No matter what your family size, many of us today are trying to save money, cut back our spending, and live on a budget. Here are some ways that our family of (almost) 9, saves a penny (or more):
1. Shop at a wholesale club.
I do a majority of my grocery shopping at our local wholesale club. I know that many people warn to watch the prices at these places because it may not be any cheaper than buying the item on sale at a regular grocery store. I haven’t found that to be the case in most instances at the club I shop at. If I do find the item is a little more expensive, it’s usually not worth my time to run around to multiple stores to get the best price on one or two items.
Also, my club puts out a monthly coupon book, which I take full advantage of.
We also pay for the rewards membership, which does cost more than a regular membership. We get 2% back in rewards to spend at the store in the future. The 2% back pretty much pays for our membership.
2. I cut all the kids’ hair.
After I took my oldest son for his 3rd haircut or so, I had a realization – I can do that! I went to Wal-Mart and bought a set of clippers for about $25 and never looked back. I cut all 4 of my boys’ hair, and my husband’s, and I cut the bangs of my 2 girls. I get a haircut at a salon about once a year and so do my daughter’s (I’m not ready to tackle girls’ hair yet).
3. We take advantage of garage sales and consignment sales.
When I say we take advantage of these sales, I mainly mean we hold garage sales and participate in consignment sales to sell our unused things. I love going to these sales, but honestly, I don’t buy from these places often. Unless the item is in great shape and a great price, I don’t buy. I have a good nose for finding awesome deals on new items in the store or online, which most often is less then the prices I see at garage and consignment sales.
4. I buy most of my kids’ clothes (and even mine and my husband’s) on clearance, and online.
I buy about 85% of our clothes on clearance a year in advance. Double the clearance prices up with a coupon or promotion (additional % off clearance), and the deal is even sweeter. For kid’s clothes, I often find items for $2 or less, and I rarely spend over $5 on a clothing item. Some of the stores where I score these deals the most are – Kohl’s, Target, Old Navy, and The Children’s Place (outlet). I also keep a running list of what we need so that I don’t double buy things.
I do most of my shopping (and not just clothes) online. When shopping online, I will not buy without a coupon and/or a free shipping offer. This saves me time, money, and gas. When shopping online and you don’t have a coupon code, just do an internet search for whatever coupon you are looking for (ex. free shipping Old Navy; coupon code Children’s Place) and you should have no problem finding one.
5. We take our own “professional” pictures.
I put professional in quotations because I’m obviously not a professional. We invested in a good quality camera and a couple of backgrounds and now we take all our kids’ “yearly” pictures. After 3 kids, it was getting expensive to go to a photo studio to have the kids’ pictures taken. Another realization – I’ll do it myself! I’m not the greatest photographer, but I’m learning more and getting better each time. Overall, I’ve been happy with the outcome.
Another option we have is to “trade” with a photographer friend of mine. I have given her lots of our hand-me-down clothes for her daughter, so she has offered to do our photos for free. We haven’t taken her up on the offer yet, but we probably will this fall.
6. Buy memberships to our local museums and zoo.
I’m sure many of you are familiar with this money saving tactic. And if you have a large family, all it takes is 1 or 2 visits and your membership has paid for itself. We are very fortunate that we have quite a few options of places to join around here. Makes it nice to just pick one on a day we need to get out of the house and not have to worry about the cost. We join our local zoo, science museum, play museum, and sometimes the historical country village.
Another nice perk to these memberships is that most of them offer a reciprocal program with other museums and zoos throughout the country. So, if you are away from home on a vacation or visiting family, check your museum/zoo website to see what museums/zoos participate in this program in the area you will be going.
7. We take vacations in the off-season.
One of the nice benefits to homeschooling is the flexibility. When planning vacations, we go in the off-season, when public school is back in session. This saves us money and we also avoid huge crowds. We also don’t take a vacation every year; about every other year we will go on a “big” vacation. And now that we have more kids, the vacation must be within driving distance. I don’t even want to think about how much airfare would be for our family!
