10 easy ways to save $500 or more

By Bankrate.com

Raises are hard to come by at many jobs, so don't wait for the boss to be struck by the sudden realization that you're valuable. Give yourself a raise by spending less of your hard-earned cash.

Following any one of these tips can save you as much as $500 per year. Some of them can save you more. If you do all 10, you'll save at least $5,000 a year. That's a heck of a lot more than the measly 3 percent increase that your employer is likely to hand out. And the best part about it is that you don't have to smile and say "thank you."

Drive less

With gas hovering around $4 per gallon, you don't have to cut back on much mileage to save $500 in a year. You'll save that much in gas alone if you drive a car that gets 15 miles per gallon just 36 fewer miles per week. When you divide it by 50 weeks, 1,872 miles in a year isn't much. If you have a 40-mile round-trip commute, persuading the boss to allow telecommuting one day a week, or squeezing 40 hours of work into four days, will definitely put you ahead about $500 per year.

If that doesn't work for you, there are other options. The cutback doesn't have to be extreme. Trimming a couple of unnecessary short hops out of your routine is enough to hit the target. Encouraging the kids to take the school bus instead of schlepping them in the car, or consolidating three trips to the grocery store into one weekly excursion may do the trick. Vacationing at the lake instead of driving the family to Florida will certainly hit the goal.

Bring your own stimulant

Stop buying coffee at the chichi coffee joint down the street from work. Either bringing coffee from home in a thermos or brewing it in the break room will actually improve the quality of your morning shot of energy, as well as cut its cost dramatically. You can get 40 cups of coffee from a pound of beans. Even the gourmet ones can be purchased for $4 per pound. If you're spending $2 per day on coffee -- easy to do in most workplaces -- you'll go from spending $500 a year to about $25 by making your own.

Save even more by taking cans of soda or bottled water to work instead of buying them out of the vending machine. Bottled water sells for around 30 cents a bottle at a big-box grocery stores. Compare that to the 75 cents or more that you'll spend at the machine, and it's a no-brainer. You can go even further by cleaning your small plastic water bottles and replenishing them with drinking water from a gallon jug. (It's an environmentally friendly move, too.)

Conserve energy

Dad was right. Turn off the TV when you leave the room. Using less energy is a painless way to save. Heat and air conditioning are the largest home-energy hogs. The U.S. Department of Energy points out that during each 24-hour period, you will save about 3 percent on your energy bill for every 1 degree you lower the thermostat setting (or, conversely, raise it when air conditioning is the big cost). For example, let's say you normally keep your thermostat set at 73 degrees in summer. If you raise it to 76 degrees, you will save about 9 percent (3 degrees times 3 percent) or 9 cents for every dollar you spend on air conditioning costs. If you're spending $2,000 per year, that small change will save you $180. Buy a programmable thermostat and turn the system up 10 degrees during the day when no one's home and you'll save much more.

Here are some other quick fixes for savings that add up to an additional $400: Switch to U.S. Energy Star-approved light bulbs and save $60 a year. Running a 32-inch TV four hours a day costs $3 per month, but many families use the TV for background noise, letting it play 24/7. You can save more than $200 a year just by turning off the TV when nobody's watching it. Washing clothes in cold water is good for another $60 a year and powering down your computer at night can save $70.

Dig gardening

Gardening doesn't just burn a lot of calories; a nice yard also adds value to the house. If you do it all yourself, it's pure profit. Assuming a modest savings of $300 per summer for mowing your own grass and another $200 for such related expenses as applying your own weed killer and fertilizer, a $500 savings is easily attained.

Bonus idea: Assign jobs like shoveling, raking and car washing to Junior, who's always good for hitting you up for money. While you might shell out $200 for him to do these chores, it's a savings, considering that you were going to give him the money whether he worked for it or not.

Go small or stay pet-free

Fido and Tabby are lovable, but they can cost a bundle. If you're considering a pet, keep the cost of their upkeep in mind. Pawprints and Purrs, an animal adoption agency based in Keithville, La., tells its clients to expect to pay these annual costs of pet ownership: cat, $640; small dog, $780; medium dog, $1,115; large dog, $1,500. Obviously, smaller is cheaper. The difference between a large dog and a small one is $720 per year -- that's a lot of kibble.

Don't flush money down the commode

No-name-brand toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, paper cups, plastic wrap, plastic bags, etc., are all available at half the price of similar name-brand products when you buy them in bulk.You don't even have to wait for a sale. Such stores as Wal-Mart, Kmart, Costco and Sam's Club offer these items all the time at bulk rates.

For instance, you can buy 15,000 sheets of toilet paper for about $13, compared to the 4,224 sheets of the "squeezably soft" variety that routinely sells for $9 in a 12-pack. Big-name plastic wrap can be 10 times more expensive than the big-box variety.

 1 | 2 | next >