mgroves

I've been reading The Simple Dollar for a good while now for excellent tips and advice on personal finance and money matters.

I thought I'd list some tips of my own on how to save a few pennies here and there.

Of course, what works for me may not work for you. It all depends on your circumstances. Some of these tips might seem off the wall or more trouble than they are worth, but I've found them useful and valuable. They aren't going to make me a millionaire, but little things add up, you know?

Also, as you will read in some of these tips, I am far from perfect myself. I make choices everyday to spend more money than I need to.

So, with that all in mind, here are some tips to painlessly pinch pennies:

1. Buy used. This has always been a topic of debate among me and my coworkers. Buying used always seem preferable to me, whether it's a car or a DVD. Some things you shouldn't buy used, and you should make that judgement call yourself. But if you are going to buy used, take advantage of thrift stores, eBay, video stores, refurbished electronics etc. whenever you can.
2. Order water instead of soda. Some casual dining and fast food places can charge upwards of $2 for a soda. That can be nearly 25% or more of your total bill! Personally, I have a hard time with this one, because I really love soda. I could probably save around $8-$10 a week by drinking soda at the office instead of during lunch. As with all these tips, if you want a soda, buy the soda! Don't kill yourself over a couple of bucks. These are supposed to be painless tips.
3. Make your own laundry detergent. I started doing this back in July, and I haven't regretted it. I bought a box of washing soda that isn't half used yet along with a bulk package of Ivory soap that I've only used 3 bars of. At around 1 bottle every 2-3 weeks, I paid off the ingredients with savings long ago. The only investment is time, which I've gotten down to about 20 minutes. If you have a big container, you can make this several gallons at a time, reducing the total time you spend.
4. Buy and install a programmable thermostat. This one really is a no-brainer. If you can install it yourself, even better. I've estimated the savings at around $5-$10 a month since I installed it. I imagine the savings will disappear when my wife moves to full-time homemaker, but if your house is empty most of the day, there's no sense in wasting money heating/cooling it during that time, and there's no sense coming home to a freezing house either.
5. Buy holiday-related items right after the holiday. If you wait until a day or two after Christmas, you can get wrapping paper on the super-cheap. The same goes for Easter candy, Halloween costumes, Valentine's day cards, etc. When my wife & I moved into our house, we got a grocery cart full of Christmas decorations for $20.
6. Use ING Direct, or another high-yield bank account. I think your money should work for you. If it's sitting in a traditional bank account right now, it's probably not getting you much. A high-yield bank account can get you anywhere from 3-5% interest, and it's still FDIC insured. Using ING Direct for part of last year got me around $20 in free money for my pitiful balances, which doesn't even include the high-yield CDs that I had. Having a high-yield account leads right into the next point...
7. When you are buying a big-ticket item, if a no-interest payment option is available, take it. Even if you have the money right now, use the payment plan. Every month you don't have to pay the full amount is a month that you can earn interest on that money. I also use this strategy when paying bills. I don't pay them a second before they are due. Don't get reckless though: late fees will destroy this strategy. Two things to keep in mind: 1. Just because it's interest-free doesn't automatically mean you can afford it in the first place. 2. You can't always count on a no-interest loan, so you should still keep money in savings!
8. Use Speedy Rewards to buy your gas. If you have Speedways where you live, get a Speedy Rewards card. You can usually save about $0.03 per gallon on gas. If you shop at Kroger and/or Giant Eagle, they also have killer gas savings plans if you use their cards. And these aren't "fake" savings. My corner Speedway's prices are identical to gas station next to it, but as a Speedy Rewards member, I get an extra 3 cents off by doing nothing but being loyal to Speedway.
9. Speaking of gas, buy the lowest octane gas you can unless you are sure you need a higher octane gas. Engines that require higher octane gas are the exception. Check out the High Octane FAQ and Premium Gas Myths from the Car Talk guys (Tom and Ray Magliozzi).
10. Look for discounts through your company. This one may not always be possible, but a lot of businesses offer discounts for employees of other local businesses. Through OSU, I can get discounts for Sherwin Williams, cable TV/internet, cars, cell phone service, and even local restaurants. If you are a student, you can also get similar bargains. Newsletters and advertisements will usually let you know about these, but it also can't hurt to just ask. The worst they can do is say "no".
11. Deduct those donations. Do you itemize your taxes? If so, make sure to get a receipt when you clean out your closet and donate clothes to the local thrift store. You'd be surprised how much you can deduct from your taxes for something you do already. You'll have to make a list of your donations. Use a free program like H&R Block's Deduction Pro software to make it easier.