8. Don’t buy gifts for extended family and friends.
Instead, make them. It saves money and is a fun activity for the kids to get involved in (if you choose). At Christmas time, bake cookies for your neighbors and friends; make meaningful gifts for your family members. Do this for family birthdays too.
Check out my Pinterest Boards for some gift-giving and craft ideas:
Homemade Gifts
Mommy Crafts
Holiday/Seasonal Treats & Recipes
And when it comes to gifts for our kids, we leave the toy buying to Grandma and other family members.
9. We don’t buy soda or chips.
Okay, we do on occasion; these are rare treats for our family. Soda and chips used to be staples on my grocery list. About 5 years ago, that changed when my husband and I decided we needed to eat healthier and lose some weight. An added benefit to being healthier was saving money. We mostly drink water, and instead of chips, we buy pretzels (from Aldi) and goldfish crackers (in bulk).
10. We rarely eat out.
Regardless of family size, eating out is expensive. When I think about how much it costs to feed my family a meal at home compared to eating that meal in a restaurant, it blows my mind!
So, eating out is a rare treat for our family. And when we do, we try to hit the restaurants that offer “kids eat free.” To find restaurants where kids eat free in your area, simply do an internet search with your town/city’s name and “kids eat free” (ex. Buffalo, NY kids eat free). Also call around to some nearby restaurants and see if they offer this on certain days.
We do order pizza a couple times a month. At one of our local favorite pizza places, we can get a sheet pizza that feeds our whole family for $20 plus tax. That’s always a nice treat for everyone, especially mommy because that means no cooking and easy clean up!
Hopping over from Top Ten Tuesday. We have six also and LOVE shopping at the wholesale club. Great list!
Thanks for stopping by Meghan! I love our wholesale club! Couldn’t imagine shopping any other way during this season of my life.
Blessings!
Great list! I love buying clothes used on on clearance. I almost never buy full price. 🙂
Jenni – What’s full price? I can’t remember the last time a paid full price for clothing. Probably before I was married!
Thanks for stopping by!
Blessings!
Thanks for the list! We shop mostly at our wholesale club, we don’t even have to show our card anymore b/c they know us 🙂
Eating out is still my families downfal but we are working on it!
http://www.alliec5.blogspot.com
Thanks for stopping by by Allison! Eating out is definitely a hard habit to break! It’s so convenient, so that makes it so tempting!!
Blessings!
I’d have to add clipping coupons and buying staples in bulk when they’re on sale. Even though it’s a bit time consuming, at this point I have more time than money, so it’s worth it. Thankfully there are quite a few sites that do the coupon match ups for you, so it’s much simpler. I’ve visiting from Be Not Weary today and glad I did 🙂
Lori – I definitely know first hand that coupons can save you a lot of money. I used to use coupons all the time and match them up with sales. That has changed over the last year or 2 as I am now in a season where I don’t have the time to devote to it. I definitely agree that if you have the time, coupons are an a great money saver!
Thanks for stopping by!
Blessings!
This is a great list, and many of your tips are things I did while raising our children and still do now that we’re empty nesters. We’ve gotten so used to buying our clothing on clearance or at Marshall’s/Ross/T.J. Max type stores that it’s hard to buy anything full price at a department store. I think I’d do some of these things even we became suddenly wealthy…they are just wise money management. Thanks, Gail (BibleLoveNotes.com)
Thanks for stopping by Gail!
I hope I continue many of these money saving tactics for many years regardless of our financial status. Like you said, it’s wise money management!
Blessings!
These are great tips!!! I started saving money this year by shopping at a wholesale club too – I’ve found too that buying whole chicken fryers is cheaper than buying the parts separately. It’s a little more work to cut up, but it’s worth it!
Thanks for stopping by Rebecca and thanks for the great tip!
Blessings!
