We all know we should back up certain information on our hard drives…but how often do you actually do it? I can tell you that I’m not as good as I should be, and I almost lost a lot of important information because of it! Coincidentally, I ordered a new Dell laptop a week ago today. (It was actually a great deal, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow)

Well, Wednesday morning, I go to turn on my computer…and I get a nice blue screen of death! An hour later I had it up and running…and the first thing I did was back up absolutely everything I needed. I haven’t turned the laptop off since. Yes, I’m scared it won’t turn back on. Also, since I know my new laptop is supposed to come in some time today, I figure this way I can make sure I get everything moved onto the new one before I lose my information.

This seems to be a great time to talk about backing up your important files, and different low cost or even free alternatives to do so.

If there are only a few very important files that you need to back up, you might just want to use a flash drive. You can get them for under $20, or even for free most of the time after rebate.  While they don’t hold that much information, they are nice and small and can easily hold your most important files.

The next step up would be to use CD’s or DVD’s. Both are pretty inexpensive. CD’s are just a few cents each when you buy them in bulk, and can each hold about 700MB of information. DVD’s can hold a lot more, but of course cost a little bit more per blank DVD. Either way, they are pretty cheap, and are a great way to back up files.

Next would be to get an external hard drive. You can easily back up your entire computer plus a whole lot more with an external hard drive. These days, you can get a 500GB external hard drive for about $100 when it’s on sale, so you don’t have to spend too much to get more than enough space to store all of your files.

If you want to have the safety of keeping your backups off site – so that if something were to happen to your home, your data would still be safe, there are also many free/inexpensive options. There are many websites you can go to that you can upload your data where it will be safely stored for free, or for a small monthly payment.

No matter which way you choose, you shouldn’t have to spend much (or any) money, and you can save yourself a lot of grief and heartache if your hard drive ever crashes. Forgetting about the rest of my files, I can’t tell you how upset I would have been if I lost all my vacation pictures!

When cooking, you probably do as we do. You have a bunch of dried spices that you use. It’s a lot easier than always making sure you have fresh, plus it’s a whole lot cheaper!!

Sometimes dried herbs won’t do though. For example, when I’m making bruschetta, I need to have fresh basil. Using the basil from my spice rack just doesn’t cut it. The problem is that it can be very expensive to buy fresh herbs and spices. Also, many times you have to buy a large quantity, even if you only want to use a little bit.

This is where an indoor herb garden comes in. You can easily plant a bunch of different herbs in front of one windowsill. This way you don’t have to worry about weather, since it’s indoors. You can have fresh herbs in the middle of the winter…without having to pay a dime!

You will also always have fresh herbs. You won’t have to run to the store just to get one or two spices for a dish you’re making.  You won’t have to spend money to get these nice fresh herbs when they are off season.

Also, food tastes better when you use fresh herbs!  You’ll also end up saving a lot of money by doing this.

Herbs are very easy to grow, so you won’t have a problem even if you don’t have a green thumb. I have grown quite a few herbs outside – such a basil and chives, and they grew like weeds. It was great all summer to have the fresh spices to use when I was cooking. Of course now that it’s the middle of winter, I miss it. I am thinking about starting an indoor herb garden myself!

I want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day!

This is also a great time to remind everyone that giving someone a gift – or showing someone you love them doesn’t have to cost much at all. I know Valentine’s Day is all about buying way too expensive flowers and chocolates, but you can give your loved one a much more meaningful gift that costs a lot less!

You can give them a nice letter, telling them exactly why you love them, and what they mean to you. You can set aside time to spend with them, doing something together that you both enjoy.  Let’ s face it.  When was the last time you both had time to do something just for yourselves?  Maybe you can play a board game that you haven’t played in ages, or go for a hike if you both enjoy that.  Why not make a really nice dinner or dessert that you know the other person will enjoy?  It can even be something smaller – like do that person’s laundry, or let them choose the movie you go see.  Sometimes it’s the small things that can mean the most.

The point is, there are a lot of ways to show someone you care, and many of them don’t involve spending a lot of money!

Yesterday I posted how happy I was with the Wyeth/Walgreens Spa Deal. With just a little bit of time and effort (and about $28.00), we are now going to each be able to get 6 1-hour massages over the next 7 months.

It made me realize how many of my close friends and family I had told about the deal, and how almost none of them decided to try it themselves. It’s not that they don’t like spa treatments…I know for a fact that most of them do. So what made them think that they shouldn’t do this deal? Was it too much work? Did they think it was “too good to be true” so they would never get the free spa treatments?

I’m not sure of the specific reasons they didn’t do it, but I thought it might be a good idea to go over how to tell if a deal is right for you.

