I would like to introduce to you today the foremost of money saving tips: staying home. I am not talking about staying in instead of going to a movie on a Friday night, but something much more fundamental and often overlooked. Allowing this philosophy and the following ideas a permanent space in your consciousness is the vital first step in succeeding in a life of frugality. I grant, some of these ideas may seem far-fetched, but keep an open mind and you will learn how thinking forwardly as well as laterally can help you to save even more money. In fact, this concept should apply to all aspects of life besides the financial.

Every Little Bit Adds Up

First I will remind you, as I mentioned in my first official post “Frugality 101,” that every little bit adds up and makes difference in the long run. While one small action seems insignificant in the long scheme of things, if frequently repeated, it will have a long-term impact whether good or bad.

I will use smoking as an example: smoking a single cigarette may not harm you, but smoking cigarettes on a regular basis over the course of many years will significantly impact your health (even if not visible to the eye, there is a consequence.) Likewise, all things we do, no matter how small, will have a consequence of some sort. So now to my point.

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Having been operating an online business for the past 2.5 years, I have almost come to take my knowledge of mailing and shipping options for granted and consider it common knowledge. However, a recent incident at my local USPS Post Office made be realize that this is not the case and that a lot of people are probably paying a lot more for services than they need to be, merely because they are unaware of their options.

A few months ago, while I was at my local USPS Post Office to pick up a registered letter, a man came in with a stack of 5 or 6 DVDs and asked the mail clerk at the next window how he could mail his DVDs. Instead of explaining his various options to him, she merely recommended the Flat Rate Priority Mail Box, and unaware of his other options the customer took her advice and proceeded to pay $8.95 to mail his DVDs. Being somewhat of an introvert in public (and having had a previous problem with that particular mail clerk), I held my tongue at the time, telling myself it wasn’t any of my business and that I would only cause problems.

This incident riled me because the customer could have mailed his 5 or 6 DVDs for a lot less than $9.00. I have weighed a stack of 6 DVDs, including a few 2-Disc Collections, and they weighed in at about 1.5 lbs. A stack of 6 single-disc DVDs weigh in at just over 20 oz. Even if he had had 8 DVDs, the entire package, counting the box and contents, would have weighed in at 3 lbs. and he could have mailed it for $2.81 using Media Mail or “Book Rate”, less than a third of the price he paid for the Flat Rate Priority Mail. Granted, Priority Mail does take less time than Media Mail, but my experience with Media Mail in the past couple of years has been that it is a lot quicker than you’d think; I have had Media Mail from across the country arrive in as little as 3-4 days.

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These days, most companies (including banks and utility companies) have websites and online payment options. Those that don’t often accept payments by phone. If you are still using snail mail to pay your bills each month, you could be saving $60 or more, depending your number of bills, each year by switching to payments by internet or phone. Consider the following example:

Our monthly household bills look something like this: electric, gas, water & sanitation, 2 mortgages, cell phone, home insurance, auto insurance, 2 credit cards - an average of 10 bills per month. The cost of a first-class postage stamp is $0.41 ($0.42 starting May 12, 2008), and the cost of a personal check for us is about $0.07. (Since the companies usually provide the envelopes, we won’t count the cost of an envelope.) So the cost of mailing one bill is $0.48. At 10 bills a month, that amounts to $4.80 a month, and a total savings of $57.60 each year. A larger household with children and more bills could save even more than this.

If the company doesn’t have a website, it usually has a toll-free number you can call to pay by phone. Some companies allow you to set up automatic monthly charges to your credit card or withdrawals from your bank account, which could save you a lot of time.

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