Saving Money On Everything

There is one surefire way to help us get on the other side of that snowball, and that is to cut our expenses and save money on everything. "You cannot have caviar taste on a beans and rice budget." Now this doesn't mean that you have to eat only beans and rice, rice and beans. It just means that until you can truly afford steak and lobster, you need to trim it down. Until you can really afford to spend $45 a month on cable, you should learn to like ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. Instead of getting a newer car, drive your beater around just a little longer. There's a lovely old adage that says, "Eat it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." We have this in our kitchen and we do our best to live by it. By doing so, we've been able to cut corners and save a lot of money. We've stopped upgrading just for the sake of upgrading. The more you can cut out, the more money you will have to build that savings account up or pay off debt.

I'd like you to review some basic Money Saving Tips. These may look like no-brainers, and some of them you probably already do. You may also be thinking, "yeah, like taking a 2 minute shorter shower is going to make me a millionaire." No, it won't. But, when you do several (or all) of these things in conjunction with eachother, then you will start to see the savings pile on. Even if you can knock off $10 a month, that's $120 a year.

The second thing I'd like to mention is that a lot of us probably are paying out the nose for cable or satellite TV. I was talking to my sister the other day, who pays about $65 a month for satellite, and she said the only reason they keep it around is for a couple shows on the Discovery channel and a couple of the Disney shows. There are ways to still watch full length episodes of your favorite shows (maybe not all of them, but there are a lot of good options out there) is to watch these shows online. In the Watching TV For Free handout, I just listed some of the options out there. As with anything on the internet, you have to be careful and monitor the content; however, we enjoy watching the shows we don't pay for online for free. Now that the digital conversion will soon be in full swing, it is better than ever to watch ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox - and you get many more channels. We get a channel called Qubo that has 24/7 cartoons, and they are good cartoons with some moral stories and no imaginary creatures fighting eachother.

Finally, this is an article I did about Making Your Dinner Dollars Stretch. These are some basic tips and tricks on how to get more mileage out of your groceries. We spend about $200 a month on groceries, toiletries, diapers, and household products for our family of 5 (2 in diapers). These are just some tricky ways that we make it stretch without being obvious that we are on a beans and rice budget.

When we live within our means, we have more money to put into our savings cup. We then become wise with our money, thus we are able to control it more; instead of letting the lack of it control us. When we heed the words of the prophets and apostles, we will be blessed and the windows of heaven will be opened to us.

Elder Marvin J. Ashton said, "Money...should be used as a means of achieving eternal happiness. Careless and selfish uses cause us to live in financial bondage. We can't afford to neglect personal and family involvement in our money management. God will open the windows of heaven in these matters if we will but live close to him and keep his commandments. "

It is my hope that we will all be able to assess our lives and look at where we stand. Are we in bondage? Do we have a sufficient emergency fund? Are we wise and saving our money, or are we being foolish and spending all we make?