Household Frugal Tips

Insider Ways - Save Money Around Home

In fact, you'll be pleasantly surprised how effective these simple hints are when it comes to knocking down your expenses.

Cost Saving Handy Household Tips

• Live in a smaller house. As we do, you'll want to live in as small of a house as you’re comfortable with. We are a 4 person family living in a 2,000 sq ft home. This leaves us with plenty of room without overdoing it.

  And of course, you'll save a great deal of cash by not overextending yourself on a huge home; not to mention the higher utility costs that come with a larger house.

• Put batteries in the refrigerator; they do last longer.
• Use a kitchen wash cloth instead of paper towel.
• Buy furniture at a consignment store or in the clearance section of your local furniture store at substantial discounts.
• Cleaning your own carpets will save you a great deal of money. If you don't have a carpet cleaner, they're cheap to rent.
• Cable TV. If you have a premium channel service that you use very little or not at all, it's a good idea to cancel it.
• Gym Membership. Gym costs deserve a worthy mention when it comes to household frugal tips.

  We know several people that have these memberships, but don't get to the gym for whatever reason. Many times they caught in thinking that if they cancel the membership, they'll lose out on the sign-up fee. The problem is they’re leaking cash if they don't go to the gym.

  We were guilty of this and canceled our membership several years ago. We found exercising out of our home was much cheaper and a big time saver; no more waiting to get on an exercise machine.

  We love the Tony Little gazelle machine. It costs just over $100.00. We've had it for years, you get a great workout and it’s not hard on your knees.

  Another great benefit, is you can use it while reading or watching TV. That way, you’ll find it makes exercising more enjoyable.

  Whatever at home exercise method you like, whether it be a gazelle machine, exercising to a DVD, etc., the bottom line is you'll find that you’ll save a great deal of time and money.

• Rotten Food. This is certainly a worthy mention when it comes to household frugal tips.

  We've all experienced this at one time or another. Wasted food will eat a hole in your wallet. To avoid this, you can keep leftovers in the freezer.

  If you're coming up against rotten fruit and vegys, you can buy frozen.

Household Frugal Tips - Utilities

• You can use energy efficient fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs.
• Keep the lights turned off during the day.
• Ceiling fans are very energy efficient. We have them in almost every room of our house and really save on air conditioning bills.
• You should give serious consideration to getting rid of your land line and just use cell phones. You'll find there to be many affordable family cell plans out there. Our family pays $60 a month for 700 minutes and we don't have to pay for calls to each other, evening calls or weekend calls.

  We dropped our land line saving at least $75 a month; and we've got to tell you we still have minutes left over each month on the cell phone plan. Especially with more people using the faster DSL or cable for high speed internet, it makes the choice to drop the land line easier; not to mention the money saved.

• Insulate you home piping
• You can avoid wasting water by not letting the tap continue to run when brushing your teeth, or dripping when leaving the room. Also, showers use less water than baths.
• Weatherstripping your doors and windows will save you a good amount of money on heating and cooling bills.
• Caulking open spaces and around windows will also save you significant money in heating and AC bills.
• Keep your thermostat lower when going to bed or leaving the house. Programmable thermostats are cheap and will save you a good deal of money.
• We know, you’ve probably heard this before; but shutting off the lights when leaving a room does add up to savings over time.