A Mom's Tips on How to Save Money

Hi and welcome to my blog. I am a mother of three who is constantly trying to stay on top of everything. When my husband and I had our second child we really started to get concerned about our spending habits. When we just had one child, saving money was not always that important to us, we just spoiled him rotten and did what we wanted. However, with being out of work for 12 weeks, and bills still coming, we had to get thrifty. These are just a few of the things we decided to try out to save money. We evaluated our spending habits, set up a budget on our computer, signed up for coupons and freebies, and learned how to cook. I know it sounds simple, but we went from being behind all the time, to managing our bills consistently and even setting money aside for the kids for college someday.

The first thing we did was evaluate our spending habits. We set up a spreadsheet on our computer, we have Works and it came as an option. We then made sure that every time we spent money, we logged it on to our spreadsheet. This was the eyeopener for us!!! Every time we went grocery shopping, we spent at least $5 to $10 on things to keep our son behaving!! We also were spending close to $30 a week on coffee. We were spending $90 a week on eating out. The list goes on and on. These are things we did everyday without thinking about it, so at the end of the week, it was like, where did the money go?

Once we knew why we were blowing through our money so fast, we set up a budget calculator spreadsheet on our computer, it was very easy. Most programs have one of these available, but you can purchase more advanced ones if you run your own business and have more things to calculate. We put all of our monthly target numbers in for our income and expenses, then each time we got a paycheck, earned tips, or babysat to earn money, we plugged that into our income column. We then made sure that when we paid our bills all of those got logged into the spreadsheet correctly. And last but as we found out definitely not least, we logged every dollar that we spent on misc items, from coffee to eating out to groceries to movies, you name it, we plugged it in. Once we had a good grasp on where we were at financially, we began to look for other ways to save money besides just cutting back on the fun stuff.

We started looking around on the Internet for coupons and we were blown away by what we found. There are some really great coupon websites out there that let you print coupons from your own computer. A few of my favorite are couponcabin.com , flamingoworld.com , walgreens.com , and kroger.com . Almost everyone knows this now, but 3 years ago, we were in the dark. I had never used a coupon in my life, now I won't shop without one. There are websites designed for grocery coupons, retail coupons, dining coupons, etc. all absolutely free to you!! You just have to sign up your e-mail address and start printing. Word to the wise though, save trees if you won't use it, don't print it. Check out my other article entitled " Grocery Shopping On a Budget " to see how to really make these coupons work for you. Another thing you can look for is free samples. If you go to a company's direct website you can usually find a link to try a new product for free or get a mail in rebate that will make the product free. This takes a little more time, but if you're on a tight budget and trying to find ways to save a ton of money, this is a great tip!! You can get free samples of everything from baby formula to diapers to food to toiletries. Give it a try!!

Lastly, we learned how to cook. I know that sounds ridiculous, but if you're on a budget and you only know how to make 5 or 6 things, you get really tired of them. Again, you don't have to spend money to do this. We did 3 simple things and it turned out great!! The first thing we did was ask our parents and grandparents for recipes. We got a whole boatload of good ideas from them. The next thing we did was search the Internet for recipes. We had the best luck with finding simple, affordable meal ideas from the local grocery store websites. The last thing we did was cut recipe ideas off of boxes and bags of food we had in our cupboards. Almost everything you buy, especially condiments, has some sort of recipe on it. Before we knew it, we were experimenting in the kitchen and making our own recipes.

So, to wrap it all up, saving money doesn't have to be hard. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many options out there for people who are pinching their pennies. The biggest thing to remember is that you have to know where your money is going if you want to know how to save it. I hope these tips helped!!