100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part XIII

Today might not apply to everybody because we could easily name this "Shave and a Haircut". Hair removal for men. It depends on how you wear your hair: cranial or facial.

25. Haircut - Some folks are not adventurous enough to attempt to cut their own hair. My hair style is fairly simple. For the last 20 years, I have always gone to a barber or hair cutting establishment and said "3 on top, 2 on the sides". It has always been a clipper style and I would shell out $18 (on average) a month for this style. I bought a good Oster 76 for $136 last year. After 8 months it had paid for itself, so my first year's savings was$80 and I figure it will last at least 5 years (it will last longer, so in 20 years four will be purchased. Savings minus cost averages out to $188.80 a year or $3776.00 over 20 years. You could save by having your hair done for less at a beauty/barber school.

26. Shaving - This is a little trickier, but I have always shaved at least around a beard or goatee. I figured razor shaving costs to be $70.10 a year. I purchased an electric razor for around $40 (rounded for simplicity), so if the electric razor lasts 2 years it will save on average $50.10 a year: That works out to be $1,002.00 over 20 years. If I bought expensive razors or expensive shaving cream, the savings would have been higher.

With keeping score, the total savings to date are $3,552.49 a year or $70,650.02 over 20 years. Where does all the money go?

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part XII

Enough for now about saving gas (we'll explore that later in this series), so let's move on to personal grooming for a while. We will look at some of the ways that I have found to save some money so that I can pay down my credit card debt.

23. What Kind of Shampoo Are You Using? - This is going to be an area of controversy, but when it comes to being frugal, saving money, etc. there are some sacrifices to be made: That is if you are serious about saving money and paying down your credit card debt. Most people have hair, if you don't, this wouldn't necessarily apply to you. Shampoos can be downright expensive. I used to use Aussie Mega shampoo years ago and I would buy it at Sam's Club so I could at least enjoy it at a lower price. Even regular shampoo costs around $5-$10 a bottle. Being conservative we can call it $5 a bottle. I go through a bottle of shampoo a month roughly. I also found Suave shampoo for $1 a bottle and I stocked up with a year's worth. Doing that I save $4 a month or $48 a year. (20 years is $960 that is going down the drain).

24. How Are You Paying For That Soap? - Buy in bulk and you will save. Buy your soap by the bar and you can be taken to the cleaners, especially when you purchase it at the grocery store or a convenience store (hey, sometimes you just run out when you don't plan). Going through a bar of soap a week is common, especially for those who like to keep clean. On a recent trip to the store, I found that I could save $0.17 a bar by buying them in packs of 12 instead of 3. This would save $8.84 a year or $176.80 over 20 years. Not much, but keep in mind that things are cumulative.

That brings our cumulative total to $3,313.59 a year (rounding may make it slightly different) or a total of $65,872.02 over 20 years.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part XI

Remember, that if you are having a difficult time finding "extra" money with which to pay down your credit card debt, you can come here as we continue to discover 100 ways to save money. Lately, we have been finding ways to save on gasoline expenses for your car. Let us continue:

21. Straighten Up - Poor tire alignment can save you wear and tear on your tires and cause them to wear out more quickly. It also forces your engine to work harder and decreases your gas mileage. Keep you tires aligned properly and you can save over 20 cents per gallon. You would save $136.36 a year in gas, but you would have to pay, let's say, $79 for your alignment, so the end savings would be $57.36 a year or 1,147.27 over 2o years, assuming 1 alignment per year. Some place offer a lifetime alignment that could save you even more.

22. Clean Up! - Okay, so we are talking about the air filter here. A clean air filter can improve your gas mileage by 10%. With our assumption of being an average driver, you could save $169.77 a years. With air filters running around $10 a pop (surely you could install them yourself and save even more), you could realize a savings of $139.77 a year or $2,795.45 over 20 years (if you changed your air filter every 5,000 miles.

That brings us up to a yearly savings of $3,236.76 and a 20 year savings of $64,735.22. When you are told that little things add up, there is your proof.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credi6t Card Debt, Part X

Continuing on in the campaign to save money so that you can get out of credit card debt sooner, let us look at numbers 19 and 20 today.

