Save a buck, you're in luck.

I am not a thrifty person. I don't count my pennies the way I should. But, I've recently come to the conclusion that I need to be more disciplined about how I spend money (um see previous post on Bally's debacle where I didn't even realize they'd be charging me for months).

I'm also not rich. I make enough money that I am not living paycheck to paycheck; but, not enough that I don't feel the pinch sometimes. So, I've made, and am in the process of making, a few changes to my "way of budgeting"-which isn't really a way at all-and thought I'd share. While I'll never be the coupon guru that Sean is (or Jana is learning to be), there are some easy ways to shave a few bucks off the monthly budget. Here's what I'm doing-remember I'm not perfect and can't go from paying no attention to my budget to being a freak about it overnight.

Lizzie's Baby Steps to Budgeting

1. Stop buying bagged lettuce. This tip came from my sister. In my quest to get thin before the beach, I've been eating a lot of salads. I usually buy bagged lettuce because it's already cut and cleaned. It's also super expensive. Last weekend I purchased a head of romaine and a head of red lettuce leaves (do not buy iceberg-what is the point? No nutrition!) for $1.97 total. I have had salads every day this week and still have enough lettuce for 3 more salads. I washed and cut it all on Monday afternoon. Salad bags are usually on sale for 2/$4 or 2/$5. I would need 4-5 bags to equate this amount of lettuce. You do the math.

2. Buy bags of apples instead of giant ones individually. Again, I eat a lot of produce during the week which gets expensive. A bag of smaller (properly portioned!) apples is way cheaper than buying 4 nearly 1lb. apples. Now they have nearly ever variety of apple available in the bags-it's worth it and they last a long time.

3. Pack your lunch. Working downtown it's very easy to slip into the habit of buying lunch every day. But even a salad at ingredients will cost me $6-$8 dollars depending on what's in it. This is kind of a "duh" one.

4. Buy cans of pop. I went through a period where I'd buy a Sprite Zero from the vending machine almost daily. That is $1/day. Yikes. I have shifted to buying 12 packs of the pop I like (currently Fresca and Diet Ice Tea with Lemon are in the rotation). Even if you are paying $3 for a 12-pack it's WAY cheaper than hitting up the vending machine for a carbonated afternoon beverage. I know-this is so obvious, but I had to start somewhere!

5. Sell stuff. I have some designer bags/purses and clothes that have never been used or worn. And some that are very gently used. If I haven't worn or used it in the last 6 months, odds are I never will again. I put some items on eBay last night and already sold one! I am ashamed at the amount of stuff that I have that I can list as "new with tags." The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? Even if it sells for $5, it's out of my closet and money in my pocket.

6. Online coupons. I wouldn't be honest with myself if I said I would clip coupons and get a huge binder and do all that business every week. I'd just end up buying stuff I don't need. BUT, there are three websites where you can load coupons right onto your Kroger Plus Card. I mean, why wouldn't you? It's easy and ridiculous not to. The websites are:
cellfire.com
shortcuts.com
http://www.pgesaver.com/Sites/PG_eSAVER/Page/HomePage
All you have to do is enter your card number or phone number and click to add coupons. Um, it could not be easier.

7. Do not ever pay for online shipping. Check dealcatcher.com or run a simple google search like "Jcrew free shipping code" and 9 times out of 10 you will find one. I haven't paid for shipping in a long time.

8. Use cash. I just started this one this week. Um, this makes a HUGE difference. I can swipe my debit card like nobody's business, but I hate shelling out $20 for anything. I must get more diligent about using cash if I really want to save money.

9. Plan ahead. I have a long list of furniture I want to buy in July for my new place. Instead of doing what I usually would do (go out and buy it all at once and panic that I have no money), I'm going to plan and do things now so that I easily have the funds available then. And, when I'm going out to eat or for drinks, I need to set limits on what I will get and stick to it.

10. Make goals. There are budgeting techniques I need to master-like using cash more and actually monitoring my accounts to see what is going out and in. I will actually need help figuring out how to do my budget (i.e. how much cash should I allot for groceries and gas, etc.). My goal is to figure out how to do this over the summer so by the time fall rolls around I am a budgeting machine! We'll see. ;)