Just because a deal exists doesn’t mean you should do it, and just because it’s a good or even great deal doesn’t mean that it’s right for you. Here are a few ways to tell if a deal is right for you.

First off, you have to be sure that it is a valid deal. If you hear about a $50 laptop, while that would be an AMAZING deal, you need to know that it’s a real deal, and not a scam in any way. So how do you tell this?

First, look at the company it is coming from. It should be from a company you trust. Is it Best Buy that is offering a great laptop for under $300? Well, you know they are a real company, so if you see it in their flyer, you know that it isn’t a scam. If on the other hand you get some strange pop-up offering a great deal from some company you never heard of…that’s the time to start doing more research.

If you are still interested, go to Google (or your favorite search engine) and start doing a few searches to see if other people have talked about it. There are a lot of people on the web looking for good deals, so if it is one, you’d better believe you’ll find people out there talking about it. Usually in just a few minutes you’ll be able to find out if it’s a valid deal, or if it’s a scam. You should also use this time to read all the fine print, to make sure there isn’t something that you are missing that makes it not so great of a deal. This is also where searching on the web comes in handy. Usually if there is something that is in the fine print – or that you might not pick up on, someone else will, and you can find out before it is too late.

Once you’ve decided that it’s a valid deal, think about if you really want the item, or if you just like the idea of how good of a deal it is. It sounds silly, but I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve been at the grocery store and bought something because it was free. No one in our house would eat it…but how could I turn down something free? Someone, somewhere must want it, right? So I have to get it.

Well…let me tell you, those things always ended up going to waste. So when you find a really good deal, make sure that you actually want the item. Will you use it, or will it just sit there in the corner? Getting a piece of electronics at 90% off is great…but if you won’t use it, you still wasted money!

Once you decide that it is something you would use, and would like, then there is another important question to ask yourself. Are you willing to do whatever it is you have to do to get the deal? Going back to the Best Buy laptop mentioned above, usually when they have a really great deal like that, the store only gets 2 or 3 of them, so you have to be one of the first people in the store when it opens to get the deal. Are you willing to get up extra early so you can be there to get it? Also, many amazing deals these days involve rebates, or filling out a form to get something. Will you fill out the rebate, or will you forget?

While the item might have been a really great deal after a rebate, if you forget to send it in, you aren’t doing yourself a favor. In fact, you most likely wouldn’t have even bought the product otherwise, so not only are you not getting the rebate back, but you wouldn’t have bought the product in the first place at full price. So if you are going to go out and get that great deal, make sure you follow through. Do whatever it is you are supposed to do the second you get home. Make a copy of the rebate, cut out the UPC label if you are supposed to, fill out the forms, and mail them in. That way you won’t end up forgetting.

If you are sure the deal is real, that it’s something you’ll use, and that you’re willing to do all the pieces of getting the deal, then go for it! You can get some really amazing things. I’ve gotten memory, scanners, and laptops for free after rebate, and after yesterday’s letter (mentioned in the post I linked to above), Scott and I are each getting $400 in Visa Gift Cards thanks to the work we did.

To show that it isn’t so easy though, this is what we had to go through in order to get it.

Back in October, we saw what the deal was, and were interested. We trust Walgreens and Wyeth, so we knew that it wasn’t a scam. Plus, we had done Walgreens Easy Saver Rebates before. We then went on a few message boards, and saw a whole bunch of other people were doing it too. We saw what products we could buy that were part of the promotion, and figured out what was the cheapest way to go while buying products that we would use. We then bought all the products the way we were told (you could only send one receipt per rebate form, so we had to buy all the cough drops at once), and then when we got home we filled out the forms and sent in the receipt with the form.

We then waited 6-8 weeks, and got the certificates. We made a bunch of phone calls trying to schedule a spa appointment, and waited to hear back…and now that we got forms, we’re going to fill them out, and mail them back. In 4-6 weeks we will be rewarded with the gift cards! So we started this in October, and by the end of March, we should have the Visa Gift Cards.

Now to some people, that might not be worth it, but all together it really wasn’t much work, and is definitely worth it to us! Also, it took a long time from start to finish, but we knew in the beginning that it would take time. That’s why each time you find a “good deal”, you need to figure out if it ‘s a good deal for you, and if you know you will do everything needed to get it.

If that’s the case…then enjoy!

In the middle of January, I got the Book America’s Cheapest Family out of the library, and started reading it. Here is what I thought after reading the first few chapters. Well, I’ve now finished the book, and just wanted to give my opinion.

Overall, I really liked the book. While I have heard of most of the tips inside, there were a few that I had never thought of before. They show exactly how they were able to save so much money on such a little income, and with 5 kids.  The book is very organized, and at the end of each chapter gives tips depending on how much of a change you really want to make.

