8 Easy Energy Saving Tips to Help Save You Money

As homeowners, we’re always looking for ways to cut down on our bills. One of the biggest expenses for us, especially getting into this time of the year, are with heating and energy use. We’ve started insulating the house to hopefully cut down on our heating expenses and we’re looking into ways that we can become more energy efficient. Hopefully we’ll notice a difference in our monthly bills by using some of these easy energy saving tips. “Projects that provide more energy efficiency have proven to help reduce heating and cooling costs, in some cases by up to 15 percent.” explains Danny Lipford, homebuilding expert and host of the television show “Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford.” Lipford says that homeowners would be wise to seek…

Easy Ways to Start Using Coupons

I will start this off by saying that I am far from an extreme couponer. I just don’t have the patience to go through every coupon site, weekly ads, etc. But, I do like saving money so I’m willing to do as much work as possible to help with that cause. For example, I like digital coupons from places like Smart Source, Coupons.com, and Red Plum. I shop in bulk when need be because that also helps me save money and especially on things that I need like toilet paper, paper towels, diapers, and wipes. I also buy lunch items in bulk, and occasionally meat. When we finally start meal planning, I’ll buy other items in bulk to hopefully save on our food expenses. Today,…

How to Save on Christmas Gifts

How to Save on Christmas Gifts

Even though it’s not yet officially fall, I firmly believe that you can never start planning for Christmas soon enough. Or maybe it’s just seeing all of the Christmas decorations and craft items at the stores. Maybe it’s both. Whatever the case may be, Christmas is one of those things that is on the back of my mind. In particular, I struggle with Christmas gifts and budgeting for them. I’ve gotten better over the years by buying things throughout the year when they’re on sale instead of waiting until a few weeks before Christmas. I’ve also started looking into more homemade gift options. Those are just two ways I can save money on Christmas gifts, and today I want to talk about other ways to…

What Does Being Frugal Mean?

When you hear the word “frugal” what do you think of? What does being frugal mean to you? Does it strike a particular image in your head? Do you conjure up a binder of coupons? Being frugal means different things to different people. So what does being frugal mean and does it really mean that you have to completely alter your lifestyle? Well, yes and no. Just because you’re making the decision to be frugal, doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice everything that you already have. Part of being frugal, to me, means coming to appreciate what you already have instead of constantly wanting things that you don’t have. What does it mean to be frugal? Being frugal, for many, is as much of…

Teaching Kids How to Save Money

After the conclusion of how to raise a money savvy kid, this week we’re going to begin our new series on teaching kids how to save money. This is a great skill to learn, especially early on in life when it has the potential to become a habit. That’s not to say that older children can’t be taught to save money, just that it’s easier to start at an early age. Today, we’ll talk about one way that you can start teaching kids how to save money. How can you teach kids to save money? Teaching children to save money is important and difficult. From a young age they are exposed to marketing messages telling them to buy more, want stuff, and spend money. There…

Budgeting For a New Baby

When Kyle and I got together, our family was pretty much complete already. Certainly, we did talk about the possibility of having more children but with both of us bring in two children already, we were also content enough with what we had. Squeaker, obviously, had other plans. And quickly we realized our blended family of six, would soon be a blended family of seven. One of the first things that we started talking about was how we were going to afford said new baby. Kyle has a pretty good job, and at the time I was still working part time. But after the baby got here? Well, that was another matter entirely. It might have been two months in when we started talking about…