Everyone nowadays is looking for ways to save money. So, here’s a little hodgepodge of money-saving tips.

Reuse Water Bottles. Some people have been scared away from re-using plastic water bottles because they’ve heard the bottles are essentially breeding grounds for germs and bacteria. But, don’t be fooled. You don’t throw away your kitchen glasses after each use, do you? No, you wash them! You can do the same with plastic water bottles too. Wash with soap and hot water. Bye bye germs! If you’re worried about DEHA or BPA leaching, read these articles: “Reuse of Plastic Bottles” and “Is Reusing Water Bottles Safe?” If you’re still not sure, you can always reuse glass bottles, especially those with screw-on caps (metal or plastic).

Re-purpose Plastic Bottles. Don’t want to simply reuse the bottles? Repurpose them instead. Cut the tops off (carefully) and you can use them for starting seeds or rooting plants. They can be used again and again, or you can toss or recycle them if they get too dirty. Or, when the plant is ready to be transplanted to a pot or the garden, you can cut the plastic bottle open (carefully) to make it easier to remove the plant while causing it less stress than trying to pull or loosen the plant from the bottle. Small plastic water or soda bottles can be used for seeds and small cuttings, while larger bottles can be used for larger cuttings or plants that may have large seedlings.

If you have small children, ten empty plastic bottles (12-16 oz water bottles or 2-liter soda bottles, depending on the age of the child), a ball and a smooth sidewalk or other long flat area can make a fun bowling alley. Just set up the bottles as pins and go! Sand or water can be added to the bottles if they need some extra weight.

Pack Your Freezer. Did you know that your freezer will run optimally when it is more full than empty? Advice ranges from keeping it at anywhere from a minimum of half full to almost all the way full. The more full it is, the less work the freezer will have to do to maintain the freezing temperature. But, you still want air to be able to circulate and assist in maintaining the freezing temperature. So, if you figure between half full and almost all full, you can figure that 3/4ths of the way full is perhaps the optimal amount of fullness. If you still have your operating manual or instruction booklet that came with your freezer, look in there to find the manufacturer’s recommendation for your model. In the absence of a recommendation, 3/4ths full is probably a good level to try to maintain. If you don’t have enough food to fill your freezer, you can always make extra ice to fill the space.

You could also fill water bottles and stick them in the freezer too. Just remember that water expands when it freezes, so you don’t want to fill the bottles too much or you could have a mess!

By keeping your freezer running efficiently, you’ll save on your electricity as the freezer won’t be working as hard. Also, in the event of a power outage, the food inside the freezer will maintain its temperature longer and stay safe longer than if the freezer wasn’t as full. And that can save you money if you don’t have to throw any food away.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for a Better Price. Just because you see a particular price listed, especially at a flea market or garage sale, doesn’t mean that that’s the final price! You may be familiar with that time of haggling, but you can do it online too. If you look on eBay, they even have a “Or Best Offer” option on some items. I tried it last week. The price on an item was $19.99, which wasn’t bad. But, the OBO option was there, so I offered $12.99. I was prepared to offer $14.99 on the next go-around, but they accepted my $12.99 offer. So, I saved $7 on an item I would have paid $19.99 for. (If the OBO wasn’t available, I would have paid the Buy It Now price of $19.99.) You could try this on Ma & Pa type websites too. You never know how much you might save if you don’t ask!

Check Your Coins. This one’s a rarity, but you never know when you might find something. Most people don’t even look at their change. But, there are coins out there that could be worth money as a collectible. Certain coins, even pennies, in good condition (and graded) could be worth hundreds of dollars. Just take a look at these auction prices for pennies. Your chances of finding a valuable coin might be low, but it at least merits a quick glance at the coins in your pocket to see if there is anything unusual about them or if they have dates you might recognize as being potentially more valuable than others. Could there be an $800 dollar penny in your piggy bank?

If you don’t set up a budget for yourself, you will probably keep losing money.

Let’s just face reality. Most of you will never put together a budget. You might say, oh, that’s a great idea! I’m going to do this right away! But, you never will. You’ve been given the same advice before. You’ve read it in books. You’ve read it in blogs. You’ve seen it on TV. You may have even learned it in school.

Maybe you put a half-hearted effort into making one. Maybe you even tried to follow it for a month, or a week, or maybe you just pitched the thing after a couple days, when your longing for a latte overtook your desire to save money.

Anyway, you never got serious about it, and you didn’t do it.

And, you’re not going to do it either, are you? Sure, you’ll read the post, think it’s a great idea, maybe even leave a comment saying you’ll get right on it, but then you’ll go watch TV, fall asleep and forget about it.

So, let’s find a way to save you money without having a budget. You should still have a budget, but we both know you’re not going to do one, so let’s just talk about another money saving idea.

This one’s fairly easy. All you have to do is set aside money each time you don’t buy something.

