Mission possible? Save money and make a little extra cash as well...

I have been on a mission over the past few months. My mission? To save money and make money. I do work full time as does my husband and we are financially comfortable and are not doing without but with Christmas coming my thoughts are very focused on getting through the season without using my credit card at all. It might be a challenge. We have a large extended family and with that comes a large list of people t o buy gifts for (and believe me, I have trimmed the list over the years much as possible!). I have already created a budget of what can be spent on each person and I am sticking to it!

So my first thought was that the best place to start would cut down our monthly spending, okay that is always challenging right? This is a work in progress! I have to admit I like to online shop and KingK likes his little weekly luxuries as well. Not to mention a preteen and a teenager in house as well! And they sure like to eat!

This brought me to coupons, of course! A fairly simple way to cut down some of the everyday, every month expenses that you can’t do without. Inspired by the TLC show Extreme couponing, I set out searching the Internet for coupons and signing up for every coupon opportunity I could find.  Unfortunately the amazing savings I see happening in the U.S just aren’t possible here in Canada as we don’t have coupon doubling and it seems like we have stricter rules when it comes to coupons but I am still honing my coupon skills. I still really believe that every dollar saved is worth it. I honestly won’t spend hours a week clipping coupons but a few minutes a day, sure! With just a little effort you can save a few bucks, why wouldn’t you?

So that’s the start of it, saving. I have done some other things to save as well. I have gone through all our monthly bills looking for ways to slim them down. I did find a few things on our cable bill that I got rid of. I found that we were paying for movie channels that I didn’t think we really watched and a charge for “extreme” speed Internet, that I didn’t think we needed. I took them off. I knew nobody would notice the movie channels but the Internet speed was kind of iffy. I didn’t tell anyone in the house what I had done and guess what...nobody noticed at all!!!  I also bundled our home phone (that was through our local provider) into our cable and Internet bill as well. In total I saved almost $50/month doing all of this. I also found a few bucks that could be saved on our cell phone bill. All together A few minutes looking over bills and a few minutes on the phone and I saved almost $750/year. Hey, I know that won’t make me a millionaire but it’s money back in our account, right where I want it! I really advise everyone out there to take a look at your bills. Are you paying for stuff you didn’t sign up for or stuff you don’t need?  Look at your bills and look at them often...if there is something on the bill that you don’t recognize or don’t need...call them and find out the details. It happens all the time that companies add little charges without your knowledge and if you don’t notice and just keep paying it, your money is lost. Good luck getting it back from them. You snooze, you loose according to them.

Anyone out there have any money saving tips for me? I would love to hear them! And stay tuned for more money saving posts, updates on my coupon adventures, as well as info on my money making endeavours!