Saving Money begins with a State of Mind

If you adjust your mindset to a saver's mentality instead of a spender’s, you too can save money! Below are a couple of ways that I saved money this week.

It just so happened that I received in the mail a $10 coupon for a gift card to Target in exchange for getting a prescription filled at the pharmacy the same week that I needed to fill a one time prescription. What are the odds?

Once I confirmed that Target was a “participating pharmacy” in my HMO, I headed straight over there on the way home from work to take advantage of the offer. The script by itself was only $10 bucks, since it was a generic. Not too bad - spend $10 to get $20 worth of goods.

I also traveled with work for a one day meeting/boondoggle. Since, I was traveling with a group; I went along to a restaurant serving entrees starting at $25 a plate. That took a pretty big bite out of my per diem. However, the next day the balance turned - breakfast was complimentary at the hotel, lunch was brought in by the company, and since I flew first class home I had airline food and wine for dinner. The whole day was a free food day! All in all, by my calculations, I pocketed $64.75 from the trip.

I really don’t consider myself a penny pincher and I’m not as cheap as all this sounds. ;) For instance, I didn’t even think about this free food day until it was over. It just happened without my planning for it. But that is not the end of the story.

Funny thing is that when I mentioned to a co-worker that we had avoided spending money that day – the dollar signs started spinning in his head and he immediately started plotting what he could buy with this new found money!

It seems there are two types of people in this world - those who look for ways to spend money and those who look for ways to save money.

My total savings for the week was $74.75.

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