10 Easy Ways to Save Money

We are all trying to reduce our monthly expenses as our economy continues to struggle. Saving money is not as easy as it was 5 years ago but it is not impossible if we give it a try. Why not start saving money today? Below you will find 10 easy ways to help you save money, it might not seem a lot to save 50 a month but at the end of a year or two it will make a difference.

1. Start by setting a realistic goal of reducing your household or personal expenses by $25 or $50 monthly!
2. Keep a journal with all your expenses and purchases for a month. It's truly amazing how much money we spend on impulse purchases while shopping.
3. Compare prices! Most retailers have websites. You can easily obtain information online.
4. Use coupons! Even when people think that rebates are too time-consuming it can save you a lot of money in the long run. And most retailers offer online coupon codes too! That will save you the time at the cashier scanning every discount available. You would be surprised the amazing offer you can find online plus you will save the time and gasoline as you can shop from the convenience of your home.
5. Bring your own lunch, coffee, tea, cookies and drinks to work. Those daily visits to gourmet coffee shops or restaurants can impact your wallet more than you think! $8-12 a day can turn into $2,080-$3,120  in a year, do the math!
6. Limit your nights dining out to once a month. There are great websites where you can purchase gift certificates of $25 paying only $2, that is a tremendous discount.
7. Eliminate prepackaged food. For example, a block of mozzarella cheese is cheaper than the grated one. Whole chicken breast is cheaper than the skinless/boneless type plus it will add more flavor to your soups. Make your own apple sauce it is so simple and you can control the amount of sugar you add to it.
8. Conserve electricity and water. Turn off the light of the rooms you are not using and check the toilets for possible leaks, run your dishwasher and washer only when they are completely full, use cold water for your laundry, take shorter showers or close the water while you wash your body or shave. Doing this will not only lower your monthly bill but it will also help preserve the planet.
9. Cook dinner from scratch, avoid using prepared food. Also reduce the amount of meat your eat a week, it is healthier for you and for your monthly budget.
10. Buy a water filter and reusable water bottles. Keep them in the refrigerator for future use. You can save a lot of money in a year as you avoid buying bottled water and at the same time you will help prevent those empty bottles ending up in our landfills. Plus, since keeping the refrigerator full saves energy as the temperature will stay cooler longer, having water bottles will also reduce your electricity bill.

LIVE - SHOP - SAVE - EARN
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Online Shopping Facts

• Shopping online can saves you time, money and gas!!

• E-commerce goes beyond travel reservations or car rentals.

• Shopping online is greener as long as you select ground transportation.

• Every year more green products are sold online as people are becoming more conscious about the environment and about their health. Even well known companies are making eco-friendly products to satisfy the increasing demand.

• Every year more people uses the internet to research products. Every day more people end up buying the item they looked online as it is convenient for them, fast and easy.

• Retailers offer discounted prices and promotion for online only purchases. It is much easier for them to ship items directly form the warehouse, instead of having to rent a space inside a shopping mall and pay all the expenses doing this involves.

• Shopping online is safe and secure, in many cases even more than handing your credit card to a stranger that can easily copy the information and use later without your consent.

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My Experience as Online Shopper

Nowadays we have become more conscious about the money we spend every month. We are all looking ways to save money on everything we buy. So I wanted to share some real experiences.

A person I know needed to make some home improvements and in order to do so he needed to spend about 4000 in materials in Home Depot (after all we all need to go to Home Depot at one point in our lives) So, on Friday he went to this site and bought a $4,000 gift certificate at Home Depot and he elected to have it e-mailed. He received the e-mail and printed the certificate, went to Home Depot and paid with it. That got him $90.00 in cash back!

Another great example on how you can take advantage of this portal is when you suddenly need to buy electronics and you don't have time to wait for the shipment. So go to your portal, go to Best Buy and find the product you are looking for and select the option "pick-up in store" then you find the closest store and make the purchase. After about an hour you will get an e-mail saying that your item is ready for pick-up. You saved time and you also got cash back on something you were going to buy anyway.

We all have booked a flight on Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, ChepOAir, Priceline, etc. Ot we have booked a car on Avis, Budget, Enterprise, right? Well, what if you can get cash back on those purchases? You are going to book it online anyway! 

My father is a doctor and he sent me a list of books that we bought on Amazon thinking he got the best prices for them. To my surprise I checked every book on a retailer called Alibris discovering that every single item was cheaper with free shipping! In all, he could have saved $194 buying from this retailer plus I could have gotten 4% cash back. That was the last time he ordered from Amazon.

