For starters, just shopping at the grocery store instead of eating every meal out is a positive.  By eating breakfast at home, brewing coffee before you leave for the office, packing a lunch, and eating dinner at home can save hundreds of dollars a week depending on the size of your family, let alone over the course of an entire month.  Doing the shopping every week or at least every other week not only keeps your refrigerator stocked, but also helps to resist the temptation of going out to eat.  I am not saying that you need to eat every meal every day at home, but even avoiding during the week and saving for a nice dinner out of the weekend is perfectly acceptable.  While grocery stopping saves on your wallet, there are still some items that you may not realize you are wasting money on.

Already Cut Fruits and Vegetables

Sure buying a container of pre-cut pineapple is convenient, but the markup is huge.  With so many kitchen gadgets on the market now, you can purchase an easy pineapple slicer for $6.99 on Amazon and it can be cut in less than a minute, hardly worth paying double or triple the price to have it cut for you.

Seasoned Meat at the Counter

The meat looks nicely prepared with seasoning, but it is not worth paying the extra charge to have a rub or a bottle of marinade added that you can do yourself for a fraction of the cost.  Items like steak kabobs have a large markup, as the meat was cut into cubes, and put on skewers with pre-cut vegetables.  Cutting meat and vegetables takes seconds to do, so spend the extra time doing it yourself, and you will even be able to net a few extra kabobs buying the whole ingredient items.

Produce that is Not in Season

Nothing beats corn on the cob off of the grill, slathered with butter and salt, but frozen corn can be enough to tide over until summer, when you can get a handful for a dollar.  Buy produce when it is in season, it is fresh, and it is cheap.

Small Bags of Snacks

Getting a pack of small snack bags of chips can be easy to grab and go, but it is not cost efficient.  Instead buy a large bag of chips, and divide into sandwich bags, and you have a snack for every day of the week for pennies compared dollars.

Think it is awesome to drive around a sweet car around town, even if you can afford the sticker price?  From the 2000 movie The Replacements, “do you know how much insurance costs on a Ferrari mother…?”  When deciding on a car, do not forget about the insurance cost.  Car insurance does vary from state to state, as Michigan has one of the highest insurance premiums as it is a state that has no-fault insurance and provides medical benefits for accident victims.  States with less large cities where accidents are least likely to occur are paying the lowest premiums.  If you do happen to buy or lease an expensive car, make sure you shop around.  According to a J.D. Power insurance study, those that shop around can save under $400 annually by switching insurance companies, so try and at least get a few insurance quotes before deciding on the one for you.  Check all discounts that you qualify for, including insuring multiple cars and home, married, a student, or even pay the entire premium at once instead of installments.  You might even be surprised about getting discounts for driving short commutes.  You would not think that buying insurance would be like retail with different sales, and while there may not yet be a Black Friday sale, according to a survey by InsuranceQuotes.com, December is actually the least expensive month to buy insurance, while March tops out as the most expensive.  When you do decide to purchase insurance, think about who the drivers are going to be, as having your teenage child on your policy may double it, let alone imagine the amount it would be on their own policy.

According to Insure.com’s recently released annual insurance survey which reviewed the average annual insurance rates for 2016 models from Progressive, Allstate, State Farm, Nationwide, Farmers, and Geico within 10 zip codes in a state.  The most expensive cars to insure are below, in annual amounts:

1. Dodge GT Viper – $4,808
2. Mercedes LS65 AMG – $3,797
3. Mercedes S600 BI-T – $3,539
4. Mercedes S63 AMG 4Matic – $3,513
5. Porsche Panamera S Executive – $3,484
6. Nissan GT-R Nismo – $3,476
7. BMW M6 Gran Coupe – $3,309
8. Land Rover Range Rover SV Autobiography Black LWB – $3,245
9. Audi RS7 Quattro Prestige – $3,229
10. Porsche 911 Carrera GT3 RS – $3,212

Has your spending gone out of control?  You are not the only one.  Even though we are well into 2016 now and getting back on track with finances may not have been in your resolution, it is not too late.  Most people create a New Year’s resolution and break it the next month anyways, so might as well start now and you will be happy you did with a little extra in your savings account and less debt.  While others are focusing on losing a few pounds, you should work on better spending habits this year.

