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How To Save Money

This write-up is about various methods of Saving Money, ie avoiding spending money unnecessarily. To a lesser extent it's about Saving Money in the sense of saving-up money, collecting and stashing away money so you have a lot of it, but this latter concept is often a consequence of the former.

Being mean and stingy with money is an art and a virtue, and is often misquoted. The moral is: Be mean about money but be generous to people.

In contrast to that spendthrift Scrooge I have found that there is no need to squander money on various things, and I have included here a few items which may be of interest:

• Buying Easter eggs just after Easter is much cheaper than buying them just before! Similarly Halloween stuff is best bought just after Halloween. Xmas stuff in January etc.
• Using *411# (or equivalent) so you have a good idea when to avoid spending too much money on the telephone.
• Comparing prices on goods and checking how much you get for your money before buying. It is amazing the disparity between different places, and not necessarily what's expected.
• NOT doing silly things that look like they are saving money when in fact they are wasting money! For example, even if supermarkets are cheaper for some things than the corner shop, if you add the price of a taxi it's cheaper to go to the corner shop!
• Using ingenuity. For example, instead of paying good money for a doorbell, constructing something out of washing-machine electrics!
• It is possible to save money on batteries by various means. More about this at the page about batteries
• Buying secondhand whenever it's reasonable. Secondhand stuff is often disproportionately cheaper than new, and for no good reason. Charity Shops are good!
• Examining skips and bins (best to ask permission before scavenging). It is astonishing how much money people throw away in the form of usable items in skips!
• Then there's the story of the heating. An ecological local council phoned me up and said "We can save you £174 on your heating", so I said "OK, you can send me a cheque for £174". More about this in the story of the free heating
• Various stories of maverick miserliness in making a car run on less fuel are interesting, if you know what you're doing with engines.
• Saving money on electricity by knowing how much you are using. The econometer is that type of an idea.
• Fitting economy light bulbs which use less electricity.
• If you think you are paying too much TAX, you can shop around for a different country to live in where you get a better deal on tax. See tax havens

More money-saving ideas on here later. [response]

Money saved can be saved up and stored in a bank account. It's a good idea to shop around to get the best interest rate on your savings account. See Banks and Finance. However, if you take an old-fashioned approach, there's the Bank of Mattress

You could always try Mvelopes to help with your budgeting! Also see balancing your budget

Check to see if you've had an unexpected windfall at Cash Unclaimed (you might be lucky).

Also see Saving Money as in "to save up" and to result in not being skint all the time. See How to get Out of Debt

Don't waste stuff! Don't throw things away! Be a Hoarder !