Found 45 posts tagged as "Saving"
Taking the plunge into a more frugal lifestyle can save you a lot of money, if done right. Over the years I've seen a number of well-meaning cost-cutting Canucks take to thrift, only to damage their financial bottom lines and become miserable.
To keep you from becoming 'penny wise' and 'pound foolish', here are five frugal living mistakes even thrifty people make:
Along with Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, and eBay, the online classifieds website Craigslist could be considered one of the seven wonders of the internet world. Where else can you find a job, rent a room, hookup for a blind date, or buy anything your heart desires just by browsing one site?
While finding work or your future beau on Craigslist is debatable, the prospect of buying cool stuff is unquestionable. Shopping local sellers, negotiating prices face-to-face, and picking up the goods in person pretty much makes Craigslist the prefect place to shop for anything new or used.
Here are the 10 best deals to buy on Craigslist:
On Thursday morning, the federal government unveiled its plan to offer pooled registered pension plans – a system that could become a reality by the end of next year. Both federal and provincial ministers endorsed pooled registered pension plans – or PRPPs, as they are already being called – last December. Since then, they have been preparing for legislation and working out the details.
The new plan is aimed at the over 60 per cent of Canadians who do not have access to programs through their workplace. The plan is especially beneficial to small business employees and the self-employed since it gives them the opportunity to save for retirement directly through payroll deductions.
They lack fancy packaging, you won't see them advertised in magazines or on television, and they can cost up to 30% less. Yes, I'm talking about generic products. Since these plain labeled products don't pack the same costly marketing punch as their brand name counterparts, they're worth a look if you're tying to cut costs on your grocery and pharmacy bills. By giving these five generic products a try, a family spending $1,200 on food and medications could save up to $360 per year.
1. Over-the-counter drugs
You don’t need to spend big bucks on brand name over-the-counter medications to cure the common cold or to get headache free. Health Canada says that generic drugs must be exactly the same as the brand names in terms of active medicinal ingredients, strength, dosage form, and route of administration.
"The generic drug must show that it can deliver the same amount of medicinal ingredient at the same rate as the original brand name drug," says Health Canada.
However, non-medicinal ingredients in generic products can be different from those of the original brand. So before making the switch, be sure to follow these rules:
- * Compare active medicinal ingredients.
- * Compare inactive ingredients (sugar, starch, etc.).
- * Check dosage.
- * Compare that product sizes are equivalent.
- * Compare cost -- the brand could be cheaper on sale.
I did my own price check experiment to find the biggest savings in over-the-counter drugs and remedies. The winners are generic cough syrup with 31% savings, generic eye drops at 24% less, and generic liquid ibuprofen with 23% savings.
Check out my Price Check Experiment: Are generic drugs worth it? for the full list of generic winners, losers, and savings.
Krystal Yee wasn't happy watching her grocery bill creep up. With rising food prices taking a bite out of her budget, the popular money blogger of Give Me Back My Five Bucks resolved to decrease her grocery costs by a whopping 25%, fast.
"I have decided that my goal is to cut my $200 grocery bill back down to $150 for the month of July," she writes, after discovering that food inflation along with her newly single status seriously eroded her grocery buying power.
How did the 28-year-old Vancouver-based graphic designer manage to eat a month's worth of healthy meals while on a strict budget? Follow her simple steps and you too could save a small fortune on food.
Step One: Go shopping, at home?
What's hiding in the bottom of your freezer? Go ahead and brave the ice age to save a little, or a lot of money in your grocer's frozen food aisle. If your pantry is stocked and your fridge is almost full, chances are dinner is already paid for. Using up all your forgotten food is Yee's first essential step to cutting grocery costs.
"Before you go grocery shopping, check out what you already have and see if you can buy a few key ingredients to turn those items into a meal," she writes.
Paul writes: "My wife is very good with our money. She clips coupons and only makes larger purchases on sale. But it takes a lot of her time and sometimes she buys things we don't really need. How can I tell her to stop, but not alltogether?"
Seems like your wife has fantastic intentions and she is spending her valuable time trying to save your family money.
You have identified that her approach needs a bit of tweaking to actually meet this goal and you need to decide together how to go about it.
Every process in our home has an optimum state of efficiency and each activity that we perform can also be done to excess and can quickly become counter-productive. Clipping coupons is no exception. There are television shows dedicated to folks that take this activity to extremes. When it comes to groceries, I personally am at a loss as one quick glance into the multiple shopping carts indicates there isn’t too much nutritional value in the volumes of packages being purchased, even if they are practically free. No one really “needs” all those cans and bottles of soda and bags of processed food, not to mention the time commitment of managing the coupons, getting to the store, loading and unloading the volume of product from the shelves onto the cart, onto the belt… all the unloading on the back end and so on. But the avid clippers are doing it all anyway.
 I've never shied away from the strange, especially if being wacky saves me a few bucks. I've timed my showers to save on hot water, I drive a blue Smart car to save on fuel, and I make my own laundry detergent to avoid paying for the premium of store bought clothing cleaners. See How to Save Money on Laundry for ways to clean your dirty duds for less.
