Tips for Saving Money in Everday Life

[Ineedaride2]

A lot of people would save money long term by raising their insurance deductibles, especially for health care plans. A lot of people pay for the lowest deductibles they can afford, and yet they won't submit any claims for years. Why not raise your deductible, pocket the savings, put back a "deductible buffer" (in case something bad DOES happen) and keep all that extra money.

Insurance is cheapest when it's used for what it's designed to do: cover catastrophic incidents, not office visits to determine whether you've got a urinary tract infection or the clap.

[MD2020]

Discarded pizza boxes are an inexpensive source of cheese.

[ScottieK]

Just bought an Entertainment book....plan to use it as often as possible. Some places have monthly coupons you can print out from the website. Good idea samjjones. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Also thinking of getting my gf to buy one too.

ScottieK

[DonkeyKongSr]

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Just bought an Entertainment book....plan to use it as often as possible. Some places have monthly coupons you can print out from the website. Good idea samjjones. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Also thinking of getting my gf to buy one too.

ScottieK

[/ QUOTE ]

My mom gives me and my brothers one every year. It seems like a stupid gift, but it really is one of the most valuable gifts I get every year and I'm very forgetful about using it. I have a friend who eats out all the time and is a coupon freak. If he picked the restaurant, it sure as hell was in the Entertainment Guide. A couple years ago he logged the savings the book gave him. It was somewhere around $2K.

[prohornblower]

I always smuggle my own soda cans and snacks into the movie theater.

This probably saves $2,000 per year.

Dine & Dash.

Steal.

Don't pay taxes. See: Wesley Snipes.

[Daniel Magix]

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I always smuggle my own soda cans and snacks into the movie theater.

This probably saves $2,000 per year.


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If you paid $20 for soda and snacks every time you went to the movies, and you save $2000 a year - then that means you see 100 movies a year in the theater. If that's true, then you can probably save about $400 more by seeing just one movie/week, instead of two.

[cbloom]

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A lot of people would save money long term by raising their insurance deductibles, especially for health care plans.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an excellent one. Assuming you have the cash (you should), your insurance should generally be the minimum legally allowed. More insurance is inherently -EV. DUCY?

ps. the exception is if you are planning on trashing your body or your car, in which case, load up on insurance and go nuts.

pps. also never get the insurance that is like $500 deductible then covers 70% after that. Get the insurance that's $2000 deductible then covers 100% after that. When you get a $2 million problem you don't want to be covering 30% yourself.

[prohornblower]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I always smuggle my own soda cans and snacks into the movie theater.

This probably saves $2,000 per year.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you paid $20 for soda and snacks every time you went to the movies, and you save $2000 a year - then that means you see 100 movies a year in the theater. If that's true, then you can probably save about $400 more by seeing just one movie/week, instead of two.

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A joke.

[NajdorfDefense]

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-Pay down your mortgage ASAP

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This is bad advice. With a 6% mortgage in the top marginal bracket you're effectively borrowing at 3.6-4.0%. If you can invest better than that, you should keep your mortgage theoretically forever.

You can easily get 5-6% guaranteed bank deposits or USTs or GNMAs. If you're young and willing to take some risk, you could get a 60/40 balanced fund and just invest the excess $ there until you want/need to pay off the mortgage, at retirement or some later point.

[oneeye13]

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pregaming has easily saved me at least $1,000 last year, and i'm not kidding.

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brag?