Just about everywhere you spend, there are simple ways to save. Here’s a roundup of stories with tips for spending wisely—and not getting taken for a sucker—at flea markets, the bank, the grocery store, and in your own home.
A Boston Globe writer hit flea markets in the Boston area and came back with a bunch of advice for secondhand bargain hunters. Negotiating is huge, of course. He recommends offering two-thirds to three-quarter of the original asking price. Appearing too eager is bad, too.
The Chicago Tribune rounded up some money-saving tips that go well beyond at the grocery store. One especially interesting bit revolves around simply making the food that you buy last longer. Because if you have to toss most of it out, you shouldn’t have bought it in the first place. What can you do? For one thing, transfer milk into a glass bottle. It’ll double the milk’s fridge life.
The WSJ bluntly lists ten ways banks take your money, mostly in annoying ways that you probably know of. But there are a few lesser-known fees, including one if a check deposited in your account bounces. You’re charged a fee, the same way if you’d been the one bouncing the check.
Meanwhile, as temperatures heat up, try to fight the urge to crank the A/C, which will also crank up your electricity bill. As a Chicago Tribune columnist points out: ” You can save 1 percent on your air-conditioning bill for every degree you turn up the thermostat over an eight-hour period.” She also notes that easing off the A/C is better for the environment, and that there’s something annoying—unnatural even—about freezing when you go inside in the summer:
I’m tired of taking a coat when I go to a summer movie. I hate suffering through a meal at a restaurant so cold that I have to block an in-floor air conditioning vent with my purse. I groan when the doors to an “L” car open and I step into a meat locker.