Live Real, Now mentioned this Investopedia post, 20 lazy ways to save money and let us see how he stacked up. Here’s my results:

1. Schedule automatic payments.

I love automatic payments! I have to leave checks for our housekeeper and lawn guy, but every other monthly bill is set up to be paid automatically through our credit cards or our bank account. Our annual property taxes and homeowner’s insurance fees are all manual as well – you know, they want to make sure you feel the pain, lol.

2. Eat your groceries.

We were throwing out a lot of fruit but have gotten much better now. I freeze the older bananas for smoothies and eat the rest as snacks at work. Having a lot of freezer space does save waste in our home. Well, that and the monthly board gaming parties where we can unload extra stuff too, lol. 😉

3. Bundle services.

We bundle our cable and internet, but that’s it. We don’t have a land line and our cell service is through Sprint plus we have an unlimited wifi hotspot that serves as our backup in case these other services aren’t working for some reason.

4. Pay off credit card.

Yes, we pay off our credit cards every month. I detest paying interest for nothing. Our bank offers the best prepaid debit card and we use that for some stuff.

5. Mark your calendar.

I have a little daily calendar for my purse now as well as a hanging one at work. Both are updated as necessary based on new additions. It is working really well so far although I wouldn’t say this saves me money. In fact, it causes me to remember things like wedding showers, so it’s actually costing me, lol.

6. File your taxes on time.

We file as soon as humanly possible. Since we have to wait for so much to come int he mail, that means we usually file in late February or early March.

7. Roll it over.

I haven’t changed jobs yet, but when I do, I’m either rolling over my 401k if my new job offers one too or keeping it where it is. I will not be cashing it out.

8. Switch credit cards.

We don’t carry balances, so we don’t need to do a balance transfer. We do use 3 different cards based on what we’re buying though, so I do play that max-your-cash-back game a bit, lol.

9. Use your privileges.

Excellent reminder. I still am thinking about joining AAA.

10. Rent instead of buy

. Okay, we suck here. I will almost always buy or borrow. Redbox and Netflix are pretty much the only rental services we use.

11. Buy instead of rent

. I love our house. One big reason is that I can do whatever I want to it, but it was a financially better deal for us too.

12. Ask.

I need to do this with AT&T again for our cable and internet bill. I tried with Geico but apparently I have the lowest rate available to us right now (I called other places for quotes and figured this out).

13. Just say no.

We don’t buy extended warranties, but we do buy our electronics with our Discover card to get the extra year of coverage.

14. Have the awkward conversation.

We do a Secret Santa with hubby’s family and exchange gifts with my parents and two little sisters. Other than that, we just do $20-$25 birthday gifts on average.

15. Eat at home.

We are eating at home more often, but we still splurge once or twice a week. We’ll see if we can cut back this coming month. 🙂

16. Balance your checkbook.

I balance our checkbook every 2-3 weeks just to make sure Chase in on the right track. ING is much easier, so I only balance that running total every month or so.

17. Stick with your bank.

Thanks to a billion Chase and ING ATM’s, we’re good here. We only go with the best online bank accounts.

18. Use your TV.

As a couple who watches way too much tv, we’re taking full advantage, lol.

19. Quit those bad habits.

We don’t have any daily vices…no smoking, occasional drinking (like a Pina Colada once or twice a month), and no drugs other than Claritin and headache medicines…our latte factor would be our hobbies, but we budget for those.

20. Forget the pet.

Nope, sorry, can’t. We really are happier people with a dog or two at home with us. 🙂

You can even sell used books for cash. What do you think of the list? Learn more about how to earn extra money online as well. This coupled with more savings is a winning combination.