5 Daily Ways to Save (Part II)

Everyone’s pinching extra pennies right now.  Whether you’re frugally furnishing your apartment with vintage pieces, stashing for a quick budget staycation or filling up that emergency cash stash, saving a few coins here and there is now a necessity.  Following up on our last Daily Ways to Save, here are five more tips to saving some extra coin.

1. Buy Your Morning Joe on the Block. Resist the urge to buy those pretty little lattes with their tantalizing foam, cream and drizzles of caramel.   Treating yourself to one of these might be ok once in a while but it can easily become a habit.  Stop before the addiction manifests and your wallet feels the crunch.  On your way to work, grab a cup of coffee at your local bodega before hopping on the subway — rarely will it cost more than a buck.  You’ll be supporting local small business and saving some change in the process.  If tea is more your bag, that’s great; carry a couple of teabags with you in your wallet or purse.  You can always score a cup of hot water free of charge at a local cafe, deli or fast food restaurant.

2.  Grab Breakfast – Not Lunch. Waking up early enough to eat breakfast and get out of the house on time for work is not always an easy task.  Some commuters often skip breakfast and hold off for lunch.  But why skip the most important meal of the day?  Doing this can cause you to spend more at lunch, since you’ll be starving by noon.  As someone who works in midtown surrounded by overpriced lunch spots, I ‘ve found that I save quite a bit of money each week by buying breakfast in lieu of lunch.  For instance, the local deli I go to in the mornings during the week sells “eggs all the way” with two eggs, home fries and toast for $2.75 plus tax.   The same deli sells sandwiches during lunch time for around $7.  Throw in a bag of chips or a salad, and you’ve easily topped $10.  If you grab coffee on the way to work and stop by a deli and pick up a breakfast special, you could have a full meal that will stave off hunger until the afternoon for less than $5.  Or pair that breakfast with a brown bag lunch from home and save considerable cash.

3.  Buy Snacks at the Supermarket. It’s very easy to pick up a danish at the cafe or buy a granola bar at the newsstand that you pass everyday on the way to the office.  Instead of spending extra cash picking up these items individually, purchase a box of your favorite snack at the supermarket.  If you don’t have a supermarket savings club card by now, get one.  Savings cards always help you save a little here and there. A  good idea is to keep some of these snacks at the job so that you resist pillaging at home on your days off.

4. Make Simple but Pricey Treats at Home. Most people, at some point in time, have bought a parfait, yogurt cup, or fruit salad and griped about how expensive a simple treat was.  Buying this food in bulk and storing it at the office can cut the costs.  I’m a big fan of DIY yogurt cups.  Instead of picking up overpriced yogurt at the store that can cost as much as $5 for a pack of four, buy a large sized tub of plain yogurt and mix in some fruit with your blender.  You can find in-season fruit for cheap at your local supermarket and make flavored yogurt that will last longer than four days.  If you don’t already have some Tupperware, a quick trip to the Dollar will solve that problem, and you’ll be good to go.

5. Grab a Free Paper. In this day and age of the Internet, many people are opting to read the news online.  (How eco-friendly and thrifty!)  But if you still need the feel of paper, resist the urge to buy a daily and grab a free one instead.  Here in New York, you can easily scope out a corner with a Metro or an amNew York distributor is handing out free copies.  Plus, the Post and the Daily News can usually be had for free in the late afternoon or early evening.