Of course every car varies, but excessive speeds and fast acceleration will rob any car of gas mileage. Following the speed limit also helps prevent the expense of tickets/accidents and subsequent higher insurance rates.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Ways to save money that you know.
- Thread starter Stanley Design
- Start date
Of course every car varies, but excessive speeds and fast acceleration will rob any car of gas mileage. Following the speed limit also helps prevent the expense of tickets/accidents and subsequent higher insurance rates.
D
It would be interesting to see the gas consumption charts for different cars at varying speeds... set the cruise and go!
Learn to do things yourself: haircuts, bass setups, car repairs, home repairs. The tools are often a little more than the initial service, but in time it will generally pay off.
Reuse things. Everything out there has a second use, find out what it is and use it again.
Share things. I've got a circle of friends whom share DVD's, video games, books, etc. Find people who have similar interests, and work out a deal. No reason for duplicity with most things.
Redbox. $0.99 DVD vending machines. A buck a night. Return it the next day. Sure beats Blockbuster, and they're new releases too. Check redbox.com to see if one is near you.
And otherwise, use coupons. They're not cool, but they can save you a bundle.
Reuse things. Everything out there has a second use, find out what it is and use it again.
Share things. I've got a circle of friends whom share DVD's, video games, books, etc. Find people who have similar interests, and work out a deal. No reason for duplicity with most things.
Redbox. $0.99 DVD vending machines. A buck a night. Return it the next day. Sure beats Blockbuster, and they're new releases too. Check redbox.com to see if one is near you.
And otherwise, use coupons. They're not cool, but they can save you a bundle.
That's how I save my sanity, though!
I need to quit eating out so much. It's very costly.
i spend more money on booze and tobacco than food anyways. i win. i personally don't even try and save money. i firmly believe that I, by myself, will save the economy by spending all my paycheck on random **** that i don't need.
I switch off my water heater and ac/heat everyday before I split. In fact, the water heater is probably on no more than a half hour a day as I switch it on shortly before showering then right off. I also put the so-called vampires, devices that use a little electricity even when shut off due to standby modes, on a powerstrip & off that goes too. I haven't calculated it but it probably saves me a couple hundred a year at least. I hope.
hot pockets, ramen noodles. been living off them since 2005. and the occasional hot dogs and macaroni.
I save money by not spending it...
Seriously, though... don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry.
+1 on the DIY, much hard work is a substitute for much hard cash.
+1 Bag lunches (you save money on the food, AND the gas to get you there.) You cant buy better food than leftover grilled food.
Seriously, though... don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry.
+1 on the DIY, much hard work is a substitute for much hard cash.
+1 Bag lunches (you save money on the food, AND the gas to get you there.) You cant buy better food than leftover grilled food.
Set a budget and stick to it.
Don't carry balances on accounts that charge you interest.
Do carry balances on accounts that pay you interest.
Use cash when possible. I give myself a weekly allowance for extraneous spending (lunches out, random crap, etc.) and I withdraw this amount on Friday. When there is no more cash in my wallet I stop buying stuff.
Coupons are good.
Buy your groceries in the middle of the week. Prices tend to be a bit lower and more items are on sale.
Don't carry balances on accounts that charge you interest.
Do carry balances on accounts that pay you interest.
Use cash when possible. I give myself a weekly allowance for extraneous spending (lunches out, random crap, etc.) and I withdraw this amount on Friday. When there is no more cash in my wallet I stop buying stuff.
Coupons are good.
Buy your groceries in the middle of the week. Prices tend to be a bit lower and more items are on sale.
Here are a few I came up with......we use many of them ourselves...
When you go out to shop for things like groceries, take dollar bill cash and no credit/debit cards. This will force you to only buy the items you need. Look for double or triple coupon days at your local grocery stores. Using only cash works when shopping for things like clothes too. As for clothes...buy them out of season, as in don't go looking for a winter coat right now. Scoop up all the deals on the summer clothes they are trying to get rid of right now.
