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Six Months of Penny Pinching

You have your trip planned and you`re getting excited, the problem is that with the economy the way that it is right now, your spending money wont go as far as it used to in your destination. What follows is a nine ways to scrounge up extra money in the 6 months leading to your vacation.

Cut your cable.

Television is a mind-sink and it will simply chew up all of your productive time. With the advances made in internet and broadband technology, the only thing your TV is good for now is playing Xbox or watching your Netflix queue. Other than that, you should be spending your time elsewhere. All TV enthusiasts will really feel the heat for the first week or so but you have to look past TV and actually work on becoming productive. Sports fan? Catch your highlights on streaming video from any sports channel`s website then invest some time into coaching little league or refereeing recreation leagues for your favorite sport. Tabloid whore? Get the skinny from short articles via E! Online or go to the library and sit down with a nice E Magazine or, better yet, the actual biography of one of your favorite actors. Series nut? Skip the current season. It will be hard but watching shows week by week takes up a lot more time than you think, not to mention it`s a bit of a tease. Netflix the whole season when it comes out DVD and watch it over a couple of days. The bottom line is that cutting cable will save you a significant amount of money and time each month and even if you go the Netflix route, it`s typically only half the price of cable. Let`s say that over 6 months of cutting cable you could potentially pocket around $180.

Have less fun.

You need to make a 6 month commitment to not go out so much. By "going out", I`m referring to DBMC! Dinner, bars, movies and clubs. Even if you drop only a couple of these per month, the savings are astronomical. I typically spend between $15 to $70 each night I go out. Double that if you have a date. DBMC are some of the most expensive things that average people do with their time, but you can have fun other ways. Try coaxing your friends into having a Scene It! night at someone`s house over a few beers (it`s more fun than you may think). Try going to the park for a BBQ with your close buds instead of a restaurant for dinner. Hell, try getting into an online game, like, World of Warcraft or City of Heroes. These games are simple enough that even the most uncoordinated player can get a handle on them. One night playing an online game is one less night you are out bar hopping, but don`t over-do it and neglect your friends. Canning a couple of DBMC per month and substituting them with much more cost effective ways of having fun will probably save you around $240 in 6 months.

Cancel your gym membership.

Whoa, don`t I need to get into shape for my next vacation? You certainly do, but gym memberships are a waste of money, not to mention unethical. Read the countless reviews of what a scam it is to join/leave any gym in the country and you`ll think a little less about giving them your money. Unless you`re the governor of California, you are generally just looking to stay fit and tone up. Most apartment complexes have pools or gyms, use them. If you don`t have an apartment the odds are you have a friend that does and I`m sure they`ll be glad to have you over for a work out. If you can`t find a free gym then go running, shoot hoops in the neighborhood school yard, go roller-blading, play tennis, go for a walk, go for a hike, do push-ups and sit-ups, jump rope, seriously, if you can`t find a way to burn a few calories without a gym membership then you need to buy "Exercise for Dummys" and get on with your life. There`s probably 20 exercises you can do with nothing but a bench. Get inventive. If you`re too lazy to put the effort in to lose weight and trim down at home, then it`s only a matter of time before those fancy gyms lose their initial "oooh" and "aaah" factor and you`re paying $30 a month to sit in front of the TV at home. Canceling your gym membership at most prominent gyms will save you around $180 in 6 months.

Restaurant rules.