One thing I thought was really great was that they had a chapter on teaching kids about money. While I don’t have any, I really believe it’s important for kids to learn about money and the value of it at a young age. I really believe that the reason so many people have issues with debt and not knowing how to save money is because we were never taught it when we were younger. We learn many different subjects in school, but none of them is about how to save money, or take care of money. Think about it, were you ever taught in school that you should save x percentage of your income? Of course not. So most of us learned it as we went, making our own mistakes on the way. The chapter in this book that talks about how the Economides taught their 5 children about money really seems like it would help a lot of people.

I also realized early on when reading the book that everyone does things differently, and even though some people save money by doing one thing doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing to save money.  For example, when talking about clothing, the Economides family rarely goes to a retail store to shop.  They want to spend as little time as possible finding clothes, and find a lot of clothes at consignment shops, thrift stores, etc.  One of the children even makes a comment about how she laughs at her friends who shop in malls, saying that they are wasting so much money.

Well, I really enjoy shopping, and the thrill of a good deal.  To me, it’s fun to spend a few hours at the mall, trying to get some great deals on clothing I like and would wear.  While I don’t shop at consignment shops or thrift stores, I think I get just as good deals, if not better.

The book just helped me realize that there are a lot of different ways to save money on the same things.  You can go about it a different way, you can still save just as much money.

While I will not be following all of the tips, it was still great to read and see how other people save money!

As you have seen over the past two weeks, there are many different ways to save on almost everything in your house. I hope that by my going through our house and giving you some specific example of how we save helps you figure out more ways to save in your life. We still buy things, use name brand products, and yet we manage to save money each month. It is possible, you just need to look at how you can save money on everything that you do.

You can also see how just by doing one or two things can really make a big difference in your savings account. You don’t need to completely change your lifestyle, but if you do a few small things here and there, it will really add up! Then you can take that dream vacation, send your kid to college, buy that bigger house, or whatever else your dream is.

Use energy efficient lights when you can. Not only do they help the environment, but they last a really long time, so you won’t have to change your lights as often. They use less electricity, so you will also pay less on your bills. They might cost a little more to buy, but since you won’t have to buy them nearly as often, you’ll still save money.

Recently they have been discounted at big stores such as Home Depot and Lowes to try to get more people to use them so you can pay the same price as a regular light bulb, or even less. The lights we have in our house are all on dimmers, so we were waiting for them to make these lights that will dim, and I am happy to say that these came out recently!

Another way you can save money with lighting is to put your outside lights on a timer. If you sometimes forget to turn the lights off, or keep them on longer then you need to because you want the lights on when you get home at night, why not put them on a timer? That way you know every night the lights will be on at a certain time, and will go off at a certain time. You won’t have to worry about the lights being on all night, or all day for that matter.

If you don’t already have a thermostat to control your heat and air conditioning, consider buying one. You will save a lot of money if you have timers control the temperatures in your house. If you are out all day, you can set your temperatures in the winter to be a little cooler during the day since you won’t be there to be cold. Just have the temperature warm back up an hour or so before you get home, and you’ll never know you saved money all day!

Are people in the house all day? Well I certainly understand that as I work from home, but you can still use a thermostat to save money. At night, you don’t need the temperatures to be as warm since you’re in bed sleeping. So you can easily have the temperature be a few degrees colder until an hour or so before you wake up.

This way you will save money, and not even notice a difference in your house. You can do the exact opposite in the summer and save all year round.

A fan is a great thing to use in the summer, even if you have an air conditioner. It is less expensive to use than an air conditioner, and can help keep you cool. What you might not know though is that it’s great to use in the winter too. If your ceiling fan has a switch to turn the opposite way, in the winter it will also help bring the warm air back down to you. It will help you heat your house for less.

Now that we’ve gone through the whole house, tomorrow we will do a summary.

There are two very good reasons you should always look at your receipts when you get them – both at stores and restaurants.

The first one is fairly obvious. You want to make sure you were charged what you should be. While you were most likely watching when items were rung up, if there are a bunch of items sometimes it can be hard to watch all of them. Plus, you want to make sure that only your items were rung up. Sometimes discounts can come off at the end…and you want to make sure you got those as well!

That isn’t the only reason you should always look at your receipt though. Lately, I have started seeing surveys showing up at the bottom of many of my receipts. While some have a message like “take our survey and enter to win x dollars”, I have seen a lot now stating that they will give you a percentage off your next purchase!