If you have a hot water tank, make sure it is wrapped in insulation. Check around the house for leaky faucets. Put styrofoam insulators, those things that look like boobies, over your hose bibbs around the outside of your house.
Try making only right turns when you drive. Run all of your errands at one time, arrange them logistically so you aren't wasting time and gas driving back and forth all over town. Keep your tires properly inflated, your air cleaner clean, and oil changed on time.
Call your cable company and ask for a break on your cable bill. Sometimes you may have to threaten to go to a competitor, and then they will normally give you a great monthly package price for six or so months. You could also cancel cable TV altogether. If a neighbor has a wirless access point, ask if you can use his and contribute a few bucks to him each month. You could also cancel your internet altogether and just go online at coffee shops or other joints with free WiFi.
If you have a gym membership and don't really go all that much, cancel it.
Stop snacking and eat slowly. Junk food is expensive. Fast one day a week.
-Mike
When you go out to shop for things like groceries, take dollar bill cash and no credit/debit cards. This will force you to only buy the items you need. Look for double or triple coupon days at your local grocery stores. Using only cash works when shopping for things like clothes too. As for clothes...buy them out of season, as in don't go looking for a winter coat right now. Scoop up all the deals on the summer clothes they are trying to get rid of right now.
If you have a hot water tank, make sure it is wrapped in insulation. Check around the house for leaky faucets. Put styrofoam insulators, those things that look like boobies, over your hose bibbs around the outside of your house.
Try making only right turns when you drive. Run all of your errands at one time, arrange them logistically so you aren't wasting time and gas driving back and forth all over town. Keep your tires properly inflated, your air cleaner clean, and oil changed on time.
Call your cable company and ask for a break on your cable bill. Sometimes you may have to threaten to go to a competitor, and then they will normally give you a great monthly package price for six or so months. You could also cancel cable TV altogether. If a neighbor has a wirless access point, ask if you can use his and contribute a few bucks to him each month. You could also cancel your internet altogether and just go online at coffee shops or other joints with free WiFi.
If you have a gym membership and don't really go all that much, cancel it.
Stop snacking and eat slowly. Junk food is expensive. Fast one day a week.
-Mike
Keep receipts and look them over once a week, good way to see what trivial things you buy that you can cut out.
HUGE ones that nobody seems to mention.
* Avoid new debt, especially unstructured debt like payday advances and lines of credit. Notes, like mortages and car loans, are sometimes unavoidable.
* If you have debt, put as much into paying it off as you can afford to. This goes double for credit card debt. Paying the minimum is NOT a money-saving idea. You'd be surprised how far even one extra payment per year will go, especially on long-term debt like mortgages.
* When expenses decrease, act as if they haven't. For instance, an accident came off my driving record as of the last insurance term, dropping monthly premiums by $125 (I don't get any special bonus for paying the whole term at once). I however acted like I always did in terms of budgeting, and 5 months later I had $650 I didn't need in my bill-paying account.
* Your day-to-day money situation is a negative-sum game. You pay more for money you borrow than you get for money you lend. That said, you can still reduce the amount of that difference. Minimize both amount and duration of debt, and whatever's left should go into an interest-bearing account. Money in a checking account is losing value at the rate of inflation. Money in a savings account can at least try to keep pace.
* Learn to operate in cash as much as possible. Debit cards are convenient, but also very seductive. If the account tied to that card is not the only account you have, that card will be approved as long as you have available funds SOMEWHERE. Of course, they'll still overdraft you because it wasn't in THAT account. You can't overdraft cash on hand; if you have enough, you have enough. If you don't, you don't. Very simple.
* However, on the opposite spectrum, set up "bill pay" for as many of your recurring payments as you can. DO NOT do automated drafts if you can help it; that puts your creditor in charge of your money. Automated payments on a date YOU schedule, for a set amount YOU know, can help keep you from overdrafting or having to pay late fees and other penalties. That in turn helps your credit history which in turn saves you even more.
