Ways to Save Money & Live Frugally

What's the up charge for the business acct?
I've been sent offers for that, but never looked into it.

 

It been quite a few years since I upgraded . iIRC there was no extra charge for it.

 

Who shaves, Not me.
Haven't shaved in over 35 years now.



Olny have wood heat so no winter vacations as I would not feel right haveing some one come fill the furnace twice a day.

Always ask for senior discount, Veterans discounts and haggle trade for honey instead of money.

Al

 

I do the Amazon Prime CC game as well. I works out well, we always pay our cards off each month and we rack up tons of points to use for the kids bdays, holidays, etc...

We also do it with our local bank credit card. I just used the points I had racked to credit my account for some material purchases for our bathroom reno. As long as you play the game correctly and pay the card off each month it's a win IMO!

 

I was thinking the same thing

 

I often wish I had just bought a mobile home somewhere. At the end of the day a house is just somewhere to sleep and live.

 

True BUT here mobile homes depreciate faster than traditional.

 

I agree. Buy a big house and you spend all your money filling it with unnecessary crap and trying to keep up with the Joneses ! A mint 69 Hollypark in 1990 for $3000 helped build the business fast on cash flow without a lot of loans.
I'm glad I went that route. If everything works as planned I'll retire at 52. 55 at the latest.

 

I love amazon, but Walmart is good also. Spend $35 and shipping is free. We get our coffee, tea, paper good etc from Walmart shipped to the house.

 

I checked, and it's $179. From what I'm reading, there doesn't seem to be much of an incentive for me to upgrade unless I'm missing something.

 

Oh yeah they do. But if I don't plan to sell it. Sure I guess my family gets screwed cause they don't hit s lottery when I died selling my house but trade offs.

 

Walmart usually ships faster than Amazon Prime, at least in my case.

 

Paid off the mortgage on our house in 10 years, by putting an extra payment in every other month when my wife was working, once we had our first child she stayed home.
We never got used to having her salary to live on, on purpose, putting one months pay in the bank, and her next months pay as an extra mortgage payment.
When our first child was due, she got rear ended in the old car my parents gave us, took the insurance money and some of the savings, and bought a new car, drove that car into the ground.
We switched to an extra $100/month on the principle after she was home full time. The last few years of it we did a one time thousand dollar payment on the principle at the beginning of the year.
Since mortgage interest is added each day, a large chunk of money on the principle at the beginning of the year knocks down the interest added daily, more quickly than a extra payment each month.
Just be sure that they apply the extra payment to the principle and don't pay you ahead on the interest.

During the time we owned our house, I practically rebuilt it, replacing the plumbing (brass water pipe) with PEX, rewiring the whole house, redoing the kitchen and bathroom myself, turning an extra room into a bedroom, replacing the roof on the garage and kitchen myself, redoing all of the floors, walls and ceilings myself. We only paid for the main house roof , vinyl windows, and one exterior door to be done professionally.
I also replaced the oil boiler and installed an outdoor pellet boiler myself, even installed a stainless chimney liner kit myself for the new boiler.

We actually put more money into it than we sold it for, a year after it was paid off, but this meant no taxes or payments to a bank.

We buy our cars used, but less than a year old, we used to buy at the Portsmouth Ford used car center, now we buy used rental cars from the dealership the rental company's run. We get a vehicle less than a year old, with less than 30,000 miles, for less than 20 grand, and pay cash.

We buy our gas at BJ's wholesale club and have their credit card, which cuts 10 cents per gallon off at the pump, sometimes more if we buy groceries in the club first. Everything else purchased on the card earns money off at the register at BJ'S, my wife will usually be the one asked if she wants to take $20 off her order at the register.

We have never paid interest on a credit card, instead we pay of the balance each month.

We have four children, and my wife has stayed home since the first was born. I actually spend more than she does, she also home schools all four.

We both have smartphones, but they only cost about $7/month each by buying the one year plan from tracfone. I buy the phones used from Digicircle, we both have Samsung Galaxy S7 phones, hers cost less than $100 to buy, mine was a bit more last year.

My mom paid off the last $2,500 on my student loan as a wedding payment, my wife graduated from bible school with no debt, by working full time and living at home. I didn't even get a credit card until I needed to for our honeymoon.

We've never had cable and went straight from dialup to DSL. Currently we have a deal most won't have, I'm a caretaker and pastor, with housing and utilities paid for by the church, I'm still working over 50 hours a week, but not all of it is as an aircraft mechanic.

 

Nope - with the Ex. Haven't lived with the folks since the 70's.

 

Seriously - I keep telling y'all that I'm old. Was with my ex for 33 years - I bought my house in 2013 when he disclosed he wanted to move his GF in so we separated.

 

If you haven't lived with your folks since the 70s how was your first mortgage in the 50s?

 

CC with paybacks I don't understand. The money you get back is a portion of what they are charging the merchants. Just lower the price of the item if paid with cash. With that said, I do have an Airline CC with a very good mileage plan. If the company isn't giving me a discount for cash, I use it. I pay my utilities with the CC. I have to pay them anyway, why not get some mileage.
I recently bought an expensive lawn mower. The salesperson asked me, "Are you writing a check?" It depends are you discounting cash. No. Alright I will put it on CC.
If they are not discounting cash or charging a surcharge for CC, I put it on plastic to get the mileage. This doesn't work if you can't hold a zero balance every months.
My Ex was a shopper. She would come home with several arm loads of purchases. When I asked what she spent her responds was "It was on sale. I saved you xxx dollars. " YOU WOULD OF SAVED MANY MORE $s if you would have stayed at home."

There is an advertisement on TV, I believe E-Bates, that the representative says, "I made xxx $s by shopping." You didn't make chit unless what you bought was what you would normally buy. It just grinds me.

While I am on my soapbox, one more thing. The school system has done our youngsters a great disservice by eliminating Home Economics. Unless their parents have spent time taking them grocery shopping or teaching them how to preserve things, they have no idea.
Our grocery store often times have 1/2 gallons of milk on sale for $1. Gallons are $2.49. I often time s see a young mom grabbing 2 gallons of milk. I tell them to get the half gallons. Their responds was , "I don't have room for 1/2 gallons." Gallons are volume measurements so there is no difference in area between the 2 gallons or four 1/2 gallons."
As a side note. I was at the store with my granddaughter and I have drilled this kind of things into her head. There was a young women that looked at the gallons of milk and picked up the 1/2 gallons. I struck up a conversation and told her, "Congratulations. You don't know how many times I have pointed out the difference in price to young ladies." My granddaughter was giggling. The lady was her math teacher.

One last thing before I climb down. Don't get newlyweds modern non-stick cookware. By them cast iron and teach them how to take care of it, It will last them a lifetime. Maybe get them a small cheapy freezer. They can take advantage of the sales.

I could go on and on but my back is hurting me from standing so I will have to climb down from my soapbox.