Communicate with your doctor. When you receive a prescription from your doctor, it’s always important to speak up if you can’t afford any of the medications that have been prescribed. Often your doctor will be able to prescribe alternative medications which may be more affordable for you.
Help reduce co-payments by checking your formulary. Many medical insurance companies will only cover the cost of specific medications for some conditions, as stipulated in their formulary. If your doctor prescribes medication which is not listed on this formulary, it can result in you having to pay a higher co-payment. Check your prescription against the formulary, and if it’s not listed, ask your doctor to prescribe an alternative medication that is on the list.
Shop around. These days it is possible to purchase medication from some supermarkets, via mail order, and at various retail pharmacies. By shopping around, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that prices differ from one source to another. If you find that a particular source has all but one of your listed medications at a cheaper price, ask them if it’s possible to get a discount on that particular item.
Ask your doctor for samples. Thousands of people have allergic reactions to medications every year. Before paying for a full month’s supply or course of a particular medicine, ask your doctor if there are any free samples available. This will enable you to try it before buying a full course of it. If possible, find out if your doctor is able to give you a 7- to 10-day supply of the drug so that you can assess it thoroughly.
Search for coupons. Magazines, newspapers, and certain websites offer prescription-related coupons on various medicines and treatments. Two websites that are known for offering medicine coupons are InternetDrugCoupons.com and NeedyMeds.org. You also can ask your doctor’s office if they know of any available coupons for your particular prescription drugs. Certain manufacturers even offer free, 30-day trial packs of their medicines.
Maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle. By keeping fit and healthy, you will be able to minimize your risk of getting sick and requiring medication. Maintaining a healthy weight is also very important, because there are many diseases which can be linked to obesity, including diabetes and high blood pressure. Once diagnosed, both of these diseases often require a lifelong commitment to using prescription medication to manage them.
There are many ways for a patient to save money on prescription medications. In most cases though, prevention is definitely better than cure, so it is always important to consult with a doctor or other healthcare professional as soon as you realize that there is something wrong. That step alone will save a lot of time, effort, and money where prescription medications are concerned.
As a personal finance blogger, I come across many great websites and apps. I always try to stay updated on the latest and greatest apps, money-saving companies, and more, as I believe they can help a person improve their financial situation.
Whether they make managing your money easier, allow you to make or save more money, simplify financial tasks, or something else, there are many benefits to all of the companies that I have listed below.
Every little bit counts and taking part in many of the websites or apps below may be things that you may not have tried yet. You never know how much money they may allow you to save or make, which may completely change how you think about your finances.
There are affiliate links in this blog post, but these are all products and services that I recommend. I wouldn’t put anything in a blog post that I haven’t verified and/or personally used.
Enjoy!
Have Digit trick you into saving more money.
I recommend looking into Digit if you want to trick yourself into saving more money. I have an account and it’s already helped me save a little more as well.
Digit is a free service that looks at your spending and transfers money to a savings account for you. Digit makes everything easy so that you can start saving money with very little effort.
Read Digit Review – A New Way To Save Money.
Related: Yotta Savings App Review – Win up to $10 million weekly by saving in an FDIC insured account
Use Bluehost to start a blog.
There are many ways a blog may be able to help you make and save money.
I know many people who have started a blog and are making thousands of dollars a month. Plus, it’s a lot of fun!
I now earn around $50,000 a month from my blog, and I expect that to double in 2016. I also travel full-time and am happier than ever!
If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.49 per month (this low price is only through my link and for a limited time) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free blog domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting.
Switch to Republic Wireless and save money on your cell phone.
If you have a cell phone, I recommend checking out Republic Wireless for a more affordable plan.
Republic Wireless is a service I’ve been using for over one year now and I’m still very pleased with the service. They have monthly cell phone plans as low as $10 per month. Yes, TEN DOLLARS!
Read Save Over $2,000 A Year With Republic Wireless Review.
Shop with Ebates and get cash back.
I had to include Ebates today in this blog post since the holidays are quickly approaching. Ebates is a great site to be using when you are shopping for the holidays.
Ebates allows you to earn free cash money for spending like how you normally would online. All you do is click on a store that you want to shop through (they have tons of stores such as Kohls, REI, Toys R Us, etc.), and shop just like how you normally would. Ebates makes a commission for referring you to the store you just shopped at, and they give you some of that money back as a thank you.
Plus, when you sign up through my link, you receive a free $10 gift card to Macys, Walmart, Target, or Kohls!
Read my Ebates review Use Ebates For Free Cash Back.
Plan your meals with $5 Meal Plan.
I joined $5 Meal Plan earlier this year in order to help me eat at home more and cut my food spending. It’s only $5 a month (the first four weeks are free too) and you get meal plans sent straight to you along with the exact shopping list you need in order to create the meals. The meals are easy to make, affordable, and delicious!
You can sign up for $5 Meal Plan here.
Take surveys for extra money.
Survey sites are great because they allow you to have the ability to make extra money while doing it all from the comfort of your home.
Some survey sites I recommend include:
It’s best to sign up for as many as you can as that way you can receive the most surveys and make the most money. These are all legitimate survey sites and occasionally you may receive free items to test out too.
