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Are you a stay at home mom wondering how you can save as much money as possible? You’ve come to the right place! I’m going to share 10 things mom should stop buying to save money – and thankfully, these are quick, painless, and easy to implement today!
Hang on tight and I’ll share my 10 tips with you in just a minute! Before I do that, since I know you are a stay at home mom, looking for ways to save money, then I know you will love my exclusive freebie – my Get It Free Checklist!
WISH PLANNING A PARTY WAS A PIECE OF CAKE?
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What Should I Do First?
Wondering where to start? You know you want to save money as a mom, but don’t know where to even start? Lucky for you, I know of 10 things moms should stop buying to save money today – and they are simple and easy to do!
Katrina, where do I even begin?
Let’s start with the good news! You are here, reading this post and that’s the first step! Saving money isn’t always a matter of having extra money that you can save. It’s starts in the mind. You have to want to save money.
You have already shown that you have a desire to save money, or you would not be here! I’m passionate about helping moms just like you, find frugal ways to afford the stay at home mom life!
Let’s get started!
Opinions Count, Just Like Saving Money
In order to be as frugal as possible and afford the stay at home mom life, you need to stop buying stuff you don’t actually need. Start thinking along the lines of re-using things, buying used, and making stuff homemade. If you can do that, you will save money!
I’m a huge fan of having an opinion. I’d encourage you do have one as well – an opinion that is. Your budget and how you and your spouse run your household is up to you. What you both choose to spend money on is your choice.
I’m not one to judge, but I will tell you that I have an opinion on it and I’ll share what I would do. Just because one thing works for me or for another mom, doesn’t mean it will work for you, and that’s ok. That’s why it’s called YOUR BUDGET – because it’s yours. I’m just here to offer ideas, tips, advice, and plenty of opinions on all things frugal.
So, let’s jump in – here are the 10 things moms should stop buying in order to start saving money today.
Stop Buying These 10 Things
- School Lunch
- Fancy Coffee
- Cleaning supplies
- Plastic Baggies
- Foaming Hand Soap from Bath and Body Works
- Taco Seasoning Mixes
- Gift Bags
- Toothpaste and Floss
- Gym Membership
- New Clothes
1. School Lunch
Stop buying school lunch for your kids. I mean hot lunch at school. Trust me, I know it would be much easier to not deal with packing their lunch at all and just getting lunch at school, but you are wasting money!
Start packing a lunch for your kids – in fact, have them help you actually pack it, but save the money and start having your kids take lunch to school. I know school lunch doesn’t seem super expensive, but when you add it up, it can be a bigger expense than you want, especially if you have more than 1 child.
Be a frugal shopper at the grocery store, stick to the essentials, and don’t buy all the expensive snack food items. Give your kids the good stuff, a well-balanced, healthy meal and you can and will save money!
Now, I also know that in my area, because of the pandemic, our schools are offering free school lunch through the rest of 2020. In that case, get the FREE school lunch! Don’t even worry about packing a lunch, by all means, go for the free lunch every time!
2. Fancy Coffee
Fancy coffee. Yummy! I don’t just like coffee, I love it. Secretly, I love coffee late at night – but that’s not the point. Fancy coffee is expensive. We just got a Dutch Bros coffee in my area and I’m in love!
But, you would laugh if you heard what I like to order there – I’ve only been a few times and both times it was the middle of the afternoon on a fairly hot day. I ordered iced tea. Yep.
Coffee is a morning and late-night indulgence for me. I don’t like coffee during the day, unless it’s freezing outside. During the day I love iced tea and water. Dutch Bros iced tea is aaaammmmazzzing! I’m going to try their coffee some day, but buying fancy coffee isn’t something I do very often.
Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m a stay at home mom too, trying to be as frugal as I can be. Fancy coffee is expensive! It’s good, but not something I get very often. My solution – make your own coffee and tea at home to save money.
Who has a good recommendation of what coffee I should get at Dutch Bros? If you do, leave me a comment below and tell me what I should get next time – THANKS!
3. Cleaning Supplies
Another thing moms should stop buying to save money is cleaning supplies. I know the bottles at the grocery store are pretty – especially all the Method cleaning supplies, and boy do they smell good. But, they are expensive! Stop buying them and make your own homemade cleaner!
I make my own Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner (get the recipe now) all the time for a fraction of the cost of the pretty stuff at the store. Only takes a few frugal ingredients and you can clean your whole house!
4. Plastic Baggies
Don’t use plastic baggies, invest in plastic food storage containers instead, like these ones. I’ve always had a big pet peeve of never using plastic bags – before you start to worry about me, just know I wasn’t always this crazy about baggies.
I used to buy them all the time – when my oldest son started going to school every day, I realized that we used a ton of sandwich baggies when we packed this lunch every day. Besides the waste, the cost just added up.
By the time I had 2 kids going to school every day, I knew I needed to come up with a better plan. Some days we would use 10+ baggies for their lunches. That’s crazy and the last thing I wanted to do was insist they bring the baggies home and we hand wash them. NOPE. I’m not dealing with that headache.
WISH PLANNING A PARTY WAS A PIECE OF CAKE?