* Fixed utility payments may be convenient, but they usually cost extra and they do nothing to reward you for responsible use. Reduce usage and you reduce costs. Overbudget for your electric bill, and on a hotter or colder month when you can't avoid higher electric bills, it will even itself out without paying a premium for the service.
* You really can live with the A/C set to 76 instead of 72 during the summer, and in doing so you will knock a significant amount off of your energy bill. If you aren't going to be there during the day, you can set it even higher. Similarly, closing all blinds/drapes before you leave the house each morning will slow down the rate of warming and lower cooling costs.
* During the winter, the opposite applies. Let the sun in, turn the temperature down, and dress warmly. If you need to warm up, heating a cup of cocoa or tea in the microwave once a day every day uses about .65kW/h per month (that's a 600-watt oven run for one minute per day), significantly less than having the thermostat set at 74 instead of 68.
* If you live alone, cooking actually may not be cheaper than ordering in, depending on what you cook and what you order. It takes extra time, the raw ingredients cost more for you to buy than it costs the restaurant, it increases energy bills, especially the electric stove/oven (a SERIOUS energy hog; restaurants do everything they can in regards to per-meal energy efficiency), and if you cook extra and never get around to eating the leftovers, not only have you cut the savings for one meal in half but you have to buy food for the second meal twice. If you do cook just for you, do not buy perishables in bulk (you won't use them fast enough to be worth it), always save the leftovers, and remember to use them. All that said, brown-bagging lunch will save you money every time, and is a great use of leftovers if your workplace has a microwave.
* Hibernate your home computer when not using it; don't just put it in sleep mode. Sleep mode on most computers keeps the power source active (many power sources draw their rated wattage no matter how much they're actually using) and keeps sending power to various peripherals like RAM, the CPU, and the network card in order for the computer to be able to wake itself. Hibernation means the computer basically saves its state to hard disk and shuts down, which uses almost no power.
* NEVER leave your amp, stereo system, or other sound equipment on when not using it. Amplification equipment is the absolute biggest watt hog in your house. Why? Because it always, ALWAYS, draws its rated INPUT wattage when it's on, no matter if it's being played or what its volume is set at. The power not being used is wasted by running it through an attenuator (resistor) that converts it to heat, very inefficiently. You may think "oh, it's only a 300-watt amp". Think again. Your average 300w stack actually draws between 600 and 800w from the wall (laws of thermodynamics and all that; no system is 100% efficient and amplification systems are relatively inefficient). Leave it on for an hour when not using it and you might as well take a dollar from your wallet and put it in the electric bill fund.
* During the summer, avoid using your stove/oven. Not only does that tack on additional energy usage by itself, but it warms your home forcing your AC to work longer, compounding the added cost. Look for cold recipes as much as possible; various salads, sandwiches, etc.
As far as being conservative to the point of being cheap:
* Take advantage of every free food opportunity presented to you. Raid the fridge at your church. if you get coupons for free food, buy the absolute minimum required to get the deal.
* If a Ziplock bag was used for something like a sandwich, you can save it and use it again. In the extreme, they can be run through the dishwasher.
* Yes, it's true, you can cook food in the dishwasher. Works best with fish or veggies.
* Avoid new debt, especially unstructured debt like payday advances and lines of credit. Notes, like mortages and car loans, are sometimes unavoidable.
* If you have debt, put as much into paying it off as you can afford to. This goes double for credit card debt. Paying the minimum is NOT a money-saving idea. You'd be surprised how far even one extra payment per year will go, especially on long-term debt like mortgages.
* When expenses decrease, act as if they haven't. For instance, an accident came off my driving record as of the last insurance term, dropping monthly premiums by $125 (I don't get any special bonus for paying the whole term at once). I however acted like I always did in terms of budgeting, and 5 months later I had $650 I didn't need in my bill-paying account.
* Your day-to-day money situation is a negative-sum game. You pay more for money you borrow than you get for money you lend. That said, you can still reduce the amount of that difference. Minimize both amount and duration of debt, and whatever's left should go into an interest-bearing account. Money in a checking account is losing value at the rate of inflation. Money in a savings account can at least try to keep pace.
