7 Ideas for Cost-Effective Fun

Some of the worst spending decisions are made when people get bored. In the spirt of helping you save some money and your sanity, we've put together this list of cost-effective fun.

Low-key Activities

Grab some takeout - check which restaurants in your community offer takeout discounts or specials during the week. Make a theme night of it by serving a special drink and dessert to accompany the meal. Push the envelope by renting a themed movie to watch while eating your meal.

Take the day off - take a day off work and grab some 1/2 price movie tickets to an afternoon matinee or any other cultural activity you enjoy. Often the cost of afternoon admission is much less than nights or weekends.

Check out the local library - you'll find excellent videos you can borrow for free and many libraries allow you to sign out magazines. Let's face it, magazines are expensive and once you've read them they are headed for the recycling bin anyhow.

Take a drive - arrange to drive somewhere local that has a landmark or park you've always wanted to visit - we like to go for an hour to an hour and a half drive. Consider packing a picnic. If you aren't much into landmarks, search for the best cup of coffee around your planned destination.

Deluxe Ideas

Treat yourself at the grocery store - treat yourself to lobsters, crab legs, parisian potatoes and champagne. We like to do this once every few months. The cost is roughly half what you might pay in a restaurant.

Think about going to a Hammam style spa - this may seem indulgent but luxury can still be part of a household budget every now and then. Select a facility that offers steam rooms, hot tubs, cold dips and saunas. Often these types of facilities have a reasonable flat fee and allow you to stay all day if you like. Call ahead for prices and try to budget for this well in advance.

Book a weekend away - check out services like homeaway.com or vrbo.com, they offer a great selection of rental homes. Consider renting a home that will accommodate extra people so that you can invite your friends along - enjoy their company and split the cost too!

How Low Can We Go? - Pilot to Reduce Electricity Consumption

 

Image by daveknapik

Since moving from a condo a few months ago (where our utility bills were buried in a high monthly maintenance fee), we are much more aware of our electricity use.  Lately, we've been considering how we could further reduce our monthly bill - we come up with an interesting pilot that we're employing for the next month.  Here are the details;

Operate in the off-peak hours 

We've adjusted our schedules to cook and clean in the off-peak hours. After examining how we measure up to the energy consumption of our neighbours (our utility company provides online access to plethora of charts) we've decided to try to lower our standing from the average category to below average.

Use timers 

Timers are nifty little devices that plug into your lamp & outlet and control when the lights go on and off. Not only are they convenient, but they also allow you to change exactly when you want them to be activated.

Boycott the oven

After some research, we found a typical electric oven uses about 5,000 watts! We decided to purchase a convection toaster oven that would allow us to bake many meals (even rotisserie chicken!) and avoid using the oven as much as possible. The toaster oven we chose uses only 1,500 watts, and takes the same amount of time to cook similar dishes - and we got it for half off!  In the end, we will cut our electricity usage by more than one third when it comes to baking - something we do a lot of. 

Stay tuned, we'll provide you with all the details on how we did. 

If you have any tips for us, please send em' our way!

Confessions of Grocery Bargain Hunters - 5 Essential Tips

In the past, I remember telling my partner that food is food and bargain hunting at the grocery store wouldn't impact our spending enough to make it worthwhile. Now that we've been shopping at the stores with the best sales and keeping track of our grocery bills, I know I was wrong. We've listed out the following tips that will help you save money without compromising on the foods you love.

1. Make a date with your flyers
Grab an international coffee moment and dig through those flyers before the sales start (Friday or Sat early AM). It's worth planning out some early morning shopping to a couple of stores in order to catch the best sales.

Grocery Bargain Hunter Confession - we fight to the death Sat AM to see who can take advantage of those door crasher specials before inventory runs out. 

2. Make room for the good stuff
Make sure to have room in your fridge or freezer for the sale items so that you can purchase in bulk.  In fact, consider buying a freezer to store and save any extra products you may not be able to use all at once. You might think this isn't worth the investment, but buying a freezer will save you money in the long run.

Grocery Bargain Hunter Confession - we once bought 15 chickens because they were 1/2 price. Sure, the cashier asked us how many kids we had because we filled the entire cart with chickens ;)

3. Check the unit price
Don't just compare price tags when you're shopping, since products are often sold in varying sizes. Always check the unit price (such as the price per 100 grams) - this information is usually listed on the shelf tag. It's the only way to know which product is actually the best deal - this applies to single products and mega sizes.

Grocery Bargain Hunter Confession - we bought a restaurant size jar of pickles in the past because of the fabulous savings - we obviously love pickles! 

