penny pinching.

i'm moving into a new place this weekend, and my rent is a bit more than i'm used to. so in light of bigger bills, i'm trying to find some ways to cut my spending. here's what i've got so far... anyone have any other great ideas?

1. go to the library. i love books. i love buying books. i love writing in books. i love turning down pages of my favorite books. BUT i don't love how much books cost. i got a library card about a year ago and still haven't used it. time to change that!

2. budget gifting. i love sending my pals little gifts every once in awhile. i also love getting people gifts i know they'll love for birthdays, christmas, etc. but this is a pricey little habit. one of my strengths is my ability to craft & be creative - so i'm putting a price limit on what i can spend for gifts, and i'm going to start making the majority of them. this will mean that every month i need to plan ahead for who's birthdays are coming up so i don't have to run out last minute, but that's a good thing to keep track of anyways. same goes for greeting cards - those things are EXPENSIVE and most of the time they don't say what you want anyways. i've already started on this journey - but buying greeting cards is no longer allowed.

3. avoid target. this is the place i do most of my meaningless spending. as we all know, it's easy to go in here for toilet paper and walk out $100 later. speaking of toilet paper - things like that & paper towels will now be purchased at costco. it really is amazing how much you can save on household items there!

4. only dine out once a week. this is a hard one. one of the reasons i've never limited myself before is because most of the time when you're eating out, you're spending time with someone. as a society, that's what we do when we want to schedule time with someone, we eat. but there are other cheaper (and healthier) options for spending time with your loved ones. go for a walk, grab coffee, make dinner at home. there really is no reason to spend $10 + tip on letuce topped with chicken from brixx a few times a week.

5. stop drinking "out." alcohol is expensive. alcohol is even more expensive at bars. and tipping on top of that is downright absurd. you can go out for a few beers with your friends and end up spending $25+ on 3 beers and a tip on a random tuesday. i love drinking beer any day of the week, but my bank account does not. no more throwing my debit card down at the bar.

note: this does not mean i won't have a day or two every month where i completely break this rule and drink on a porch on a random sunday. porch drinking in beautiful weather doesn't count.

6. buy trader joe's two buck chuck wine only. cause you can't argue with a $2. something bottle of wine.

7. gas. not going to have to work at this one, as i'm now 5 miles closer to work. but i MAY start trying to ride my bike to work once a week since i'm only 1.4 miles away again. that may be a bit ambitious.

8. i already cut out starbucks/dunkin/caribou. i only drink it when i have a gift card. this is a big, giant, enormous deal for me as i used to drink it everyday. now i have a keurig, and funny enough, the caffeine works just the same.

9. bye bye birchbox. i have enjoyed getting birchboxes for the past few months, but i'm not sure i can justify spending $120 a year on them. half of the stuff just sits in my bathroom drawer anyways, so i went ahead and cut that off.

10. unsubscribe from all store email blasts. this is the best thing i've done in awhile. it is so easy to scroll through clothes on email blasts that come to you daily and impulse buy things. i was actually embarrassed by the amount of emails i was getting from various clothing stores on a daily basis."50% off - what?" my inbox is thanking me!

what are you doing to save some extra money?