Victory (savings) Garden for almost nothing

It seems it's possible to save money by having a home garden.  You do have to be careful about costs.  The materials will all cost money and it will take some time.  I'll charge myself zero for the time because it's fun.  We have fairly good soil around here so I don't think I'll have to buy any top soil.  I will need a shovel but I can pick that up at a yard sale.  The water can come from the sky by catching the run-off from the gutters and saving it.  The only thing else I need is seeds.

I figure I'll just save money by spitting.  What is that you ask? Well, we could not figure out what to grow and so it came to me that we will just grow what we eat.  So we have placed a bucket in the corner of the kitchen and just spit out whatever seeds we come across in our meals.  Apples seeds, tomato seeds, watermelon seeds, etc., you get the idea.  My son and I were into this right away, I mean, who doesn't like to spit seeds.  It did take a bit for my wife to get use to the idea but now she says the little ding sound the seeds make when hitting the side of the bucket is like the little ding sound you hear at Vegas at the slots.  It's money in the bank (or bucket, or ground) baby!

Saving money by creative car cooking

My sister Jill recently told me about a new way to save money.  I think it's great and not only saves money but reduces green house gas emissions as well.  

Her husband has a long drive to and from work and so by the time he gets home at night the car's engine is rather hot.  They noticed this one day and made a joke about heating up left-overs on it.  Well, they got around to trying it and it worked.  She just places the left-overs in a pan and when he gets home he knows now to open the hood so she can start dinner.

Since they started using this trick they have seen their energy bill go down as they don't use the oven as much.  As a bonus, she reports he has been getting home from work earlier because he knows she can't start dinner until he does.

Do you have any "crazy" money saving ideas? (how crazy can it be if it saves money?).

Not spending but not saving either

The other day I was reading a post about having a few days a month where you don't spend any money at all.  Well I've had a few of them now and I'm feeling a bit down about it all.  I really like to track how much money I am saving when I'm out.  If I use a coupon I write the savings down. When I use my club card at the store they tell you how much you saved.  I track my savings and it's nice to see that number grow every day.

I know I'm not spending anything today but I hate that I can't save money at the same time.  

Off the wagon

It's not easy to save money and sometimes we fall off the wagon.  Today was a good example.  We try to eat a simple Mac and Cheese three times a week for lunch.  This saves us money and since we are buying Annie's Organic we don't feel to bad about the health risk of saving money this way. Normally we buy 3 boxes a week for about 2 bucks a piece. So our weekly bill for this is 6 bucks plus tax (don't get me started about food tax). 

However, today our store had a sale on Annie's Mac and the price was only 1 dollar a box.  Sounds good until you hear that we bought 12 boxes.  So we more than doubled our week budget for Annie's.  We still plan on only eating 3 boxes a week but I can't help but feel I just wasted a bunch of money on cheese.

Does this sort of thing happen to you?  

5 bucks off

I've been very good about not going out to eat.  My wife and I have probably saved a bunch of money by cooking at home.  However, the local diner is starting this program where if you eat there once a week they will take off 5 bucks per week.  The only catch is you have to bring in  your old receipt.   I figure we can save over 260 bucks this year if we eat there every week (52 x 5) for a year.

I'm always looking for ways to save money.  Have you found any ways this week?

Free rewards

The country seems to be all about saving money these days and so I thought I'd start down that path too.  I thought maybe my credit card company was charging me to much interest so I call them to ask for a lower rate.  They were not able to lower my rate for me but I got something even better. 

I got mad and asked to speak the boss.  She was able to close this account for me and open up a new card.  The new card does have a higher interest rate but it has a great reward program.  They are going to be sending me some cash back for every 1000 I spend.  

free money, you can't beat that!