In celebration, yes I mean celebration of my job loss due to a lay off I bring you this post. Yes, I am scared. Yes, I am worried. None of these emotions are going to get me through the next couple of months. Hopefully this post will ease your mind as it has mine in these troubling times.

So, I celebrate my few weeks of relief from the stress of a job, I celebrate the new path that God has planned for me. I celebrate the love and support from my family and friends. Thank you.

Out of the Box Solutions for Job Loss Part 3 of 3
These tips are not just for those who have lost their jobs, read on you may pick up something that you can use. Click here to see part 1 of 3 and click here to see part 2 of 3 of this post.

Clothing

• Always buy clothing on sale. If it is not on sale, wait. If your size is gone after it has gone on sale, it wasn’t meant to be.  Don’t get caught up in the wants, look for the needs. Do you really need that particular shirt or do you just want it and what you need is a shirt?
• Buy winter clothes at the beginning of summer and summer clothes at the beginning of winter when clothing is on sale.
• Instead of buying a new pair of jeans could you fix the hole with a patch? For kids clothes, turn those worn out jeans into designer jeans by adding decorative patches to cover the worn spots.
• Do you know someone that could teach you to sew or a class you can take at your local community college? Sewing your own clothing can not only be rewarding, but you can save tons of money.  Don’t go out and buy a new sewing machine, ask if you can borrow from a friend or family member that is not using theirs, and look for used in the newspaper, garage sales, or thrift stores.
• Buy clothing at thrift stores, consignment shops, and garage sales. You would be surprised what you will find. Check out the great find I found at a local thrift store.
• Clearance racks are in the back of the store.
• Look for promotion codes if you are purchasing on line.
• Use cold water to wash your clothes.

Other Savings

• Send holiday and birthday postcards instead of cards to save postage.
• Attend Home Depot and Lowe’s workshops to learn how to do your own home repairs.
• Carry a cooler with drinks and food when you are out looking for a job or running errands. This will stop the temptation of going through the drive-thru.
• Look for unusual places for sales. For example drug stores have toys in stock and sometimes they have huge discount sales.
• Shop for holiday and birthday gifts year round. Shop for Christmas gifts after Christmas, Easter after Easter, and look for discount sale items on last years toys for future birthday parties. This year I bought a huge box of Valentines Day cards for $.10 at Rite Aid. I have purchased several Play Dough kits for under $4 at Winn-Dixie’s toy clearance, I have these tucked away for a child’s birthday party gift. “The cat is out of the bag”, if we are invited to a birthday party, you know what you’re child is going to get. Actually, I am not really sure that is a bad thing?
• Write down your budget and ever penny you spent for the month. Then go back and see where that money is going. Dave Ramsey (who I really admire) has promoted the envelope system. Years ago, (way before Dave, actually this was before debit cards) my dad use to drive around with white envelopes and pay his bills at ever stop. This sounded a little crazy to me at first, but if you think about it, not a bad idea. The driving part no, but placing cash from your paycheck into an envelopes and paying the bills out of that envelope is a great way to get a handle on what you are spending ever month. Using cash to pay for items like gas or groceries really gets you to thinking about how much you are spending. Pulling a debit card from your wallet doesn’t have the same impact as giving that $100 bill to the cashier.
• Can you walk to the grocery store for that gallon of milk in stead of driving? “kill two birds with one stone” (Mamo use to say), exercise and groceries.

Got to Get Out of the House

• Go to the park with the kids and have a picnic.
• Find local free events in your area. Here the link to ours.
• Trade babysitting nights or days with another family with children.
• Sign up for restaurant birthday deals. Restaurants will email you free food coupons on your birthday. Ruby Tuesday’s offered me a free burger for mine.
• Use Restaurant.com for any out of town guest that may want to go out to eat or family outings.
• Look into volunteer vacations. AmericanHiking.org ise one of the ones I have heard about. they maintain public hiking trails.
• Check out tripadvisor.com/tankofgas for a vacation spot that is one tank of gas away.

Helpful Websites

• Free Napkin – It is the EBay for free stuff
• BluJay – Completely free auction site
• LinkedIn – Network site
• Simply Hired

I hope this has helped you and remember what Mamo use to say “Don’t let the tail wag the dog”. Trust in God to work everything out.

Frances
Former corporate employee and creator of FrugalFairhope.com.

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This entry was posted by Frances on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 8:07 am and is filed under Frugal Fairhope Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.