19. Hey! Slow Down! - Looking at that in print brings me vivid memories of my dad and my early teenage driving. Sure, I had a bit of a heavy foot, and I got a speeding ticket or two, but after researching, I find that it can actually save gas: for every 5 MPH you drive (say 65 instead of 70) you can save 7% in fuel consumption. With the driving amount average of 15,000 miles a year it would translate to saving 47.73 gallons of gas a year, or $118.84 per year (and yes, $2,376.80 over 20 years)

20. Lay Off The Brake - (no, that is not a contradiction to number 19) - It is difficult when you have a commute in a major metropolitan district, but riding the brake can cost you by increasing your gas consumption by 35%, not to mention that you will have more wear and tear on your tires. Let us assume that you could save 25 gallons of gas a year, which translates to $62.25 a year, or $1,245.00 over 20 years.

That now brings our savings to be $3,039.62 a year (isn't that a car payment?) or $60,792.49 over 20 years...And we have only just begun.

If you are serious about forever eliminating your credit card debt, you can use Never Surrender!!, a book that I wrote that gives you winning strategies to totally eliminate your credit card debt.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part IX

Let's continue on finding ways to save money by looking more at simple ways to save on fuel costs. When you live in a near a big city, you will probably have some commute times ahead of you.

17. Change Your Air Filter - Air filters are inexpensive, usually around $10-$15. You can save $0.20-$0.30 cents a gallon on our gasoline costs. That would translate to $136.36 per year in fuel savings, or $2,727.27 over 20 years. If you buy an air filter twice a year, it would be $116.36 per year.

18. Keep Less Junk In Your Trunk - Every 100 pounds of extra weight that you carry in your vehicle will save $0.03 a gallon. Lighten up by 100 pounds and you will save approximately $20.45 a year or $409.09 over 20 years. (You could lighten yourself up as well...it is better for the environment as well as your pocket).

If you were able to use every single way presented so far, you now would be saving $2,858.53 a year or $57,170.69 over the course of 20 years!

Want to save money by forever eliminating your credit card debt? You can get a copy of Never Surrender!! that is guaranteed to save you at least the price of the book. Click to order yours today.

Have a Great day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part VIII

Lets spend a few days on ways to save at the gas pump. Most people drive nowadays (although my grandmother on my father's side lived into her 90s and never drove a day in her life). The average person drives 15,000 or so a year. For simplicity and illustrative purposes, we will stick with that 15,000 mile figure. If the average car gets 22 miles a gallon, that means that you would burn through 681.8 gallons of gas in a year.

15. Pay Cash At The Pump - Using a credit card is one of the ways that you can easily drive up your balance, and your interest rate. It takes a bit of planning to have the cash on hand, but it can be done. There are a series of gas stations in our area that offer a $0.03 discount per gallon of gas. Chump change. Perhaps, but it would save the average driver $20.45 a year, or $409.09 over 20 years. You have to keep the long term solution in mind here.

16. Keep Your Tires At The Proper Inflation Pressure - This is estimated to save up to $0.10 per gallon. Let's be conservative and call it a nickel a gallon. That would save you $34.09 a year or $681.82 over 20 years. Could you use an extra $1,000+ in your pocket for simple stuff?

There are lots of money saving and credit card debt elimination strategies found in Never Surrender!!, a guaranteed ebook. Check it out!

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part VII

It is easy to come up with 10 ways to save money in order to pay down your credit card debt, but more becomes a challenge, a challenge that I gladly accept.

13. Wash your dishes by hand - Most homes now have a dishwasher in the kitchen, and ours has one as well. In doing an audit online, I found that the electricity for the dishwasher runs $21.85 a month to run. Keep in mind that this is the electricity cost (you still have to have hot water and detergent of some sort). Wash by hand and you save $263.40 a year, or $5,268.00 over twenty years.

14. Switch to CFL light bulbs - sure the cost of a CFL bulb is higher, but it lasts much longer. Where the savings are is the electricity cost. If you were to replace all of your light bulbs with CFL light bulbs, you would be saving on average $10.93 a month. $131.16 a year, or $2 623.20 over twenty years, WOW!