I set out to find small plastic food storage containers that we could use for school lunches and that’s been working out great ever since. We use these food storage containers for our lunches at school and we save a lot of money too!
5. Foaming Hand Soap
Do you love Bath and Body Works as much as I do? I love their soaps, lotions, and glitter spray. Do you love to have different flavors of their soaps and lotions out all year long as the seasons change? Me too! But, all that yummy smelling stuff brings a stiff price tag.
While I love the smell of their soaps, especially the foaming hand soaps, I don’t like the price tag. Especially when you can get a more generic bottle of hand soap from the grocery store with a coupon for less than a $1.
I have learned a trick though. Buy a few of your favorite foaming hand soaps from Bath and Body Works during one of their Semi-Annual sales. Once the soap is gone – save the bottle – don’t throw it away! Now, make your own refill!
Here is what I do, I buy their regular body soap in my favorite flavors, like Twisted Peppermint, and I add about ¼ cup of soap to the empty foaming soap bottle and fill the rest with water. Then gently shake the bottle back and forth and you are done!
You now have a yummy smelling bottle of foaming hand soap ready to go! You can also use any cheap hand soap, like Method’s Pink Grapefruit, you get at the grocery store too! I just like how all the Bath and Body Works soaps smell, so I like to use it for my refills. It’s much cheaper than buying the already made foaming hand soap over and over!
6. Taco Seasoning Mixes
One more thing moms should stop buying to save money are taco seasoning packets. Yep, and don’t laugh. My family loves tacos. We have them almost every week. Back in the day, I used to buy those little taco seasoning pre-made mixes from the store. On average, they cost about $1-1.50 each. I was buying these all the time and it only was good for 1lb of meat.
Now, with growing kids, we usually make 2lbs of taco meat at a time, so I’d need at least 2 taco seasoning packages. Which adds up – for something as silly as spices. Now, I make my own in bulk and it’s delicious!
I even store it in a cute little red ceramic container that I keep on my counter because we use it so often. You can get the super frugal Taco Seasoning Recipe now that you can make yourself!
7. Gift Bags
Don’t ever buy a gift bag again! Start saving them every time you receive a gift and reuse them! You can even save the tissue paper – I do! I have a secret obsession with tissue paper, which is a little weird actually.
I’ve been saving gift bags and tissue paper for years and don’t ever buy them when we need to give gifts to others. We even reuse all the same gift bags for Christmas every year.
Every time one of my kids has a birthday, I save all the bags and paper and we will then reuse them for the next birthday party one of my kids gets invited to.
I store mine in my basement in a big plastic storage bin and it’s been working out great for many years. In fact, I have 2 storage bins, one for all our Christmas bags and one for all other occasions.
8. Toothpaste & Floss
Another thing moms should stop buying to save money is toothpaste and floss. Katrina, do you want me to stop brushing my teeth too? No, silly! I want you to get the free tube of toothpaste and floss from the dentist every six months when you go see him. Use that!
If you run out of either of these items before you see your dentist again, then search your newspaper and savings apps like Ibotta for toothpaste coupons. Which seem to be in the newspaper every week and make sure to use it.
New to Ibotta? Read this post now, Why You Should Use Ibotta To Save Money, with more info on Ibotta and why I love it so much!
A lot of times, if your store honors doubled coupons, you can get the toothpaste for free! I have so many tubes of toothpaste in my stockpile from all the years I’ve been a couponer that I know it’s one of those things you should never pay for.
9. Gym Membership
Cancel your gym membership right now and get outside instead! You don’t need a gym to work out or to get in shape, and in midst of the pandemic, who wants to work out in a gym with a mask on right now? Get outside, in the fresh air instead.
Take your kids with you, and get your exercise on! If you are struggling to find exercise you love read this post: How to Find Exercise You Love – The Simple Secret.
10. New Clothes
Before you get really frustrated with me, just hear me out. I love new clothes as much as you. They smell good, they feel good, they look good, but I don’t love the price tag. I grew up going to garage sales every Friday in the summer, and spent a lot of time inside thrift and consignment stores looking for great deals on used clothes.
Believe it or not, you can find nice clothes at a huge discount if you take the time to look. Remember the old saying, ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?’ It’s so true when it comes to clothing. Over the years I’ve found lots of great clothing items for myself and for my family by shopping used and they are at a big discount!
WISH PLANNING A PARTY WAS A PIECE OF CAKE?
In fact, in our household when we need something, we always start out by looking on VarageSale first, then we will try out our local Goodwill thrift store, and the local consignment store in our town. We always try these places before we will even consider buying something new. If we do have to buy new, I’ll try to find some sort of deal, discount code, coupon, or buy it online through a cash back site.
Make sure to read this post about my favorite 4 Must-Have Apps That Save and Pay You Money – use these before you do any shopping to make sure you are always saving as much money as possible for your household.
There you have it! 10 super easy and frugal things moms should stop buying to save money!
Which one is your favorite? I’ll bet you have some great ideas of your own! Share them with me and I just might include them in my next post about this topic! Tell me about them in the comments below! I can’t wait to hear your ideas!
Want to remember this post? Pin this post, 10 Things Moms Should Stop Buying To Save Money, to your favorite Pinterest board right now!
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