budget brides: what are some of your everyday tips to save $?

Coupons.com saves me A TON of money daily. That and I'm a coupon-a-holic (made that up haha) from the newspaper. I save about 40 dollars every trip to the grocery store. I also make me and my husband's lunch (Saving us about 50 a week per) and make a lot of my own suppers. I have a deep freeze so when meat or other freezable items go on sale I load it up. That way if I'm wanting to throw together a meal I usually have 90% of the ingredients already in my kitchen.

We don't go out all the time to eat or go to the movies anymore. We save alot by staying home. We only use debt cards and cash for wedding things. And we shop around for things that we need ( hint: ebay is amazing for great deals)

Well that is tough because I been paying a lot to pay off debt and medical isurance (thank god I will have a better one when I become Navy wife). But I save more money when I cook at home. I don't go out much anymore since I am trying to save money. I used to buy lunch a lot and now I save like $25 a week. I am trying to stop buying sushi twice a week but that is tough lol.

When I go shopping for gifts or for wedding, I always do research to print coupons. Like for Micheals, I saved $20 last friday woot from using coupon!

Oo ya these are all good!

@Nicci- for coupons.com I've been on there but I got frazzled; do you have to download something to use the coupons??

I always revalue my wants and needs, if i need it right away like i'm out of lotion i'll get it, if i can wait i'll wait. me and FH don't go out and eat as much as we usen't to and we are coupons fantics and when it comes to shopping we always look at clearnace before anything

1. written budget- if you don't see where it's going you don't know where it's going. 2. no eating out (not lunch, not dinner) we both budget just $50/ wk for food for ourselves. Tell you what - we're looking good on our frugal food budgets too! 3. the heat stays at 62- I've got a space heater in the two rooms I occupy frequently, otherwise I cozy up w/ Darin or wear layers.

Oh yes abigail, check out gcoupon website and livingsocial website as well. If I want to go out for dinner with FS when he is here lol, I use coupons for resturants. If you want to get hair done, I got a nice one for $99 with highlights, cut and facial when it was $200 at livingsocial.

Oh yes I go to Trader's Joes once a week and spend $25 on foods with roommate to share. Plenty of foods.

FH and I have a joint account, his more responsible than me when it comes to spending, so I gave him my debit card. He has a reminder on his phone everytime I get paid to bring him at least $200 or more to set aside for wedding stuff,

Instead of going to the studio and spend $80 for a perm, I buy the perm and all the things I need, my mom does my hair for me all for under $10 and I give FH the difference, I only go once every 2 months for treatments, I do the same for my nail.

We use to go out every saturday to movies and eating out, we try to go out once a month and stay in the rest of the month, don't eat out as much any more. And at work, I have a mini fridge, I do some grocery shopping just for work for about $50-$60, I go to walmart, buy hotdogs, turkey, bread, cereal, soup, noodles, all sorts of things, keep them in my fridge, it last me the whole month as oppose to spending $5-$15/day. cont...

1- Never go grocery shopping hungry and always make a list.

2- If we're not going out with the intent of buying stuff, we leave our wallets at home. Helps to curb the impulse spending which we're both guilty of.

3-Do my own hair at home. Saves me at least 150 a month

4-before I make a big purchase I sleep on it. If I still want it the next day then it's probably okay to buy

@Nik - I didn't recognize you at first with the new picture, but I like it!

Finding multiple purposes for items can save you a ton of money. I reuse everything from WIne bottles and glass jars to shipping boxes. Saving giftwrapping, like the bags and tissues paper and ribbon, especially true during this holiday season. I have enough stuff for 2 Christmases!

I have a piggy bank at home, not your typical one, the culligan bottle, there's a reminder on my phone at 11pm every night to remind me to put whatever change i have in it, and sometimes if I don't have change I drop a $5, $10, or a $20 in there, I told FH that I'm sure I'll have my dress money, accessories, beauty and health from that piggy, he laughs, but I'm sure I have a few hundreds in there already, lol.

I also start using coupons when I go shopping, and I do less shopping, my victoria secret card is retired. I paid it off and I'm done. Less shopping, I can't wear new clothes to church every saturday now (I had issues, I know). lol

Overall, wedding planning is teaching me how to manage myself better, money wise, I hope I'll still be using these tips after the wedding.

Oh yes it is cheap to go to farmer market and buy flowers to put together bonquets.

If you're crafty, you can save a ton of money by doing things yourself! I added up in another thread that we saved over $5k just by doing things ourselves instead of buying them.

@Kate now Mrs. Moore- ya I saw that thread, you are so talented!! :-) I didn't realize tho that you saved that much money, awesome! I'm also planning on DIY a bunch!

We've completely stopped eating fast food, we don't go to the movies anymore, we have netflix, which is awesome! We also pack a lunch and eat left overs. We started buying store brands instead of name brand products (this has easily saved us over $40 a week) we ended up cutting cable, mainly because neither of us watch tv, again we have the netflix view instant so if we do watch tv it's with that, and it saved us $120 a month.

I stopped getting manicures. It's not fun, but I keep telling myself it's just for a year!

For life in general, I cook most of the time, which means both healthier food and less expensive. We also recently got rid of the cable TV, since everything we watch is available online.

For the wedding: cut unimportant things. Some things were just really not important to us, and we completely cut them from the wedding. Not trying to skimp them down, just flat out cut. And other things that were only moderately important, we found ways to keep them cheap (like my shoes which I was able to find on clearance for $20). And then my food budget is really low since there's no caterer.