apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

living in hawaii, none of these really apply. oh well. we are all about craigslist though...

Hey lab director. How about turning down the air conditioning

The best way to save money quickly is to reevaluate your grocery and dining habits. That is where people spend enormous amounts of money relative to actual benefit. I am not suggesting starving yourself or eating junk, but if you can eliminate just $3 a day in grocery/dining expenditures, you will save $1000 for the year. And if you make the cuts carefully, you won't even notice them.

If your home is 2000 sq ft, and you spend your time in only 1000 sq feet of it, stuff towels in the heat vents and close the register flaps (do NOT stuff towels in the intake vents, however!!).

Ditch the land line. Roll back the internet useage. Try to use all every single shred and drop of all the food you buy. Drink less soda drink more water from the tap. Cut the hot showers down to 2 minutes, max 3. Wear flannel PJ's to bed instead of cranking the heat. Try not to use the air con (it's summer here) at all, use your windows! Re-assess your insurance plan... could you save a hundred dollars... we did!! Re-asses your electrical, phone, net etc providers. Shop at markets for food and only buy just enough. Have slightly smaller portions (this worked great for us cos we're trying to loose weight and go on a mountain bike tour). Stop buying new stuff for the house at all... rearrange rearrange rearrange. If you really get sick of it, revamp something with a spray can of paint or some pretty stickers. Have candle lit dinners... in other words black out half an hour. Have a board game night instead of going to the movies... I could go on for days. We're trying to pay off the house we just bought 6 months ago as soon as possible so we can buy an investment property so we're saving where we can. Sorry to all you guys in the US who are feeling the crunch. I am sure we'll get it here in AUstralia really soon! :( Keep your head up!

hey peachpie, don't have an a/c. sorry

The old advice of shopping just the exterior walls at the grocery store will save you plenty. That's were all the whole foods are -- dairy, produce, fish and meat. Learn to cook with them. Avoid the ends of aisles where the high-profit, processed and/or impulse items are. And buy from the interior aisles as little as possible -- the processed food, the sodas, the sweets. If you buy at a big-box place like Costco, ask yourself three questions before putting something in your basket: do I need it, will I use all of it, and is it really a good deal?

I gave up alcohol and meat years ago, and started serving smaller suppers for dietary reasons. My grocery bill shrank considerably.

King924, do you know about these magnetic vent covers?:

http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/(e2u1bx45wqnbe1550p1dvb55)/productdetails.aspx?sku=4167938&source=GoogleBase

I'm with RichardinLA and venus_thames. These are great tips.

Here's some more. Get together with neighbors to share DSL costs. I split my DSL with 2 neighbors and my roommate (the signal seems to travel fine between our close-in houses). If you can get a garden plot and have an interest in a new hobby - vegetable gardening is the way to go, especially if you can connect with other gardeners for trade. Think of what you'll save on produce. Avoid packaged food products - buy staples in bulk and make your own sauces. Try barter system for some things. For example my friends have a little hobby farm with chickens and lambs. I trade fence fixing and other chores once in a while for amazing freee range organic meat that would normally cost me $5.99-$12.99 a pound. Also, if you can ditch your car and/or share your car with a good friend - do it. I save thousands and thousands of dollars every year this way - and it has forced me to get off my duff and walk and bike more, but I still have access to a car mostly when I need it. I also like a cool head at night, so I just turn the heat off and sleep cozy and warm under a big comforter. Not everyone's cuppa, but man do I save on heat bills. I program the thermostat to turn on about 30 minutes before I wake up so I don't feel the cold in the AM.

Finally, it's sort of another not for everyone thing, but if you can turn a hobby into a business and/or start other businesses (but not a fake businesses, a real ones) you will get all sorts of incredible tax breaks for stuff you are already probably doing. I do freelance writing (mostly food writing), own a consulting business and make crafts. It's really not a lot of extra time, and the writing and crafts were hobbies anyway. I do now make income on 2 out of the 3 of the above, and get to write off a loss for one of them. Within reason (and with the advice of my very ethical accountant) I'm able to write off many food expenses, partial home expenses, travel and transportation expenses and even my dog (as a security system). It's little stuff and legitimate, but the savings have been immense. The extra income has been wonderful. You can legitimately write off business losses, within reason for a few years too until you do start making a profit.

Other tips? Figure out where your biggest non-essential expenses are (clothing, food, music, etc.) and try to cut them in half.

Go on a spending fast. It helps to break bad habits. I did this for a month - only purchasing what was absolutely necessary (food, transportation) and now I'm just in the habit of being a tightwad. And you know what, I really really appreciate things more and enjoy them more when I do purchase them. Yet I still get to go out and enjoy life. I just approach things differently now.

Oh, and a final tip, if you can swing it. Get a food service job. Seriously, even one shift a week at a cool restaurant or caterers. You'd be amazed at the large amount of leftovers you'll be able to take home and freeze. And you'll never go hungry while your grocery bill will really shrink.

