There was a time that I told my husband; “I would eat the putty out of the windows before I gave up my Ancestry subscription”. Thankfully it’s never gotten to that point but I just wanted him to understand how important my subscription was to me. But let’s face it sometimes it’s hard to justify buying some of the wonderful genealogy tools that are out there if you’re feeling a pinch in your pocketbook. So here are 10 tips that could help you save money and if you decide to purchase yourself a little “genealogy something” then that’s up to you. Note: some of these tips are for when you’ve already decided to make a purchase.
- My friend Thomas MacEntee put me on to this trick and it works great. If you have gift cards lying around the house that have a couple of dollars on them but just not enough to purchase anything with them then you’ll want to know about this trick? If you go to the Amazon site; whether it’s Amazon.ca or Amazon.com all you have to do is search gift cards. Choose; Amazon Gift Card Balance Reload. Choose the custom amount and enter the amount that you have left on that old gift card. Then enter that card information for payment. Once you have your E-Card, you can keep adding to it. It can take a bit of time, but now you’ll have a sum of money that you can spend rather than be missing out on it. Of course, this only works when the old gift cards you have are for the major credit card companies. Now when you want to buy that Kindle book or something else you have some spare cash.
- Ask for a discount. Many people don’t know that you can ask for a discount. Instead of purchasing on-line give the vendor a call and ask them; “is that your best price?”. You’d be surprised how often that they can help you out. What’s the harm in asking? The worst thing is you’ll pay the regular price, and you were going to do that in any case. In fact; if you use the promo code Friend on your next purchase at Shop the Hound I’ll give you $10.00 off an order of $90.00 Canadian and you didn’t even have to ask.
- Abandon a cart. Many companies will send you an email offering you a discount on something that you’ve abandoned. I had a call early one Saturday morning from a genealogy company offering me a huge discount on the plan that I was going to purchase but hadn’t followed through with.
- Be a savvy shopper search out the discounts. Whether it’s for your groceries or your genealogy tools, it’s always a good idea to shop around. I don’t want to brag but our blog page; This Week’s Treasurers has the latest discounted for genealogy deals and DNA discounts. Some of those deals are unique to our blog because The Family History Hound like to negotiate deals. This page is constantly changing so it’s a good idea to keep checking back.
- Look around your house for things you have that you no longer use. When I got married, I moved into my husband’s house and didn’t need many of the things I had. But there were things that I didn’t want just to throw it away because I felt they still had value. So rather than have a yard sale (there wasn’t time) I sold them on Ebay. That way I didn’t have to have people come to the house, and people paid for the shipping. In fact, I continue to sell on Ebay just because I find it fun.
- If you don’t want to do the Ebay thing, then you can have a virtual garage sale on Facebook. You can post it to your page and sell to your friends, or you could have an event and post to the public. Also, there are Facebook pages that are for your community and often you can post sale items there.
- Make gifts. Sometimes the most appreciated gift you can get or give is something that is homemade. I remember when my mom made myself and my brother’s a photo album with old family photos in it, my brother sat for hours just looking it over. It was probably the best present he’d gotten in his adult life, and it only cost my mom the price of the album, some photo prints and her time.
- Don’t make rash purchases. That’s sometimes easier said than done, but how many times have you bought something and then later you thought; did I really need that? So it’s a good idea to give yourself a couple of days before making a large purchase.
- Meal prep. Take a Saturday or Sunday and prepare a batch of quick go-to meals for the upcoming week. Then when you come home, and you are tired and don’t feel like cooking, you’ll have something easy to prepare and you will avoid the cost of eating out or ordering takeout. In most cases, it will be a healthier meal to boot.
- Over the upcoming months take the time to review your monthly bills. Often we don’t realize you are paying for a channel that you don’t watch anymore or paying a membership fee and you aren’t using it anymore. You’ll be surprised how much you can save.
There are more ways you can save and once you get started it’s kind like a game to see if you can save in other ways. Tells me how you save.