Money Saving and Making Ideas - Holiday Shopping Edition

I'm back! I took an unannounced hiatus over the last week to spend time getting things back on track. Sometimes I just take on too much!

I've tried to dedicate Mondays to offering you a way to save money or a way to make money. In honor of the holiday shopping season which officially kicked off this weekend, here are a few ways to save and even earn when shopping:

• Couponing is the number one way I have found to save while shopping. You can often get so many products incredibly cheap or even free by using coupons. Sites like Money Saving Mom and Mommy Snacks offer some of the best advice for saving money on groceries.

• Check out CVS' ExtraCare Rewards Program. Here are some details on the basics. CVS offers "Extra Bucks" on certain products every week in the form of a printed coupon on the bottom of your reciept. It's basically like cash back (to be spent at their store only) with a few stipulations. With the right combination of coupons and using Extra Bucks you can easily take a home a cart full of household items and dig for change in your purse to pay the tab. I haven't paid for toothpaste, shampoo, razors or makeup since I discovered this program!

• For those of you hitting up the Cyber Monday deals, sign up with a company like Ebates or Big Crumbs to save even more. Shopping through these sites can help you earn discounts or rewards. When you find a deal online, log into your account and find the store through the site to purchase and get more bang for your buck.

• MyPoints is another site where you can earn points by doing your online buying through their site. When you sign up with them you'll get regular emails alerting you to different sites and companies that match your interests and ways to earn points. Sometimes it's as simple as registering on their site, which you can use a separate email account for. Even if you never sign up for anything, often just clicking on the website will earn you 5 points. Those can really add up. You redeem the points for gift cards from more than 70 merchants. If you start now, you have plenty of time to score a few gift cards by next Christmas!

• Take advantage of pharmacy gift card offers. Stores like Target, CVS, Walgreens, Kmart and others often have coupons to get a gift card when you fill a new prescription at their pharmacy. If you have one to fill anyway, you might as well get a free gift card for it! Pay attention to ads or look on websites. Most CVS stores will even honor competitors' coupons.

• Finally, as I discuss in this post, reviewers are still being accepted for the Webby Awards. This is not necessarily shopping-related, but it is timely and it's a great opportunity, so I really want everyone to know about it! The first session just ended and there are two more. This is a great way to earn actual cash by reviewing websites in your spare time. Although it is temporary, it offers a nice payday when checks go out early next spring!

Money Saving Idea - Make your favorite restaurant dish at home

When money gets tight, often one of the first things that gets cut out is eating meals out. For Serge and I, this hasn't happened on a regular basis since we've had kids! We are both really into trying new foods and since we both worked in restaurants in college, we're also really into trying to make new foods ourselves.

One of our favorite things to eat is sushi - really. I know it's not popular everywhere, but we love it. And the last time we went to our favorite sushi restaurant, we spent over $100. Sushi is not cheap. So I figured out how to make it at home. I bought a book and got started. And I'm still not great at it. The thing about sushi is not only do you have to make it properly, but it is supposed to look good. As you can see in the picture below, it's still a work in progress but it does taste great!



Ingredient list (prices from Kroger - on sale with coupon when available, of course) :
white rice ($2.99) - You can buy rice just for sushi, but plain white works just fine (not pictured)
fresh fish ($4.99 pound) - I used fresh salmon (not pictured)
imitation crab meat - ($1.50)
roasted seaweed - ($1.89) - look in Asian foods section
rice vinegar - ($1.99)
avocado - ($.99)
celery - ($.50)

Total: $14.85

This is what some of the finished product looks like. I typically make nigiri-sushi and sushi rolls.



There are all types of sushi and all different ingredients that you can include, but these are typically the ingredients I use. And as you can see - it's not nearly as expensive to make it at home as it is to go out and eat it in a restaurant!

So not everyone loves sushi like we do. What is your favorite dish? You can make pretty much anything at home. Do you like shrimp or chicken alfredo? This entree costs at least $12 per person at our local restaurants.

Ingredient list:
chicken ($2.99 pound)
shrimp (small ring $4.99)
alfredo sauce ($1.49) - or already in my stockpile
fettuccine ($.49) - or already in my stockpile
shredded parmesan ($1.99)

Total: $6.96 to $8.96

Last night Serge made a local favorite - Skyline chili. To feed four of us 3-ways and cheese coneys we would have easily spent $20 or more. We went to Meijer and bought a few ingredients - just the chili at $1.89 a can and some oyster crackers, since I already had most other ingredients at home - and we spent less than $10!