I too shop at a wholesale club and also almost always buy our clothing at clearance costs. I also love to sew and am getting back into making some of my own clothes. I am also now going greener and for the past year have been using vinegar as my fabric softener and baking soda and vinegar in my toilet. I recently discovered the magic of Dawn and vinegar together to clean my tub. I use rags to clean with instead of paper towels as well. Easy simple things to do. 🙂
Sherri – It’s amazing how the little things can add up! I really wish I knew how to sew! It’s something I’ve always wanted to try, but I’m a little scared (don’t ask me why!).
Thanks for the natural tips; I’ll have to give them a try. I have also thought of using towels or rags in place of paper towels, just need to get my husband on board; we definitely use a lot of paper towels.
Blessings!
LOVE LOVE LOVE these tips!!! Many we already do, but some of them I should do more often! It’s weird…. when I had no money I wanted to be one of “those” people who never had to worry. Now that we’re a bit more financially stable, I LONG to be one of “those” people who are frugal and SMART! Thanks for sharing!!! I would LOVE to have you linkup over at: http://www.slowlynatural.com/2012/08/mamas-linkup-2.html Great tips for the family!
Erika (Slowly Natural)
http://www.slowlynatural.com
Thanks for stopping by Erika! Thanks for letting me know about the link up! I linked up!!
Blessings!
Love the post! Love taking our own pictures and you have done a great job!!!
Thanks Gina! I’ve really enjoyed (most of the time) experimenting and learning in things with my camera.
Blessings!
Great tips. Even though we do not have a large family (only 2 kids left at home-most of the time-lol), we still shop the clearance racks and thrift stores. We don’t have a wholesale club close to us so we have to do the grocery store shuffle and coupon to get the most for our dollar when grocery shopping. We homeschool as well and have been taking our vacations off season for years too. We were guilty of eating out too much but working on changing that and have been taking advantage of the coupons when we do. Thanks so much for sharing these great ideas.
We do many of the same things in our family to save money. Great tips!
Great tips! I just wish I was better at photography. 🙁
Eating out is the hardest one for us. If you KNOW you’ll be out all afternoon with errands and will not be home for dinner, what do you do? Do you always pack a meal? Do you stop fast foods. I like to think this doesn’t happen often to us but in reality it probably happens once per week. 🙁
We do a lot of the same things to save $$. One I would add is not paying for cable, etc and having a very basic cell phone. The not eating out thing is a huge saver–we have 5 children and I know just a trip to BK or McDonald’s is going to cost us at least $30 a pop. It’s definitely worth it to pack some quick lunches ahead of time and find a park to picnic at while were out and about.
Here from What Works Wed…. I also use something called Bountiful Baskets for fresh produce in the off seasons. Google it and see if they have one in your area.
Otherwise, we shop clearance and bargains as well. Eating out is our hardest thing to cut out, but something we are working on. I also can and preserve as much as I can of our own food. As far as gifts, again, clearance and I have a gift cupboard that I can go to for those birthday parties that come up, as well as a safe place to put gifts we buy through out the year for our own family. It works for us. 🙂
Great tips here! I love consignment sale shopping. Not only is it cheap, but its so convenient. You can get everything in one day of shopping!
Search in your town for a Mothers of Multiples group–it’s a large group of moms that have twins/triplets/quads, and they usually will do a twice a year, SUPER well organized “garage” sale. The one I go to has more kids clothes than the local Walmart or Target! They are clean and organized and CHEAP! Bc it’s used clothing from twins etc, there are usually 2 of the same thing, but multiply that by 100+ families and I can grab 5-6 of the same shirt, then find the cleanest and cheapest–bc each mom prices her own stuff! I spend about $100 in the fall and then again in the spring and that’s where our 5 children’s clothes come from! And the ones in our area offer high chairs, strollers, beds, if a child uses it, they have it for sale, CHEAP!
