Thursday, August 23, 2007

Update #5: Saved on Gas, Water & Candy: $2 Savings Challenge


Minor savings today in the $2 a day challenge.

1. We saved on gas. Without driving out of his way, my husband found gas for $2.89 a gallon or $36 total. A competing station charged $3.17 a gallon, which would have cost us $39.48 for the same amount of gas. Total savings: $3.48.

These links are helpful for finding local gas: gasbuddy.com is great for locating the best prices in a zip code. Fuel calculator will help you figure out the amount/cost of fuel for your road trip.This Top 10 list is one of my favorite links for saving gas. I also wrote this post about saving money at the pump.


2. Water bottles. For long car rides, my husband keeps a case of water in the car. The price: 14 cents a bottle versus $1-2 a bottle at gas stations.

3. Sweet savings: My son opted to buy a small piece of candy (individually wrapped) at a gas station for about 5 cents rather than buy a larger box of Lemonhead candies for about 75 cents--thereby saving his teeth and his money. Since he used his own money, this frugal move is not included in my total. But I feature this example to show how my family has rallied behind the $2 a day savings challenge. Everyone is trying to do something for my daily report. It's a healthy competition and with everyone buying into the challenge, we're finding new ways to save more.

Day 5 Recap of the $2 Daily Savings Challenge
$2.58: daily portion of $500 telecommunications savings
$3.48: saved on the gas bill.
$2.58: savings on three water bottles (Based on $1 per bottle price.)

Day 5 Savings: $8.64
Year-to-Date Total: $177.66


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This post really inspired me. I am the type of person that thinks "its just a dollar" and is hard pressed to trade convience for a saving anything in the pocket change area.

When I saw how much you had saved in a year- I thought wow- by walking the extra block to the cheaper corner store- I could buy a pair of seven jeans!

Thanks for the post! I am going to throw a memo pad in my purse and start recording!!