[smhammons]

Good morning everyone.
We can find all kinds of good money saving tips on this site. I love it!! Before I found this site I was a member of another website that was kinda like this one. However it was not as well organized as this one.

Anyway, I wanted to start a thread about the WORST tips you ever heard.

Here is mine. I watch the news in the mornings while I am making lunches and emptying the dishwasher. My local news promised to have a story about how to save money on every day expenses. I was excited to watch and learn something new.
Most of the things they were saying were things I have heard over and over again such as make your own coffee, don't buy it on your way to work. The tip that I thought was the worst was.........now hold onto your hats ladies (and gentalmen) ........"have your MAID come once a week instead of twice a week."
After I heard this, I thought to myself, what are they thinking? Most of us have never had a maid. If you have enough money for a maid, even once a week, chances are, you are not worried about saving money.

So, anyone else have a story about a bad money saving tip?

[isabelpak]

Originally Posted by smhammons

"have your MAID come once a week instead of twice a week."
After I heard this, I thought to myself, what are they thinking? Most of us have never had a maid. If you have enough money for a maid, even once a week, chances are, you are not worried about saving money.

So, anyone else have a story about a bad money saving tip?

OK, This is for people that is disable and have assistance in their homes.
Seniors that don't want to go to a nursing home.
I hope you get the idea, for them is necessary to have some help as they can't do much, if you have people in your house over 70's you 'll know.

[coolgal142]

I herd my brother in law tell my wife the key to her saving money is she shouldn't leave the house. Well she took his advise and spent 300 dollars on a new weight bench online. LOL.

[smhammons]

Isebelpak,

I am sorry if you took this post the wrong way. I do understand what you are talking about. I have sister with Cerebral Palsy. She was born a premi with a twin that died. She was given too much oxegen at birth thus causing her cerebral Palsy. She has home help aids.
I am not talking about home help aids, nor was the news program. I am talking about maids that perfectly healthy people hire to help them with their house work due to their busy schedules. I do know people who have maids. This is what I was talking about in my post.
Again, I am sorry you missunderstood my post.

[joshmamabear]

I cannot say this is the worst but I just take this advice from a lot of people with a grain of salt,

All credit cards are evil. do not get caught with one.

NOT true for me and even GH (Good Housekeeping) has validated this saying one of the smartest money saving tip is to use credit cards for the cash back, perks, miles, etc. for those that do NOT carry a balance and CC has no annual fees.

This is true for me and I'm sure for all those who know they can squeeze a little bit more money out of their necessary expenses just by charging it on their CC. When the statement comes, they pay it all. No interests paid, no late fees, no annual fees to maintain the card. If you just pay with cash/DC, all you get is a receipt. If you pay with CC, you get back some for the money you've paid PLUS its easier to track your purchases when the CC separates them into categories. It also serves as record of my payment when I "lose" my receipts for something I paid

[Katlady]

Completely agree on the credit card as long as the balance is paid monthly. I love the perks like free gift cards, etc, but we've never carried a balance.

I read the Tightwad Gazette years ago.While some of her tips were very good, she never used coupons because she believed they didn't save money. She had a low grocery bill, but bought chicken legs and cheaper cuts of meat, etc. By using coupons, we have a low grocery bill, but eat boneless chicken breasts and leaner cuts of meat.

[joshmamabear]

btw, our courthouse will soon accept CC payments for home/personal property taxes. good news for me because I can squeeze more money out of that payment when I don't get any right now when we've been required to pay ONLY cash/check.

like PP said, CC perks are good and you can stretch them even more since you can use $20 worth of cash back from Discover to get $25 worth of Ace GC (or other GCs you prefer). that is $$$$$ stretching to me

[Katlady]

Originally Posted by joshmamabear

btw, our courthouse will soon accept CC payments for home/personal property taxes. good news for me because I can squeeze more money out of that payment when I don't get any right now when we've been required to pay ONLY cash/check.

like PP said, CC perks are good and you can stretch them even more since you can use $20 worth of cash back from Discover to get $25 worth of Ace GC (or other GCs you prefer). that is $$$$$ stretching to me

I wish my town would take credit cards for taxes. That would be a quick way to bump up my Discover rewards. I use them for my ink at Staples, restaurant gift cards, etc. Love being able to schedule online payments in advance too-then my payments are never late.