None of these tips will enable you to roll around in piles of money, but none of them require a lot of effort either. If you can save some money without significantly changing your behavior and lifestyle, why not do it?

I've written about ING Direct before, but now is definitely the time to switch.

ING Direct offers high-yield savings accounts, checking accounts, and CDs from 3.5% up to 5% (rates fluctuate occasionally). If you get the Electric Orange checking account, you can also get a MasterCard debit card.

So, if that's not enough for you, ING is running another cash-back promotion (which they did for a 2-month period in the summer) from November 15th, 2007 through December 31st, 2007. For every transaction you make with your Electric Orange MasterCard debit card, you get 1% cash back. Beat that, every other bank!

So, if you let your money sit there, you get around 3.5% in interest. If you spend it, you get 1% cash back. This sounds like a win-win to me.

How would you like to design your own credit card? Put your favorite JPG of Rick Astley on it!

Or maybe you just want the broccoli dog?

Well, probably you can't do that, because there are a lot of restrictions, especially on copyrighted material (and take it from me, that's not a road to go down).

But you can upload a picture of yourself, or your house, or your dog, or whatever. Actually, what you can also do, and what I have done, is play with the card designer.

The card is called PAYjr Visa Buxx, and it may be the worst possible name for a credit card ever. It's geared towards parents who want to give their kids a credit card (for whatever reason), and kids who want cool stuff on their credit card. But as far as I know, there's no reason why adults can't use the thing.

This one is my favorite, I think. I call it "Hungarian porn star" or "Captain Kirkish".

I think this card would totally creep people out. If not, just breathe heavily while signing the receipt and silently staring at the cashier. Always works for me!

This next card works well at the hospital, unless you are paying for Lupus-related expenses.

So go buy a PAYjr Visa Buxx card as a gift for you niece or something already! Put a picture of a pony on it--girls like ponies.

I recently switched my primary checking account from Chase (formerly Bank One) to Electric Orange from ING.

Why? It's a complex answer, but the meat of it boils down to this: interest.

ING Direct offers almost all of the same features as banking with a standard brick & mortar bank, but also has an interest rate of around 4-4.5% (APY), whereas Chase (and probably your bank too) offers interest at sub-1.0%.

There are downsides to Electric Orange.

One is that there is no physical bank for you to go to. Since I haven't been inside a Chase/BankOne branch for probably 2+ years, this doesn't matter to me. My wife and I have direct deposit.

Second, you don't get a real checkbook. You can have paper checks sent via the website, but you can't whip out the checkbook to pay for a pizza, for instance. I don't write a lot of paper checks anymore, especially since I started using online bill pay. But this can be hassle sometimes.

Third, you can't really deposit cash or checks directly. You can send endorsed check by mail to be deposited, but that takes way too long. Direct deposit works, but for everything else, I have to keep my Chase account open and linked to this account. Even so, transfers from Chase to ING can take 3-4 days or more. Because I don't want to pay fees to Chase, I have to keep my wife's direct deposit to Chase. This is my only gripe with ING, and I'm not sure there's a good workaround now or will there be soon.

Despit these downsides, I'm still sticking with Electric Orange. I have literally made more money on interest in the last 3 months than I have made in my life with normal savings/checking accounts. Combine this with the ease of opening CD accounts with ING (at 4.75%-5.25% interest), and ING becomes a fine oiled interest generating machine.

Oh, and then there's this 2-month promotion that I had no idea was going on:

Nice! Free money!

In conclusion, it's not for everyone, but I think it's great.