* Learn to operate in cash as much as possible. Debit cards are convenient, but also very seductive. If the account tied to that card is not the only account you have, that card will be approved as long as you have available funds SOMEWHERE. Of course, they'll still overdraft you because it wasn't in THAT account. You can't overdraft cash on hand; if you have enough, you have enough. If you don't, you don't. Very simple.
* However, on the opposite spectrum, set up "bill pay" for as many of your recurring payments as you can. DO NOT do automated drafts if you can help it; that puts your creditor in charge of your money. Automated payments on a date YOU schedule, for a set amount YOU know, can help keep you from overdrafting or having to pay late fees and other penalties. That in turn helps your credit history which in turn saves you even more.
* Fixed utility payments may be convenient, but they usually cost extra and they do nothing to reward you for responsible use. Reduce usage and you reduce costs. Overbudget for your electric bill, and on a hotter or colder month when you can't avoid higher electric bills, it will even itself out without paying a premium for the service.
* You really can live with the A/C set to 76 instead of 72 during the summer, and in doing so you will knock a significant amount off of your energy bill. If you aren't going to be there during the day, you can set it even higher. Similarly, closing all blinds/drapes before you leave the house each morning will slow down the rate of warming and lower cooling costs.
* During the winter, the opposite applies. Let the sun in, turn the temperature down, and dress warmly. If you need to warm up, heating a cup of cocoa or tea in the microwave once a day every day uses about .65kW/h per month (that's a 600-watt oven run for one minute per day), significantly less than having the thermostat set at 74 instead of 68.
* If you live alone, cooking actually may not be cheaper than ordering in, depending on what you cook and what you order. It takes extra time, the raw ingredients cost more for you to buy than it costs the restaurant, it increases energy bills, especially the electric stove/oven (a SERIOUS energy hog; restaurants do everything they can in regards to per-meal energy efficiency), and if you cook extra and never get around to eating the leftovers, not only have you cut the savings for one meal in half but you have to buy food for the second meal twice. If you do cook just for you, do not buy perishables in bulk (you won't use them fast enough to be worth it), always save the leftovers, and remember to use them. All that said, brown-bagging lunch will save you money every time, and is a great use of leftovers if your workplace has a microwave.
* Hibernate your home computer when not using it; don't just put it in sleep mode. Sleep mode on most computers keeps the power source active (many power sources draw their rated wattage no matter how much they're actually using) and keeps sending power to various peripherals like RAM, the CPU, and the network card in order for the computer to be able to wake itself. Hibernation means the computer basically saves its state to hard disk and shuts down, which uses almost no power.
* NEVER leave your amp, stereo system, or other sound equipment on when not using it. Amplification equipment is the absolute biggest watt hog in your house. Why? Because it always, ALWAYS, draws its rated INPUT wattage when it's on, no matter if it's being played or what its volume is set at. The power not being used is wasted by running it through an attenuator (resistor) that converts it to heat, very inefficiently. You may think "oh, it's only a 300-watt amp". Think again. Your average 300w stack actually draws between 600 and 800w from the wall (laws of thermodynamics and all that; no system is 100% efficient and amplification systems are relatively inefficient). Leave it on for an hour when not using it and you might as well take a dollar from your wallet and put it in the electric bill fund.
* During the summer, avoid using your stove/oven. Not only does that tack on additional energy usage by itself, but it warms your home forcing your AC to work longer, compounding the added cost. Look for cold recipes as much as possible; various salads, sandwiches, etc.
As far as being conservative to the point of being cheap:
* Take advantage of every free food opportunity presented to you. Raid the fridge at your church. if you get coupons for free food, buy the absolute minimum required to get the deal.
* If a Ziplock bag was used for something like a sandwich, you can save it and use it again. In the extreme, they can be run through the dishwasher.
* Yes, it's true, you can cook food in the dishwasher. Works best with fish or veggies.