Driving a micro-car the size of a golf cart probably wins me the strangest looks in public, but showering in five minutes flat using a stopwatch wins the sideways glance from my husband every time.
"Can you really get clean that fast?" he asks. My answer is always a resolute Yes. Plus, our energy bills are a shining example of how frugality can not only cut everyday costs, but lessen the impact on the environment as well.
I'm not alone in my quest to find ways to save money, the wacky included. The internet is buzzing with the weird, strange, and crazy things that seemingly normal people do to save a buck. Some bloggers write about separating two-ply toilet paper into multiple rolls to save on paper products, while others called freegans go dumpster diving to find free food that grocery stores throw away. One freegan, who goes by the name Ginger Freebird, boasts on her site Secret Freegan, that with her dumpster diving ways she has donated $62,000 worth of fresh food to the needy and homeless over the last two years.
Are you fuming over gas prices? You're not alone. Statistics Canada reports that gasoline prices were up a staggering 29.5% in May compared to last year. Whether your car is a gas guzzling machine or a stealth sipping vehicle, these five websites could help you reduce the price paid at the pump.
Also, check out 10 Ways to save money on gas to discover how small lifestyle adjustments can add up to big savings.
1. GasBuddy.com
Need a fuel-friendly ally while driving around Canada or visiting the United States? GasBuddy.com helps you find the cheapest gas prices in real-time by letting you search for the best deal by city, province, or state.
If you commute close to home, stick to GasBuddy's micro sites for Toronto or BC to save a few bucks on fuel. There's also a GasBuddy iPhone App for those on the move and in need of fuel.
2. FuelFrog.com
Don't leap from place to pump without tracking your mileage. Jump to the free website FuelFrog.com to track the distance traveled on your last tank, calculate the price you paid, and compile your fuel consumption. If you're on Twitter, Fuel Frog can track information about your gas efficiency with a simple tweet.
By monitoring your fuel use over time, you can change your driving habits to improve your mileage.
3. Google Maps
Save fuel by charting the shortest driving distance possible using Google Maps. Use the 'Get Directions' search box to find the quickest, most fuel efficient route from point A to point B.
Google Maps also shows you traffic in real-time, so you can aim to avoid traffic jams and won't be sitting idling away dollars.
4. Carpool.ca
Split the cost of gas by sharing your empty passenger's seat and carpooling a few times a week. Website Carpool.ca helps you find carpool partners by matching destinations and driving routes with fellow commuters.
5. Fuel Consumption Guide
Before buying a new or used car, download the Natural Resources Canada Fuel Consumption Guide to compare the fuel consumption of various vehicles and buy the most fuel-efficient model for your family's needs.
Your Turn: Are you paying more at the pump?
Kerry K. Taylor writes at Squawkfox.com, a blog where frugal living is fun. Kerry is the author of 397 Ways To Save Money: Spend Smarter & Live Well on Less.
Another frenzy of fliers has landed on your doorstop and you're wondering how those savvy coupon clipping fiends manage to save hundreds on food using piles of paper. Getting started with coupons is easy, and becoming an expert at extreme coupon savings is just a clip away if you follow these five beginner tips -- just watch out for the paper cuts!
1. Start very small.
"My number one tip that I always give people when they're starting out is to start very small," says Cassie Howard, the Mississauga blogger behind the popular Canadian deals site Mrs. January. "It took me well over a year to learn all the ropes and how to do it properly."
Your first steps should include browsing coupon websites and ordering high value coupons online -- see Is extreme coupon clipping worth it? for a list. While you're collecting your neat coupon stack, watch the store fliers to learn the sales cycles for the items on your shopping list.
"You'll start to notice that certain things go on sale at the same time every year," says Ms. Howard.
2. Save, don't 'spend' your coupons.
Saving a $2 coupon for a rainy day may seem counterintuitive, but that's exactly how Ms. Howard clears the cashier with several bottles of dish soap for free.
"The best thing to do is hold on to those coupons until there's a good sale where you can match the coupon with the sale and get the item for free," she says. "If you need the coupon, then of course go ahead and use it. But if it's just something that you don't really need right away, then just wait until there's a good sale."
Clip, stack, trade, and redeem to get pallets of products for free. That's how bargain hunters and penny pinchers score free food and drugstore items on the TLC show Extreme Couponing. These American coupon shoppers are fanatical about finding freebies, and many stockpile racks of goods they find on sale using a multitude of manufacturer's and store coupons.
Here in Canada coupon clipping isn't as lucrative. Sure, there are oodles of websites dedicated to saving you a buck or two with coupons, but bringing home $700 in free groceries every week is unlikely, says Cassie Howard, a 25-year-old stay-at-home mom in Mississauga and blogger of the uber popular Canadian coupon site Mrs. January.
"In Canada the promotions are few but the coupons are higher value, so you have to watch for those promotions and then match your coupons," she says. "But in the States their promotions are better."
Ms. Howard got serious about saving money with coupons three years ago after learning a few extreme coupon tricks from American websites. "I was just intrigued by that, so I thought I would see if it was possible in Canada. I started doing it and realized that you could not get as much stuff, but it still was possible to do it to an extreme and get a lot of stuff for very, very cheap -- or for free."
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