Say, for example, you go to a fast food place for lunch. “You want fries with that?” Say no, and set aside the 99 cents you would have spent on fries. Hitting the snack box at work? Skip it and stick the 75 cents you saved aside. You can put the change in your other pocket or carry an extra change purse or coin holder with you. Skip your morning latte, and put that $4.75 aside. See something neat at the store you want to buy? Don’t. Set that money aside instead.

It’s a little bit harder if you pay for everything with a credit card. In that case, you’ll need to write down what you didn’t spend and write yourself a check for that amount at the end of the week or month. Oh, wait, if you didn’t mind writing stuff down, you would have done a budget. But, you didn’t do that, so you’re probably not going to do this either. Okay. Never mind.

Then, for those of you not using credit cards, at the end of the day, put all that loose change and any paper money and stick it in a jar, or a piggy bank, or whatever. And, if you’re writing checks for everything, well just write yourself a check and stick it in the jar. Or, don’t even write the check (to save money there, because you probably pay for your checks) and just deduct the amount from your checking account. At the end of the month, you can withdraw that money from your checking account and put it in your jar. Or your savings account.

Anyway, just by not buying things and setting aside the money you didn’t spend, you can see how much the money adds up. It also gives good visual evidence of how much money you’ve been letting go without even realizing it.

And, it works even without a budget, though you should still try to do a budget.

“Man, if I don’t get $1,000 before Monday morning, I’ll be in deep trouble,” says Barry. “I gotta get my car fixed. I can’t have my wife take me every morning–it costs too much in gas.”

“Maybe you should cut out the lattes from Starbucks,” says Johnny. “Those cost you, what?, $4.75 every day? Think of all the money you’d save if you just made coffee at home or got it at the office.”

“You have to stop worrying about the small stuff,” says Barry. “If we hadn’t had our roof fixed last week, we’d have the money.”

“You need a roof,” says Johnny. “You don’t need the latte.”

“Maybe I can find a cheaper mechanic,” says Barry.

Unfortunately, too many Americans think like Barry. They worry about the big stuff, and are oblivious to the amount of money that leaves their pockets a little bit at a time.

If you buy a latte five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, at $4.75 each, that’s $1,235 in the course of a year. Making your own coffee at home will cost you probably under $35 a year, assuming one cup per day. Even making your own lattes at home won’t cost you anywhere near $1,235. So, you’re spending probably close to $1,200 you wouldn’t have too. (Hint: Get up earlier and make your own coffee or latte.)

How much are you spending on fast food each week? Do you have subscriptions to magazines you don’t read? Do you have a gym membership you never use?

The fact is that many Americans have no idea how much money they are really spending. They think of high gas prices, or high grocery bills, or high gas and electric bills, or high repair bills, and so on. But, they don’t figure in all the little things they spend money on. Do you think Wal-Mart has gotten so large just by selling stuff people actually need? How many things do people buy that they don’t really need? Maybe something was on sale. Maybe it was “just a couple bucks.” Maybe it looked cute.

Most Americans don’t have a budget, so they may not even realize they’re overspending. They add up their important bills, and those numbers float in their heads, but all the little things get overlooked, and those little things are the ones that can frequently come back and bite you in the posterior.

Let’s say that each week you go shopping, you pick up $10 worth of stuff that wasn’t on your list. You didn’t need it. You’ll probably just stick it in a drawer somewhere and never use it. But, it was only $10 so you didn’t worry about it. Over the course of a year, that’s $520. Could you have used $520 for something else? Something more important? Maybe you could have saved it, earned a little bit of interest, and, at the very least, had an extra $520 if you were hit with a money emergency, such as an unexpected home or auto repair.

Setting up a budget doesn’t have to be hard. Just sit down and write down all your monthly expenses. You’ll have stuff like the utility bills, your mortgage, your phone bill, maybe a car payment, insurance, and other things. Next, think of your quarterly or annual bills. Maybe you pay self-employment taxes, maybe you have condo or other association fees, membership fees, magazine subscriptions, newspaper subscriptions, etc. Write down everything you can think of. Look through your credit card bills, checkbook and any other receipts you have to make sure you don’t miss anything. Don’t forget to write down how much you spend on gas, eating out, even postage stamps.

Once done, break down everything to a monthly or weekly amount. For example, divide an annual expense, such as a membership fee, by 12 to figure its monthly cost or by 52 to figure out a weekly cost.

After you have figured out your monthly or weekly expenses, add up your monthly or weekly income. Use your take-home pay, not the pre-tax amounts. If your expenses are larger than your income, then you really, really need to make some cutbacks. If they are equal, you should still make some cutbacks so that you can save some money.

If your income exceeds your expenses, the difference between the two can be thought of as your “excess” money. (Though, if you have debt you’re paying off, you never really have “excess” money.) What you need to do is to figure out how to deal with that extra money. You may want to apply some to your debt so you can get it paid off faster, or you may want to stick it all in a savings account. If you have a decent amount of “excess” money, you can divide it out, some to save, some to pay off debt, etc. Ideally, you should make saving up enough money to equal 6 months of income, which will be off great help if you lose your job or have unintended expenses. But, be sure too that you keep up on all your bills.

