How Can I Save Money When I Don't Earn Much?

This question came to me from a coworker at my second job. She is a single mother of a disabled child. She feels limited in how much she can earn because if she earns too much, she will lose the much-needed Medicaid benefits for her disabled son.

I asked her quite a few questions about her eating/drinking habits as to how she bought things. It turns out that we were able to find almost $1,300+ in savings per year on some seemingly innocent actions.

First, she liked to purchase a drink at work every day. She justified it by saying that it was not a soda pop because it wasn't carbonated and didn't have caffeine. It was still $1.02 a day that was unneccesarily spent, particularly when filtered water is free out of the breakroon. Over a year's time, that one drink a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year (two weeks of vacation) added up to $255 a year. I reframed it by asking her "How would you like it if I gave you a bottle of Poweraid a day for every day that you worked for a year, but you have to give me $255 today?" She didn't realize how the little things add up so quickly.

Secondly, she admitted to having some chips and snacks at work too...to the tune of $4.50 a day. That expense comes to a whopping $1,125.00 a year. We worked on a plan to purchase food at the grocery store or Wal-Mart in advance so that she could bring some of the same things to work from home and save the money.

The challenge is that so many people who are poor will remain poor if they listen to the sales people say that it is just pennies a day, or a few dollars a week. That is money out of your pockets and into theirs. If you live in a major city of 1 million people and everybody just gave you one penny a day (just a penny), you would make $3.65 million a year.

It all adds up!

Saving Money on Vacation

Vacations are great.

With that being said, vacations, in order to be at a lower stress level, require a bit of work. They can be made more financially affordable when planning is part of the process. Let me explain...

...My wife and I just returned from a 5-day cruise to Mexico. I have a co-worker at my day job that told me that it would be a good idea to pack your favorite snacks and sodas in your carry on luggage because they were not free! That is a great idea. We packed about 20 cans of soda into our luggage. Buying the case from our local Wal-mart for $5.41 for 24 cans now makes a lot more sense that the $81.42 that those same drinks would have cost on the ship. Not only did the sodas cost $2.95 each, a 15% gratuity was added as well.

Keep in mind that this was an all-inclusive cruise for which you had to pay nothing more for all the food that you could eat. Warning: the only free drink would be self-serve water, some juices at the buffet, and coffee. Everything else had a price.

That goes for pictures as well. Every time you would get off the boat, have dinner, get on the boat, etc. there would be somebody snapping your picture. It is a good thing that I do not like having my picture taken because I could have easily been out of another $200+ just for some "candid" photos. No thanks. Besides, the best pictures are those inside your head.

I hope that everybody has a Happy New Year!