Melanie recently asked me for my tips regarding how to live on the cheap. To address that, and in honor of Eddie Money playing in Boston tonight, this post is about saving money.
I just came across a neat article on Public Radio Kitchen called Food Policy Heresy: The Poors Can Eat Well Too. It has some good ideas for eating a slow food diet on the cheap and it includes a link to the New England Aquarium's sustainable seafood list. Overfishing is a big problem people. We're all focused on being green but they don't call it the blue planet for nothing.
Having a garden is a good way to save on food but if you can't do that, lentils and kale are your best friends. They're both super cheap, super good for you, and pretty versatile. I like to buy lentils dry, in huge bags, for less than $4. Other good things to have on hand include: tomato paste (Emily gets it in a tube which is awesome), canned tomatoes, chick peas, Slap Ya Mama cajun seasoning (I put it in everything), potatoes, garlic and onions. I've made some serious tastiness with just the ingredients I've talked about here.
Other things that seem to save money:
- oatmeal
- riding a bike
- turning lights and fans off
- only buying food that you'll know you'll eat
- not throwing stuff away until you really can't use it anymore (use a chicken carcass to make stock, keep a bag of veggie scraps in the freezer to make stock, mend your socks, etc.)
- use vinegar to clean. it's a lot cheaper than other cleaning products for your bathroom and kitchen.
- use your connections to get free food, cheap bike maintenance, tools, etc. Can you borrow something instead of buying it?
- not drinking
- automatic monthly transfers from my checking account into savings
- Mint.com - it allows you to set up budgets and texts you when you've exceeded or when your balances are low.
Woo hoo! Go forth and save.
the good news here is that i've got the cleaning with vinegar thing down!!
ReplyDeletethank you for the tippage, lady.
I like the list!
ReplyDeleteHere are a couple of additional things I've been trying to do:
-Either avoid coffee shops and make your own coffee (easier said than done), or order things like espresso/black-iced coffee which are usually the cheapest things on the menu and still get you that nice seat at a place with wireless & A/C.
-turning off computer/wireless router power-strip stuff at night
-Fried rice is another super-cheap filling meal, especially with fried egg & peanuts.
-find a way to get used bike parts on the cheap (bike coops... biker friends...)
-If you must drink... have people over for beers instead of going out.
-Throw a dry towel in the drier to help wet clothes dry faster (you can do multiple stuff on one set of coins rather than doing two loads at once)... or use a clothes-line
-Sell books you don't read back to used bookstores or sell them on Amazon.