Two Mondays ago, I mentioned that we cut back on spending in 2009, and Chez Julie asked me to share some of my tips. What a great idea!

I have a lot of tips and I bet commenters will too – so don’t feel bad if you can’t read them all – PLEASE SHARE your ideas!

I broke my tips into three categories: Shopping, Entertainment and General. Click “more” to read (skim, really) on.

Shopping Tips for Reducing Spending:

• First things first – cut out unnecessary luxuries - for us, this was bottled water. We used to use one new bottle of water a day, and we started using reusable water bottles instead. Better on the pocketbook AND environment! For other people, this may include something like cutting back on the daily Starbucks and making coffee at home, or buying soda in bulk instead of from a vending machine.
• Figure out where to buy the most economical necessities – we started shopping more at ALDI. We used to do all of our shopping at Super Target. I think we save at least $50 a week by shopping at ALDI. And if you have one of those stores where you have to have a “club card” to get the items at a discounted price, you are probably not getting the best deal overall. We have Dominick’s, Meier and Jewell Osco out here, but have compared prices and they are more expensive on everything.
• Try the “off brand,” it’s probably less costly – related to the last tip. We thought we would hate the ALDI “off brand” food, but it is fine! We mostly buy produce there anyway.
• Buy in bulk when it’s a great sale – when we see an item we purchase regularly on a heavy discount, we buy it in bulk, saving us money (and time) in the long run.
• Use coupons and watch for good deals – I like to use coupons.com to see if any of the things we buy are on sale at Target before we go there. We also look at the ads to watch for items to go on sale. And, I am not sure if other stores do this, but sometimes Target will have a deal that if you buy 2 or 3 of an item they will give you a $5 giftcard. In December, we saw that the paper towels we like were on sale for $10 each (normally $15). If you bought two you got the $5 giftcard. Score!

Entertainment Tips for Reducing Spending:

• Instead of meeting friends for dinner, host dinner in your home
• When meeting friends for lunch, bring your own – my friends know I do this ALL THE TIME. You save money, eat a healthier lunch, and still get to chat!
• Look for coupons for things you like to do – Steven and I never go bowling unless we have a coupon. If you sign up at Brunswick, you get coupons once or twice a month. Instead of paying $5 a game, we pay $1.29!
• Use Giftcards – ask for giftcards for birthdays and holidays if you can! At my office, we have a rewards program, and I use it to get movie giftcards.
• Make small sacrifices in quality to get something for less – we found a theater that sells $4 tickets! It is not as nice as a normal theater, but it saves us about $20 a trip!
• Use Netflix instead of Pay-Per-View or going to the movies – if you watch a lot of movies like we do, Netflix is VERY economical!
• Stop paying to run races - look for those you can run based on a donation, or just run for fun (this one was hard).
• Volunteer – it can be fun
• Look for free events – watch for speakers at your library or find a website like Explore Chicago (but local for your area) that showcases events (both free and not free).
• Visit local parks/forest preserves for fun – we have a massive forest preserve system out here, and there is so much to do!
• Take classes at a community center instead of at a gym
• Use the office gym, instead of paying for a separate membership – if you can, of course.
• Go to the library instead of buying new books (or borrow from a friend!)
• Choose a vacation location somewhere where you can stay with friends or family
• Travel in the off-season
• TRY NEW THINGS AT HOME! - we love cooking and trying new things at home… I think we like it better than eating out!

General Tips for Reducing Spending:

• See if you can cut back with your bills – we looked into our Verizon bill to see if it made sense to switch to a smaller plan. Ironically, we found out we were on a great plan that is grandfathered in and we would be screwing ourselves if we changed it. Ha ha. We tried!
• Stop using credit cards – only use them in an emergency.
• Pay off higher interest bills first
• Develop a monthly budget and stick to it – it will help to see where you are actually spending your money!
• Save money by working from home – this may not be an option for everyone, but since Steven works from home, we are saving money on gas, insurance and I-PASS. In 2011, I will be allowed to work from home one day a week and this should help a tiny bit (my work already pays for my transportation to work).
• Look into pre-tax pay deductions at work – some offices offer programs where you can take money out of your paycheck pre-taxes and use it for transportation or hospital bills.

And I believe you should  SPLURGE A LITTLE BIT and treat yourself everyone once in awhile! To stay sane!

I had a lot of  “how lucky am I?!” realizations this year. Without going into too much detail, I will just say that 2009 involved some changes in our financial situation, and I had a hard time adapting. Not that we were spendthrifts before… we weren’t. We just didn’t have to think twice about going out to the movies, to Subway, or where to buy groceries.

Now we rarely eat out, only see movies if we have a gift card, and do most of our shopping at a discount store.

And it’s no big deal.

But change is hard.

I am embarrassed at how long it took me to adapt to being more financially aware. And embarrassed at how long it took me to realize how lucky I am as it is.

I have a roof over my head. I can still afford to make payments on a luxury car. I don’t go hungry. I have a gym to use. I have a wii to play. We can still afford Netflix. We’re healthy. I can run!

And most importantly of all, I have wonderful people in my life. People who love me enough to come all the way out to the Chicago suburbs to see me. Friends who send me emails and snail mail. Blogger friends who actually read what I write and leave me wonderful and thoughtful comments!

And of course, my partners-in-crime – Steven and Data. I cannot even count how many times this year I have looked at my husband and thought, “How did I get so lucky? How is it that I ended up with him? How lucky am I that we ran into each other at that random party at college?” We have so much fun together. I think we help each other be a better person. We support each other. We let each other be themselves. We work through things the best we can. I just feel so lucky to have found a wonderful partner.

Yeah. I told you it was cheesy.

I don’t want to make resolutions, but this seems to be something I am thinking about a lot (last week too), so I’d like to work towards being more grateful and mindful in 2010. I want to live in the moment. No more looking forward. I need to be grateful for what is in front of me. What I already have. Aspirations and goals are great, but I need to keep in mind how lucky I already am.

Do you have the “how lucky am I?!” moments? Share them!

And how could I NOT be grateful for this little furball? He even helps me with blogging. Hmm, maybe that should be “help” in parenthesis!

Steven and I saw a preview for this when we went to see Taken. I turned over to him and said “That looks really good, but… Nicolas Cage is in it…” I had kind of written off Nicolas Cage movies as “immediately in the Netflix Queue” movies. As in, “not worth seeing in theater!”

But Ebert gave it 4 stars (like that means anything, I know), we love “the world’s coming to an end” movies, and had a free movie ticket*, so we decided to go.

Wow. I was completely shocked by this movie. We all know from the previews that the movie is about a sheet of paper with a bunch of numbers all over it. Nicolas Cage gets a hold of the paper and figures out the numbers correspond to dates of horrific events and the number of deaths. Pretty freaky already, right?

Well, I don’t want to give it away, but the movie is a little bit more complicated than that. It took on a much more different angle than I expected it to based on the preview. And it seriously creeped me out. As in, I was grabbing Steven’s arm in the theater, and will probably have nightmares.

I wish I could say more, but I don’t want to spoil it. If you were thinking about seeing it in the theater, I think it is worth it.

*We are signed up for the free rewards program at our theater, and they keep giving us free drinks, and popcorn and tickets! They gave us another ticket tonight! Sweet!!!