Related: 12 Paid Survey Sites To Make $50+ Per Month
Get rewarded for being online.
These three sites are fairly similar so I’m grouping them all together.
Swagbucks is an easy way to earn Amazon gift cards with very little work. Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded points called SB for the things you do through their website. You can also receive points for taking surveys, watching videos, and more. Then, when you have enough points, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. You’ll receive a free $5 bonus just for signing up through my link!
Another one you may be interested in related to this one is Nielsen Digital Voice. Digital Voice is a part of Nielsen, which I’m sure you’ve heard of. All you have to do is surf the web and you may be able to start earning money.
InboxDollars is the last of the online rewards websites that I recommend. You can earn cash by taking surveys, playing games, shopping online, searching the web, redeeming grocery coupons, and more. By signing up through my link, you will receive $5 for free just for signing up!
Related: 30 Best Money Making Apps
Improve your credit score with Credit Sesame.
With Credit Sesame, you can get your credit score for free, with no catch. Your credit score can impact whether or not you are approved for a loan, whether you are hired at certain jobs, your interest rate, and more. It’s relatively easy to raise your credit score, so you should start doing so today.
Read How Your Credit Score Affects Your Life + Credit Sesame Review.
Use Personal Capital to manage your finances better.
Personal Capital provides free financial software somewhat similar to Mint. Personal Capital is much more detailed, though, and due to that between the two I would definitely choose Personal Capital.
You can track your net worth, your cash flow, your portfolio, your investments, and more. Personal Capital pretty much picks up in the main area that Mint is not the greatest in, which is investment planning.
Read Personal Capital Review – An Easier Way To Manage Your Finances.
Save money by shopping with Flipp.
Flipp is a new app that I recently heard about. In case you’re not familiar with the app, Flipp is a free shopping app that brings the weekly shopping circular to your mobile device. With Flipp, shoppers can have seamless access to their favorite circulars and all the savings without lugging around paper or missing a good deal!
The app is also extremely easy to use. With Flipp’s shopping list feature, you can quickly find the best deals for your weekly essentials. Once you’re in the store, you can easily check off items from your list, which is built right into the app. This way you can pick up everything you need and also stick to your list.
You can download Flipp for Apple or Android.
Cancel cable and get a digital antenna.
We got rid of cable earlier this year and we even got rid of Netflix last month. Now, we just have a digital antenna and it’s all we need.
Digital antennas are very affordable and there is no recurring cost with them. You just buy the antenna once and you can get great quality TV and many channels for free.
You can buy a digital antenna here. That is the same exact one I have.
Read more at Cut Cable, Use A Digital Antenna, and Save Thousands.
Refinance your student loans with Credible.
If you have student loans, you may want to look into Credible.
I highly recommend Credible for student loan refinancing. You can lower the interest rate on your student loans significantly by using Credible which may help you shave thousands off your student loan bill over time.
Related: 20 Best Money Saving Apps
What other sites do you recommend so that a person can save or make more money?
We have been analyzing many of our expenses over the past several months. We experienced a little bit (okay, a lot) of lifestyle inflation as our income has increased.
There were many things we were wasting money on that we realized we didn’t need. We were being lazy, not saving as much as we should, paying for items that were a waste of money, and so on.
I don’t think I’m alone either. There are probably things you’re wasting your money on too.
Instead of wasting money, you could be putting your hard earned dollars towards your next vacation, a retirement fund, a college fund, or something else.
With this post I hope to help you analyze your expenses and see where you may be possibly wasting your money. I understand that there are plenty of reasons for why a person may spend money on some of the things below, however, the point is to see if YOU should be. Everyone is different and there is no right or wrong answer. I am a firm believer that money should be enjoyed and everyone enjoys spending their money on different things. However, that doesn’t mean you may not be wasting your money.
Below are seven things you may be spending too much money on.
1. Bottled water.
There’s a lot of waste that comes with purchasing bottled water. You are wasting money by buying water and the plastic that the water is in is a huge waste as well.
Yes, I understand there are times that come up where you may want water when you’re on the go. I also understand that some areas do not provide the cleanest water either. However, buying huge cases of small bottles of water is most likely not needed.
What you can do: You could buy refillable water containers and fill them up if the water you have access to is not the cleanest. In towns where the city water is no good, I have seen water fill up stations so that no plastic is wasted. You could also buy a water filter (this is the one we have) and clean your own water that way.
Related articles:
2. Expensive cell phones.
The average person spends a few hundred dollars on their cell phone bill each month and that adds up to a few thousand dollars each year. Is your cell phone really worth that much extra money or is it just a waste of money?
What you can do: There are many cheaper cell phone options out there such as Republic Wireless (plans start at just $5 a month), Ting, and so on. You could also not upgrade to the latest cell phone every time one comes out, downgrade your current plan, and more.
3. Food.
Okay, so food is a need, but what I’m talking about here is that you are probably spending too much money on it.
I’ve talked about our food spending a lot here on Making Sense of Cents. It’s an area where we’ve had a lot of problems. However, since traveling in the RV we have noticed a dramatic change in our food spending. We are eating in more than ever, eating even healthier, and more.
