MollysBrother.com

Drastic Measures to Save Money

There is extra money in your life; you just have to find it. You have to realize what you can live without. Trust me, once you put your mind to it, you’ll come up with a million ideas. Here are a couple that have made their way to the top of my list:

Cutting My Own Hair Well, that’s not entirely true. “Cutting” is actually overstating what I am doing. I’m shaving my head. You see, at 28 years old, thinning hair is a reality in my life. So I have quickly gone from using clippers for hair maintenance to bustin’ out my own razor, sloppin’ on the shaving cream, and taking it all off. I’m saving upwards of $50 a month now. I understand that not everyone can pull out their Gillette Fusion razor and shave their head, but I know visits to the barber/salon can be reduced. In fact, I am sure of it. (By the way, th new ‘do looks great!)

Homemade Tortilla Chips I like salty snacks and even though I have eliminated snacking from my life, I do enjoy a nice salted chip now and then. I now my own chips by frying up corn tortillas. I take a few store-bought corn tortillas out of the package and cut them into triangles. I then throw the triangles into the hot oil and fry them up. I save money and I can watch my salt intake, too. And now that there’s prep time involved, I don’t make nearly as many as I would eat in a normal bag of chips. (Careful though, because I almost found out the definition of a “grease fire” the other night. Yeah…oil and water–or better yet–hot oil and cold water? They don’t mix. At all. Don’t even try it at home.)

It’s important for me, though, to take any money that I do save from these “drastic measures” and deposit them directly into my ING savings account. Otherwise the money will find another–less important–use. It’s not much, but by taking these steps I just found another $75 a month that I can drop into my savings or my IRA. And that is worth a little sacrifice.