[isabelpak]

Originally Posted by smhammons

Isebelpak,

I am sorry if you took this post the wrong way. I do understand what you are talking about. I have sister with Cerebral Palsy. She was born a premi with a twin that died. She was given too much oxegen at birth thus causing her cerebral Palsy. She has home help aids.
I am not talking about home help aids, nor was the news program. I am talking about maids that perfectly healthy people hire to help them with their house work due to their busy schedules. I do know people who have maids. This is what I was talking about in my post.
Again, I am sorry you missunderstood my post.

No problem just wanted to add it because some seniors has maids for that purposes.
I was wondering why the news said that until someone told me who this "advice " is for.
In case is for normal people then the show is talking to reach people trying to "save" LOL

[joshmamabear]

Originally Posted by Katlady

Love being able to schedule online payments in advance too-then my payments are never late.

True. are you aware of the recent automatic debit from CA or MMA type of accounts? you can schedule whatever date you want your payments debited. then, you only keep track of your bank account(s) to have enough funds to cover payments

[Henna]

Hmm, seems like every "amazing savings news story" has at least one of the following silly tips.

*Give up your daily $5 Starbucks drink and make your own coffee. Well, if you are couponing and saving thousands of dollars a year, I say drink your darn Starbucks if that's what floats your boat. But the majority of people (couponers or NOT) I know shudder to think of spending $5 on a single drink every day!

*Buy store brands instead of wasting time cutting coupons. OK, I don't need to explain why that is silly advice to the super couponers of AFC, but that one always cracks me up. Yeah, I'd rather buy the store brand whole wheat pasta for a dollar rather than the name brand pasta for $.50. Clipping that coupon was so HARD and wasted SO MANY SECONDS!

*Don't eat takeout every night. It costs a lotta lotta lotta money. Yes! Instead, look around your house until you find a special room, one with a sink and a big rectangle thingie. That's called a refrigerator. There should also be a big boxlike thing with a door on the front. That's called a stove and oven. If you reach in the rectangle thing and pull stuff out, you can stick it in or on the boxlike thing and if you play your cards right, you will have food cooked right in your own KITCHEN! Every time Oprah has a money saving show she seems to profile some nice family who are total spendthrifts and drop $40 on takeout every night of the week. I love takeout myself but even when I was working every day I couldn't stomach takeout every.single.night!

[BargainSeeker]

The worst money saving tip I ever heard was that there were bigger savings when you buy from a wholesale thru membership, like COSCO, Sam's, BJ, etc. than buying individual at the grocery store. Now having done both, I can honestly say there is no way I save more money at the warehouse/wholesale than at the grocery stores. Even when you use coupons, at the warehouse/wholesale, it's one coupons per purchase, the purchase maybe, a four pack of Colgate tp, for example. Enventhough I argued the pack had four, they would not allow me to use more than one coupon At the grocery stores you buy four tp and have a coupon for each. I went on a three month experiment with my mom because she felt I was spending too much money buying only at the supermarkets. This has been my personal experience. YMMV.

[mommyof1beauty]

I shudder when my DH buys starbucks, and he does not even wince. 5 bucks? On a drink? give me a break. there is a guy at my work that does that every morning; then he and I went to the store to get stuff for a potluck and he drove a very pricey beamer...like leased it for 800 a month (now I dont want to offend anyone...I just shudder to think that he spends 800 a month on a beamer, that he is leasing!)

he said to me "i dont coupon, I dont need to. I dont care about money I have an extra 3K a month between military retirement and this job and so this is playmoney....."

OMG.......freaking killing me .......

I have been a big fan of making our own lunches, from kids to me to DH...but DH still buys out and tosses my food in the trash at work (go figure).

I am super tight with money, but then again we are always well fed, well clothed, clean, with a good smelling house! LOL!

[esquala]

couple of months ago I saw a huge sign for Charmin at CVS - it was a floor display. It said, "With Charmin you use 4x LESS toilet paper than with other brands."

Umhmm. And I fell off a damn turnip truck yesterday.

"With Charmin you use 4x LESS toilet paper than with other brands." = "We can charge a dollar or more per roll because we're stupid enough to think that you're stupid enough to believe it will actually cost a fourth of what other brands would cost."