While I told you to cut back on going out, you can`t cut back completely. What fun would that be? I have two rules for every time I go to a restaurant for breakfast, lunch or dinner during a period when I`m pinching pennies. The first rule is always order water for your drink. Soft drinks, alcohol or any other drink at a restaurant is ridiculously overpriced. Even with unlimited refills, why pay money to drink something that`s not as healthy for you as water? It`s a no-brainer. The second rule is always cut your meal in half, eat one portion and take the other in a "to go" box. Studies have shown that the average American typically eats almost twice the portion content that they should be eating. You won`t be malnutritioned, you wont die of starvation, etc. Just eat half of whatever you`re served. If you are eating at a restaurant that gives you small portions, it`s good will-power practice. If you cheat by going to restaurants with enormous portions, it`s still good will-power practice to eat only half of your meal. Even if you drive home from dinner and eat your leftovers as soon as you walk in the door, I would still consider that a success in good will-power practice. Try it, eventually you`ll find you won`t be cheating as much as it becomes second nature to control your portions. The theory here is when you`re eating a large meal, you don`t feel full until several minutes after you`ve had your fill and that food has settled... and by then you`ve already eaten the rest of your plate. Simply stopping yourself and taking a "to go" box will allow your body enough time to process what`s been eaten and you`ll feel full by the time you`re in your car. Not only will this help you trim down, the leftovers will definitely save you money on lunch the next day! Having leftovers for lunch and ordering water at a restaurant a couple times per month will probably save you around $160 in 6 months.

Dattebayo!

The greatest invention of all time is ramen. Not the cup of noodle ramen, I`m talking about the packaged ramen. Fairly tasty and at pennies per package you will find yourself saving loads of money by simply substituting a lunch or dinner each week with ramen. While it`s not necessarily nutritious, one cannot ignore the filling quality of noodles. Furthermore, you can spice ramen up fairly inexpensively by simply adding a few veggies, an egg or meat leftovers to the boiling pot. Different flavors offer different benefits... chicken flavor goes incredibly well with Tabasco sauce, beef flavor goes great with veggies, shrimp flavor is excellent brothless with a bit of butter. The list goes on and on. There`s several websites out there that can really send your ramen recipe imagination for a ride. I`m not sure why this food is not more accepted among adults, it definitely should be, you`re pocketbook will thank you! Substituting one lunch and one dinner per week with ramen will save you around $240 in 6 months.

Live uncomfortably.

You`ve heard plenty of advice, I`m sure, about, micromanaging the temperature of your house. Well, it`s good advice. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, where electricity bills could reach as high as $300 per month in the summer! Here`s the way your body works. Once a temperature is sustained for a lengthy period of time and your body adjusts to it you can actually tick the thermostat one degree or so in either direction and your body will not notice a change. Let your body adjust to that new temperature again then tick the thermostat one more degree and you`ll barely notice. With this in mind, there are some products out there that automatically tick your thermostat every hour to save you on energy costs. I`m not saying that you should go out and buy these products, because they`re ridiculously overpriced, but I am saying that you should take their concept to heart. If you happen to walk past the thermostat and you feel pretty comfortable, tick it one degree in the money saving direction (aka, make it one degree warmer in the summer time and one degree cooler in the winter time). This takes no time at all, you`ll barely notice the difference and even that one tiny degree will save you several dollars on your monthly bill. If you get to the point where you`re uncomfortable, start ticking the thermostat back the other direction. Over time you`ll develop an excellent feel for the range as well as what temperature your house should be in correlation to how it feels outside. Another tip is to always remember to crank your thermostat to a slightly uncomfortable temperature before you leave for work. This is better than turning it off completely because it always takes a lot less energy to cool a slightly cooled house than it does to cool a steaming hot house when you get back home. If you`ll be gone a few days, consider turning it off completely or cranking the temperature even more (if you don`t have pets, of course). Doing this act alone takes a matter of seconds on your way out of the door and will save you quite a nice chunk of change on your bill. If the weather`s great outside, turn your AC system off and open a window or just run your fan system. You can run the fan at a fraction of the cost of running your AC. Using these techniques I was able to save an easy $40 per month on my electric bill during the summer months but average users across the nation should expect to save around $100 in 6 months.

Get rid of your home phone.

