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Money is hard to come by, so I try to find ways to save it everyday. We are a single income family and live on a pretty tight budget. We made the financial decision for me to stay at home about 6 years ago. It was an adjustment going into the “mode” of all day mom…then homeschool mom, but all in all I adjusted pretty good. It did leave on dilemna and that was “extra” money. As I said our budget is tight so for a little extra I had to think of quick ways to make some money in the time that allows.
My husband works very hard to give us a comfortable lifestyle, and by comfortable that means eating out occasionally. A lavish lifestyle would mean that I would be treated to dinner once a week. I will let you know when we get there. (smile). Since I do like to eat out or have a pizza on super busy nights my quick income had to be handy. I knew that it would not be $400.00, but it might be enough monthly to add income into our savings so that we could put a pizza or two into our budget.
Quick Ways To Find Money In The Laundry:
So, I like I said, I find different ways to help. I save all of my change ( and theirs) and put it in a jar. I figure that I do the laundry and clean the house, so I get dibs on what I find. In one year my various change jars placed strategically throughout the home has brought in close to $150.00. Yes….who would believe it!
Quick Ways To Make Money From A Hobby:
Since I am a reader I try to read one book per month, sometimes that is a far fetched goal, but the point is I love to read. Well, this can be a very expensive hobby. Each time that I buy a book, I sell two books to a second hand bookstore. No, I don’t go back and buy more books from the store I put the money in an envelope. When it hits $50.00 then I add it to our family savings. Most of the books are used on Amazon. I really never pay more than $6.00 for a book including S&H.
Quick Ways To Make Money With A Business:
Another way that I make money to save is through my AVON business. Even though I homeschool there is still a little bit of time to sell AVON and make money. Through loyal customers that order each time I am able to earn money each month that will go toward a bill, or into our savings accounts.
How do you save money to get a few extra’s into your budget? I would love to hear about it in the comments!
Cheers,
Michelle Knight
Great ideas for saving money! I love the one about saving change from the laundry and selling back books.
I’m going to try to sell more stuff back this year.
Found your post on Modest Mom. Hope you have a blessed day~
Melanie
Thanks, I do make more from the books.
Good ideas! I like to keep change from the laundry as well. Usually it goes towards vacations or trips but sometimes my hubby and I raid it for quarters for coffee or a pop. I sell clothing and other items at a consignment shop.
Yes, I recently discovered that my husband and teenager have been raiding it for pop. I gave up pop so that is another way I have found to save money.
Those are all good ideas! I do some of this, and also try to sell clothing and children’s items we no longer need to consignment stores.
I have tried that in the past, but we have all boys and they are super hard on clothes!
These are some great ideas. Our family is currently trying to pay off student loans. So I am constantly looking for ways to save or earn extra cash. One of the ways we save is by hang drying our clothes instead of using the dryer. Surprisingly this saves us $30 a month! (We are a family of 9 so we have a lot of laundry!)
Oh my, I couldn’t imagine how much laundry a family of nine has! I can barely keep up with our family of six. Sometimes I wish there was a “laundry fairy” who did all of the laundry while we slept.
I did try to hang our clothes outside in the summer, but in the winter we have no room to hang them. It really does save a lot of money not using the dryer.
That is a LOT of laundry money! To save money here, I try to buy in bulk whenever I can (like toilet paper, it costs $40, but I get almost 6 months worth), make things from scratch as often as my sanity allows, and using what we have instead of buying more.I also wanted to let you know that there’s a website now called ThriftBooks.com, and they have great prices on books and a really low free shipping rate. And coupons too. It’s saved me some money this year!
I will check out that site on books. Thanks!
We are making it work on a single income as well! It is hard sometimes but so worth it!
very worth it!
Thank you for sharing this on the Art of Home-Making Mondays. I know many of us are in the same position and all ideas help so much!
Love, JES @ Strangers & Pilgrims on Earth
I get my books from the library. Ours is wonderful, so there is a lot of selection.
I do love the library but we do not go as much in the winter.
I’m a lover of books too! I buy used on Amazon and I’m able to get many good used books for a penny plus shipping! I also make good use of my local library. I don’t know if you’ve heard about swagbucks, but I search and do surveys and I’m able to earn a $25 Amazon gift card each month just doing a survey every few days and using swagbucks as my primary search bar. I love this since there is only about $20 in our entertainment budget for the month and that generally goes to a date night 🙂