First, set a budget, and not any budget, a realistic one.  Believe it or not, 1 in 3 households operate with a budget, so that leaves 2/3’s of home do not have any kind of plan.  Makes you wonder that how many of those households without a budget are successful and are not in mounds of debt, and even those homes that do, how many of those budget’s last an entire year?

Second, once you have a budget, look to remove unnecessary spending.  Take a detailed look at your account statements from the previous month and circle charges that you feel could easily be removed and start with those.  A great way to start is to look at your eating out and going to bar habits.  Now I’m not saying to avoid all together, but having a few drinks at home before you go out and getting to the bar later to finish the night is ok.  Same with dinner; eat at home as much as you can.  If you do go out later, there is nothing wrong with sharing an appetizer instead of having full meals, and it will be much easier on the wallet.

Third, repetition and discipline is the key to success.  Now that you have a budget and are working on eliminating unnecessary spending, now review your finances to see how you end up at the end of the month.  Do you have a little extra in savings?  Are the balances lower on the credit card statements?  Well if so then you are off to a great start.  It may not be easy and there will always be unexpected expenses, but try to take everything into account to your budget, even occasions such as birthday’s and holiday’s, where you know there will be additional spending.

There are so many mistakes you can make when shopping for groceries, clothes, house hold items, and event tickets. Some of these mistakes are easily fixable like reading the sale papers or ads before you go shopping, and other mistakes are harder to fix like using coupons for items you need not just items you want.

When shopping for groceries always make a list before entering the store. Putting the list on your cell phone, paper or even on your hand is better than having no list at all. When you write a list, you should stick to the list! Always create your list based on your family’s needs and what is on sale that week at your local grocery store. These two should go hand in hand in the list making process. Writing a list is easy and shouldn’t take more than a few minutes of dedicated time. Planning your trip to the grocery store with a list in hand will save you more money, as opposed to just stopping in for a few things on your way home from work each week. Signing up for online coupons and a store savings card is a must! I have saved hundreds of dollars over the years by having a grocery store discount card.

Clothes shopping are either something you love or something you hate, but either way sometimes it has to be done. Buying clothes on the sale and clearance rack is a must! If you know of a big event, birthday, or trip planned a few months ahead of time, start clothes shopping early! Seasonal clothes go on sale at the end of each season, so if you family cruise is booked for January you should shop for a bathing suit and sandals in September when all the new Winter clothes are starting to come out, thus moving all the Spring and Summer clothes to the clearance racks. Going to large department stores can save you a lot of money because they have such a large amount of product they need to sell and turn over. Don’t shy away from opening up a store card when you making a huge purchase as it can save you over 20% sometimes! This is a very good idea as long as you know you can pay the card off ASAP.

New habits with a store card, shopping for clothes off season and making a shopping list will help prevent easy shopping mistakes and money loss seem like a thing of the past.

As the holiday season came upon us and the weather went from tolerable to unbearable, I found myself seeing more movies than I would have the rest of the year.  I suppose it is a good time to see movies, as the potential Oscar winners are released, so the quality of films should be greater, but I found myself wondering, is it really worth going to the movies?  Not only in money, but also time, which I feel as just as valuable.  If you go to a first-run, primetime weekend show, it is $10 a person, so for a couple, $20 to get in.  Add in another $25 for two alcoholic drinks (still $12 for a couple of soft drinks), then if you want popcorn or candy, another $10 or so.  So for a two hour experience, was it worth $50-60?  It probably was not.  Of course you could do a matinee show, sneak in your own pop, or alcohol shooters to put in, and skip the popcorn, and maybe see a movie for $10 total, but what is the fun in that?  I am not sure what the correct price point should be to see a movie, maybe $8 a person or so, which is not much of a difference, but the amount it costs of popcorn, candy, or pop, is just ridiculous.

There are so many bad movies that get released every week, alone in a year, so I do find myself going to less movies, not only because of the price, but also I find it more and more hard to sit through two hours of a bad movie, only to leave and say “eh, it was alright”.  To me, that is not entertainment.  Of course not all movies are bad; I do enjoy comedies, and I do make sure I see the potential award nominated movies, and of course I had to go on opening night to see the new “Star Wars” movie.  I know movies are made to make money, so the endless amounts to sequels that come out, and the majority of the movies that are released are some form of a super hero, so unless people stop going, we can look forward to years and years of super hero sequels, reboots, and entirely new casts playing the same characters.  For my money, I think I will wait for most to arrive to rent On Demand or showing on the streaming services.