Debt Help Ideas

Blog Carnival FUN! Debt Help Ideas is participating in its very first blog carnival – The Festival of Frugality! What a lot of fun for me, and what a lot of great tips to save money for you. The Festival of Frugality Blog Carnival is being hosted by Always the Planner , a kindred spirit who is also seeking to save money along life’s journey and share the process with her readers. I hope you’ll check it out and would love it if you’d come back and share your favorite tip with us when you’re done

Two articles I especially enjoyed reading:

Ginger Beat has a delicious recipe for a yummy salad along with a great way to prepare it so you can make it in the morning and take it to work with you. And it’ll stay fresh all day! Great idea and great way to save money!

Improve the Quality has an interesting article about saving money and NOT ending eating out. Being one who has to eat out a lot due to outside needs, I appreciated the good tips and think you will too. Be sure to read the comments as well as you’ll find some good tips there too.

Last, but hopefully not least , there’s an article about saving money with green frugal gift wrap from Debt Help Ideas .  

What to do with all the money we’ll save from all these great ideas? Apply it to our lowest balance loan and keep on heading towards our goal to eliminate debt, of course! How fun!

Working towards the goal to eliminate debt doesn’t have to mean no traveling . Vacations can be an important part of a family’s life.  For that matter, many of us have to travel for non-vacation purposes, such as business and family needs. Travel can be expensive but there are some great ways to save money. Here are three:

1.  Try to fly the same airline every single time. Unless you are traveling weekly, if you use several airlines, you will probably not accumulate enough frequent flyer miles to do much good. It’s better to pick one airline and see those miles go up, up, up. I personally love Southwest. I have earned several free trips thanks to their generous frequent flyer policy. They are very customer-service oriented. One time, we were diverted overnight to another state and didn’t land at our destination until twelve hours later. This was caused by circumstances beyond their control (not weather). I was thrilled to get a letter from them a week later, explaining what happened and that, even though it wasn’t their fault, they were giving us a free round-trip ticket as an apology! As you can imagine, I was definitely impressed even more with them. Their prices are great and they are definitely a good choice offering many ways to save money while traveling.

2. Once you make your plane and car rental reservations, don’t stop there. Check the prices of each a couple of times before the trip. Several times, I have been able to change my reservations in order to take advantage of a price drop. I was able to do this with both Southwest, and a couple of car rental agencies. I’m not sure which other airlines allow this, although I believe there are at least a couple that do. Call the airline reservations desk to see what their policies are. On a trip I took last December, I saved over $150 with this simple travel solution.

3. AAA is a great resource to help you when your car breaks down while traveling . I occasionally have to drive long distances from my home, so I pay extra for their premium service, which means I will be able to have my car brought home even if I am far away when it breaks down. Not only do I save money using them for car travel, they also are a great resource for other types of travel. I have been able to take advantage of Hertz’ wonderful #1 Club Gold Membership for free because of my AAA Premier card. This saves me  time, stress, and money. I can also use my AAA card to get discounts at hotels, motels, and amusement parks.

These three travel solutions are very useful ways to save money. And think how fun it will be to for us to take the money we saved and apply it to a loan payment as we “travel on” towards our goal to eliminate debt .

Here’s some tips to save money that are also green friendly. The next time we have to give a gift, whether it’s Mother’s Day, a birthday, or even Christmas, we can wrap it uniquely in a reusable shopping bag. Whether we pick a favorite store or just go by whichever bag we think is cutest (I like Trader Joe’s bags), our recipient will end up with a sturdy reusable bag. Not only that, we will usually only have to spend 50 cents – 99 cents which is cheaper than most of the dollar stores around.

To dress it up, we can use white or colored shades of crumpled tissue paper. After they’ve “opened” their gift, we can carefully fold the tissue paper to re-use it for the next gift giving project. It will fold nicely and doesn’t take much space. Another fun idea is to save the kids’ colored construction paper after they finish a project that they did NOT want to save. Run the paper thru a paper shredder, then stuff it on top of the present in the bag. This could get a little messy though, so we’ll have to be sure to have the kids help clean it up after the present is opened.

This works for all holidays including Christmas. Target’s red bags are especially good for that holiday. I’ve also seen green bags that would work nicely. Kids birthdays are another great occasion to put to good use these ways to save money. They always love having cute bags to carry all their prized possessions in. A sturdy reusable bag would be right up their alley!

The really fun part will be tallying up all the money we save by not buying  bags, ribbons, paper, and bows. I know I’ve spent as much as $5 on gift wrap before. Applying the savings from these tips to save money towards our lowest bill’s next payment will take us a step closer towards our goal to eliminate debt AND we get the satisfaction of knowing we did it in a fun, frugal, and green way!