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Help me out girls. What’s a good title for Operation: Get and save money in any (legal) way shape or form I can for a house, a baby coming soon and grad school tuition?
While you’re thinking about that, I’ll let you in on my plan so far in the tentatively named Operation: Get That Dough
1. saving $ from 9-5 job – OK this is the “duh” item on the list and will likely contribute most to the savings accounts. I save $XXXX each paycheck to an account on everbank.com. I’m going to beef this up by:
- looking for an online bank account with a higher interest rate to switch to
- look into upping the amount I put in (after consulting the budget to see if it’s even possible)
i have this pic on my vision board 🙂
2. couponing more aggressively – I am going to even start “liking” brands on FB and signing up for their “clubs” so I can get some coupons sent to me to help me with the food costs. Oh, and I’m never shopping with John, I’ll go alone and have him pick me up because it’s easier to stick to my list that way without seeing “surprise!” hot dogs and pork rinds sliding down the conveyor belt.
3. Sell stuff – I’m going to try craigslist, half.com, and ebay for selling books and clothes and other things that I’d otherwise just give to goodwill. Let’s see if anyone wants this stuff. One man’s trash another man’s treasure, right? I used to sell textbooks on half.com all the time. Hopefully it’s still as easy.
4. Switch Credit Cards – I actually already did this. I got rid of my continental chase card and got a chase freedom card. This gives me unlimited cash back versus miles, and has no annual fee (Saved $79/year) – PS: I gotta say, the customer service people for this card were stellar…never had such good service from a credit card company before.
5. Adios Gym – I did this one already too. I said sayonara to NYSC, I had the membership on hold since I couldn’t workout in my first trimester at all, but I just got rid of the membership all together. I still have my Planet Fitness account which is $10 a month (which if I’m being honest with myself I should probably cancel too….), but that one will go bye bye after we move. (Saved $75/month) I am putting the “gym payment” into my savings account as if it’s a bill I’m still paying.
6. Cash Back – All of the money I get back each month from Mr. Rebates and Ebates goes straight into my savings. Now that I use the site when I book/buy anything at work, I’m getting a lot more cash back! Yippee! (If you haven’t yet signed up for one of those, I suggest you do so now, you’ll get cash back for shopping…if you’re going to shop online anyway, may as well get some $$ back each month for it!)
7. Continue cutting back – another duh item. We’re cutting back even more and depending on how my future baby shower goes, we’ll be going used/thrift for the baby stuff (not the crib or car seat of course). I did a pretty sizeable haul of maternity clothes for $250 (target clearance and old navy clearance) and am now on another shopping ban until May 1, 2012!
8. Save freelancing / coaching income – my final “duh” item. I’m treating my side business income as an untouchable bonus. A certain percentage of it goes to IRA and the rest goes to savings.
I’m dividing all the “extra” earned money in savings 3 ways.
- 50% to Down Payment fund
- 25% Baby fund
- 25% Tuition fund
Any other ideas for me? Know where any money trees are planted perhaps? Know any rich benefactors?
Also, I was asked in an email about what books I’d recommend to help get a hold of your finances. Here are my suggestions:
- Total Money Makeover – by Dave Ramsey (this is like a bible for some folks)
- Women & Money – by Suze Orman – I LOVE LOVE LOVED THIS BOOK
- Your Money or Your Life – by Robin & Dominguez
And….I haven’t read these yet, but if you have amazon prime (which you can get free if you’re a mom or student fyi) you can read these books for FREE!!!
HAPPY SAVING!!
Doyou have any financial goals this year? What are you doing to save or earn money this year?
Great tips. We will be watching the new Suze Orman class on OWN network because we need to know some of the lingo that goes on with money.
I so feel you on this post…since we are planning a wedding and have a baby on the way, saving money has been our #1 priority! We are all over finding coupons especially for diapers and baby stuff…but we also take advantage of all those sales where if you buy so many you get a gift card or something…those come in handy too!!! So keep posting the saving money tips!
Oh one more thing in relation to baby stuff…this lady at my job was telling me that if someone you know has breastfed recently and is willing to give you the machine you can call the company and they will send you new parts for free…and after a little research a lot of the companies will either sell you new parts for cheap or just send them right to you for free! So we have a car seat that someone gave us, and to get a new cover was around $20, but you cant beat not having to pay for a backup car seat!
awesome! my saving grace is sticking to our budget! there is money allotted every paycheck towards bills, savings, travel, fun, etc. by doing this, we feel that we can still have fun and have savings without feeling restricted.
we started a baby fund {yea, haha} and we put $$$ in that every two weeks … that money is going to help us purchase the crib, stroller, car seat, etc when we do have a baby. i figured we might as well start now whilst we have the money.
GASP!!! YAY FOR BABY FUND!!! You’re SO getting preggo this year.
Suggestions:
1. Sign up for affiliate links/marketing for websites and businesses you use frequently
2. If you don’t have one already, open a high-yield checking account at a credit union
3. Take online surveys – Mysurvey.com, SurveySpot.com, etc. (Might take a while before you see a profit though)
4. Purchase the entertainment coupon book
Good luck!
GREAT IDEAS…..but where’s the # for the wealthy benefactor? 🙂
Operation Penny Pinch? Operation Baby Budget? Those were the first two that came to mind 🙂
And I know this sounds nuts, but if you have any old gold lying around? That’ll do it right there. I had some UGLY old gold things that I took to one of those “we buy gold” shops and made a pretty little penny that way. Other than that, we just budget budget budget (and be we I mean the accountant mister tells me what to spend). Spunds like youve got a handle on it though, Good luck!
Operation Penny Pinch!! I love it!! Perfecto! I never knew those we buy gold places were legit!
Great ideas! I’m definitely with you on this. I’m trying to start a business so I’m cutting out discretionary spending on my natural hair products (PJ), makeup, clothes and accessories. That alone will be a ton.
Good luck!!
Good luck girlie! 🙂 It sounds like you have a great plan!!
These are all great suggestions. What we did to save up on baby clothes (cause we still bought some), is hook up with other moms who already had clothes and were not having any more children.
These were either co-workers or friends.
This came in handy especially in the first year when children don’t wear their clothes for very long. I saw no point in buying BabyPhat for 3-6 months, when maybe she’ll wear the outfit once.
I need to hurry up and make some friends who have kids!!
I love, love, love Suze. She doesn’t tell you what you want to hear but you need to hear. And she doesn’t mince words which most people don’t like about her but sugarcoating and hand holding is how most people ended up in debt to start with. Have you thought about switching to a credit union credit card? They can’t raise interest rates over 18% and a lot of these other credit cards have interests that are at least 25% or higher.
I’m not sure how much free time you have but maybe there’s room in there to take on more freelance work. Also, I would recommend shopping online for big baby items like the crib and mattress. You can score great clearance items from name brands online that aren’t available in the your local stores. Not to mention there is often more of a variety/selection.
Thanks! I pay my cards off in full each month so the interest rates don’t effect me. I choose based on PERKS!! lol. Great idea on shopping, and I’m takin on as much freelance work as I can.
Have you started using Swagbucks yet? You’re online all the time so that may be a suggestion you can get gift cards (even though not just cash) The idea of the credit union has already been mentioned and a bunch of others.
I keep hearing about this David Ramsey book I’m gonna have to buy it cause although our finances are in great shape I’m interested.
P.S. I tagged you on my blog post today!
Really informative post – thank you for sharing. It’s so good to see someone writing about saving money, as it can be quite hard to find practical, real advice out there.