Number 8 – Buy Fresh Produce

When you purchase a item from the grocery store, you’re paying for more than the item itself.  You’re paying for the cost to advertise, package, ship, store, and sell the item.  If you want to save money, consider skipping the traditional grocery store – and look for inexpensive shopping alternatives.

Start A Garden

If you have the space, grow your own food.  I’m going to do this next year, especially now that I’m eating only lean meats, fresh vegetables, and fruits.  (JD and Kris from over at Get Rich Slowly have been tracking their time in the garden this year.  There results have been very interesting.)

Depending on your level of green thumb-ed-ness, having your own garden can be a great way to save money – and it might give you a brand new, profitable, hobby.  If you have room in your freezer or pantry, learn how to freeze or can foods, for those long winter months.

Find A Farmers Market

Not interested in growing your own, but you’d still like to save some money and enjoy fresh food?  Consider a farmers market.  If you’ve never been to a farmers market, you need to go!  You’ll be amazed by how much better (in my opinion) the vegetables taste than the ones you find at the grocery store!

Here are some online tools to help you find a farmers market in your area -

USDA Farmers Market Search

The National Directory of Farmers Markets

If you can’t find a market using one of these online resources, don’t give up!  Just ask around – I’m sure that there is a “hidden gem” in your area, just waiting to be discovered.

Parenthetically, since we live in the rural south, it’s easy to find fresh fruits and vegetables, especially during summer and early fall.  Nearly every little town has a roadside booth, where one can buy fresh peaches, watermelons, squashes, turnips, and onions.  Last month, I bought a big, beautiful bag of peaches for $3.00!

Coordinate With Friends

I don’t know if this is a southern thing, or a rural thing, or both – but, where I live, people love to share goodies from their gardens with each other.  Last year, a friend brought us a “mess” of corn, several quart bags of green peas, and several 5-gallon buckets of potatoes.  If you’ve got friend with a garden, you’ve got a great friend!

Taking things a bit further, if you have a friend who is into gardening, it would be a great idea to work with them, coordinating the foods you grow.  For instance, maybe your friend really likes to grow potatoes, but isn’t interested in planting corn.  Well, you plant the corn, the friend plants the potatoes, and when harvest time comes, you share.

Growing up, my dad and our next door neighbor, Mr. Terry, used to do this.  I remember one warm day when I helped Mr. Terry pick strawberries.  As he picked them, I was supposed to put them in a bucket.  Instead, I just ate them, standing right there in the garden.  When he stood and turned around, and asked for the strawberries, all he got was an empty bucket.

Number 9 – Give Up Hobbies

I love to play golf.  If I had the time, and the money, I would play everyday.  But, while getting out of debt, I quit playing golf.  For a year, my clubs sat in a closet, gathering dust.  Sure, my game suffered, but I had to stop playing, and stop spending money, and focus on debt reduction.

Take a look at your life.  Do you have some expense – some unnecessary expense – that is eating away at your financial progress?  If so, get rid of it.

After getting out of debt, I started playing again.  I play two or three times a month, and it feels great to be back on the course.  You can always go back to your hobby – just wait until AFTER you get out of debt and have a increased your emergency savings.

In almost every case, when I take a look at some one’s budget, I can find at least one category that should be reduced – entertainment.  People love their books, DVDs, movies, bowling, golf outings, collecting, hunting, etc.  And, almost as universal, when I suggest decreasing that particular budget category, people will resist.  Why?

It’s natural to feel entitled, especially after a long week of working hard, to reward ourselves.  I had to learn to say NO – to myself, and to my buddies when they asked me to play.  By the way, never underestimate the role that peer / social pressure plays in determining how we spend our money.  It’s amazing how quickly some people can be convinced, by their friends, to make certain purchases or do certain things.  Make up your mind, make the sacrifice now, and in the near future, you can really enjoy your hobby, when you can actually afford it.

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I like top 10 lists.  There easy to read, easy to write, and they always seem to create a good deal of discussion.  This week, I’m writing my own top 10 list – Top 10 Ways To Save Money.  Expect two or three posts a day, as I want to have the entire list published by the end of the week.

Number 10 – Cook And Eat At Home

Like most families, we live our lives on-the-go.  With work, church, school, kids’ events, and family gatherings to attend and prepare for, life can get hectic.  But, even though we are very busy, we still take the time to prepare food at home.  Why?  It saves us money.

Let’s look at a typical trip to a “sit down” chain restaurant.  For a family of four, two adults and two kids, the average bill will be, what? $35 – $70?  Now, multiply that amount over 3 or 4 or even 6 times a week.  Pretty large number, right?

Now, imagine if both mom and dad eat out for lunch, each day.  What’s that?  $10 per person, per day, five days a week?  Mom and dad are spending $100 a week, just for lunch.  That’s $400 – $500 a month.

Instead of buying lunch, prepare a lunch at home.  Instead of going out to eat, start eating at home.  I can promise you that two things will happen -

1.  You’ll spend more time with your family, sitting around the supper table, actually talking.

2.  You’ll spend less – much less – on food.  Sure, your grocery bill might go up, just a bit – more on that later – but your eating out bill will shrink, dramatically.

If you don’t want to give up eating out entirely, make it a treat.  Instead of eating our 5 times a week, eat out once, maybe on mommy-daddy date night?  Or, take the kids for a special lunch after church.  When you do, splurge a little bit – if your wallet and waist line can handle it.  Remember, we want to sacrifice when appropriate, but we also want to enjoy our lives.

About those higher-than-usual grocery bills – I mentioned a resource a few days ago, my free printable grocery store price book – and I really think it will help reduce your grocery costs, if you’ll use it.  Print one out and give it a try.  See what you think.

By the way, my friend JD from over at Get Rich Slowly recently wrote a very interesting post about grocery shopping – and only doing so once a month!  This is an idea that I find very intriguing.  And, MBHunter has some excellent tips for brown-bagging it.

If you enjoy the site, and you want to keep up with the Top 10, please consider subscribing to No Credit Needed.  You can subscribe via RSS or via Daily Email.  You’ll always receive the very freshest content, delivered directly to your reader or inbox.  Rock on!