Money Saving Tips - Discuss how you save money and spend less

Elbow Greased Strength said:
On that note I would recommend the high-deductible health care plan that gives you an HSA option. Once you've saved up to your deductible there's really no difference from much more expensive plans with lower deductibles.

As you get older it'll make sense to change especially with children and a family but the benefit of the HSA is you keep the money even if you switch to another plan, and with a large enough balance you can even invest it. Worst case you can also use it for other things and just pay a penalty (if you feel honest enough to report it to the IRS).
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HSAs are pretty good deal. I compared the options of my health plans (all high deductible) and basically the only difference between the high and low plans is that one costs 1k more per year in premiums than the other. There is only a small window where either plan starts paying out, that for all practical purposes the only way the insurance does anything for you is when you hit your out of pocket max for something serious. You can have the difference between the two plans saved up in just a few years of taking the difference in premiums and putting it into an HSA instead. If you don't get sick, that money will be fully yours one day, and even healthy people have valid medical expenses that can be paid tax free with the HSA. Otherwise that money just goes to buying an executive another yacht.
 
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Joe Shmo said:
Cross-posting this great write-up by @TheRedChair from another thread:


Highlights:
  • Buy groceries on sale, and in bulk
  • Stock up your pantry and freezer in advance
  • Buy a stand-alone freezer!! (I mentioned this advice previously as well)
  • Step-by-step how to deep freeze & re-cook meat
  • I got hungry just reading about the butter-browned pan-fried steak 😁
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I'd add to this learn to can, dry, and smoke.
 
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NoReturn said:
I recommend against egg donation. The pay looks great, but it's not worth the toll on your health.


Heh. Red's a boomer.
:smug:
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You know what's the real boomer option when it comes to TV.
Buying a fucking TV antenna in current year.

My parents did this a few years ago when we cut our home phone that came with TV and bought an antenna that gets about 20ish channels which are mostly local stations, reruns of old westerns and scifi shows, and 2-3 major networks
 
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Mojoi said:
Don't wipe your butt with toilet paper, it costs money. You probably already have water, a hose and a family member or a friend/roomie.

You wash my ass and I wash yours, we play the economy.
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It's called a bidet you heathen.
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Uncle June said:
That costs money tho...
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Nah, see, what you gotta do is figure out how much money you'll be saving on TP by switching to the Assblaster 9000 and only using TP to dab and dry. Eventually it pays for itself!
 
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If you don't use a VPN already, get a trial for a VPN and use it to sign up for all your streaming services via different countries. Usually there are tutorials for this online, and if you have a few streaming services, the savings start to add up. Once you're done, you can cancel the VPN trial if you need to.

Examples: Cost of the Youtube Premium Family Plan in the US? $17.99/month. In Argentina? $1.40/month. Netflix 4 screen 4k plan in the US? $19.99/month. In turkey? About $4.50/month. Spotify runs about $2/month in Argentina, and Discovery+ can be $4-$5/year in India if you can find a working site for the OTP request.
 
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Saving money on housing: Not a big secret but yes if you want cheap housing, you gotta move to an undesirable location. And I dont mean the ghetto. I mean rural. I kinda did that myself by moving from Europe to Canada. And in Canada not the GTA. It is a solution for me because I gotta family and your own detached home is affordable in the north. Its not that easy though. You gotta make it work. Lots of snow in the winter means lots of shoveling and extra equipment which is money spent. Gotta spend some money on a reliable car and in Central Canada it means pickup truck. You will get stuck in your own lot if you dont have 4 x 4. Pick up truck means more gas money too. I prefer to live in a small town set up, going completely off grid can be suicidal in the north. I dont know about the states though.
 
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Here's one. Learn basic sewing/stitching if you don't already know how. (Do they still require Home-Ec in junior high school?)

Simple mending like fixing a seam, re-attaching a button, etc. You'll save time/money vs. bringing it to a tailor, and for stuff like socks/underwear you can get an extra 6-12 months out of it with a quick-fix when it starts getting a hole.

IMO, mending the socks/underwear is a no-brainer. I can't believe what they cost these days, so I'm going to make them last until they're falling apart lol. And you don't even have to do a perfect job since nobody's going to see it.
 
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Butterschmalz said:
I prefer to live in a small town set up, going completely off grid can be suicidal in the north. I dont know about the states though.
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Depends on where you do it.
Some entire states are ok, some are completely off-limits, and others truly do depend on the area, as cliche as it sounds. In the case of that last one, I don't just mean large states like Texas or California. I mean smaller ones with multiple subclimates as well. If you have something like a mountain range running through the state you have to plan around which microclimate will allow you to live safely.
Joe Shmo said:
Here's one. Learn basic sewing/stitching if you don't already know how. (Do they still require Home-Ec in junior high school?)
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No. When it's offered it's usually an elective, and even then it's less useful information than just a SPED life skills class.
 
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NoReturn said:
No. When it's offered it's usually an elective, and even then it's less useful information than just a SPED life skills class.
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Jeez what a shame. Back in the day everyone had to take very basic levels of Wood Shop, Sewing, and Cooking, to at least introduce you to the concepts and feel proud making stuff with your own hands. IMO they should also require some kind of decent "Life Skills" class to teach basic financial literacy, comparison shopping, and the kinds of household tips & tricks we've been discussing in this thread.
 
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As we are talking about basic stitch work, a good skill for sure, but I admit I'm pretty snobby with my dress clothes. Find quality used stuff and have it cut. And or, get cheaper clothes and talior em to you.

A nice button down from Ross maybe 20 bucks + 10 trimmed to your body way less than off shelf polo with a bare med cut.

I have some suits passed down to me when I was a teen and I'm closer to 40 than I like. They were well cared for and I didn't need to buy suits but 50 bucks getting fit to me, I still look fly in them.

Also this came up in a funny story and I'm sure it's stupid simple, but grubhub etc is absurd don't use it. Even if you have a dodge viper or some race car, your 7 mpg to the pizza shop and back is cheaper than delivery fees. I'm truly baffled how those places caught on or last.
 
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This should be obvious, but a thing measured is a thing improved. Keeping autistically detailed spreadsheets has been my saving grace since I got my first job. Knowing where every cent goes and why really cuts frivolous spending. From encouraging my peers to do the same, I've seen it filter lazy fucks who even today blow all their money on crap and still wonder why they're poor from those who are now financially stable.
 
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dmsk said:
This should be obvious, but a thing measured is a thing improved. Keeping autistically detailed spreadsheets has been my saving grace since I got my first job. Knowing where every cent goes and why really cuts frivolous spending. From encouraging my peers to do the same, I've seen it filter lazy fucks who even today blow all their money on crap and still wonder why they're poor from those who are now financially stable.
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Do you do this through excel?

Maybe I'm just retarded, but I have a hard time using Mint or YNAB like a lot of milennials do. Though my budget isn't exactly complicated, it is a weakness of mine and I need to improve my tracking.
 
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Uncle June said:
Do you do this through excel?

Maybe I'm just retarded, but I have a hard time using Mint or YNAB like a lot of milennials do. Though my budget isn't exactly complicated, it is a weakness of mine and I need to improve my tracking.
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Lots of options. A lot of younger people just use google sheets, but I don't like storing all my finances on google. The libreoffice suite has libreoffice calc. It's basically just excel from the WinXP era and it's free so that's where my vote goes.
 
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