Oh - I subscribe to a service that matches up coupons and sales. I won't name the company because they do an ok job and it makes things easier for me. But, they say right off the bat "we will save you OVER 60% over what you normally pay." But when you look at the comparison, they're talking about people who pay full price, all the time. Who does that? I don't know that I even know one person who doesn't try to get a good deal.

So many things you have to take with a grain of salt.

[isabelpak]

Originally Posted by mommyof1beauty

I have been a big fan of making our own lunches, from kids to me to DH...but DH still buys out and tosses my food in the trash at work (go figure).

I am super tight with money, but then again we are always well fed, well clothed, clean, with a good smelling house! LOL!

Yes I'm familiar with that too... "I don't like it so I have to figure what to eat"

[kmeiding]

Originally Posted by BargainSeeker

The worst money saving tip I ever heard was that there were bigger savings when you buy from a wholesale thru membership, like COSCO, Sam's, BJ, etc. than buying individual at the grocery store. Now having done both, I can honestly say there is no way I save more money at the warehouse/wholesale than at the grocery stores. Even when you use coupons, at the warehouse/wholesale, it's one coupons per purchase, the purchase maybe, a four pack of Colgate tp, for example. Enventhough I argued the pack had four, they would not allow me to use more than one coupon At the grocery stores you buy four tp and have a coupon for each. I went on a three month experiment with my mom because she felt I was spending too much money buying only at the supermarkets. This has been my personal experience. YMMV.

I will agree with you that groceries are more expensive at these stores, but there are some things that are cheaper - like printer ink (unless you refill cartridges or buy from some cheap place online) and some electronics and larger items. IMO, Sam's seems to have good meat and produce as well so those are the main reasons I have a membership. It does expire in January though and I haven't decided whether I'll renew it or not.

Warehouse stores can be cheaper - it just depends on what kinds of things you buy.

I like the credit card rewards as well. I'm trying to use my credit card more so I can take advantage of the rewards more. In two years, I saved up almost enough for 3 $50 gift cards and that's only using the CC when I had to and when we went on our honeymoon in May. It does cost $19 a year for me so my goal is to only use the CC and cash to buy things and pay off the CC every month. I'm still paying off part of the vacation, but it shouldn't be long now before it's completely paid.

[funnybottoms]

Originally Posted by BargainSeeker

The worst money saving tip I ever heard was that there were bigger savings when you buy from a wholesale thru membership, like COSCO, Sam's, BJ, etc. than buying individual at the grocery store. Now having done both, I can honestly say there is no way I save more money at the warehouse/wholesale than at the grocery stores. Even when you use coupons, at the warehouse/wholesale, it's one coupons per purchase, the purchase maybe, a four pack of Colgate tp, for example. Enventhough I argued the pack had four, they would not allow me to use more than one coupon At the grocery stores you buy four tp and have a coupon for each. I went on a three month experiment with my mom because she felt I was spending too much money buying only at the supermarkets. This has been my personal experience. YMMV.

Totally agree!! I had never shopped at those membership stores before couponing, but after starting couponing I was curious and went into Sam's Club and then walked right out without buying anything. You save so much more by couponing at regular stores.

I also hate the don't spend $5 a day at Starbucks advice because I don't do that in the first place. I go to Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts maybe once a month, if that.. it's probably more like once every 2-3 months.

Another thing I hate is when Suze Orman says to sell your house or car to get out of debt, well I don't own a house or car. I need info that applies to me but never really hear any.

[isabelpak]

About Sam's "Savings:
They have one day pass that allow you to go the store and sample the "Savings".
That's a scam as they charge each new guest 10% at the register.
If you come across with those coupons, look at this policy becauase all the "savings" will go away at the cash register.

[miralys]

Interesting topic. I don't know what I would call the "worst" advice, but I get sort of tired of seeing advice that most of us adhere to anyway. You know, match sales with coupons, bring a lunch instead of buying one, use the free coffee/tea provided at work instead of stopping at a gas station, etc. This is good advice for someone starting out, but not worth much to wiser heads who have been doing this for years. Darn why can't there be one magic one size fits all solution

[allcash]

Worst advice IMO: "Buy a house for the tax write off."
Um, I pay like 14k in interest a year & get back 2k on my taxes.
Yes, if I were renting I'd get a big fat 0, but I've seen lots of people push their way into a mortgage because they really believe the "tax write off" will save them an incredible amount of money.