This is something we will probably have to actively work on for decades and probably even the rest of our lives.
I know there are many others who are experiencing the same food spending problems as well. It can be so easy to let your food spending get out of control, but I recommend you look at your food spending and see if you can cut down even further.
What you can do: To lower your food spending you could meal plan, shop sales, use coupons, cook from scratch, eat out less, prep your meals, and more.
I recommend you check out Personal Capital (a free service) if you are interested in gaining control of your financial situation. Personal Capital is very similar to Mint.com, but 100 times better as it allows you to gain control of your investment and retirement accounts, whereas Mint.com does not. Personal Capital allows you to aggregate your financial accounts so that you can easily see your financial situation, your cash flow, detailed graphs, and more. You can connect accounts such as your mortgage, bank accounts, credit card accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, and more, plus it’s FREE.
4. Cable.
Several months ago, we made the decision to eliminate our cable bill. We weren’t spending an outrageous amount on cable, but it did add up to several hundred dollars a year that we did not need to be wasting money on.
Plus, we haven’t missed cable one bit. I wish we would have eliminated it sooner! We now have Netflix and a digital antenna, however, we are thinking about eliminating Netflix and just having the digital antenna for free TV.
Sadly, the average person who has cable spends a lot more money than what we used to. I know many who spend anywhere from $100 to $300 a month on their cable bill and that is a significant expense in a person’s budget!
Related: 16 Alternatives To Cable TV That WILL Save You Money
What you can do: There are two main things you could do – either eliminate your cable or satellite bill completely or downgrade your package. You most likely do not need all of those extra channels anyways.
Related article: How To Live On One (Or 50% Of Your) Income
5. Extra warranties.
Everyone has been hit with warranties when they purchase a particular item. Sometimes they are useful, but I have come to realize that for the most part they are not and they are just a waste of money.
Personally, I have bought numerous extra warranties that were not honored because of one ridiculous excuse after another.
What you can do: Before you purchase your next warranty, you should analyze the agreement and see if it is worthwhile. In many cases, a warranty is not worth it because of strict rules, expensive deductibles, and more. Also, check to see what kind of free warranty already comes with the product. In many cases, it is enough.
6. Bank accounts with fees.
Sadly, I know a few who still pay monthly fees for their bank accounts and this is what I believe to be a huge waste of money. This is something I’ll never understand though as there are plenty of free bank accounts out there. You should never have to pay for ATM fees either.
What you can do: Shop around and see what banks and/or credit unions can offer you and your situation free banking. Trust me, they are out there!
7. Debt.
You are wasting your money if you have high-interest rate debt. This is due to interest charges you are paying that will just keep building up until you are able to pay it off.
If you have never done so, I want you to add up how much in interest you are paying each day and each month towards all of your debt. I bet you will be shocked!
What you can do: Yes, there are strategic reasons to keep debt, but if you do not have a strategic reason, then paying it off is most likely your best bet as interest charges can be a waste of money.
Do you spend money on any of the above? Why or why not? What do you think people are wasting money on?
If you are looking for other ways to save and/or make money, below are some things I recommend:
Start a blog. Blogging is how I make a living and just a few years ago I never thought it would be possible. I made over $150,000 last year by blogging and will make more than that in 2015. You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.49 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
Sign up for a website like Ebates where you can earn CASH BACK for just spending like how you normally would online. The service is free too! Plus, when you sign up through my link, you also receive a free $10 gift card bonus to Macys, Walmart, Target, or Kohls!
Pay bills on time. This way you can avoid late fees.
Shop around for insurance. This includes health insurance, car insurance, life insurance, home insurance and so on. Insurance pricing can vary significantly from one company to the next.
Save money on food. I recently joined $5 Meal Plan in order to help me eat at home more and cut my food spending. It’s only $5 a month (the first four weeks are free too) and you get meal plans sent straight to you along with the exact shopping list you need in order to create the meals. This allows you to save time because you won’t have to meal plan anymore and it will save you money as well!
Fuel savings. Combine your car trips, drive more efficiently, get a fuel efficient car, etc.
Learn to have more frugal fun. We don’t spend anywhere near the same amount of money on entertainment as we used to. There are plenty of ways to have frugal fun.
Rent an extra room in your home. If you have extra space in your home, then you may want to rent it out. Read A Complete Guide To Renting A Room For Extra Money.
Answer surveys. One survey company I recommend is American Consumer Opinion. It’s free to join and free to use! You get paid to answer surveys and to test products. Pinecone Research is another company I use to complete surveys. They pay you for each survey you complete and they also occasionally send free products to review!
Learn how to avoid a Craigslist rental scam.
Use Swagbucks for your online searches. Swagbucks is something I don’t use as much, but I do occasionally earn Amazon gift cards with very little work. Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded points called SB for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough points called SB, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. You’ll receive a free $5 bonus just for signing up today!
InboxDollars is an online rewards website I recommend. You can earn cash by taking surveys, playing games, shopping online, searching the web, redeeming grocery coupons, and more. Also, by signing up through my link, you will receive $5 for free!