Virtually every personal finance article that you read about saving money will point out the cost benefits of bringing your lunch to work. Packing your lunch is one of the quickest and simplest ways to save money, and is the reason it shows up on many of these published lists. A person spending $5 to $10 per day on lunch can quickly realize they are blowing over a hundred dollars every month just from eating lunch.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the annual savings just from cutting this expense can run in the thousands of dollars. Add in a spouse who may eat out for lunch from time to time and there is the potential for a family to save several thousand dollars every year just from cutting back on this expense.

Even if you already brown bag it, there may be other ways to save money on expenses while at work or in commute. How much does that morning coffee run you on the way to work? Even if it only costs $1, it is still much cheaper to brew your own. How about that afternoon snack or soft drink from the vending machine? Again, even spending a $1 every day can really add up overtime.

Why I Bring My Lunch to Work

I have always recognized the cost savings and health benefits of bringing my own lunch to work. In the past, I would occasionally go out to eat with my colleagues and witness just how much money a person typically spends on lunch. I would estimate my coworkers spend $8 to $12 per day on lunch.

Using a conservative calculation, I figure I could easily spend $1,600 per year if I joined them every day. While there are several benefits of going out to eat with your colleagues, the cost savings to me are more significant. This is just one of the ways that my family can live comfortably on a single income.

Saving Money at the Vending Machine

Even though I have always been diligent about not spending money going out to eat for lunch, there was always one expense I could never seem to shake while at work. For many years I had a bad habit of visiting the vending machine each afternoon for a small snack or soft drink. For some reason I felt that spending a dollar or two everyday on snacks seemed okay, as long as I wasn’t spending $10 on lunch.

It wasn’t until I started revisiting our family budget a few weeks ago that I truly realized how much I was spending each month at the vending machine. On average, I spent about $40 to $50 a month on afternoon snacks and beverages so I could get through the rest of the day at work. That is around $500 per year in wasted expenses that were helping to hold us back from becoming financially independent.

Final Thoughts

I have been snack free at work now for two months and am going strong. At first it was a little difficult fighting off the afternoon cravings for a diet soft drink from the vending machines, but after awhile I got use to not having one. As I look back, I think it was more of a behavioral issue than anything. As each day went by, I became less and less tempted to head down the hallway to pick up a snack.

Estimated Monthly Savings – $40 (conservative)

Cutting out expenses like eating out for lunch, morning coffee, and vending machine trips takes a little self sacrifice, but is not very difficult. As my wife and I try to save 10% of our income, I welcome that we could immediately save at least $40 per month just from cutting out snacks from the budget. This expense was quick and mostly painless and will help our overall goals of saving more of our income.

What examples can you provide as ways to save money that are quick and painless?

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I recently wrote a post about a frugal decision my wife and I made to cancel our BJ’s Wholesale Club membership. We made the choice to let the membership expire at the end of August, along with the $45 yearly fee. After weighing the pros and cons, we just couldn’t justify a cost savings from our typical purchases at the store on diapers and other baby products. While we did save money on these purchases by shopping at BJ’s compared to other stores, the savings over the course of 12 months did not add up to the membership fee.

One of the items that I previously had mentioned as a reason to cancel the membership was – One Day Memberships. I noted that BJ’s and other wholesale clubs offer one day free memberships to come in and try out the store from time to time. I figured that if we really wanted to still shop at BJ’s, then we could use these free day memberships to our advantage. Soon after we let our yearly membership expire at BJ’s at the end of August, we received a one-day membership coupon in the Sunday paper. So, last weekend we decided to take advantage of the free offer and stock up on purchases that we use to make at the store.

The results of the one day membership were a huge success. We went to the store on a Saturday and they were passing out all of these great BJ’s coupons for extra savings. Remember that BJ’s will let you combine their own coupons with manufacturer’s coupons for extra savings. Well, it just happened that many of the coupons were for diapers and baby products so we took advantage of the deal. We also stocked up on several other products (pasta, meat, and soy burgers) while we were there. I am not sure how often BJ’s runs these types of promotions for the free one day memberships, but at this point my wife and I are very glad with our decision.

Originally posted 2008-09-15 07:21:59. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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This is a guest post by Lena Morrish and Dima Nikolayenko who operate the business www.InternetBusinessBTS.com. Their business website can provide you with an excellent source of guidance on starting home based internet business and help you to establish your residual income opportunity.

Before you sign up and get involved with a passive income opportunity that is professing to help you make a significant amount of money, you should take the time carefully evaluate whether or not this is the best opportunity for you.

1. A Proven Track Record

Before you get involved with any business opportunity, it is important that you do careful research on the company, their products and offered services, and verify whether they have a positive history and track record of providing a steady stream of passive income to their affiliates.

As a part of your research on the passive income opportunity, you should take the time to review the Better Business Bureau’s records to find out if there have been any significant complaints lodged against the company. If the business has a solid and proven track record of providing positive results then it may just be the opportunity that you are looking for.

If you can, inquire about a list of references or business contacts who would be willing to provide you with a positive testimonial about this passive income opportunity.

2. Does It Seem Realistic?

Is this passive income opportunity being advertised as one that will make you an “Internet Millionaire” overnight? Are unrealistic financial figures being promised to you? Does the promotional material claim that you need only invest a few minutes a week to make massive amounts of money? Does the return on investment of the opportunity seem simply outrageous?

Unless you are offered substantial evidence that you can, in fact, earn a large amount of money via your passive income efforts the odds are that this is not a realistic or reliable opportunity.

It may serve you well to simply just move on from this opportunity and on to the next one that is offering a somewhat more realistic financial target to its affiliates.

