Keeping Household Supply Costs Down

Image by leff via Flickr

As I was digging around, editing some of my AC articles, I ran across 5 Tips To Cut Costs Year Round, that I had written back in January. Its a fairly straight forward article, and I realized how much doing what I had outlined had saved. The only trick I don't use currently is vinegar...working at Wal-Mart ruined the scent for me. Even though it fades quickly!

The detergent tip is one of my favorites. I'm still running off the same bottle of detergent! Its about empty now, but I can still get more loads out of it. And when my detergent costs $15 a bottle, the longer I can go before buying, the better!

Check out the article, and let me know if any of the tips work for you! If you have other tips, feel free to share! I know there's a ton out there that I don't know yet.
~*If you know of any money saving tips or tricks that have worked for you, feel free to share them! You can always email me at raiscara.avalon@gmail.com. *~

Cutting Costs: Quitting Smoking

Image by Saquan Stimpson/monstershaq2000 via Flickr

One of the latest ways I am cutting costs is by quitting smoking. Yes there are other reasons, but besides energy, this is my second most important reason. Currently a carton of my cigarettes costs me $60. I buy one carton about every two weeks, sometimes more, sometimes less. That's $120 a MONTH! Assuming the price doesn't change in a 12 month period (and we all know it will), that's $1440 a year. No wonder I never had any money.

Not that quitting smoking in itself is cheap. If you go the patch route, you are looking at about $40 a box. That's some upfront cost. Of course there are cheaper versions, I've seen them at half that in stores such as Wal-Mart and Target. I personally had skin reactions to the cheaper versions, so I knew to avoid them. Why add to my distress?

But lets take a moment to do the math. Assuming you do the full program (2 weeks on each level, 3 levels) at $40 a box...that costs you (drumroll please) $120. That's 6 weeks of nicotine people! For the price it is currently costing me for 4 weeks of smoking. So lets cull the price of quitting from our yearly savings. That's still $1320 you will save in a year. What could you do with that money? Go on vacation? Put it towards your mortgage?

Personally I could never actually save that money. If I were still working, I definitely would. But freelance isn't a steady gig right now. But if I could, I'd probably save for a car, a nice shiny new one. And I'd pay cash. Granted at the current prices, it would take me quite awhile to do with only saving that amount. But it would be worth it in the end. :)

I did start a blog detailing my quitting smoking journey here on Blogger. Of course I had to have a new one. :)

~*If you know of any money saving tips or tricks that have worked for you, feel free to share them! You can always email me at raiscara.avalon@gmail.com. *~

Free Program Spotlight: Associated Content

As far as online, Associated Content is where I make most of my money. I'm still fairly new in the grand scheme of Associated Content, but I'm loving it so far.

The premise is simple, write articles and get paid for it. You can write an article on whatever your little heart desires, and submit it for upfront payment or for just page views. You can earn twice on the same article, once from upfront, then again for your page views.

And Associated Content DOES pay, with no payout threshold. You earn it, you get it. Its an amazingly fast turn around in comparison to other sites out there. You choose how much of your rights to give away. And its completely free to sign up. You pay nothing to earn money. Ever.

The downside to Associated Content is they are a growing site, so they have the bugs and quirks that many others do. I haven't had any problems yet, but others have. They sometimes take awhile to go through your submitted articles, but its all worth it in my eyes. If you expect everything to run perfectly, then get offline. :)

~*If you know of any money saving tips or tricks that have worked for you, feel free to share them! You can always email me at raiscara.avalon@gmail.com. *~