Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Saving money in 2011

Well it looks as though 2011 will be another expensive year money wise, with our continued renovations and the wedding, so I need to save money where ever I can.

I am doing the Daily Savings Pot again, I talk about it in detail in this post  I have actually been doing it for the past month or so, as I already have $46 in my box.

I of course still put $20 away each week for both Christmas and Birthday's.  The Christmas pot is a bit bare, but the Birthday pot is looking reasonably healthy.  I have now started to put money away each week to help out with wedding expenses.  It was for a holiday this year, but we'll use it for the wedding instead.

I want to be more organized with meal planning this year, and one thing I need to do is an inventory of what is in the freezers and the pantry.  That is something that is long overdue, and I am sure there is "stuff" languishing in the bottom or back of the freezers that do need using up.

I want to have more "no spend" days each week, and due to the high price of gas I want to have more stay at home days.  So far this year, I have had two no spend days and one spend day.  I need to put an icon on the side of my blog detailing that.

I will continue drying the clothes overnight on the clothes horse, until it warms up enough so that I can hang the laundry out again.  Most people can do that, just do laundry before you go to bed and hang it up to dry on a clothes horse/drying rack and by morning it should be more or less dry, especially if you have an open fire and heating vents in the house.  Hydro/electricity is so expensive for us now, that its cheaper for me to hang everything to dry.

It's our expensive time of year for heating oil.  We will go through a tank of oil every month now for the next couple of months.  I know we got our tank filled on December 17th, and we have used half a tank of oil these past two weeks, so will have to call the company to come by and fill up again next week.  Hopefully by the end of March that will slow down.  We still have plenty of wood to burn so that is good, and this year we are going to make more of an effort to clear up dead wood and branches off the property so we can burn that next winter, and maybe save on buying so much wood.

I would love to hear how you all are saving money?

By the way cashed in another 450 Swagbucks for another $5 Amazon e-card, I last cashed in on December 28th, so it took me 6 days to get 450 swagbucks.  Trying to make $20 a month in Amazon e-cards, such a simple way of getting money for nothing.

Wasn't sure what I was going to talk about again today, it's funny when you start writing one thing leads to another.....

10 comments:

Jane and Chris said...

I usually do grocery shopping once every two weeks as the stores are 35-40 mins drive away , so this saves gas going so infrequently. This coming shop I am going to miss out and see what meals I can make from items in the store cupboard.
We do not have central heating, so last autumn we had a wood stove installed replacing a propane one. We are hoping that this will save us the high propane bills we had. We still have one propane heater which kicks in when the wood stove burns down overnight. Also, trying to use wood from our property to help save $$. This year we would like to start replacing windows as ours are single pane.You can see the size of our windows on my blog sidebar. We will have to borrow to pay for the windows but we should start to see a difference in our fuel bills.(and it adds value to the house). So many ways we are trying to save money....too many to write here!!
Jane x

Kim said...

I wish I could use a clothes horse but we just don't have the room. Our basement is an inlaw suite for FIL, so no space there and the only other usable space would be in our bare front room but it has hardwood floors and DH would freak at the thought of setting one up there. He isn't as frugal as I am :P

My way to save money this year is to get back to work and start making some again! I have many no spend days as I don't drive so can't go shop but I have nothing to spend so that is all moot at the moment :)

MyBulletinBoard said...

I like to hang clothes to dry at night to increase the humidity then. I also run my distiller in the laundry room at night to keep the laundry room warm. That way I don't have to run the heater in there and pay double to use the distiller in the daytime -- as long as we aren't in single digits at night! Think we'll be up in the 20's the next few nights. Downright warm! LOL ~Liz

Scrappy quilter said...

We are seeing everything rise in price has well so we are cutting back big time too. I haven't had a dryer in 23 years. I use a clothesrack (2) during the winter months. The clothes dry overnight, just like you said.

Hope it's a good year frugally for you. Hugs

Sugar__Mama said...

i'm always looking for ways to cut back and save money. i try to make mosst of our meals from scratch. i menu plan according to what is on sale and stock up on items when possible. i find avoiding going to the store as much as possible saves me money, because i always find something to buy that is not on my list and spend more than i think i will. i also find that if dh comes with me, the bill will be at least 1/3 higher than if he stayed home lol. good post as usual, gill. i also signed up for swagbucks using your link,looks like a good program.

John Going Gently said...

I think EVERYONE is going to save money this year...what with VAT up to 20% here etc etc etc
its really depressing isnt it?

angela said...

I try to live out of my pantry and freezers as much as possible. I now only shop when I have to. Because I only buy what I need I can afford to stock up on things like sugar and coffee so when its on special I do just that. I am still trying to grow as much of my own food as possibel an preserve for the time of year that the garden isnt producing. I too dry my cloths on clothshorses and find that if hung right you cut down on ironing. A bonus. We bought our wood in bulk, and invested in a splitter so it ended up costing a 1/4 of that if you bought it split and in smaller amounts. The big thing here is the electicity, no one else seems to know how to turn things off, so I go around behind everyone doing just that and getting angry, but hey when the bill comes hubby can only blam himself, and he does.

Lib said...

A GREAT POST!!!!!!!!
I am cooking from our stock pile I canned,froze, and dried alot of food and bought by the case. Just buy what we have to .
We have no spend days, we make every trip out count!Have started Christmas hope to have it finished in afew wks.
Looks like 2011 isnt going to be any better than last few yrs. plan on alot more potlucks with Family and friends and board games.
The list goes on!
HAve a great wk.
Blessins',Lib

DeniseinVA said...

You seem to have it all well planned. We haven't been saving a lot of money as we have just bought ourselves a new TV and stand. We did wait until our other broke down after several years though. We don't usually buy big items unless the other is beyond repair. We have electric heating and have knocked it down a few notches to save money on the monthly bill. It's cooler in the house but we just put an extra layer on and I find it too hot when we go elsewhere. I don't like a lot of heat anyhow and am very content.

Karine said...

You're a saving champ! I actually am saving a lot by not using my credit card and just paying it off instead and by using my slow cooker to make large portions of food that I can then freeze, which allows me to save on groceries!

{{{SIGH}}}

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