3. Trust Your Instincts – Is It Too Good To Be True?

A good general rule of thumb is “if it appears too good to be true, then odds are good that it actually is too good to be true!” Place your trust in your shrewd business senses and identify those passive income opportunities that simply do not appear to be legitimate or realistic in their offerings.

There are untold numbers of people looking to scam people out of their hard-earned money so it is absolutely vital that you trust your most basic instincts and shy away from those opportunities that simply do not appear to be honest and truthful. By keeping an eye out for the red flags that will alert you of a scam or simply a poor opportunity you will be able to save yourself a significant amount of time and grief.

While there are certainly many methods of creating a solid, reliable, and continual flow of passive income, it is important that you keep a keen eye out for those opportunities that are simply not realistic, are too good to be true, and rapidly take on the appearance of a scam.

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One of my passions in life is landscaping and working outdoors. Another passion and sometimes obsession of mine is to live frugally. Unfortunately, when these two passions come together, the sometimes frugal obsession in me always wins. One of the hardest things for me to deal with in regards to frugal living is reducing our family’s landscaping expenses. Many years ago (before kids), I would go to the local nursery and pick up all sorts of plants and trees and anything imaginable that you could use for landscaping. I took pride in having the greenest lawn in the neighborhood and the best looking landscaping. I would often have neighbors stop and ask me all kinds of questions about my landscaping and give me tons of complements. Then one day, after our first son was born, I realized I needed to focus on different passions in life and began to cut back in our landscaping and outdoor costs.

To give you an idea on how much I have cut back in landscaping expenses, in the 6 months that we have been in our new home, I have spent a grand total of $18.00 on landscaping. This is a brand new home which means it has very little curb appeal, so $18 does not really go a long way. This expense included a bag of grass seed and a few perennials to add some color to the front of the house. On a side note, I don’t buy annuals for the obvious reason. While I understand annuals typically produced the best colors, they don’t come back and I consider it a waste of my money. I need to see a multi-year return on investment! I will note that our home did come with sod in the front yard (not in the back) and some landscaping in the front which has helped out a lot.

The other day my father called me up with two very frugal opportunities. Given our very limited landscaping monthly budget, I jumped at the following opportunities -

Patio Stone
My parents recently hired a company to come in and rip up an existing patio they had in their back yard from a previous owner of the home. The old patio was made from large sections of flagstone but was uneven which caused some drainage issues. My parents wanted to put in a brick paver patio in place of the flagstone. When the demolition crew came in to start ripping up the existing patio, my father asked them what they do with all the materials. One of the workers told him that it would be going to a landfill and that it was already factored into the quoted price. Luckily my father, understanding my passion for landscaping, called me up and asked if I would be interested in the flagstone. I told him absolutely and the crew came up immediately to our house and dropped it off. It actually saved my parents money because the company waived the fee to dump it in the landfill and also reduced the amount they paid to take it to the landfill. Our house was about 15 miles closer than the landfill, so they pro-rated the expense. At the end of the day, I felt very proud of our freecycle opportunity. We saved my parents money and got some excellent flagstone that I will be using to create a raised flower bed in the front our our house. Most importantly, we prevented a bunch of usable natural materials from going into a landfill!

Free Plants
As part of my parents backyard project, they dug up several overgrown perennials that had invaded their backyard. As part of my father’s call earlier in the week, he also asked if I was interested in any of the plants he cut back? Of course, I accepted his offer and now have several wonderful perennials to plant in my soon to be new raised flower bed in front of the house.

Originally posted 2008-08-27 12:26:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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The Family Budget
June 2008 has come to a close and the family budget has made it through one more month in the green! This is the second month that we have used the family budget. We spent $259.36 less than budgeted for the month of June compared to $142.37 less than budgeted for the prior month (May – 2008). That is an increase of 82% in savings between June and May (2008). There are several highlights from the current budget review and as always a few concerns for the coming months.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Gas – We did a very good job on our Gas budget for the month considering the never ending rise in oil prices. Our monthly budget is $200 for two vehicles. I was able to stretch out only one fill up during the month in my car, so we came in at $151.49 which was a 17% decrease in expenses compared to the month of May. I attribute this cost savings in part to some of the measures that we have taken to reduce our gas consumption.
• Energy Costs – I am continually amazed at how well we have been managing our energy costs, specifically our electricity usage. We have a 3,300 square foot house that I was terrified about paying the utility bills on back in February (2008) when we closed. My wife and I have made it a goal to manage our natural gas, electricity and water usage. The main highlight of the energy costs is the electric bill coming in at $40.41! Considering the extreme heat we saw in mid-June I am extremely please with the results.

CONCERNS

• Gas Prices – While we did reduce our gas consumption for the month along with our expenses, I am still concerned about gas prices in the next few months. We did increase our Gas Expense Fund up to $65.82 which should help to offset future increases. Unfortunately, I will need to fill up my car twice this month and won’t be able to stretch it out as I did in June.
• Groceries & Entertainment – Once again we outspent our budget in this category. I have been including gift purchases in this category, along with food and entertainment expenses so that is the reason for going over budget. We incurred some birthday gift and baptism gift expenses during June which accounted for the increase. The main focus for July will be to bring down our grocery expenses to meet the budget.

June 2008 – Budget Review

Final Thoughts
Overall it was an excellent month for the budget and I can already see the rewards of monitoring it closely. As stated earlier, we spent $259.36 less than what was budgeted. Of that savings, $191.45 was put into “Expense Funds” for those particular accounts to use for future expenses. The remaining $67.91 has been put into our ‘Investments & Savings’ category and will be used for a future stock purchase. In the future, anytime we are under budget, the funds will be added to this category.

How do you keep track of your weekly/monthly finances? Do you have a budget setup to track your cash flow?

Originally posted 2008-07-02 07:10:41. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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