 

Traditional Shopping vs. Online Shopping

I am sure that by now you are probably familiar with E-commerce or online shopping. We all have booked a flight, a hotel or rented a car on the Internet and yes, that is considered online shopping too! even when the purchase is intangible.

As retailers try to attract more customers, they have improved their shopping experience with better websites and easier shopping carts. You can find now all kinds of reviews, ratings and comments on specific products as well as detailed description of it item. So what are the advantages of shopping online vs. going to the store? Let me try to explain this with a real example:

You need to buy supplies for your pet (s) and traditionally you will get in your car, drive to the store which can take about 10 minutes, find a place to park, walk to the entrance, get a cart, find the item you are looking for (stores love to reorganize every time we go and it seems you will never find one item in the same location), load it in your cart, in the mean time you get caught by one of the store special for some items you don't need but they make you feel you need it, you make a line to pay (it can take from 0-15 minutes to reach the cashier), they scan your products (hopefully all bar codes work properly), you swipe your card, walk to your car, put the items in your car and finally drive back home. In all, it probably took you about one hour to complete this small task, after all you only went for food and bedding for your rabbits, right? Oh! If you have kids, you might want to add another 30 minutes MINIMUM to the whole shopping experience.

Now lets take a look to a more modern option. Kids are sleeping, you are watching TV with your laptop and a glass of red wine. You go to your this website website, find the pet store you need (takes about 10 seconds) you are linked to their official site, find the items you need (using their search tab makes it faster and if you know the item code is even better) add them to your virtual cart, you checkout and done! you completed the purchase in 5 minutes (or less, as you get better at online shopping) Now you only have to wait about 5 business days or less for the delivery. So now you saved time and gas and using your Shop To Earth portal will give you a percentage of cash back. Oh! did I mention that your kids were sleeping???

Every month we need to buy supplies for either our office or our homes. Online shopping has many advantages:

• Save gasoline
• Save time
• Save money as many retailers have special online only prices
• Save on State Tax since depending on the retailer's location you might not have to pay tax
• Use of discount online coupons that retailers issue to their online customers
• Avoid going to the store when it is raining, when it;s cold or too hot
• Save money as you impulse buying at the store can really add up in your bill
• You can compare in seconds the sales price of the same item among different retailers

The more shopping power you transfer to online shopping, the more time and money you will save every month. Let me show you how to simplify your life at the same time that you can save thousands a year on the items you have to buy anyway.

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Being healthy starts with the food we eat.

Chef Jamie Oliver Speaks out on Obesity and Disease.

A Modern Shopping Trend

During the recent gas price increases, many major stores reported losses in their bricks and mortar outlets, yet their online sales blossomed. Brick and mortar stores spend thousands on air conditioning, designers, personnel, stands and decorations to catch your eye. When you shop online, often your order will be fulfilled via a warehouse that doesn't have all those gimmicks and expenses, therefor you can find better deals on the Internet.

I've been an online shopper for a couple of years now and I can say that I have saved not only time but also money by using discount coupons, Zero Sales Tax stores and last minute deals. But I realize that a lot of people are still very apprehensive about E-commerce due to the possibility of identity theft. But think about this, when you give your card to a waiter, or when they pass it on a store, they also keep the information in their systems and those systems are connected to the Internet, in many cases that is how hackers get the information. Although online shopping from trustworthy retailers is safe, here are some helpful tips to protect yourself when shopping online:

• Don't be impressed by low prices. Many times prices that are way below the average can come from illegitimate businesses that might take your money and run.
• Always look for a physical address and a phone number.
• Always check for security certificates, be sure that the website is SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protected.
• Always read the terms of service before you finish your transaction.
• If you are going to create an account with a retailer be sure to have a strong password.

Online shopping also has a green side. Most likely a delivery truck is headed to your neighborhood anyway. It is better for the environment to have 1 truck delivering to 6 houses, than having 6 cars heading to the store, increasing traffic and the gas emissions. Many stores also re-use boxes and packing materials to help reduce their carbon footprint and they also use materials that can be recycled.

Buying thins online is fun and easy. There are great search engines out there that can help you find what you are looking for in seconds. You can even compare the price between different stores that carry the same product without having to visit physically each of them! No wonder why online shopping is expected to grow even more over the next few years.

