Millions are looking for ways to shave dollars and dimes from their daily expenses. To share your own tips, send us an e-mail telling us how you save. You can save money on everything, but here's how you can get started around your home.
- Lower your thermostat in the winter. For each degree that you drop, you cut your heating bill by 3 percent. To feel more comfortable at lower temperatures, place pans of water near heating outlets or radiators. Water-filled air retains heat better, and the added humidity reduces itching and dry skin.
- Save on a flush in an old toilet by putting a plastic bottle full of water, weighted with pebbles, in your tank.
- Get a rain barrel. Connected to your home’s storm gutters, it will collect water for later use on your lawn, vegetable garden or car.
- Stop that dripping faucet. Sixty drips a minute will waste about 6,428 gallons of water per year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
- Shower quickly and save. A 15-minute shower a day costs about $310 a year, even with a low-flow shower head. Cutting the time by a third will save about $100 annually.
- Buy torn bags of mulch. Home centers usually set these torn bags aside, then sell the day’s mishaps at a big discount. Your best chance to get these deals is at the end of a weekend shopping day. Bring duct tape to close them, and a tarp to keep your car trunk clean.
- Rent that extra room or space in your garage, basement, backyard. Visit sparefoot.com or storeatmyhouse.com to list its availability and your asking price for free. SpareFoot gets a transaction fee equal to half the first month’s paid rent (a spare bedroom can fetch $150 a month). The site also sells legally vetted lease agreements for $19.
- Save on printer ink by using the Century Gothic font, which a recent study showed consumes about a third less ink than industry-standard Arial. That saves about $20 a year for a home user printing 25 pages a week.
- Do it yourself or hire someone? You can get estimates of the difference in cost for a home improvement project at diyornot.com, as well as advice on whether you should go it alone.
- Get your castoffs picked up for free by more than 60 nonprofit furniture banks nationwide. (Your items generally need to be in good condition.) Find one near you at nationalfurniturebank.com.
- Boost your knowledge with free online college courses. (You may need to buy books or download special software.) Yale, MIT and Stanford are among dozens of universities offering no-cost knowledge. Visit education-portal.com and click on “OpenCourseWare” for a list of offerings by topic.
- Sell your junk, but first get an idea of what it’s really worth by going to itaggit.com, an online “blue book” for pack rats and collectors. The site analyzes recent sales at online markets.
- Free photo editing online is available at citrify.com, where your uploaded photos can be tweaked with nifty effects like teeth-whitening and wrinkle-removing. Pixorial.com provides free video online editing and up to 10 gigabytes of free storage.
Sell your books. At cash4books.net or sellbackyourbook.com, you type in an unwanted book’s ISBN number to get an offer. If you like what you see, fill out a prepaid mailing label, box the books and send them off. Payment comes by check or as a credit to your PayPal account.
- Volunteer techies give free advice on common computer problems at fixya.com.
Don’t dump, recycle. Join the local bulletin board at freecycle.org and post what you want to give away or something you’re looking for. No money changes hands, and your unwanted stuff won’t add to a landfill. If there’s no group in your area, the website tells how to set one up. Adopted from http://www.aarp.org/money/budgeting-saving/info-06-2010/home_saving_tips.html
Millions are looking for ways to shave dollars and dimes from their daily expenses. To share your own tips, send us an e-mail telling us how you save. You can save money on everything, but here's how you can get started around your home.
