Great Tips for Saving Money

A lot of people are pinching pennies nowadays, so here are a few ideas for saving money:

  • Refill ink cartridges yourself when your printer runs out of ink.  Instead of paying $27 for a new printer cartridge, my husband pays $11 for printer ink and does it himself.  The bottle of ink will refill the cartridge 4 times!!!  He saves over $100 when you count in the tax.  (Be careful when doing this, though.  It’s best to do it over the sink or newspapers.)  For even more savings, buy bigger bottles of ink.
  • Refill toner cartridges yourself. Just like with the ink cartridges, you can save a lot of money here.
  • Check  GasBuddy.com  to find the best gasoline prices. You can check daily for the best gasoline prices in your area.
  • Sign up for free birthday dinners in your area.  Many restaurants do this. You can sign up online or in the restaurant. In fact, for my last birthday I received seven email certificates:  four free birthday dinners, one free appetizer, one free dessert, and a coupon for $5 off a $10 purchase.
  • Buy a programmable thermostat or adjust the thermostat. We bought a programmable one for $30, and it will eventually pay for itself.  My husband programs it to where the heat will come on when we need it and then drop the temperature when we’re away or during the night.  (We’ve also been keeping it a little cooler this winter and a little warmer on warm days than we have in the past.  I know a lot of people do this.)
  • Use energy-saving florescent light bulbs in lamps and lighting fixtures.   We have these in most of our lamps and light fixtures.  However, I brought in a lamp we never use that was in our guest bedroom and put it in the living room.  I was sitting close to it and started to feel warm.  It had a regular light bulb in it, and the heat produced from it was making me hot.  That doesn’t happen with florescent light bulbs.  Think of the energy saved!