5 ways to save $500 every month

Challenged by the current financial crisis and recessionary woes? While the world is watching Wall Street, many of us are struggling to preserve our own checkbook on Main Street.

There doesn’t appear to be a quick fix for the economy, but there are some things you can start doing today that will have a real impact on your personal finances as well as the health of the environment.

We’ve found five easy changes that you can make which will save you $500 or more each month, all while helping to conserve energy and reduce waste.

1. Share a ride: Save $50.

Car-pooling can save a boatload of money, and you don’t have to own a new model hybrid to realize the savings either (although it would be a big plus).

Let’s say your current vehicle gets a fuel mileage that’s middle-of-the-road for today’s averages or about 23 miles per gallon. Let’s also assume that your daily two-way commute is 40 miles per day, five days per week.

At today's gas prices, your average cost of solo driving is about $94 per month. However, if you share the task of driving to work with just one other person, you could save as much as $50 each month. Commute with three people and your savings will go up to more than $60 per month.

Here’s how:

Locate available commuters at work through the use of email lists and company bulletin boards. Check with your neighbors and friends to see if you can coordinate scheduling. In addition, see if your employer will allow you to work from home one day a week or stack your schedule to work 40 hours in four days instead of five.

2. Go with a lower flow: Save $48.

The average American household runs four, eight-minute showers per day, requiring about 20 gallons of heated water at the rate of 2.5 gallons going down the drain per minute per person. Instead of turning the main water valve off on your kids when eight minutes are up, you can reduce the water output from your showerhead to save on energy costs.

Here’s how:

Install a newer low-flow showerhead to reduce your hot water consumption to 1.59 gallons or less per minute per shower. If you’re concerned about sacrificing water pressure, don’t be. Today’s efficient low-flow showerheads preserve water and pressure by mixing air with the water flow. They’re also easy to install yourself, so there’s no need to hire a professional.

3. Brown bag your lunch: Save $60

Buying your lunch every day during the workweek can seriously dent your budget. Even when exercising frugality, the average cost of a meal and drink comes to at least $6 per day or $120 each month.

According to the U.S. Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, bringing lunch to work costs about 45-50 percent less than buying it. That means you can pare down your workweek lunch expense to less than $15 per week.

Here’s how:

Buy only what you’ll consume during the workweek to avoid wasting food by the weekend. In addition, select a variety of sandwich fixings, whole grain breads, and ready-to-go fresh fruit and vegetables to avoid boredom. Rinse and reuse sandwich bags to reduce waste and save even more. Alternately, tote your lunch in glass or reusable containers whenever possible. Use a cloth bag or a shopping bag that’s easy to reuse.

4. Wake up, smell the coffee: Save $98

Wake up, smell the coffee, and save almost $100. However, do it in your own kitchen. If you begin your daily grind by picking up your morning brew from a coffee shop, you’re spending about $2.45 per day for most foamy concoctions, more if you typically go for super-sized or signature varieties. The second cup to get you over the afternoon hump brings this spending figure up to $98 each month.

Making your coffee at home will run about $0.12-0.28 per cu -- small beans compared to store-bought. Assuming the higher end of that estimate calculates to just $1.40 per week or $5.60 each month. For that sweet price, you can afford to take a refill to the office in a reusable travel mug ($11.20 per month) for a later pick-me-up.

Here’s how:

Invest in a no-frills coffeemaker ($15 and up), if you don’t already own one. Coffee prices vary, but even fair-trade, organic coffee can be found for less than $15 a pound. The cost of a splash of milk or flavored creamer is minimal. Keeping the disposable coffee cup out of landfill: priceless.

5. Stay home for dinner: Save $252

Stay home for dinner and save $252. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, American households spend an average of $3,034 a year on take-out food and dining at restaurants. Curbing this habit will not only save you money, but will also reduce the amount of plastic and Styrofoam containers being tossed into the trash.

Here’s how:

Plan meals ahead. You should know what’s for dinner before lunchtime rolls around, or you’ll be more likely to pull out the take-out menus. Also, take advantage of leftovers from home-cooked meals by freezing them for another night’s meal. However, you may be able to realize even greater savings.

For instance, if there is more than one person in your household taking coffee and a bagged lunch each day, or carpooling to work, then the additional contributors will increase your monthly savings.