4. Reconsider what brands you buy
We've recently started buying the store brand products and found that we often like these products more than national brands.

Grocery Bargain Hunter Confession - we love the local grocery store brand of frozen raspberries so much that we filled our freezer with them the last time they went on sale.

5. Make a list
It sounds like an old cliché, but it's true - make a list of the things you need and stick to it. There are far too many tempting items in the store to just meander down the aisles, picking up anything that looks good. When making your list, think about major meals and try to plan around sales. 

Grocery Bargain Hunter Confession - Everytime we've gone shopping without a list, not only do we forget the basics, we come home with nothing but junk food. 

Groceries are things we buy regularly and often.  Changing your buying habits can have a huge impact on your household budget.  Just remember, don't buy sale items for the sake of saving - make sure you still purchase the foods you like and will use.  A wasted food item is money down the drain.

Saving on Beauty - Tip #2

Image by minxlj

Selecting a new eyeshadow combination can be tough. I often have the problem of deciding between exciting colours (pink, purple, blue, green...) or a flexible neutral palette (grey, taupe, bronze, cream...).  Here's a great cost-savings tip for whatever your mood.

Eyeshadow Palettes - Buying a palette will cost you much less than buying separates - average savings between $5-$15. You'll also benefit by having the essential base colours that blend together with either option.  Simply select a palette that has a primer colour, crease and highlight colour.

Share your favorites with us!

Click here for more beauty tips.

Creating a Household Spending Budget

One of the most important components of managing your money is planning how you spend it.  Spending has to be proportionate to your income, or you'll never find yourself ahead.  Understanding what you spend will reveal areas you can cut back on, to maximize savings and overall financial health.

This year is the first year my partner and I will create a household budget.  We want to be methodical and thoughtful about it, because the more accurate our budget is, the more value we will get out of it.  We thought we would start by identifying some spending categories.  Once we're satisfied we've captured everything, we will begin putting some estimated numbers in each category, aiming to stay within our estimates for the year wherever possible.

• Home expenses - this can have sub-categories for heat, electricity, hot water heater rental and gas.  This category should include things like home maintenance, improvements, and repairs.
• Food - will include weekly groceries and the occasional morning coffees.
• Automobile - this can be sub-categorized into gasoline, maintenance and repairs.
• Clothing.
• Grooming - this will include haircuts and beauty products, such as shampoos, cleansers, creams, and the like.
• Health - we need to account for any expenses not covered by any healthcare insurance we have.  This may include partial costs for any medications, massages and other similar items.
• Travel and entertainment - the will be a combined category to capture leisure travel and other fun things, such as the odd movie.
• Pet - we have a dog who needs food, toys, grooming and vet visits.
  
• Incidentals - this should really only include small items that may not fall into any other category.
  

Once we have assigned a dollar value to each category, there will be money left over, which we will have to put towards savings and investments, and the mortgage.  While we like to make as many additional payments towards the mortgage as possible, we also feel better when we're able to have money stashed away in savings accounts, just in case we have an unexpected expense arise.

It will be interesting to see how accurate our budget turns out to be by the end of this year.  We will use actual receipts from this past year to estimate our future spending.

A great resource for learning more about all aspects of everyday finance is GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca.  This site has a section dedicated to budgeting, which is very helpful.

If you've created a household budget before, what were your most underestimated categories? We want to know, so leave your comments here.

ING Tax Free Savings Kick Start Account

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik
Hurray, we both managed to get the maximum contribution ($5,000) into our ING tax free savings accounts (TFSA) by January 1st.  This means we will get the full bonus from ING, who has something they call a Kick Start account.  Anything put into a 2010 ING TSFA between October 1st and December 31st will receive bonus  interest.   This may seem like peanuts, but year after year, the extra dollars represent money you wouldn't have otherwise had, and when you're trying to maximize the return of your investments, looking for these offers adds up to increased savings.  Last year, my TFSA account alone earned $84.74 in interest from ING.  Part of this was the bonus interest I earned from the same Kick Start promotion.

ING has been a great option for us - the interest is higher than our primary banks offer, and these kinds of promotions have helped us make more out of what we have.  We highly recommend investigating ING if you don't already have an account.  If you decide to go ahead and save or invest with ING, use one of these Orange Keys, and not only will you earn a $13 bonus, so will we.  Again, $13 more than you would have had otherwise.

Our ING Orange Keys:

• 15608905S1 
• 30293960S1
  

With the year now over, we are going to create our first ever household spending budget.  The budget will include our anticipated expenses, compared to actual expenses.   We will have to review and update our budget monthly - we will share it with you on our blog.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you all have a very happy new year celebration.