7. Make your own coffee. Coffee purchased at a Starbucks or a locally owned cafe can taste great, but a $3-a-day latte habit can leave you with much less money at the end of the year. Even if you upgraded to the most expensive coffee you could buy and made that at home, you could save $780 a year by brewing your own.
1. Mow your own lawn. It can cost you about $100 a month for mowing, edging and trimming services. Decent lawn equipment that could allow you to do that work yourself could cost you about $500. After five months or so, you'd have that initial investment paid off, and you could start saving $100 a month, or $1,200 a year.
2. Cook your own food. If you usually spend $40 when you take your family out to dinner, and it would cost $10 to make the same meal at home, eating out one fewer night a week could save you $1,560 a year.
3. Clean your own pool. Depending on the size of your pool, it can run you about $100 a month to have the pool cleaned and the chemicals adjusted weekly. If you don't feel comfortable handling the chemicals, you still could shave your bill in half by cleaning the pool yourself and leaving the water quality to the professionals. That step could save you $50 a month, or $600 a year.
4. Wash your own car. Getting your car washed can cost about $5 at a gas station drive-through, or as much as $12 to $25 if you opt for a more thorough hand-wash, vacuum and detailing package. You can do much of that work on your own virtually for free by giving your vehicle 15 to 30 minutes of TLC in your driveway. Just be sure to make a modest investment in cleaning products designed for automotive surfaces.
5. Clean your own clothes. A wash-dry-fold service that charges by the pound can be convenient, but it can really add up. Depending on the size of your family and the amount of laundry you drop off, you could spend $15 to $40 each time you go. Washing, drying and folding that same laundry yourself at a Laundromat or at home could cost you about $5.
8. Color and style your own hair. With each haircut you get, you can save money by forgoing the blow-dry-and-style step - just leave with wet hair. And you can save anywhere from $30 to $80 every six weeks, or $260 to $700 a year, by coloring your hair at home rather than having it done professionally.
9. Exercise on your own. Health clubs can be expensive, and personal trainers can be really spendy. You can exercise for free by walking or jogging in your neighborhood, swimming laps in your nice, clean pool or doing exercises in your air-conditioned home. This approach could save you $360 to $1,440 a year.
10. Know yourself. Are you certain that your fitness, diet, appearance, home and automobile would suffer if you failed to pay for the above-mentioned services? Then don't make extreme lifestyle changes all at once. But stop and think: If you followed all of these tips, you'd save a minimum of $6,000 a year.