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Simplify your Life

I am happy to say that being a business owner has many advantages, but it also requires more time from us in order to keep it going. 24 hours in a day we not enough for all the chores involved in running Kenneth Rust Audio Consultant and at the same time running my own house. I used to find myself invoicing some clients and doing laundry at 11:00PM.

Some of the most time-consuming chores is shop around for the office, warehouse and home supplies. You might be surprised the list of items we need to buy in order to have a smooth operation and a 100% functional home. On a normal week I had to make several stops in stores like Home Depot, Office Depot, Walmart, Target, Tiger Direct, Toys R Us, Sears, The Children's Place, Macy's, Walgreens, CVS, Costco and Publix, just to mention a few.

As online shopping became more popular, we started to order items we needed for the office on the Internet saving the time involved in going to the store (drive, park, walk the aisles, find the item, make the line to pay, pack the car, drive back)

Still, I spent a lot of time running the countless errands that a family of 4 require: groceries, bulk items, birthday presents for kids and adults, decorations, clothing and apparel needs, cleaning supplies, home maintenance items, educational & school requirements and so much more. Yes there are great super stores that carry mostly everything but that meant spending over 3 hours since the moment I left home to the moment I came back pushing a heavy cart full of supplies and dragging 2 little girls around the store. The result: shopping for the items we needed was not fun anymore!

Then I heard about a way to make money and save money and time shopping online: affiliate marketing where a website owner have links to online retailers receiving cash back for all purchases that originated with that link. The interesting part is that I never had to add the retailers, buy a domain name, a hosting package, a web designer or maintain the website up and running.

Little by little more retailers were introduced to us, many of those out-of-state meaning savings of 7% just on the Tax we pay in Miami-Dade County. And then I learned about how to use online coupon codes so our savings were maximized too. And on top of that I discovered that the more buying power I transfer to online shopping, the more money I would save for our business and our family. Soon I discovered that all the office and warehouse supplies, parts & materials, electronics and software we needed for our office could be ordered and delivered to our door.

As I became more familiar and more retailers were added I soon ad our clothing, coffee beans, bulk items, some pantry items, toiletries, school supplies, shoes, special occasion presents, invitations, thank you cards, cleaning products, pet food & pet care, snacks, supplements & vitamins and so much more delivered to my door. I could go on with my day knowing that at the time I came back after a day of work and after school activities with my girls, I would find a box outside my door with everything I ordered!! No need to drive, find a place to park, deal with the crowds, the heat and the lines anymore. And obviously my gas expenses were cut in half too. Now my trips to the grocery store are no more that 30 minutes in and out since I only need to get perishables, dairy products, fruits & vegetables.

The best part as I don't go to the stores as I used to, my impulse buying expenses are reduced to a minimum. My credit card monthly statements went from an average of 1700 a month to about 1400 even when now I buy more natural and organic products, healthier products and better brands than what I used to get at Walmart!

All the time I save now, I use it to spend it with my family or doing more productive things. You could do it too!

Live Green - Save green - Earn Green

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Time in a Busy World

When you think about how much time it going shopping takes from the moment you leave your house until the moment you com back, you will be surprised to know that woman spend an average of 5-6 hours a week buying food, clothes, gifts and other supplies. We all know that shopping can be a hassle starting with the time it takes to find a place to park and the long lines at the cashier.

Unfortunately since the cost of living has increased tremendously over the past years; more and more women have taken full-time jobs in order to bring an extra source of income for their household leaving them little time to spend at home since the time they have off during the evenings or weekends is used to buy their weekly necessities.

Luckily, as the internet has evolved shoppers can now order almost anything they need from the convenience of their house or office. Today's search engines help customers find in a matter of seconds the product they are looking for, saving not only money but also a tremendous amount of time.

Products that have to be replaced frequently can be purchased online, simplifying the lives of many working mothers. Items such as diapers, toiletries, bulk merchandise, pet supplies, electronics, clothing, shoes, fragrances, gifts, groceries, books, toys, cleaning supplies and laundry products are some of the most popular supplies people buy nowadays on the internet allowing them to have more free time as they wait for the items to be delivered at their door.

Next time you are plan to go shopping take a few minutes to look for what you need online, compare prices and enjoy the convenience of home delivery. You might be surprised how much time (and money) you can save when you make a shift on on your shopping habits. In a busy world like the one we live on, time is priceless.

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