Hey Sarah: I love these tips! We aren’t quite as big as your family 😉 but I do all my shopping for any new items on sales racks/clearance, buy at consignment sales (which is a little bit easier because I run one!), & we vacation off season. Awesome advice! Thanks for linking up to (HEART)&(HOME) at http://www.mercyinkblog.com – I’ll be featuring your tips at next week’s link up!
have a blessed weekend,
lauren
Great list! We don’t have a large family {yet}, Lord willing we will have more kids! We are super ecxited about the Costco coming later this year, and it’s only 5 minutes away! Yay! I also do consignemnt sales for selling & buying!
oops sorry for the typos, just got back from strength training.. sore muscles!
This was a fantastic list!! We did so many of them…like shopping at a food club, hardly ever eating out. We did about once a year on vacation. The kids always thought McDonalds was great!! We vacationed ‘off season’ once everyone’s kids but ours went back to school.
Just a completely great post!!
Thanks for linking up over at Haven of Rest this past week. Sorry to be so late in reading this but we are away…off season, no less!!
I wish we left toy buying to the grandparents! My husband loves to buy gifts for the kids (but so do all of the grand- and great-grandparents!!) and we are running out of room!!
Kristen @ Trial & Error Homemaking
Sarah,
Where do you buy your backdrop’s for your photos? I would love to start doing this to save my family a lot of money.
Hi Jackie – I bought them online at Adorama
I bought two rolls of the paper background and a cheap support. I thought their prices were reasonable.
http://www.adorama.com/c/Lighting-and-Studio/Backgrounds-and-Supports
Thanks for a great post! We already do most of these and those we don’t (wholesale clubs, family memberships to museums/zoos), we can’t because it just isn’t available in our area and the fuel costs to get to the nearest places would certainly add up. We also will ask for things the children need for gifts instead of them getting more toys. My parents are more than glad to buy something they need and something they want for each birthday and Christmas so needs are met, but the children still get something fun. We don’t eat out unless it is a VERY rare treat and if we are out doing errands and won’t be home in time for a meal, I’ll pick up apples, cheese sticks, and sometimes crackers to eat in the vehicle. It still costs more than a “normal” meal, but it is A LOT cheaper (and healthier) than fast food. I think the biggest help to our budget is being friends with some local Amish families. They clue us in when they are doing bulk orders of food or if they have extra meat from butchering–the prices can’t be beat, and they are more than willing to share the extra from their gardens when they are done preserving for their own families.
It’s 2024 and many of these tips are still valid and helpful! Especially eating out. A combo meal at CFA is now almost $10. Times six people. Yikes! We can only afford that ONCE A YEAR, as a special vacation treat! Our four kids are very well trained to pack a lunch or dinner to eat in the car if we are going to be in town during meal time. My youngest two are 12 and 14 – and they call the drive thru “the window where they give you food to eat in your car” bc the word drive thru isn’t in their vocabulary. My oldest is now a freshman in college. He recently missed dinner at the cafeteria. Instead of ordering a pizza like his roommates, he went to the dorm kitchen and made pancakes and eggs.
One thing that has changed a lot since 2012 (when this post was written): clothing. I used to be able to buy clothes for $2-5 on clearance. Not anymore. Now semi-annual local consignment sales, thrift stores, estate sales, and consignment shops are a budget saver (although, Goodwill’s recent increase in prices is maddening). Christmas and Birthday gifts are often things the kids need. For example, two of my girls had outgrown their tennis shoes, so they got new ones for Christmas (bought during a Black Friday sale). New undergarments are stocking stuffers, etc.
Another budget saver once the kids are 14: they get a job and pay for their extras. We will pay for one activity per kid. Anything else, they cover. We will pay so much for a prom dress bought at consignment, and if my daughter wants a new one, she can make up the difference with her earnings. Once they start driving, we pay car insurance but they pay for gas (which helps keep them from running around all over town!). Of course, we encourage them to tithe, save, and spend appropriately.