With cellular service the way it is nowadays, it`s a little silly to own a home phone. Plans are offering more minutes and cover more areas than ever before. Almost every cell company offers some array of cell phone services that will fill your needs for less than the added cost of keeping an extra LAN line around. A friend of mine suggested that his home phone is the line he uses to give out on online forms or applications (to lure telemarketers away from his cell phone) and he has a valid concern. First off, while it isn`t illegal for a telemarketer to call your cell phone, it is illegal for them to do so using an automated dialing service... which is basically an industry standard. Many telemarketing corporations simply avoid calling numbers that they know are cell phones, as an unspoken industry rule. If you do get telemarketers that are just being jerks and calling your cell anyways, you can always register your number with the national do-not-call list at www.donotcall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222. It takes about 31 days for your number to filter through all of the pipelines and after that you should stop receiving those annoying calls. Ditching your home phone could save you as much as $120 in 6 months!

Look Ugly.

I don`t mean for you to rub chicken fat on your face, I`m referring to being a little less high maintenance. I solicited feedback from my girlfriend about this article and here`s a tip she mentioned she does when she prepares for a trip. This tip is two fold and generally applies mostly to females and .. uh.. very metrosexual males, I suppose. The first part has to do with grooming. If my girlfriend knows she`ll be going on a trip in 6 months she`ll save money by holding off on all of the extra frivolous hair appointments (other than routine maintenance), as well as, manicures, pedicures, waxing, etc until about a week or two before the trip. There are other ways that she can maintain a quality appearance, even without these appointments, they just take a little work (I`m sure all girls know them, I certainly don`t!). While she looks a little goofy for the next 6 months, she says that the money she saves by skipping a few of these grooming sessions is enough to send her on some nice shopping sprees while she`s on vacation. Her next part of this tip is to buy boring clothes instead of trendy ones. In her experience, classic styles in your wardrobe are the ones you`ll find yourself taking abroad when your vacation comes around, not those funky super bell-bottoms with the low-cut, butt crack showing beltline (or whatever the style is nowadays). Classic styles typically cost much less too. It is hard to note any dollar figure saving over the next 6 months for this category because it doesn`t apply to everyone and the figures are extremely variable depending on how high maintenance you are. My girlfriend says this saves her almost $300, but let`s say that any man or woman can groom less and shop at less trendy, cheaper stores leading up to their vacation and save at least $100 in 6 months.

Stop buying bulk.

Don`t get me wrong. Costco and other bulk retailers like Sam`s Club are a godsend, but there`s a time and place for everything. If you have a large family, by all means, continue your bulk shopping, but if you`re like me, where you`re typically buying food for one or two people, then bulk shopping will break your bank. When I`m getting ready for a vacation in 6 months, I`ll generally stay very clear of Costco until I`m back. It`s not because they don`t have good products or good prices, it`s because of the $100 rule. Anyone who`s a Costco member knows this rule. It`s virtually impossible to go to Costco and leave that store without spending at least $100. If you go there and only want a package of bacon... sorry, too bad... you`ll see something else, then something else, then $100 later, you`re in the parking lot asking yourself what the hell just happened. If you`re saving money, steer clear of Costco! It has an uncanny ability to make items that are unnecessary seem very necessary. The argument is that "Well, I`m getting more for my money, so I`ll buy less later." That`s not necessarily true. I`ve done comparison shopping myself and about half of the time I can find per unit costs of items cheaper in my local supermarket than I can at Costco. The differentiating factor is that local supermarkets have sales and Costco doesn`t, so there`s a chance you can save a tad more money at the supermarket depending on what you buy. Add that to the fact that being a Costco member costs a yearly fee and shopping at your supermarket does not, are the savings really that great? On some items yes, some items not at all. The major rule of thumb here is: I have less of a problem leaving my local grocery store with a $10 bag of toilet paper than I would have trying to do that at Costco. This is just advice, for the sake of this article, I wont attribute any savings over a 6 month period of time to this rule.

There you have it. If you follow these nine simple tips for the next 6 months leading to your vacation, you should have around $1320 extra in your pocket to splurge on making your trip extra special! Bon voyage!