Photo by Martin LaBar
I’m not sure if I’m the right person to be writing this article, really. The reason why is that last week, my son came home with a cabbage plant that he had grown in class. I set it on the counter and forgot about it until I heard a colleague waxing poetic about how he and his son planted their cabbage plant in their garden and what a blissful experience it was. I got jealous and headed for the store, where I purchased an expensive green planter (they were out of the cheap ones and I felt too lazy to go to another store) and some expensive dirt since the only dirt I really have in my apartment is on the dog, and she doesn’t want me messing with it. So at this point, it is the $25 cabbage plant.
Since I have these tendencies to sporadically waste money, I have some strategies in place to save in other, non-cabbage related areas. Here ya go:
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1. Buy Horizon Organic Milk. I don’t have any idea why this is, but this milk will last a lot longer than the regular kind. I have never had to throw it out because it spoiled. The same goes for soy milk. I like Silk. Utilizing this strategy will save you a whole dollar or so a week, and you get to feel all righteous about eating healthily.
2. Do not buy a bunch of crap for your kids. Since my kid doesn’t watch TV, I am spared a lot of the begging and pleading for products that many parents have to suffer through. If he wants a junky toy, he has to pay for it out of his allowance. I try not to buy any toy that cannot be used over and over again, which means that he has a lot of Legos. Since there is not a whole ton of other junk, it makes cleaning his room a lot easier on him, too.
At this point, I have to share what I learned shortly after my older son was born. I had spent $35 on a pull-toy from Germany that had 35 layers of lacquer and was a work of art, in my opinion. A friend of mine who already had kids scoffed and told me that my kid would end up playing with the orange juice container. He was wrong. My kid preferred the paper towel roll.
3. Find a country vet, or at least a cool one. When my dog needs the inevitable steroid shot to stop her itching from the occasional flea bite, I stop at the vets, pick up the syringe and DIY. It costs me about seven bucks that way, as opposed to the whole office visit thing. DIY can be a good way to save money lots of times, unless you are male. Then you might pay $65 for a special screwdriver to fix the broken hinge on the cabinet or something like that.
4. Realize that TV destroys your brain. You can then cancel the cable (I know, you’ve heard this a million times–so why haven’t you done it yet?!?). Seriously, there was a study done that showed a correlation between autism and television viewing in preschoolers. I wrote this guy and thanked him. His study is right on the money. Saving brain cells will also save you about $80 a month.
5. Get rid of the gym membership and do real work. I hate the gym. The main reason I dislike it is because I feel like I am expending energy on nothing. It doesn’t feel right. On the other hand, I am more than happy to mow a lawn, move stuff, vacuum the house, etc. There are projects like Habitat for Humanity that will really burn some calories while teaching serious skillz and helping someone else with your energy. You should save about $40 a month.
These strategies enable me to live within my means and splurge on cabbage. What’s your financial goal?
