50 Ways to Save for Missions
By Martin Kim
If you would like to help further the mission of ASAP, but don’t know where to find the money, consider the following list of 50 possibilities:
- Eliminate unhealthful habits.
- Cancel unread magazine subscriptions.
- Have a yard sale and give a percentage.
- Use a grocery list to cut impulse buying.
- Lower the hot water heater temperature.
- Set your thermostat five degrees higher in the summer and five degrees lower in the winter.
- Drive your car for another year instead of buying a new one.
- In place of some Christmas and birthday presents, give gifts to ASAP.
- Cancel cable television.
- Eat at restaurants half as often.
- Cook more meals from scratch.
- Buy greeting and Christmas cards by the box instead of one at a time.
- Do your own household repairs and yard maintenance.
- Use cash instead of credit cards.
- Buy at thrift stores and yard sales.
- Buy in bulk.
- Carry a lunch to work.
- Take less expensive vacations.
- Have less costly sports equipment.
- Make one extra mortgage payment a year to save as much as $3,000 in interest.
- Do men need 20 ties? Do children need 40 toys?
- Nearing retirement? Consider a smaller house and cutting back to one automobile.
- Turn the heat in your home down to 50 degrees at night. Use extra bed covers.
- Turn heat to 68 degrees for the day.
- Turn the air conditioner to 78 degrees.
- Sell excess vehicles, boats, etc.
- Sell duplicate or excess tools, sports equipment, electrical gadgets, books, knick knacks, kitchen utensils.
- Consolidate shipping trips.
- Water the lawn half as much.
- Use email more and the phone less.
- Sell collections.
- Cancel the newspaper.
- On trips or vacations, take a “kitchen box” and ice chest to cut restaurant meals.
- Trim men’s hair at home.
- Organize and use the shoes you have.
- Use diet and exercise to lower your cholesterol to save up to $100 a month on prescription medications.
- Eliminate one candy bar, ice cream, pop or pastry a day to save $300 a year.
- Eat what is in the freezer and pantry before restocking.
- Use family skills—refinish furniture, grow a garden, make curtains.
- Take advantage of seasonal sales.
- Make use of free or inexpensive educational and recreational services. Enroll in sewing and craft classes, attend free concerts, patronize the public library.
- Reduce installment payments.
- Use cash ($10 and $20 bills) for a month instead of checks and credit cards.
- Buy a home repair book. Read it and begin to do your own home repairs.
- Wash most clothes in cold water.
- Only go shopping with a list of needed items and only take the amount of cash needed to purchase these items.
- Shop alone—family members are notorious cart fillers.
- Shop once a week. Generally the more times you shop, the more you spend.
- When eating out, drink water.
- Install auto-sensing timer light switches in bathrooms.