Once you’ve worked out a budget, and get used to working within it, you’ll find that you won’t as easily be willing to part with that extra $10 a week on things you don’t really need, nor will you be as quick to plop down four ones and three quarters for a latte each morning.

In any case, figuring out, and sticking with, a budget can be your first step in saving money. And, having money when you need it can help eliminate some stress in your life. And, while money can’t buy you happiness, less stress and more peace of mind can certainly aid in making you happy.

If you have other ideas for being happier that you’d like to share, please comment on this post.

The Simple Dollar today has a list of 100 ways to save money.

I think that Joanne may appreciate number 65.

I have a little addendum for number 7: “Write a list before you go shopping - and stick to it.” While that’s good advice, it can be difficult at times. Some may have the will-power to stick exclusively to “the list” but others will have a hard time of it. And, once you fall off the horse, it is often easier to keep walking than to try to get back on.

An alternative is to give yourself an allowance of $x for things that are not on your list. Maybe there is a sale on something you’ll need but wasn’t on the list. Could be a close-out special or something. Maybe you see something that you weren’t aware the store carried, or something new. By giving yourself an allowance, you can still basically stick to the list while allowing some flexibility in picking up additional items within a reasonable limit.

Additionally, take the $x you don’t spend and save it! Stick it in a money jar or deposit it in your savings account. That way, when you’re faced with buying additional items at the store, you’ll have a tougher choice to make. Instead of just buying something because it will fit within your overage amount, you’ll have to decide whether you want to buy the item(s) or save the money.

The way I see it, it’s the best of both worlds. You have the benefit of sticking to a list with some degree of flexibility and the added savings if you don’t spend your overage amount.

If you can stick strictly to your list, by all means do it. But, if you’re the type that needs some amount of flexibility, give this a try!

Why does it seem like the money you spend adds up faster than the money you save?

Since I started (and restarted) making a serious effort at getting my financial house in order, it seems that, despite cutting out spending on non-essentials, my savings haven’t equalled what I was spending.

While it’s disappointing to look at the numbers, the reason is pretty clear. After setting aside money for paying regular bills and necessities as well as savings, the balance goes toward paying stuff off. The good news is that, instead of buying new non-essentials, I’m getting stuff paid off.

The reason savings don’t quite equal previous spending is because savings are a fixed amount, whether a percentage or a dollar amount of your income–however you figure it–and spending was variable. In other words, you might spend a dollar here or there, but only save a dollar. You get a check, and you set aside a specific amount for savings. You don’t look into your checkbook later in the week and say, hey, I think I’ll save some of that. But, with spending, you’ll look at your checkbook and say, hey, I can spare a couple bucks to buy this…

Because of that, your savings may not add up as much as what your spending did.

Savings are generally planned out, while spending is more inconsistent. For example, you may have spent $5 for coffee and a donut for breakfast before work. Maybe one week, you went every day ($25) and another week you went three times ($15) and the third week you went three times ($15). So, if you decided to save that money instead of spending you, while you might cut out the coffee and donuts, you might have decided to save $15 per week. Over a three week period, you saved $45, whereas in the same three week period you might have spent $55. So, your savings may not grow as quickly as what your spending did.

On top of that, you might also have spent $15 on lunch one day a week, bringing your expenditures to $100 while your savings stayed at $45.

On the plus side, if you’re using that extra money to pay things off, that’s not a bad thing. But, if you want your savings to grow a little faster, you’re going to need to punch some numbers to see if you can increase your weekly savings or if it’s better to continue to pay things off. Ideally, even if you have debts to pay, you should be trying to save some money, even if it’s only a small amount, to save for emergencies or other situations that may arise where you’ll need some extra money.

For other money-saving ideas, be sure to add Sabrina’s Money Matters and The Simple Dollar to your RSS feed or blogroll.

A lot of people have credit card debt that they want to pay off. A couple days ago, Budget Babe talked about reducing your credit card debt.

When trying to pay off your credit card(s), it is best to avoid using them. However, sometimes you just cannot avoid using them. Here are a couple money-saving tricks to help deal with that situation.

1) If you need to purchase something with a credit card, pay it off right away and round up. If you can pay online, pay on your credit card (either before or right after your purchase) the amount you had to pay, rounding up as much as you can. For example, if you paid $46.95 for something, pay $50 on your credit card. That way, you are reimbursing the card for your purchase as well as reducing the debt by a little.

If your credit card company restricts the number of payments you can make in a month, write out a check for the amount and save it until it’s time to pay the bill. Then, pay the amount you normally pay plus the amounts of any additional checks you wrote.

By doing things this way, you will continue to see your credit card balance drop, instead of bouncing up and down when you make new purchases.

2) If you are saving up for a large purchase, consider “saving” by making payments on your credit card. Even if you end up having to charge a large amount later (once you have “saved” enough money), in the meantime what you will have saved in interest charges will likely far exceed what little interest the bank may have paid you if you saved the money in a checking or savings account.

And, as always, know thyself and be sure these methods will work out to your advantage before using them.