13 Painless Ways to Save $100

Inspire by Money Saving Mom I have come up with my own 13 Painless Ways we save $100 this year.

1) Pack our own lunch: We have cafeteria in our office but that still costs a lot more than packing our own lunch

2) Pack Miss J lunch: Last year I had Miss J bought lunch at school. But after a few months, I decided that I can give her better lunch and I can also see how much she eat. Plus packing her lunch has saved $$$ along the way.

3) Join CVS game: Before learning the CVS rope, we typically spent close to $800/month for our grocery and Health&Beauty products. But now we have saved probably more than $200 from learning and utilizing CVS program

4) Cut coupon for grocery shopping: Cutting coupon not only help reduce the cost of grocery but I think it forced me to be more vigilent in our spending habit. I admitted that in the past I don't even look at the price of the products we bought for our grocery. But now, I will only buy if it's really on sale and I have coupons for them.

5) Change our life insurance and save $1000/year: We have had our term life insurance for several years now. But lately I read that the life insurance price has come down. So I figure I will try to see what kind of the quote we will get. Surprisingly even though we were older (than when we first got the first policy), we pay less for the same exact coverage. So I spent about 30 minutes online to fill up the form for both Mr. Rojo and myself and now we saved $1000/year.

6) Drive our smaller car more often: We have 2 cars. The Hyundai Sonata is our regular car that we used to use on the daily basis. And we also have Totota Corolla. Lately, we have been using the Corolla more because it has better gas mileage. Sometimes I will miss my leather seat in the Sonata but I think the saving is worth it.

7) Change Blockbuster Online plan: After reviewing our entertainment budget and how often we watch the movie, we decided to switch the blockbuster plan to a cheaper plan but still allows us a few movies per month.

8) Use water filter pitcher for water instead of buying bottle of water.

9) Get books from library instead of buying books

10) Use homemade cleaner (aka vinegar) instead of buying chemical cleaner for general purpose cleaning

11) Make my own pancake: Ok... I'm not that good to make it from scratch yet. I still use Bisquick for pancake but it sure saves us a lot more money than buying Eggo frozen waffle. If I can do it, anyone can too.

12) Start herb garden: Well, I can't really take a full credit on this one since anyone who knows me know that I can't keep any plant alive. My MIL has been a big help in getting us started. I bought the seed and she nurtured them and now we enjoy our own basil on the patio.

13) Read all saving blogs to learn about deals/freebies.. I can't thank you all money saving bloggers out there enough how much they have helped me save hundreds by posting about deals they found.