Pay Attention

Probably the quickest change you can make to pinch pennies out of your budget is to pay attention to everything related to your money. When you are aware, you will easily see places that you lose money due to lack of attention. Think about it, the whole idea of saving money suggests that you are losing it somewhere.

Here are some places to start:

Pay attention to the price of gas at all the stations you pass during your daily commute, as well as the weekly and monthly trips you make routinely. Every Sunday I drive my son to breakfast at bagel shop two towns away and on the way we drive past the lowest gas price I will see all week. I wouldn't drive that far out of my way during the week to gas up, but I plan my purchases so I can save on gas once a week. When preparing to visit my mother 75 miles away, I never put more than four gallons in the tank. I know that gas is always less expensive in her town than mine and I like to fill my tank there before I come back home.

Pay attention to your monthly bills - know what they are for and what parts are optional. Know that you are paying for kilowatt hours on your electric bill and then pay attention to how you use them. Know what you spend on your cable bill for your level of service and pay attention to whether anything you pay for is not actually used. Know when you cellphone contract expires and then pay attention to what other companies are offering before you recommit.

Pay attention to the prices that ring up at the register. How often are the signs in a store wrong or simply misunderstood? Trust me, often enough that it pays to be alert. If you are paying attention you can have the cashier correct the price or remove the item before you purchase it at a price you were not expecting.

Pay attention to change you are given at the register. Which reminds me, my son read Accept Change and teased me about changing pennies into silver. An hour later we were in the grocery store; the total was $11.07. I was digging in my purse to give seven pennies to the clerk instead of a dime, and after four pennies I had to set my purse down on the counter for leverage. When I looked down I saw a dime sitting there on the counter. So not only did I spend seven pennies and keep a dime I already had, but I also gained another dime for my efforts. I was pleased my son was there to share the laugh with me.

Keep pinching pennies, it's worth it.

Accept Change 2

Let's face it, saving money and pinching pennies out of your budget is going to require you to make some changes. Obviously, if you keep on doing what you have been doing, you will keep on getting what you have been getting. You will have to look at old habits and try some new tactics if you want to keep more of your green than you have been.

Even if you feel you have heard this all before, you wouldn't be here if you weren't looking for something new you can try.

So to review what we have covered so far:

Respect your money by agreeing that every penny matters.

Begin to consider your expenses as needs versus wants.

Accept change given by store clerks and use your pennies quickly to turn them back into silver.

Drink water to save on beverage expenses.

And finally, keep looking for thrifty changes you can make.

Needs Versus Wants

To begin pinching pennies out of your budget, you should consider all of your expenses and determine which are needs, which are wants, and which are some combination of the two.

Needs

Needs include clothing, shelter, food, and transportation to work. You may need medicine or education. If you have dependent children then you must provide for their needs as well. And we all need love.

Wants

Wants are just about everything else. They are the pie-in-the-sky dreams we believe we may never achieve, but they are also the frivolous things on which we waste our money because advertisers manipulate us into "needing" them. I do not mean all wants must be avoided, just that you should recognize them as optional.

The gray area

When saving money, you will make the most progress looking at those items that reside in the gray area. I think of these as needs dressed up in wants. You need protein, but you want a rib eye steak. You need shelter, but you want a loft in the city. Your children need exercise, but they want a trampoline. You get the idea.

Why are these distinctions important? Needs are not optional; you must make sure needs are met. You will go into debt if necessary to ensure your child gets food to eat or to fix your car if you use it to get to work. But as you consider all of your expenses in relation to these categories, you will begin to see places you can cut wants and better meet your needs. Perhaps you will decide that although you need a snack at your 10:00 am break, and you have wanted and purchased something from the office snack machine each day in the past, from now on you will bring a snack from home that saves you $.40/day.

You will also begin to weigh your wants. You may find that you want a newer, more reliable vehicle more than you want the latest video game or a night on the town. Or you may decide instead that you want the nights on the town enough to squeeze a few more months out of the car you have.

Getting clear about what you want will help you choose what you want most and help you pinch the pennies to pay for it.

Every Penny Matters

I saw a young mother with two small boys outside the grocery store today. One of the boys ran ahead and picked up a coin off the ground. "Thomas, put that down. It's filthy," his mother called.

"But, Mom, it's a penny."

"A penny. What could you buy with a penny? Nothing. A penny these days isn't worth the effort to pick it up off the ground." She had reached Thomas by then and tossed the coin aside.

You know, nothing frosts me more than hearing someone talk like there is an amount of money that isn't worth saving. You have to start somewhere. Ben Franklin said, "A penny saved is a penny earned." I think he said penny, not dollar, because he recognized that saving money begins at the smallest unit. Every penny matters. And in today's economy every penny matters more than ever before.

If you are throwing away pennies, then over time you are throwing away dollars. If you agree that every penny matters, I would like to share with you the tips I have found over the years that allowed me to keep more of my hard earned pennies. I think I can teach you a thing or two about saving money.