So, when when add everything up (and I realize that not everything will apply to everybody), the savings add up to $53,343.60 over 20 years. Chump change can no longer be thought of as chump change.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part VI

On we go to numbers eleven and twelve:

11. Bring Your Own Lunch To Work - Let's face it: brown-bagging it is in. Where I work, there is a cafeteria, but I have seen fewer and fewer people frequent there and more and more lunches in the refrigerators in the break room. We usually get a half-hour lunch, which doesn't give you time to even leave campus and get anything that is located more than two blocks away (which limits you to Burger King or the convenience store). Lunch usually runs about $5-$6. Bring something from home, be it a sandwich or leftovers once a week. This would save you $5 a week or $250 a year (you do get two weeks of vacation usually). Add that up over 20 years and you have just pocketed cool $5,000.

12. Skip the Snack Machine - There are times that you will be hungry for a snack sometime in the middle of the day. You could easily waddle to the snack machine at work and plug in $1.00 for a candy bar or bag of chips (neither of which is very nutritionally sound). Be prepared, purchase your snacks ahead of time when you go to the grocery store and you can get your snacks for less. For simplicity sake, let's assume that you save $0.50 a day, or $2.50 a week. That makes it $125.00 per year, or a nice $2,500.00 over twenty years.

Since we are keeping score, we are now saving $2,272.62 a year, or $45,452.40 over twenty years.

There are lots of other ways that you can save to lower your credit card indebtedness that are covered in my book Never Surrender!!. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose. To order, click the book.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part V

Numbers 9 & 10 come today. Hopefully, you can come up with some of your own ways to save money so that you can eliminate your credit card debt.

9. If you are going to have a soda when you eat dinner out (sometimes it seems unavoidable), drink a smaller soda and add water to your drink list for dinner - For example, if you were going through the drive through and you usually "Super-size" your meal by paying an extra $0.79, go with the regular and save that $0.79. That doesn't seem like much, but it is an extra $41.08 a year if you eat "drive-through" once a week.

10. Say "No Thank You" To Unnecessary Extended Warranties - For the most part, extended warranties are a great pure-profit stream for many retailers. I work at a home improvement warehouse and, as a cashier, I am required to offer the extended warranties for many items that we sell. A lawn mower, for example, automatically comes with a one-year warranty, but you can get an extension for $49.99-$99.99 (depending on the price of the mower). Usually, if something is going to go wrong with an item it will happen in the first year of purchase. Skip this twice a year and save $99.98 a year or $1.999.60 over 20 years.

This will bring our running total up to $1.897.62 saved in one year, or $37,952.40 for 20 years.

Pretty impressive.

If you want to find ways to forever eliminate your credit card debt, you can check out my book Never Surrender!!. There are plenty of ways to save thousands on your existing credit card debt.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part IV

Six good ways to save money down, ninety-four to go. Let's continue on and see just how much money you can save over the year and over twenty years.

7. Buy generics - There really is very little difference in the quality of name brand grocery items as opposed to name brand. This is especially true if you are using the item as an ingredient. Say you were asked to bring a green bean casserole to a function. You could buy the name-brand green beans. If you are eating only green beans, you might be able to tell the difference between Libby's or store-brand. Put the green beans in as an ingredient in the casserole, and there is virtually no difference. Your savings? Let's assume that it is a $1.00 difference. That would be $52 a year or $1,040.00 over twenty years.

8. Buy in bulk - this does not make sense if you buy a large quantity and throw away the savings that you would have enjoyed. I will use soda as an example (and I know how nutritionally bereft soda is). Say that you drink one per day. Out of the soda machine, it could easily run $0.70 a can. That is $4.90 a week or $254.80 a year. Buy it by the case and it is $0.27 a can (recently). You would save $3.01 a week or $156.52 a year. This is saving, and buying the name brand. That would calculate to $156.52 a year or $3,130.40 over twenty years.

Get the picture?

We now stand at saving $1,756.56 a year or $35,131.20 with just 8 suggestions. Who says the little things don't add up?

