Comments on: Book Giveaway #8: Your Money Ratios: 8 Simple Tools for Financial Security

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 10 May 2010 03:17:26 +0000

*GIVEAWAY OVER* Congrats to Tiffani and Eric Sherwood! I will be emailing you for your info... We lost a few comments here from the the week (our sack got hacked!) but I still had them saved via email...so everyone's entry was accounted for! And you all had some GREAT ones :) Stay tuned for the next giveaway.

By: Angie

Angie — Sat, 08 May 2010 04:03:40 +0000

What has helped me a lot recently has been matching coupons to weekly sales. I am that wierd lady who gets 4 Sunday papers, so that I have a massive coupon supply, and I can stock up on some of our staples dirt cheap (all toiletries virtually free, yogurt, cheese, frozen veggies for at least 50% off) and many of our fun foods like granola bars can be purchased for pennies on the dollar versus full price.

By: Lauri

Lauri — Sat, 08 May 2010 02:54:48 +0000

I pay my kids minimum wage for jobs they do OUTSIDE of their normal chores (ages 10-12). I have five children, so the “Mom can I have $2 for the ice cream truck?” questions every day can really add up! It keeps me from being a human ATM machine and it teaches them what an honest hour of work is worth. And trust me, I make sure they WORK for that whole hour ;)

I have noticed a 30% decrease in my Cash spending category since I started doing this six months ago and I am certain that is is the main reason.

By: Gail

Gail — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:54:41 +0000

I budget my money one month in advance by using a spreadsheet. I bought YNAB (you need a budget) over two years ago when they were selling the manual spreadsheet instead of the too expensive software today. I also created my own spreadsheet and it keeps me in line with my money. I have saved money easily this way.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:37:25 +0000

Since both my husband and I are totally against credit cards, because we are careless with them… we don’t have them at all.
Second, we got rid of our debit cards all together.
Every time we make a deposit in the bank, we take out what we want for the week, and if we run out of money, we have to wait until next week….
If we absolutely need money, we have to get in the car, drive to the bank, and make a deposit.
This has worked great for us, and we are saving more money than ever!

By: Kari Watson

Kari Watson — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:45:13 +0000

I went all the way back to high school days to start saving money at our house. My new trick is having an allowance for myself and my husband. At the beginning of each month we pull out our alloted amounts and put it in our purse/wallet. That’s what we have to spend, after that we’re done for the month. Just like my lunch allowance in high school. If I started out the week buying junk food and whatever I wanted I would have nothing left for lunch on Friday. With credit cards it’s much too easy to just hand it over and not thing about how much you’re really spending each month. This way we always have our budget where we want it and we’re able to save a lot more :)

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:31:27 +0000

My tip is that I only eat real foods. My food bills have actually gone down as I only eat fresh food (nothing ever spoils), and when we cook, we cook enough to eat dinner and lunch the next day. Most meals for my family of 3 end up at between $5-6 per meal. Aside from improved health, and better tasting food, I have reduced my food bill.

By: Charlene

Charlene — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:25:44 +0000

The best tool I have is my budget in an excel sheet. I can track exactly what I have, where it’s going and get a good idea of where I am spending too much and make changes if needed. It is amazing at the stuff you find out about yourself and spending habits once you use it! It is FAB-U-loso!

By: Favor

Favor — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:11:04 +0000

Tip I love: save half of all unexpected money. Like gifts, bonuses…and even tax rebates.

By: Yana

Yana — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:07:26 +0000

Having multiple bank accounts has resulted in automatic savings for us. We have direct deposit at two of them – from one of those, we pay rent only. From the other, we used to pay only auto expenses (not gas), taxes and tax preparation. This year we found a way to pay nothing for tax preparation, and that account is now at the level where I should move some funds elsewhere for savings, which we do not touch. This, even though our everyday living expenses and another person’s grocery shopping is paid for out of that account – when that person pays me for her groceries, I deposit that into a different account. I do and do not know what I am doing at times, but savings is what happens in the end. And I change the purpose of particular accounts from time to time.