Tips for saving money

The old saying "A penny saved is a penny earned" is very much true. There are umpteen number of ways in which you can save money. The amount may not be too much but when you add it up, it becomes very sizeable.

Lets first look at how you can cut down on your shopping expenditure. Generally in most supermarkets, every week there will be some items on sale or discounts. Look out for these and buy this and if the offer is really good, stock up on those items. In US, especially look out for the double and triple coupons as well as the manufacturer coupons in the sunday newspaper. Collect this and use it during your shopping trips - you will be surprised by how much you save. I used to save atleast 20-30$ during every trip by using these coupons. Also don't buy items without checking the price on the label and recheck that you have been billed correctly after you checkout. Almost 50% of the times, I have seen errors in billing.

Let's now look at how you can bring down your electricity bill. We have a tendency to leave the television and radio switch on even though we switch off the tv. In this state, the electronic equipment is consuming standby power , which even though is minimal , still when you calculate the number of hours it is in standby mode, the watt calculation usage is really high. So get up from the couch and take the extra effort of turning off the switches too when you are not using the electrical equipment. Similarly remember to swtich off the main power when you go off on long holidays.

Let's see how we can save on gas consumption. Every mile that you drive less is considered savings both on fuel expenditure as well as on servicing. When you enter a office parking lot or mall parking lot, try not to drive too much to find an empty slot to park near the entrance of the building or office. Park as soon as you get in at the nearest point to the entrance or exit of the parking lot and not of the building and walk to the building entrance. This will save you around say one tenth of a mile every time you park. You get not only free walking exercise but also you end up saving a bit on the fuel. Also remember to fill air in the tyres at regular intervals and fill fuel during the early morning hours instead of afternoon; You end up getting more fuel for the same amount since liquid expands with heat and contracts with cold.

We'll look at other tips of saving money in the future articles.