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt, Part III

We now have four ways to save money in order to have more to pay down credit card debt, so lets continue through numbers 5 and 6. We have covered four ways to save money when you eat away from home, but let us look now at ways to save money when you do eat at home. Of course, you will more than likely need to go to the grocery store to purchase your food, so on we go:

5. Go Prepared - Take a list and stick with the list. Grocery stores (actually, any successful retailer) have had outstanding success by placing high-profit items in slick displays that draw on people's impulsiveness. If you know the layout of your store, you can plan your list accordingly so that you don't go down any aisles that you don't need to. Unfortunately, you may have to pass some to get to the milk and eggs (usually located in the back of the store). Let us assume that you would save $10 a week or $520 a year. That would be $10,400 over 20 years.

6. BYOB - Bring Your Own Bags - One way that I have witnessed people saving money has been by being green and bringing their own bags to the store. It is good for the environment, but it can also be good for the pocket book. You only buy what you can carry, which will save you money. This also will help you to better stick with your list. Lets assume that you would save $5 a week, or $260 a years. That would be $5,200 over twenty years.

Our running total for the six ideas will save you $1,548 a year, or $30,960.80 over twenty years. I have a correction to make on yesterday's post: the incorrect calculation was used to come up with $39,938.08 and should have read $15,360.80. My apologies are in order.

You can pick up your copy of Never Surrender!! today to find other ways to forever eliminate your credit card debt.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt part II

Yesterday, we covered the first two ways on our journey for 100 ways to save money to pay down your credit card debt. As a review, they were 1) Drink water and 2) purchase with a coupon. Let's continue on and cover some more. And right now, we are talking about when you are eating meals away from home.

3. Skip the extras - Most restaurants train their employees to see the extras. It never fails when we eat lunch or dinner at a restaurant, they will ask if you want a salad with your meal, or an appetizer, or a desert. These "extras" are high-profit items for the restaurant and help their bottom line, but do nothing for your bottom line. If you must have desert, buy some ice cream at the grocery store (preferably on sale) and have it at home (or whatever is your desert of choice). Let's assume that you eat out once a week and the desert is $4.99. That is $259.48 a year, or $5,189.60 over 20 years.

4. Take half of it with you - One thing that my wife and I do when we eat at a restaurant is to eat half of our meal and take the other half home for another meal. We did this just yesterday. We had a coupon for about $6 off a meal (but you had to purchase a soda, so that made it about $4) and that made it around $5.00 a meal. Mine sits in the refrigerator waiting to be eaten for lunch/dinner today. Save $4.00 a week and that is $208 a year or $4,160 over twenty years.

So far, that brings up our savings to $786.04 a year or $39,938.08 over 20 years by using four tips.

There are lots of other ways to forever eliminate your credit card debt in Never Surrender!!. Pick Up Your Copy Today!

More tomorrow.

Have a GREAT day!

100 Ways to Save Money To Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt

Let's just start a series of 100 ways to save money so that you can have more to pay down your credit card debt. We will start with one of my favorite activities and I know that you participate in this activity (at least play the home version of the game):

Eating.

In so many ways, eating meals out, or away from home, has been perhaps one of the things that has hurt my finances, not to mention the waist line. Let's gain control of that and save some money in the process. The money you save can be used to pay down your credit card debt. If you are fortunate enough to have no credit card debt, then use it to save for your future.

1. Drink Water - for the most part, water is free. Sure, you would like to have a soda, but when you pay $1.79 for the soda versus $0.00 for water, it makes sense. If you have one meal out a week and you purchase the soda, that would work out (before tax, of course) to be $93.08 a year. Over a 20 year period, that is $1,861.00. Water doesn't leave you thirsty after you drink it, it has no calories, and no preservatives (usually). Drink up!!

2. Purchase with a coupon - You can find coupons in your local paper, online, or in your mailbox. One that is with a restaurant that my wife and I frequent always has a coupon online or in one of the local papers. Right now, it is for $3.99 off an entree when you buy another. Using the same logic as before, you would save $207.48 a year or $4,149.60 for 20 years. Combine that savings with the drink and you would save $6,011.20. Wow!!

There are many more ideas in the book Never Surrender!! that you can use to lower your credit card debt. Get your copy today!

Have a GREAT day!