I'm remembering what it was like to be a broke college student during the recession of the 1980s and drawing from my experience then. I was really happy then being poor and thrifty and guess what, I'm really happy now being not-so-poor but still thrifty.

Happiness doesn't come from spending money

Yeah, these tips are going to help much since my new apartment has no thermostat or air conditioning. We've got heat but it's only "on" and "off".

I wish I could convince the bf to take shorter showers. He was complaining the other day about running out of hot water before the end of the shower and I weasled out of him that he takes 30 minute showers some days. He doesn't seem to understand about the drought and the gas bill. Maybe that's because his company hasn't just cut him back to 32 hours like mine did.

who can take a shower in two minutes? I can't even get all the shampoo out of my hair in two minutes.

Even though I promised myself a new car back in 2000, I decided to hold on to my old car because it was still running just fine, and buying a new car seemed like an unnecessary indulgence.

Eight years later I am still driving that same old car. Many friends are absolutely appalled that I would drive that old car which is too new to be cool, and too old to be new. Of course, what they don't realize is that over the last eight years, after subtracting repair costs, I have saved almost $50,000 in car payments, taxes, additional insurance costs, and registration fees than if I had stuck with my original plan to get a new car every 5 years.

RichardinLA, I thought I was one of the only ones. Nice to hear that there are others out there driving cars made in the last millenium that run A-OK and are paid in full.

I'm all for cutting back, but these tips seem a bit strung-out to me. Assuming most people don't have air conditioning AND heating (surely not??), I'd be inclined to lump them all, plus plugging gaps etc, in to a single (albeit important) tip together. ie: Think about your energy usage, and be as frugal as possible.
Other tips?
-Cook at home as much as possible; when you do, cook extra, so that you can take leftovers for lunch and/or rework leftovers for midweek dinners.
-learn how to cook. Seriously, cooking from scratch is so much cheaper, and not at all much harder, than using pre-made sauces, stocks, etc. Stocks were the revelation for me -- you can make them with stuff you'd otherwise be throwing away. I used to throw away perfectly good vegetable scraps, and then BUY vegetable stock for a few dollars. Crazy! Make your own stock using stuff that would otherwise be garbage -- then use your (delicious) stock to make things that are perfect for leftovers (risotto, pasta sauces, etc).
-Go vegeterian, or just eat less meat. Beans, lentils, rice, pasta, nuts and tofu are all much cheaper sources of protein than meat (not to mention more ethically and environmentally friendly!);
-public transport. I know it's awful in some cities - but in every city I've lived in, it's been much better and cheaper in practice than urban myth would suggest. At least try your local train/bus/streetcar system;
-schedule regular 'buying-free' holidays. That is, decide, for two weeks or a month, that you're not going to buy anything new, besides the essentials. Kind of like a short-term fast. I've heard of people doing this for a year, but a few weeks' commitment can be more realistic. And once you've survived a short-term commitment, it's easier to adjust your habits permanently.
-identify your most expensive, least essential item (clothes, DVDs, beauty products, alcohol, etc). Try giving these up for a bit. Then, try to make this permanent. Come up with other ways to pamper yourself.
-Read "The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer. He points out that we carelessly fritter away superficially "small" amounts of money that might otherwise go a long way in the developing world. The best, most ethical, budget advice I have is to think in doubles. If you're tempted to spend $20 on a CD, commit to donating the equivalent amount to a worthwhile third-world charity (Oxfam, the Red Cross, etc). REALLY commit, and keep a tally throughout your month. At the end of the month, donate whatever you've tallied up. This will either stop you from buying the CD in the first place, or lead you to donate to important causes.

Good times. But I didn't mean to take away from the air conditioning. If you're still decadent enough to have it: jeepers, please turn it down!!

If people really want to get serious about saving money then they should add Bathroom Bidet Sprayers to all their bathrooms. Available at www.bathroomsprayers.com with these you won't even need toilet paper any more, just a towel to dry off! It's cheap and can be installed without a plumber; and runs off the same water line to your toilet. You'll probably pay for it in a few months of toilet paper savings. And after using one of these you won't know how you lasted all those years with wadded up handfuls of toilet paper. Now we're talking green and helping the environment without any pain.

I turn off the water when I shampoo, wash my body and brush my teeth then turn it back on to wash off.

Install programmable thermostats - which costs $$ upfront to buy, but will save in the long term. We don't ever have ours higher than 18 degrees in the winter (celsius) with it down to 15 at night (celsius). We use 'natural heat' as much as possible - making sure curtains are open to take in the sun during the day, for example, and then close down rooms in evenings (dining room, for example and other spaces).

Read _Your Money or Your Life_, by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

Start tracking your spending (not by creating a budget); you'll very effortlessly reduce your spending just by noticing it (we went down $100/month on groceries just by doing this).

Shorter showers ...and cooler showers. The cooler part is hard for me, I know it...but I can do the shampoo/conditioner/wash in about 2 minutes.