'The Craziest Thing I Did To Save Money' Bankrate.com Caret RightMain Menu Mortgage Mortgages Financing a home purchase Refinancing your existing loan Finding the right lender Additional Resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Bank Banking Compare Accounts Use calculators Get advice Bank reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Credit Card Credit cards Compare by category Compare by credit needed Compare by issuer Get advice Looking for the perfect credit card? Narrow your search with CardMatch Caret RightMain Menu Loan Loans Personal Loans Student Loans Auto Loans Loan calculators Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Invest Investing Best of Brokerages and robo-advisors Learn the basics Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Home Equity Home equity Get the best rates Lender reviews Use calculators Knowledge base Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Loan Home Improvement Real estate Selling a home Buying a home Finding the right agent Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Insurance Insurance Car insurance Homeowners insurance Other insurance Company reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Retirement Retirement Retirement plans & accounts Learn the basics Retirement calculators Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Advertiser Disclosure
Advertiser Disclosure
We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover. How We Make Money
The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. SHARE: BigRedCurlyGuy/Getty Images June 12, 2018 Ana Gonzalez Ribeiro Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money. Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by and edited by , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Our banking reporters and editors focus on the points consumers care about most — the best banks, latest rates, different types of accounts, money-saving tips and more — so you can feel confident as you’re managing your money. Bankrate logo Editorial integrity
Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers. Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo How we make money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. Sure, you can clip coupons, put spare change into a piggy bank or cut back on those fancy lattes. But some consumers find much more creative, and even weird, ways to save money. Bankrate asked readers to tell us about the most off-the-wall methods they used to stretch their dollars. What follows are five of the craziest and most resourceful ways we found for saving money. 1 Stock up on condiments
“When we were saving for our first house, I would cut back by keeping the ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise packets from fast-food restaurants and filling bottles at home. We even had close family members save the packets for us! In addition, we never purchased drinks and always took our orders to go. We drank water from a thermos or purchased soft drinks on sale or with coupons. “The way registers were set up at the time, we’d sometimes make money on items that didn’t cost a lot to begin with. In addition, we had coupons that were doubled. This gave us more off than the original cost of the item. Since we wanted to save money and make as large a down payment as we could for our home, we figured EVERY penny counted, which it did.” — Robert from Indiana 2 Cheap meal happy family
“We had just moved to another state, and my husband was trying to start his own business, so money was very tight. All three of my children were in sports, so we traveled a lot to their events. In order to save money, I decided to boil some hot dogs to feed my bunch before their games. I packed the bread, hot dogs and condiments in our van and proceeded to pick everyone up from school. “Then I drove through a fast-food place and got a large cup of free ice to split between the kids for the drinks that I had brought from home. We parked the van and began to get all the food out of their containers. As I went to get the hot dogs, I realized I had placed the boiled hot dogs in a narrow-mouthed thermos to keep them hot. To our horror, the hot dogs were stuck in the thermos because (the hot dogs) had continued swelling after I had taken them out of the boiling water! “My husband was proud of me for trying to save money. However, he had to literally dig the dogs out of the thermos in pieces. We did eat, but I never again tried to keep (hot) hot dogs in a small-mouthed thermos. It was a cheap meal that kept us together and happy, and no one was late for their games!” — Brenda from Florida 3 Dumpster-diving in cemeteries
“A few years ago, I was into crafting artificial flowers. A neat way to save money on my hobby materials was to go dumpster-diving at cemeteries to pick up artificial flowers and miscellaneous decorations left behind. I would go into the cemeteries, take what was thrown out in the dumpster and use the items instead for my crafting!” — Ann from Iowa 4 Save on golf balls
“My son plays golf in both high school and on junior tours during the summer. I follow him, keeping a statistical score card while I by looking for stray golf balls. It is not uncommon for me to find up to 12 dozen golf balls, just following him for one 18-hole tournament. At a regular cost of up to $45 a dozen, this is money we save by not having to buy them. Also, I sell some of the balls to make some money on the side!” — John from Indiana 5 Smoke less travel more
“Many years ago, my husband and I decided to stop smoking. He named the date we would start, and sure enough, before we went to bed that night, we tossed our packs of cigarettes. I told him that I was going to put away each day the amount of money we would have spent on the cigarettes. So, I made a ritual of every night putting away in a desk drawer $3. Back then, smoking was much cheaper. “At the end of one year, I had saved almost $1,100. That money paid for a trip to London! I suggested this cessation method to a friend and he was successful in and eliminating his smoking habit.” — Joyce from North Carolina SHARE: Ana Gonzalez Ribeiro Related Articles