Often when we look for ways to cut costs, we simply cut things out entirely. It is possible to have things you enjoy without having to pay a high price for them. It just takes a little work and a little creativity!

Cutting back and saving money

I would say we've been pretty blessed in our household that aside from the gas prices really squeezing our wallet, the economy hasn't really hit us yet. Luckily gas is getting cheaper - it was $1.85 here today! However, with Congress in recess since September (and probably through the inauguration), I am only working with one company right now and the work is not quite enough.

So we are finally having to take some drastic steps around here that we haven't really had to do yet.

• We're putting our Y membership on hold. This will save about $70 a month. We've really resisted doing this because it's such a great resource for our family - a place for Serge and I to get some exercise, inexpensive sports programs for the kids and just a place for us to get out during the day. It was great having the pool in the summer, but for now it's going on a three month hold.
• I'm cancelling our recycling. But I'm still recycling! Our current provider charges us $10 a month for curbside recycling. While I do appreciate this service, I'll be buying a Rubbermaid tub and driving 10 minutes to drop it off myself once a week! Mommy Stays Home recently blogged about how she has cut her trash bill entirely. I don't know if we could pull this off, but it's worth it to try and reduce it anyway!

Other changes we've made in the last year include:

• Dropping cell phones and getting a low usage phone line. This is the cheapest way for us to keep our high speed internet, which I need for work. Serge uses his work phone and I joined my mom's family plan for $10 a month.
• Student loans are in forbearance. I'm not thrilled about this one, because they're still earning interest but it's one expense that can be put on hold for the time being.
• Serious couponing to make our grocery budget go farther.

We already do without some easy to cut expenses like cable and weekly nights out. I do miss those nights out though.....

That Y membership is going to be a hard one to let go. I love going to Zumba twice a week. It's fun and it's keeping me in great shape. Unfortunately there are not a lot of free fitness alternatives in my area. I'm going to have to get better about checking Cincinnati Cents, which is a great deals blog, but she also posts lots of family stuff for our area.

So what things have you had to cut out? Are there expenses that you're holding onto and just putting off cutting out?

Getting the House Ready for Winter

We've lived in our house for three winters now I think we may have solved the mystery of the freezing cold bedrooms. Every winter our bedrooms are about 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. We've tried everything - plastic sheeting and blankets on the windows, space heaters, turning up the heat - and nothing has worked. I am tired of being cold, so this year we're being proactive.

Heating bills in the winter months can be a huge expense, but many people don't realize that there are many small improvements you can make around your house that will allow you to heat more efficiently, thus wasting less and lowering your energy bills. A couple of months ago we took advantage of Duke Energy's free home energy audit. An auditor came out and inspected our appliances, windows, doors, basement and attic and made several recommendations, which we're working on implementing. If you're a Duke Energy customer, you should definitely take advantage of this free service! If you have another energy provider, check to see if they offer something similar.

Here are the recommendations he offered that may help you as well:

• Don't use space heaters! You will read stories about the safety concerns, but they are also extremely expensive. Using one in a cold space can add as much as $80 or more to your monthly heating bill!
• Check your attic insluation. The recommended measurement for attic insulation is R-38. You should check to see that your attic is insulated properly everywhere. Otherwise you're losing heat through your roof.
• Be sure your attic door is insulated. If you have one of those drop down attic doors with a ladder and it's not insulated, you are losing tons of heat through that opening. You can alleviate this by building a shell: Build a six inch border around the door opening inside the attic and buy a thick piece of styrofoam to cover over it like a lid.
• Check weather stripping on all exterior doors. This is a simple one - easy to fix but also easy to overlook!
• Water heater - For safety reasons (and energy savings) turn it down to 120 degrees. Also insulate the hot water tank pipes to conserve the heat.
• Go green. Many changes that are good for your wallet are good for the environment as well, so consider switching to CFL bulbs in your lighting - they even make them for dimmers now.

We have oil heat in our house, which doesn't seem to be as expensive as gas heat but it did cost us about $900 to fill our 250 gallon tank this year. We invested in a programmable thermostat a couple of years ago that has really helped us reduce costs by setting the heat to automatically adjust at times when we're not home, for example.

I'm hoping that this year, not only will we save some money, but these changes will make it a little warmer in here. We haven't turned on our heat yet - we're hoping to hold out until November, but I don't know....my fingers are a little stiff from the cold while I'm typing right now!