The last time I was at Bath & Body Works, at the bottom of my receipt it said that if I called a phone number and took a survey, I would get $10.00 off my next purchase of $30.00 or more. When I went to Old Navy over the weekend, I got a receipt that said if I did a survey with them in the next 5 days, I would get 10% off my next purchase. I don’t remember what restaurant, but recently I got one there too saying that if I took a survey, I would get a free appetizer the next time I ate there.

I don’t know about you, but I love getting discounts for things I am going to do anyway! It is definitely worth the 2 minutes of my time it takes to do the survey in order to get that discount.

So next time you get a receipt, take a closer look. Don’t only check the numbers, but see if there are any discounts for future purchases as well!

When looking for sheets, comforters, pillows, always make sure to look for sales and coupons. Places like Linens ‘N Things and Bed Bath & Beyond always have coupons out for 20% off an item or $5.00 off which can get you a better price on almost anything. You should also look out for sales. Take for example the sheets on our bed right now. We got nice Queen size flannel sheets in navy blue for $4.99 at Amazon. They were trying to get rid of them, hence the amazing price. We have now used them for over a year, and they are still in great shape!

One thing we have in our bedroom (but which can go anywhere in the house) is a great way to help save money.

We have a big coin bank that can hold a LOT of change. Every time we have extra change, we put it into the coin bank, and when it gets full we’ll count it up and put it into the bank to use for something special. If you’re trying to help “force” yourself to save money, this is a great way to do so. Every time you get change back, put it in the jar, and don’t touch it. It will force you to save the money.

We love to read magazines. I am almost embarrassed to tell you how many magazines we get each month. They range from travel magazines to sports magazines to money magazines and more. I really think we get about 20 different magazines (such as Popular Science, Woman’s Day, Money Magazine, Entrepreneur, and many, many more) each month. How much do we pay for them?

Nothing. Many we subscribed to for free because they were offering free subscriptions. For others, we watched some videos or filled out surveys to get the subscriptions. Whenever we do find offers for free subscriptions, we share them in the newsletter.

One big expense for many is clothes. How do we save money on clothes? We wait for sales, and check out the outlets. It’s incredible how cheap a once expensive item will get when it goes on clearance. It doesn’t matter what brand of clothes you like, when the store puts the item on clearance, you will save a LOT of money on it.

I’ve seen shirts that were originally $70.00 go for under $10.00. Earlier this year I stocked up on t-shirts when Old Navy had some nice polo shirts and t-shirts for between $2.99 – $4.99. You don’t need to buy used clothes or non-name brand clothes if you don’t want to. You can still wear any brand as long as you know where to look.

Well, that about finishes up the bedroom. On Monday we’ll go over a few general ways to save money in the house.

When doing laundry, make sure you only use the amount of detergent you need. A lot of the newer detergents are ultra concentrated and you only need to use a little bit to get all of your clothes clean. They still give you a huge cap though, knowing that you’ll probably put in too much and therefore have to buy more even sooner. If you make sure you use the right amount of detergent, it will last you longer and you won’t have to buy it as often.

Here is another great tip. When drying your clothes, if you put a dry towel in with the rest of your wet clothes, it will help your clothes dry a lot faster, saving you money.

We keep a second freezer in our laundry room (we don’t have a garage), and recommend everyone have a second freezer if they can find room to store it. I can’t tell you the number of times I have come across an amazing deal but didn’t have enough empty freezer space, and couldn’t take advantage of it.

For example…in the summer we eat a lot of ice cream. With coupons, we have gotten Dove, Godiva, Klondike, and many more for free. The problem? If you only have one freezer, you won’t have a lot of empty space, so you will only be able to get a few. These sales usually only last for a week, and then they go back to full price. So if you could get 10-20 cartons of ice cream, you’d be set for the summer. If you only had room for 1 or 2, in a week or two you’d have to go buy more ice cream – this time at full price. You end up saving a LOT of money if you have the room to store freezer items.

Another example is french fries. We go through a lot of fries, and really like the brand Ore-Ida which are regularly $3+ each, and are usually on sale for $2.00 – $2.50. Once or twice a year though, grocery stores have a really big sale where with the sale and coupons the bags come out to about $0.25 each, sometimes even less. You can imagine how crazy we go when this happens. We usually try to buy between 15 and 20 bags, and only stop there because we don’t have enough room, even with our small second freezer. It really helps though, so we very rarely have to pay the full price or even sale price for french fries!

A second freezer is definitely worth the price, as you will see how quickly you will be able to recoup the cost.  You will be able to take advantage of a great sale, and not have to limit yourself on a great deal because you didn’t have the room for it.  I can tell you, when we get our next house, the first thing we will be buying is a bigger freezer!

I think that about wraps it up for the Laundry Room. Tomorrow we will go over how to save money in the Bedroom.