Saving tons of money on daily commute

Saving tons on my daily commute on the 22 mile journey each way. I have always been a motorcycle enthusiast, riding when the weather is good, going for Sunday rides, and occasionally riding to work.

I have now made it my priority to ride to and from work every day, no matter what! With fuel costs rising above 4 dollars a gallon now, I just cannot afford, like most Americans, to drive my car or truck. Even on rainy days, I get ready 5 minutes earlier to give time to suit up in rain gear. Each day I see more and more bikes on my daily commute, it is kind of eye opening really. I now imagine a day when there are more motorcycles on the road than there are cars, wouldn't that be a twist.

My truck gets around 16 mpg, whilst the bike gets 45 mpg, huge difference! If a majority of folks rode motorcycles, imagine the improvement on the environment?

On top of doing my part for the environment, I am saving a ton of money by riding the bike, to the tune of 8 dollars a day! That's a monthly savings of 160 dollars, or $1920 dollars a year! Money in the bank, dig it!

Flip em off.

You leave the bathroom, leave the light on for two hours. You leave the living room for 45 minutes, TV is blaring in the background. These things are all costing you money every month. Remind yourself and your family to shut off the light or TV when exiting a room.

Another way to save money/energy is to check all your door seals for leakage. If they look dry rotted, torn, or can see light through it, it's time to replace it.

As far as your air conditioner goes, it will actually save money to leave it on a reasonable temperature during the summer months when it will be operated a lot anyway. This is because it takes quite a bit of energy to repeatedly get the house to your set temp, instead of just keeping it at or near that temp. It's kind of like how semi trucks keep there engines running at truck stops.

You can check out some itemized monthly energy costs here:
http://www.energycheckup.com/content/EnergyDollars.asp

All of this stuff can save you money every month, as well as help the environment. I am not going to monetize this one because I already do these things, instead I just wanted to share it with new home owners.

Cut it out!

Ok, so this tip is pretty obvious and well known, but clipping coupons is one of the easiest ways to save money. Not on circulars that come in the mail, but search online for great deals too. One well known site is http://www.dealofday.com/. There are literally hundreds on the net to choose from, so be sure to check for a online coupon code before buying anything.

Here are a few sites:
http://www.coupons.com/
http://www.couponcabin.com/
http://www.currentcodes.com/
http://www.couponchief.com/
http://www.retailmenot.com/

Also our local Publix, as well as many others does a buy one get one sale a couple days a week, where a lot of good items are displayed. Check out a "Everything's a Dollar" type store as well to see if you can't get a lot of your shopping done there, as they do have a lot of grocery's and misc. items.

We usually save about 50 dollars a week with coupons and deals, for a yearly total of 600 dollars!

Stop paying for someone elso to do your dirty laundry

This tip will mainly apply to men and women in the military, but could apply if you are in a job where uniforms are issued to you, but not laundered for you for free. About 3 years ago, as a present to myself for making E4, I stopped washing my uniform myself and started taking it to the cleaners. This didn't at first seem expensive at only 7.50, but multiply that by 4 times a month, and I was spending 3o dollars for dry cleaning!

So my new goal now is to spend the 30-40 minutes on Sunday night to wash and iron my uniform with my regular laundry. I can even do this while watching my favorite TV program, it will multitask, and get me off this couch for a bit too.

This should be pretty easy to stick with and will save 360 dollars a year.