You can also feel good about the fact that these simple strategies are good for the environment. For each money-saving action you commit to undertake, you’ll be helping to reduce energy and disposable waste every day. And, if you can save this much each month doing it, just imagine the effect your actions will have year after year.

Living Healthily on Without Spending Much

Health Care

It's possible to save on health care, but skipping regular checkups and screenings to avoid an insurance co-pay isn't one of them, said Dr. Thomas J. Weida, professor in the Penn State College of Medicine's Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Those checkups and screenings are meant to look for health problems that, if nipped in the bud, will cost a lot less to treat than if they're allowed to get worse. "It's almost like a leak in a pipe," Weida said. "It usually doesn't go away by itself, and it can only get bigger. It's a lot easier to treat things earlier than later."

Strategies that Weida suggests for cutting health-care costs include:

• Discuss switching to cheaper medications. "If they're on chronic medicines, they should have a talk with their doctor about switching to cheaper alternatives or cutting back on dosage or number of pills," he said. "I'll often try to work with patients to see what I can get for them on these $4 prescription lists that some chains offer."
• Stay out of the emergency department. "That chews up a lot of money," Weida said. "Having an established family doc is critical to doing that. If you go into the emergency room with a cough, bringing up yellow mucus, you're almost always going to get a chest X-ray. I may treat you but say, 'Hey, if you're not getting better in a few days, give me a call and maybe we need an X-ray.' That's because I have the benefit of follow-up."
• Treat colds and flu at home. "A lot of what we see are colds and viruses and flu and things like that," Weida said. "If that is following its usual course with you, then you probably don't need to see the doc on that. Come see your doc if you are experiencing worse symptoms or different symptoms."
• Call for advice. "Sometimes just a phone call asking the doc handles the question," Weida said. "We do a lot of advice over the phone."

Diet

Cutbacks can be made in the food arena, too. "You can eat healthy and still stay on a budget," said Bethany Thayer, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "It just takes a little bit of extra planning and a little bit of extra thought."

Thayer's advice includes:

• Prepare more of your own food. "Make as much as you can from scratch because the prepackaged foods are often the most expensive," she said.
• Have a plan at the supermarket. "Don't go to the grocery story hungry, and go with a list," she said. "These things can help you stay on track."
• Take advantage of seasonal produce. "Produce that's in-season is going to be a little bit cheaper than off-season produce," Thayer said. "Also, when buying perishables, make sure you're only buying what you're going to consume. If it's on special but you buy more than you'll consume, you haven't really saved any money."
• Stockpile non-perishables. Thayer suggests stocking up on canned foods when they're on sale. "Fruits and vegetables can sometimes be cheaper because they'll last longer than the fresh," she said. "Buying food in bulk is good if it doesn't spoil before you use it."
• Buy inexpensive sources of needed nutrients. "Beans are a very inexpensive source of protein and fiber, and very versatile," Thayer said. "There are many varieties of beans, and you can do many things with them." Popcorn and oatmeal are inexpensive grain options, and nonfat dry milk is a cheap source of dairy and "a great thing to have on hand," Thayer said. "It's inexpensive, and it's got shelf life. You just mix it up when you need it."

Exercise

You don't need a pricey gym membership to keep fit, said Michael Esco, an exercise physiology instructor at Auburn University Montgomery in Alabama.

"The thing people need to realize is for general health, physical activity is what's recommended," Esco said. "That's any bodily movement that results in energy expenditure. For health, we don't really have to go to the gym."

To keep physically fit on the cheap, Esco recommends that people:

• Buy a pedometer. A simple device, which can be bought for less than $20, can spur more activity. "Studies find that just by wearing the pedometer, people walk an extra mile to two miles a day," Esco said.
• Get a jump-rope. "It's a less-expensive device that can really get your heart rate up," he said. "You can achieve a comparable workout to what a gym would give you."
• Buy a bicycle trainer. The equipment turns a regular bike into a stationary bike and can be tucked away when not in use. "For $100 or less, you can have a stationary bike with a bike you've just got laying around," Esco said.
• Use your own body weight, or cheap alternatives, as resistance. "People can go a long way doing push-ups, sit-ups and body weight squats," Esco said. Heavy cans of vegetables, bottles filled with water or sand and inexpensive elastic bands also can provide weight resistance.
• Purchase a physioball. "You can do all sorts of exercises with these balls: push-ups, crunches, squats," Esco said. "Those are also cheap, less than $40."